Volume 1 - CH 34

“What does Mr.Lou Woo plan to do in the future?”

“After winter, I want her and I, to go on a…Ermm..….turripehj. Is that how it’s said?”

“It should be ‘trip’ instead. These two words have different meanings.’’

‘O-oh. Ter..reep. Trip. Me and her, go on a trip, right?

“Correct. About that, Mr Lou Woo, where to would both of you go on a trip?”

“Well……Mount Dochi, Mount Caly, the Southern Plains or wherever else that was near.”

“Oho~that’s good.”

Simon let out a gaze of approval, as he chugged down his mug of beer.

On a side note, it was now eleven forty-four in the night. Within the hall of Nightfall Town’s bar, there were 3 monsters and 3 humans. The one sleeping was my wife, and the one snoring away was Parker.

“AHAHAHA, AS I SAID, THIS FELLA’ WOULD’VE BEEN A BLACK MERCHANT IN THE OLD DAYS!”

Pointing his fingers at me, the piss-drunk Wolfgang blubbered away.

“Yeap, that’s for sure.”

Simon agreed with his statement.

“I don’t think I’m fit to be one. I’m not a smart human after all.”

“Oh, the Black Merchants aren’t the least bit bright~”

Lia, leaning her body forward on the chair, let out a puff of her smoke as she said leisurely.

“Eh? They aren’t?”

“He was such a fool, to have fallen in love with me.”

“Lia, you’re drunk.”

“Am~Not~”

“Let’s not bring up the past now.”

The suddenly sober Wolfgang hinted at lia to not continue talking about Cariff.

When women were drunk, most of them preferred to talk about their sad past memories. On the other hand, men would, well, talk about everything.

“About your trip, we can lend you a hand there. But it’s very late now, so do have a good rest.”

Under Simon’s suggestion, we returned to our own rooms to rest. 

To carry my wife who weighed more than 150 kilograms was a difficult feat, but to be honest I’ve kind of got used to it recently.

I woke my wife up early in the morning the next day, and we got onto the Big Sheep’s cart to return to our abode which was covered in a thick layer of snow. 

I had wanted to stay in Nightfall Town until spring had come, but we hadn’t even brought a single cent with us. I couldn’t possibly burden Simon’s business any longer, especially with my wife’s voracious appetite……

“Hubby…is it time to eat yet……”

“Ah, sure. I’ll start cooking now.”

“When it’s done, do wake me up……”

After telling me that, she immediately got back to sleeping.

Now that I mentioned it, the foxy, stunning, lovely, wonderful, smashing, charming, elegant, sexy, cute wife of mine who also possessed the ability to instantly kill a girabbit and with a swish of her tail throw me far out from the cave had been doing nothing but eating and sleeping this entire time.

I was happy to see every part of my Xifu, but there was a serious problem looming above our heads. If I didn’t find a way to face it soon, it would come looking for us from our pots.

That’s right. The food was running out.

We had two frozen solid loaves of bread, one single remaining girabbit which was filled with ice shavings, and 9 frozen yams which became like ice popsicles.

If we really tied our stomachs, we could drag what we had for about another two weeks. But the winter wasn’t so kind to end in just two weeks.

Ah! I’ve had too much fun during the Torch Festival and totally forgot my other goal of buying food from the town! Now that I think about it, I didn’t even bring any money with me. Are you kidding me……

And so there were a few choices we had. 

Number 1: was to eat what we currently had and hunker down, hoping for the best. 

Number 2: was to have a discussion with Xifu and head to town with some money to get some food.

Number 3: was to dig up roots in the winter soil and to munch on the tree barks we could find.

And so, Chen Lao Wu, your final choice is!

Choose your ass! Number 1 equaled certain death, number 3 was looking for death. There was only one choice here!

But my pitiful ego had suddenly started acting up, making myself think that if we went to town to get food was practically announcing that:

‘Please have pity on us, we are practically starving here.’

I didn’t want to show how useless I was, and wanted to prove that even without anybody’s help, me and my wife would spend our days just fine.

And as I had observed, there didn’t seem to be any excess food in stock in Nightfall Town, because even during the festival there weren’t any signs of food, just really large amounts of alcohol.

I was a person who viewed my dignity equally to my own life. If we don’t head to town in the end, we can only stretch out what food we have to get through the winter.

“Let’s just put it aside, and when the time comes I’ll think of a way.”

Harbouring such a line of thought in my head, I decided not to rely on others’ support for the moment.

Xifu didn’t voice out any opinions regarding the dwindling amount of food stocks. On the dining table, I had many times when I wanted to bring this up with her, but seeing how happy she was gulping down her food only made it harder for me to bring up this urgent matter.

