"Anthony, I want you to take her down the mountain on the next trip. Her eyes have been afflicted with snow blindness and need medical equipment for treatment," Pello sat dryly beside the stove Anthony had started, his shoes, stiff from the cold, drying out.
"What about you?" Anthony looked at him thoughtfully. Pello was a considerate kid; even when nursing a gunshot wound, he knew how to comfort himself, almost broken by the loss of his wife. He didn’t seem like someone who would casually abandon a partner.
"I have more important things to do," Pello tried to convince himself. Once down the mountain, snow blindness could be treated, and right now, Wen Maixue, trapped by the Olson father and son, needed his help more.
"The snow on the mountain is unstable, be careful going in alone," Anthony didn’t say much. He took an axe from the cabin without explanation and went out. Before he descended the mountain tomorrow, he must set a bear trap for Pello.
Pello was not one to easily ask for favors, even during his first winter bear hunt he didn’t make any requests to Anthony. This time, however, his foster son had made a request for a bear trap, indicating that this bear was certainly not ordinary.
In Hunter’s cabin, two people were left. Pello walked up to the bed and gazed at Su Ziceng, who was sound asleep. Her lips still carried a smile, unaffected by the harsh conditions of recent days.
"Su Ziceng, you really are a strange person, sometimes capricious to death, and sometimes stubborn to the point of heartbreak," Pello took a wet cloth and wiped the bloodstains from her cheeks.
"When you wake up and don’t see me, will you resent me?" Pello wondered, thinking about whether Su Ziceng would wake up and persistently ask Anthony where he had gone.
If she knew that Pello left her to help Wen Maixue, she would definitely lash out in fury, and even Anthony might not be able to handle her then.
It’s better to have Anthony say nothing, Pello thought, setting the wet cloth aside, leaning by the bedside, listening to Su Ziceng’s steady breathing. His mind raced through the arrangements for the next few days, his hand groping in his coat for the pistol that always stayed closest to his heart.
The bear trap was ready by the afternoon. Anthony left Hunter’s cabin to Pello, rounded up a few local hunters, and took Su Ziceng down the mountain.
The car descending the mountain soon disappeared into the vast snowy road. Pello walked back into the cabin, took out a sharp military knife, and sharpened the high points of the few-meter-high bear trap, revealing the sharp wood flesh, which looked chilling.
Su Ziceng woke up on the third day after parting with Pello. The surroundings smelled sharply of disinfectant, and various accented medical staff chattered. In an entirely unfamiliar environment, she was surprisingly calm.
The medical staff, including Anthony who had come with her, were surprised at her calmness. Before disembarking the mountain, Pello had repeatedly instructed not to answer any of her questions upon awakening and to ignore her if she grew irritable, typical of her princess-like temperament.
Even with his mental preparation, Anthony was somewhat thrown off by Su Ziceng’s calm response. Google seaʀᴄh 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⁂𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⁂𝕟𝕖𝕥
Anthony, who had spent half his life dealing with bears and wolves, did not know what to do with the silent Su Ziceng, who sat daily, bandaged, staring out the window. At this moment, he hoped she would ask some questions or show some temperament.
"Don’t you want to know where Pello has gone?" Anthony finally couldn’t help asking.
"He went to find Wen Maixue." Su Ziceng had already answered it for herself, still facing the window, her eyes no longer uncomfortable as before. Over the past few days, even through the gauze, she could feel the light. She hoped to see Pello when the bandages were removed.
"Yes," Anthony replied, wishing at that moment he could slap himself. He had felt that the relationship between Su Ziceng and Pello was not merely that of business partners.
"Oh," Su Ziceng responded and continued to focus on the penetrating rays of light.
After a long silence, Su Ziceng asked again: "Are you the hunter who fired wrong?"
Anthony was somewhat embarrassed by this description of him as the hunter who fired wrong. First, he took out a cigarette, sniffed it under his nose, "Did Pello tell you about me?" That brat, still claiming his relation with this woman was just business, wound up spilling all his secrets.