Volume 1 - CH 31

Although I didn’t want to admit it, the cold stream had stopped flowing.

The two girabbits were frozen solid in the ice itself, so I had to dig them out……

After Xifu had finished shedding her skin, she didn’t get any new powers of cold resistance, so she still had to hide in the cave. To be honest, I still couldn’t get used to her current appearance. 

She still had some form of a human before, and now it was almost gone.

Hold up, she’s not even a human in the first place.

After her appearance became like this, she had for some reason got a weird new hobby—— scaring me. While I was starting a fire, she would sneak up behind me and bare her sharp fangs, and top it off she would open her mouth wide and spread her hair of snakes apart.

Those densely packed teeth of hers would be the nightmare of anyone with trypophobia.

“Gasp! Fucking hell!”

“Ahahahahahah……”

She would be delighted each time that I was scared by her.

It was only until one night where I almost took my gun out when I was scared by her, that she somewhat restrained herself.

Other than that, because her tongue had become one of a snake, she would sometimes playfully stick it out. It was kind of scary at first, but it gradually grew more endearing to me.

Things were different than expected for her sleep. Instead of hibernating like normal snakes would, her sleeping hours had really extended. At most, she would only be up and active for 4 hours a day.

Her sleeping schedule was bizarre too, and at times if she woke up at midnight, I wouldn’t have a chance to sleep at all.

But because of the aforementioned patterns that it was, only I could see the things she had never done before, like how she strangled a girabbit alive with her tail……

She was obviously unsatisfied with my food preparations for winter, and so we went out hunting until we got our last girabbit of my goal of 15. Because it wasn’t just girabbits, even the birds have practically disappeared from the forest.

The yams that I planted hadn’t bore seeds like I expected, so I could only dig them all out and stack them at the cave entrance.

Big Sheep had it good, because of the lack of grass to graze on, I had to cut off the leaves of the yam as feed for it.

With this weather, there weren’t many pests up and about, so food storage became simpler.

Because of the massive amount of wood that was left after reclaiming the land in front of the cave, firewood wasn’t a problem.

Sigh, how long do winters last in this world?

Rubbing my hands together, I started to prepare the meal for today.

Well, although it’s just a pot of stew.

I had bought quite the amount of rye bread from Nightfall Town, so I simply chucked them in with meat and stewed them together to make a simple meal.

After shedding, her diet had become much more like mine, having only one meal a day. Still, she couldn’t really eat her fill just like me too. 

“Sigh, I’m sorry that I, as a husband, can’t even let you eat your fill when you’re with me.“

“Ah? What?”

“Ah, my bad, I forgot you don’t know Mandarin. What I meant was, you, eating like this okay?”

“Okay, what do you mean?”

“No, I’ll put it like this. Food, alot?”

“En…like this, very little.”

“Sigh……”

I sighed deeply as I scooped the mush of girabbit meat and bread stew into my mouth with a fork. On the other hand, Xifu was holding the pot in one hand and stuffing its contents into her mouth with another. 

I even thought that she would learn to use utensils after she had finished shedding…….

I had asked her before about how long do winters normally last here, and she only replied that she wasn’t sure. It was a fair answer, seeing how her lifestyle after winter started was an irregular cycle of sleeping and eating.

She would store a large amount of food before winter, then hide deep into the cave till it passes.

However, because of her shedding and my existence this time, she couldn’t gather enough food, so we had to ration each meal carefully each time.

“Which do you like best, the me now, or me before?”

“Ah?”

After we finished our meal, she suddenly threw this unanswerable question to me. It was as if after getting her hair cut short, your girlfriend would ask you if you liked her with long or shorter hair.

If I said I liked her before, then it would mean I didn’t like her now. If I said I liked her now would mean I didn’t like her before. And if I said I liked both, then it was too obvious of a lie.

If she understood Mandarin, I would have sweet talked her to death. But the problem was, she didn’t.

“I……like both.”

“Wrong.”

The face full of scales approached near mine, with her eyelids blinking repeatedly and her sleek straight pupils staring straight at me, there was no way I could even utter out a single lie.

“I……”

“Say.”

“I like, the you before. But…”

“As I said, you should have waited for me.”

She turned her face to the side, as if she was unhappy because I broke a promise.

“I’m sorry, it was my fault.’’

Sigh, she was angry as I expected. Why was I so hot headed at that time…

Wait, she wanted me to wait. In other words……she can turn back.

