Ji Nuan picked up a small wooden bucket, about half-armed high, made by Lei Er with offcuts. She scooped water from a lower barrel into a higher one.
Her greedy wish for a larger bathing barrel hadn’t taken into account her own height.
Never mind that a barrel up to her chest provided inconvenient access, just heating enough water was a whole hassle in itself. Thus, she opted for this meter-and-something-high barrel.
After heating hot water seven or eight times, Ji Nuan checked the water level. It seemed enough, so she finally lowered the beast skin curtain at the door, took off her dirty beast skin clothing and carefully stepped into the bathing barrel.
The warm water reached over her body, Ji Nuan leaned against the barrel wall with satisfaction, she took a long breath. It was incredibly comfortable.
Having soaked for a while, she took a small piece of beast skin hanging on the edge of the barrel to scrub herself thoroughly.
Watching as the once clear water gradually became murky, the corner of Ji Nuan’s eye twitched involuntarily several times.
So dirty! So incredibly dirty!
Not until she wiped her cheek with the beast skin, noticing fallings on the surface of the water of a coiled up blackish-grey unidentified matter, did Ji Nuan feel her mentality was on the verge of collapse.
She always thought the original host’s skin was just this colour; after all, the female skins of the Watson tribe were similarly grey. She didn’t expect this unidentified substance on the water’s surface to land such a heavy blow.
This was actually caused by not washing her face! No wonder she still felt dirty on her face every morning after swiping it with beast skin because it didn’t get properly cleaned.
This substance that took so long to wash off in hot water probably wouldn’t clean up with a damp piece of beast skin daily either.
After fussing for almost an hour, the water in the barrel had cooled. Only then did Ji Nuan climb out of the bath, poured a small bucket of warm water to rinse herself off and put on the clean beast skin set aside.
Then she disposed of the bathwater, cleaned the barrel, and by the time everything was tidied, the orc of the hunting team had returned to the tribe and started processing the game in the open.
Ji Nuan staggered into her small bedroom and collapsed on her two-meter-wide bed and instantly fell asleep.
In the meantime, a major event had occurred in the tribe, completely disrupting Ji Nuan’s plans to set Xiu Yan’s bones straight the next day.
Of course, Ji Nuan, who was at this time deeply immersed in sweet dreams, knew nothing of this.
···
The sun sneaked into the cave, shooting rays onto Ji Nuan’s pink and thin face.
Ji Nuan furrowed her small, precise eyebrows, opened her eyes in bewilderment, listening to the chirping of birds distinctively for the morning, she strived to get out of bed···
But didn’t manage···
Awkwardly fiddling with her hair, she chose the safer option of sitting up on her bed.
She stretched lazily, feeling lighter than she ever had. What kind of divine experience was this, feeling like she had shed a few more pounds after taking a bath.
Humming a tone-deaf tune, Ji Nuan dawdled her way to the food storage cave, picked up a few fruits she had plucked days ago, crunched on four or five to fill up her stomach.
Then she picked two palm-wide sticks from the corner, wobbling over to the next cave.
Lifting one-side of the beast skin curtain, she stuck her head into the cave, called out Xiu Yan’s name softly but received no answer. Was he still sleeping?
Ji Nuan left the heavy sticks outside the cave, raised her voice and called out, "Brother Xiu Yan, are you there? I am Shan Zaizai."
In their silence, only Ji Nuan’s own voice echoed in the cave, making it seem excessively empty.
Ji Nuan hadn’t noticed, the comfortable beast skin bed she had been drooling over yesterday was now just a pile of straw.