CH 23

Chapter 23: Mo Ye

Her hands came to gently rest on Zhou Yu’s shoulders. She slowly approached him with her lips slightly open, giving off a fatal level of sex appeal.

Zhou Yu’s heart was beating very quickly. When she retreated half a step, he subconsciously went forward, as if everything was centered around her.

He wanted to kiss her, and to have her. Everything he cared about no longer seemed important.

Suddenly, Zhou Yu remembered Wu Yun’s warning: the more beautiful something was, the more dangerous it was.

Also… This was Nibelungen, why would there be a human woman here?

Zhou Yu became alert. Without any further thoughts, he raised the dagger in his hand and stabbed it into her! 

Something shrieked into his ear, then his body instantly dropped down.

Falling hard, the dull pain made Zhou Yu widen his eyes. Now that he was able to breathe, he started to cough violently.

When he fully regained consciousness, he realized that he did not know when he had been dragged into the tree hollow by the vine. The beautiful woman he had just seen was an illusion that the vine had created for him.

Zhou Yu looked up and saw his dagger sticking out from the inner wall of the tree hollow not too far away, slashed downwards to tear open a large gash. There was a faint beam of sunlight slanting down, just enough to illuminate the green liquid flowing out, like blood from the wounded tree.

At the bottom of the hollow, there was a space large enough for three or four people.

Zhou Yu walked forward a few steps to find that there were skeletons of various animals under his feet. Some of them were already bones, while others were still rotting.

Zhou Yu wanted to vomit, but more urgently than that, he had to leave this place first!

He didn’t know why the vine had let him go, but he realized that the vine had grown from the inside of the tree to the outside. In other words, the vine and the tree were one entity! The vines acted as the hands of this tree!

This was totally different from Zhou Yu’s understanding. His impression of vines was that they clung to trees and climbed upwards, yet this tree had grown its own vines to catch food!

Maybe it was the gash he made on the tree that had temporarily rendered it unconscious, but before he was digested by it, he had to leave this place immediately!

Zhou Yu suddenly remembered something and shouted, “Little thing? Where are you, little thing?”

The little thing had been trying to save him the whole time, so of course he wouldn’t abandon it to leave by himself.

Crunching sounds came from somewhere and the little thing crawled out from under a pile of broken bones. Its entire body was filthy.

There wasn’t much light in the hollow, but the eyes of the little thing glittered like a pair of jewels. Zhou Yu saw them at first glance.

Zhou Yu picked it up and let out a breath of relief, “You really scared me to death! I thought you had been eaten by the tree!”

The little thing opened its eyes wide and watched Zhou Yu with happiness, it stuck out its tongue to lick Zhou Yu, but Zhou Yu quickly turned his face away, he wasn’t interested in having his face coated with saliva.

They didn’t have time to chat over the weather, Zhou Yu bent down to retrieve a few of the longer pieces among the broken bones of the animals. He then pierced the relatively sharp and fractured edge into the interior of the fruit tree. Taking a few more, he tied them to his waist.

The tree seemed to feel pain and started to tremble.

Regardless of consequences, Zhou Yu stepped on top of the broken bones to boost himself up. He stabbed in more of the bones from his waist and went up again. When he passed by his Swiss army knife, he pulled it out.

Like this, he finally climbed out of the tree hole.

Zhou Yu was in no hurry no escape. He looked coldly at the vines that had fallen out and then firmly nailed them to the trunk with his Swiss army knife.

“Enjoy your meal.”

After saying that, Zhou Yu left with the little fellow in his arms.

When he came to a spot with direct sunlight,  Zhou Yu picked up the little thing and looked over it, carefully inspecting its injured wings. He found that there was no wound there at all.

“Ah, how could I forget that the organisms of Nibelungen have powerful healing abilities?” Zhou Yu put it back on his shoulder and continued walking.

They were on guard the entire way, wary of meeting another carnivorous tree. They walked on until evening. Zhou Yu did not know how long it would take for him to walk out of the forest, so he decided to rest.

Leaning against an E rank ancient tree, Zhou Yu checked that there was no danger around before holding the small thing in his arms, “Do you think we’ll be eaten by some powerful organism tonight?”

It shook its head.

“Are you afraid of being eaten?” Zhou Yu felt that he must be very bored to chat with it.

It paused and then nodded.

It’s solemn expression made Zhou Yu laugh.

“I’m hungry. I’m so hungry I could die. Why don’t I eat you up?” Zhou Yu deliberately put his face close to it to see its reaction clearly.

It showed a dumb expression.

An evil thought came to Zhou Yu as he rubbed over its hind legs, “The meat here is pretty juicy, it would be great if I had some salt to roast it with.”

“Hrrn?” It took its legs back from Zhou Yu’s hands.

“Gee, making pan-fried pork belly with this part doesn’t sound too bad either.” Zhou Yu touched its belly.

