The next day, dawn broke, and perhaps because she had pressing matters weighing on her mind, Dong Huiying awoke with a start.
She sat up groggily, feeling a burning pain from the ninety lash wounds.
Last night, she had been preoccupied tending to the injured of the Liang family, and had neglected her own reopened wound until she woke up.
Thinking she should apply some medicine, she made her way into the east room.
Yixuan saw her and quickly stood up.
Dong Huiying glanced at Shujun on the kang bed, "Is he still doing okay?"
"He woke up once, but then fell back asleep."
She then looked over the others.
Shujun was lying at the head of the kang, with his second brother Shu Yu beside him.
Shu Yu was in a light sleep, covered with a thin blanket. Although he hadn’t been able to offer any help the previous day, his concern for Shujun had left him utterly exhausted. Now, these twin brothers, one frail as a sickly seedling and the other severely weakened after Dong Huiying pulled him back from Hell’s door, truly made for a pair of unfortunate siblings.
At that moment, the sly Liang Zhichen entered the room, lifting the door curtain, a smile flickering at Dong Huiying as he was followed by the reticent and taciturn Haoming.
Zhi Chen asked, "Did you sleep well last night?"
Dong Huiying nodded vigorously; she had fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow and had slept until dawn.
She picked up a half-used bottle of wound-healing powder from a cabinet in the east room and said to Zhi Chen, "I plan to head into the mountains after breakfast. Can any of you guide me?" Otherwise, with the mountains’ complex terrain, she really feared getting lost.
Zhi Chen chuckled, "If you don’t mind, Zhi Chen will accompany you."
What was there to mind? She looked at him curiously, only belatedly realizing that when the family addressed her, they seemed to always use "you" with a formality that implied respect, yet also a distance and politeness.
"Okay!" She nodded, considering that among the household, with the sick and injured, only Zhi Chen was still relatively unharmed.
Dong Huiying applied medicine to her wound, then washed up, had breakfast, and changed into a new set of clothes. Her previous garments were dirty, and she had even torn off two sleeves the day before.
In short, after breakfast, Dong Huiying, her belly full and everything in order, was ready to set out.
"Let’s go!" She looked towards Zhi Chen with a cheerful smile, her demeanor full of vitality.
Yixuan, limping and dragging his injured leg, ushered them out of the house.
The two headed straight to the mountains, where the first battle had taken place; where Shujun had fought the black bear, and Dong Huiying had bravely battled the wolf pack.
It was Zhi Chen’s idea to come here.
"What a pity," he remarked upon seeing the remnants of yesterday’s melee. The wolf corpses left behind had been scavenged by other predators during the night, many of them no longer intact.
He had brought a bundle when they left, and now took a dagger from it. He knelt down to work on the remains of the wolf carcasses, collecting items like wolf’s teeth and tails, and peeling off the skins—these could all be sold for money. However, due to the skins’ incompleteness, the price would undoubtedly be reduced. This didn’t bother him; they could always patch pieces together and keep them for use during winter at home.
After all, every little bit counts!
Seeing how efficiently he worked with the knife, Dong Huiying thought that he normally favored his right hand, but since his right hand had been rendered useless, he was now using his left hand to skin the wolves—yet his speed was not compromised at all.
After watching for a while, she too knelt down and started helping Zhi Chen with the task.