But in the end the truth would come sooner or later. Food wouldn’t suddenly grow larger, they can only go mouldy.

On the 120th day, I scraped the last bits of meat off the bones of the girabbit into the stew.

Well, it wasn’t even a stew anymore. If I had to give it a name, it would be called ‘Plain boiled meat bits’.

Looking at the meal that couldn’t even be classified as one, we both didn’t touch our food. After a while, she asked:

“Food, not enough?”

“Yeah……”

“You eat, hubby.”

“You no eat?”

“I am Medusa. I am fine without eating.”

“Ah?”

Even Medusas have to eat. Are you starving to cultivate to become a Daoist immortal!?

“Xifu, can we head to Nightfall Town to get some food?”

“NIghtfall Town…has none.”

‘Why?”

“I’ve been there before.”

“Ah…I see……”

Well, that’s reality for you. If you think about it, the amount of food both of us needed combined wasn’t a small number to the residents of a small town. Their grains were still needed for the next year’s sowing, and meat was even more scarce. 

The best example was at the Torch Festival itself. Wolfgang and the others hadn’t treated us to a meal, and there was no signs of any food during the festival.

“No, you still need to eat.”

“It’s fine, hehe.”

Xifu was seriously stubborn, and didn’t even budge after all the advice I gave. I could only let her do as she wished.

Well, Medusa really had the ability to continue living even without eating, but the steep price was a really prolonged period of sleep. She could just continue sleeping up to 40 hours straight.

Humans also could survive four to five days without eating. But a person that has starved for four to five days would have lost most of its motor functions.

Even in the most dire straits, digging up roots and chewing on tree barks was an action that is easier said than done. For an urbanised person who was used to enjoying the sweet grains of rice.

Even after extensively boiling it, tree barks were basically inedible, seeing how they weren’t food in the first place. The taste of the grass roots were worse than I expected, and I could only blindly gulp them down.

For the few days after the food had totally finished, I could only depend on the honey I had acquired much earlier before as a source of energy.

Still, the worst situation still came. As the snow storm continued for the entire day, I slowly blew and sipped on a cup of hot water when a sound could be heard from behind me.

It was probably her waking up from her sleep. I didn’t move a single inch, not that I didn’t want to, but I had none of the strength left to.

“Is it time to eat?”

“There is still no food……”

She rested herself on my back. I didn’t know if it was my own illusion but after 80 hours of continuous sleep, it felt like her body weight had dropped a lot.

“I’m……hungry.”

Medusa’s voice sounded weak. Maybe it was because of the strong, loud winter gusts, or it was just the hunger making my hearing bad. Even the Medusa herself couldn’t hold a candle against the power of hunger.

‘’If you’re hungry, then eat me……”

I smiled bitterly, as I reached my hands to caress her face.

The pain sensation of something biting me came from my neck. You’re really eating me, huh……

Warm blood slowly seeped out from my body, and into my wife’s mouth. I stayed completely still in my sitting position.

It’s okay I guess, just eat me up. It was too late to fix anything now. Even if we dragged ourselves to Nightfall Town to beg for food, we still had to wait until the snowstorm had passed.

Compared to the brother who had lied on the ice praying for carp, sacrificing myself as food for Medusa should be a touching story too.

(TLN: Lying on ice praying for carp is a proverb from ancient China originating from the story where a young boy named Wang Xiang had lied his bare belly on the frozen river in the middle of winter, praying for the ice to melt so that he could get carps for his sick stepmother. In short, this story teaches filial piety and sacrifice.)

‘’How could I even…eat my husband……”

In the end, my wife released her bite and hugged me from behind.

If this continued, it looks like we were all going to starve to death. The snowstorm seemed like it was going to continue for a longer time, and even if it stopped, the thick snow-covered ground looked hard for Big Sheep to traverse.

Eh…Big Sheep? Ah, Big Sheep.

I suddenly recalled what Xifu asked when we bought Big Sheep initially.

‘Can we eat it?’

There always is light at the end of the tunnel. I’m sorry, Big Sheep.

“Xifu, we still have that sheep!”

“Ah, you’re right!”

Braving the wind and snow, I gave it my all to get Big Sheep into the cave. Xifu was already holding a short axe in her hands beside the fire, with a glint in her eyes. There was a thick layer of snow on its back, with ice crystals in its eyebrows.

Dusting off the snow off the sheep’s back, I patted its head. The shivering sheep looked like it knew what fate awaited it, as it baa’ed a few times, looking at the axe in Xifu’s hands……