Speaking of pan-fried pork belly made Zhou Yu miss Mei Xi’s cooking a little.

A few seconds later, it unexpectedly showed a sad expression.

“I’m going to eat you, you’d better run away.” Zhou Yu became even more playful. He poked its ear.

Suddenly, it wrapped itself up into a ball with its wings and rolled under Zhou Yu’s arm.

Even when I’m about to eat you, aren’t you going to run away?

Zhou Yu sighed, “You are so cute, should I spare you? Never fall into the hands of humans, we are all selfish animals.”

One of its small wings instantly lifted up and it peeked out at Zhou Yu with one eye.

Zhou Yu suddenly felt that it was really very amusing to tease it.

“Fine, fine, I won’t eat you anymore. Nobody would be here to listen to me if I ate you.”

Weariness washed over him and Zhou Yu closed his eyes with his arms crossed.

There was no point in being alert, what he needed the most was rest. If he was doomed to be hunted by some creature, then so be it.

The little thing curled up into a ball and laid on top of Zhou Yu.

Its warmth made Zhou Yu feel lazy, as if he was being covered with a quilt of soft down.

The little thing had already established a strong social relationship with him and they were now bound by life-and-death.

“Why don’t I give you a name?” Zhou Yu touched the fluff on its back. It felt very nice.

The little thing had also had its eyes closed but it opened them again when it heard Zhou Yu’s voice.

“You’re like a round black ball, how about black lump?”[1]

Looking at Zhou Yu’s expression, it seemed to guess that the name was not very good. It turned to face Zhou Yu with its behind, as if to say, “Eat my butt.”

“Don’t you like the name? Then you can be called little coal ball!” Zhou Yu thought to himself, doesn’t this name suit you a lot? You’re both black and round.

It kept its butt facing Zhou Yu.

Zhou Yu’s heart was at peace. He enjoyed the world that only contained him, plus a warm little thing. He no longer had to worry about, or shoulder anything.

“Hey,” Zhou Yu poked its butt. It seemed that it had made up its mind to ignore Zhou Yu.

It really did become quiet for a while.

The shade under the tree was scattered and sparse, but only a few slivers of moonlight shone through.

A strand of light fell right onto its back, the silver beam wavering like liquid.

“Mo Ye,” Zhou Yu said softly. [2]

These two words inexplicably flashed through Zhou Yu’s mind.

The little thing trembled and slowly turned to look at Zhou Yu.

Zhou Yu pinched its nose, “Do you like this name?”

It widened its eyes, then it rubbed against Zhou’s knuckles with the tip of his nose while narrowing its eyes. Zhou Yu’s mood softened to become mellow again.

“It looks like you like the name.” Zhou Yu laughed. “’Ink’ means ‘black’ in my country. It can be used to write or draw. Landscapes of mountains and rivers, clouds and mists, thousand-year-old trees, or fish and shrimp can be painted with ink. It can create a distinctively poetic image… ‘Night’ is also black, as if it hides a secret. It encompasses all the other colors within it.”

“Mmm.” It looked very happy, and its small wings raised up.

“Good, from now on, you will be called Mo Ye.” Zhou Yu had an evil glint in his eye when he grabbed Mo Ye with one hand and intentionally pressed it down with his arm.

Mo Ye made a “Hrrn” sound and pretended to be bullied by Zhou Yu. It rolled over twice but was still restrained by Zhou Yu in the end. It finally rolled over and exposed its belly while looking satisfied.

Zhou Yu felt Mo Ye’s warmth and slowly fell asleep.

When he woke up, a ray of sunlight was shining down on his face. He sat up and looked around, then found that Mo Ye had disappeared!

His heart thumping, Zhou Yu knitted his brows. Hadn’t everything been fine last night? Why did it go missing?

Zhou Yu even checked back around the ancient tree he was leaning against, but he did not see any trace of Mo Ye.

“Mo Ye!” Zhou Yu lowered his voice and shouted its name.

Could the little thing have been caught by some other creature while he was asleep? But he shouldn’t have been that deeply asleep! Was it possible that he didn’t respond at all to another creature approaching them?

Or did Mo Ye, that unloyal thing, take his jokes about eating it up last night seriously and run off to pursue its freedom after he had fallen asleep?

Zhou Yu sighed. He sat under the tree with his arms crossed. If the little thing did not come back within an hour, he would really leave without it.

Ten minutes later, nothing had changed.

Zhou Yu was really worried that it would never come back. If it no longer wanted to stay by his side, then Zhou Yu wouldn’t be feeling this way. However, he was more worried that Mo Ye was in danger. Even though the strong preying upon weak was the law of nature, Zhou Yu still felt soft-hearted.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the thicket. Zhou Yu’s head snapped to its direction as he saw Mo Ye poke out of the bushes with something hanging from its mouth.