“You, can become like before?”

“En……yeap.”

Although I didn’t know how long I would have to wait, it was still very good news. Looking at how unhappy she was, I could understand why she didn’t want to come out before. 

Even if she was Medusa, she didn’t want to let her lover see how ugly she was. If we had never met, then she wouldn’t have needed to  hide herself in the cave. Still, it was because of my recklessness that the last barrier between us was torn down.

How do I put it, was our fate too coincidental?

’’Didn’t I say……even if you will always be like this, I will still love you……”

“Thank……you.”

“Aren’t you calling me your hubby?”

“En, hubby.”

Although the fire of love was burning passionately, the cold wind outside had no intention of stopping. The after meal walks we had were cancelled long ago, so the four hours of active time she had were spent together chatting near the heater and reading books.

Even though the temperature had dropped below 0 degree celsius, it wasn’t snowing yet. I couldn’t imagine how scary the temperature would be when it does.

Let’s just live by it day by day. During winter, the northern villages were almost the same as now. The villagers would sit around on a heated brick bed and play mahjong as they waited for Chinese New Year to arrive. And once it did, spring was around the corner.

It was a pity that Medusa didn’t know how to play mahjong, and there was no such thing as a heated brick bed here. Still, we had a lot of activities to pass the time.

For example, she would read the stories in the book to me. After learning the language for so long, with the help of the numerous illustrations in the book, I could somewhat understand what she was saying.

Just like my old world, literature existed in this one too. One that gave me a deep impression was the classic and overused trope of a knight saving a princess.

In the story, there was an evil dragon. In order to save the princess that was kidnapped by it, the knight scaled mountains and waded through deep waters to finally slay the dragon in battle, saving the princess in the end.

If I was young then there maybe wouldn’t be any problems if I heard it, but thinking about it now, it sure was filled with it that I could rant about.

And I didn’t know if it was the story itself, but after finishing listening to it, I couldn’t help but feel cringy.

The story took place at where we were, the Dochi Mountain, with a black evil dragon residing in it. 

Heh, dragon my ass. I’ve been staying here for almost a hundred days and all I’ve seen is a lizard.

And to top it off, it wasn’t a single knight that did the saving, but a whole band of them. How are you guys going to split the princess after saving her? Gangbang?

And why would the evil dragon even want to kidnap the princess? It must’ve some weird fetish to look for a human princess instead of a female dragon.

And in the end when the knights managed to defeat the dragon and save the princess, the king was very touched and merely said to the knights:

“Thank you. If there is nothing else, you may now all leave.”

What the hell was this king? In order to save the princess, they went through hell and back and risked their lives, just for you to chase them away? What happened to bethrothing the princess? Even if you didn’t offer them the princess, at least give them some gold or something.

……

After some deep thoughts, I finally figured it out. The moral of the story was in order to perform the heroic feat of defeating the dragon, the knight’s sacrifice was immeasurable. They were good role models for us, because if it weren’t for them, we would never have such a good life as of today.

Isn’t this just an advertisement to promote the Empire?!

After she finished the story, and I was ranting about the numerous problems in my head, she asked me another question.

“If there was a day, where I was kidnapped by an evil dragon. Will you come and save me?”

“What did you say?”

You must be joking. With your current state, no one would even dare.

“What I said is, if there is a day, I am kidnapped by an evil dragon, will you come and save me?”

“You mean, you getting kidnapped by an evil dragon?”

“En.”

Why would the evil dragon kidnap you? Didn’t it like princesses?

“I will save you of course.”

“Really?”

“For sure.”

“Hehe.”

“Erm…about that, I mean, are they really any evil dragons?”

“Who knows~”

Sticking her tongue out playfully, she closed the book and got ready to go to sleep.

“But, you must save me okay, as you promised.”

“Yeap, as long as I’m alive, even if it’s God, I wouldn’t let him kidnap you.”

’’Who is God?”

“God is an old friend of mine……He is way stronger than an evil dragon.”

“Oh……”

“Just sleep.”

“En. Good night, hubby.”

“Good night, Xifu.”

I could hear her gentle breathing from beneath the quilt. Sitting down beside her with a breath of relief, I added more fuel to the fire in the heater.

Alright, what I’ve got to think about next is……

Are there really any goddamn evil dragons in this world or not?! Don’t say it like it really exists! 

It was only after deciding to become stronger, that I realised there were more and more love rivals I had to face……