(A/N: Thank you for the Castle, Dear ChibiWolf (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.))
For following days, Lin Weihao had never heard Lu Nanzhi talk to him again and even when she handed him the warm meals, she would never spoke a word.
The only time she did was when Lin Weihao asked why she was no longer calling him a young master.
"I was trying to make you angry. You look like someone lifeless."
Lin Weihao's gaze had changed at that time and he began to reflect on his previous behavior and mentality.
If she, who had lost her family too was still trying her best to live, then what kind of justifiable excuse does he have?
Two people who don't talk much together in a room. The silence was stifling yet Lin Weihao and Lu Nanzhi found solace in it.
As the days passed, Lin Weihao had grown accustomed to her presence and care and his eyes began to observe everything she did.
Whether it was making fishing lines besides the window, jotting down notes, and mumbling about beef stew and potatoes after every meal time, Lin Weihao found himself committing them to memory before he was subconsciously aware.
Like a spell that had been engraved in his mind, he even started looking at the door, waiting for her return.
Seeing her return alive every time, a strange feeling nipped at his heart.
"Welcome back."
Lin Weihao wasn't sure about this at first when one night she returned with an injury, he became oddly anxious.
"That Damn Tier 4 cowardly Wolf King is getting on my nerves. If he likes to fight why doesn't he send himself and not hide behind his pack. If I hadn't been distracted by that Angus Cattle, I would have wiped them out."
"Ah…" A deep regretful sigh escaped her lips.
"My beef stew…my beef stew…"
Tier 4? What is that?
Lin Weihao's attention didn't stay longer on those cryptic words because when Nanzhi took off her coat, he noticed a deep wound on her thighs. It seemed to be a bite from a large animal.
It was as if something had stabbed his heart, the words that came out of his mouth were in stutters, "You're…you're hurt."
Lu Nanzhi only had a dismissing attitude. "This is nothing."
The wound is at least five centimeters deep and it's bleeding profusely and she's telling him it's nothing.
Lin Weihao's brows deeply furrowed.
Lu Nanzhi threw him weird look. "Don't look at me like I'm going to die. When I said this is nothing, I meant this is really nothing compared to what I've endured before."
Endured before?
Lin Weihao's distraught only worsened when she took off her coat and lifted her shirt, leaving only her undergarments on.
Her body was riddled with scars that appear less than three months old. Some of them are deep and long enough to arouse question in his mind. How did she survive all that?
"When the wounds are already too many, you've become numb to pain."
Lin Weihao felt pain in her stead. He lowered his head and helped her bandage the wounds.
Her words rang in his mind for days to come.
On the 10th day of staying in a small room, he was able to make little movements. He rose from the small bed and lifted the curtains to gaze on the small transparent window by the bed.
Instead of finding Lu Nanzhi, he found something instead.
It was an Angus Cattle that she had been craving for days.
She always mumbled that she had grown tired of the wolf meat because it was chewy and hard.
Lin Weihao didn't know what came to his mind when he decided to catch it.
He picked up his bag and borrowed a thick coat from the rack.
He went out of the door.
The harsh cold hit him like a baseball bat in the face making drew a sharp breath.
How is Lu Nanzhi still able to venture out with a temperature like this?
Rubbing his hands, he rummaged the other rooms in the building for useful materials to make a cage or a trap which he learned from Bingwen.
Lin Weihao had only realized that it's been so long since he started thinking about them and besides from longing he had stopped feeling guilt.
This little detail made him appreciate Nanzhi more.
Lin Weihao had planned everything picture perfect but he didn't know one thing- the animals were no longer like that past and have become alien beasts.
Different from before, Lin Weihao was very positive about life and did his best to fight until the end pushing his body to the limits and when his life was one foot in his grave, a magical scene happen, his hands began to discharge purple bolts of lightning.
Due to it, he was able to keep the little life he had.
When Lu Nanzhi came home, she found the heavily injured Lin Weihao was by the door, smiling his hardest to endure the pain. "I found…an angus cattle…hiss...and wanted to catch…catch it for you but it escaped."
Lin Weihao was heavily scolded after but he did not talk back this time.
"Are you crazy? That angus cattle is at least Tier 1. Its hooves are enough to smash you into meat paste."
She mentioned that 'Tier' word again. What exactly is that?
Lin Weihao couldn't ask anymore because he fainted.
Even he woke up, his ears weren't spared.
"Because of you, my medicine supplies are running out."
"When you wake up and recover from this, you need to compensate me."
"This is strange. Why is his temperature so high?"
"43 degrees! It couldn't be."
The pain he felt from the injuries this time was worse than all he ever experienced but for some reason, his pain lessened sensing the pair of hands trying their best to lower his temperature.
For three days, Nanzhi didn't leave his side. She diligently wiped his body with a cold towel every half an hour, moistened his lips with a soaked cotton balls, and fed him with soup using her mouth if the spoon couldn't do its job.
It was Lin Weihao's first kiss.