Chapter 17

Yue Jiaojiao lay on the hammock and applied the medicine to Zhao Zhan’s face.

“Take off your clothes, let me see if you have other wounds.”

“I’m fine. The rest have been treated.” Zhao Zhan shook his head and refused to move. He didn’t even dare to raise his voice. “Don’t look at it.”

Yue Jiaojiao frowned. “If you don’t let me see it, don’t expect me to help you in the future.”

Seeing that his repeated rejections were about to make her lose her temper, Zhao Zhan immediately shut up and obediently took off his outer shirt and undid his inner shirt, revealing the wound on his waist.

There were very few traces of fat on his body. He had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and eight packs. On his lower abdomen, there was a wound about the length of a palm.

The wound looked like it had been cleaned, but not well enough.

Yue Jiaojiao clenched the medicine jar in her hand tightly.

Being stared at, Zhao Zhan’s body tensed up. Because of his nervousness, the wound oozed out a little blood.

Battle damaged makeup.

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Those random words flashed across Yue Jiaojiao’s mind at an untimely moment, but she quickly shook them off. After applying some medicine to his wound with her fingertips, she climbed down from the hammock and brought over a clean gauze.

She wrapped her arms around his strong waist with her eyes lowered, and her white fingertips danced nimbly around his scars.

Zhao Zhan’s hands and feet were as stiff as a wooden plank while he held his breath. There were even beads of sweat that rolled down his body.

“Zhao Zhan, you’re heating up.” With her head lowered, Yue Jiaojiao’s breath breezed past Zhao Zhan’s chest. “Is it because the fire you made at the entrance raised the temperature in the cave?”

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“No,” Zhao Zhan’s voice was hoarse, and his hands were clenched into fists.

Yue Jiaojiao quickened her movements.

Zhao Zhan felt that it was more difficult to stand still and wrap up a wound than to kill a wild boar.

He took two steps back as if he was plotting an escape and put on his clothes when she was finally done. He then looked at the food with a red face. “The porridge is ready.”

Only then did Yue Jiaojiao realize that the cave looked different.

Compared to the original cave, there was nothing inside. Now, there were a lot of things piled up. A quilt was used to make a bed where the straw was originally placed. A corner of the cave had been dug into the ground with a wet wooden stick and a temporary compartment was built. In addition to a honey bucket, there was also a bath bucket.

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A fresh stack of new clothes was placed on an open bundle. A new fire was relit at the entrance of the cave, and a wooden rack was set up next to it to hang wet clothes.

At the entrance of the cave — which was originally muddy — now had logs that were arranged neatly to pave a path. At the top of the cave, Zhao Zhan had tied the logs together and covered them with an oilcloth. The place to cook had been moved to the roof of the cave that had been temporarily built.

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This place was tidied up, it was even tidier than the thatched house.

“Zhao Zhan, the wound on your face was probably because you did all these things, right?”

Zhao Zhan quietly filled the bowls with rice and placed them on the table that he had brought from home. Then, he took out a bouquet of flowers from behind the pile of wet clothes that had been hung up to dry.

It had pink and white flowers. There were still water droplets on the petals.

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“I saw this when I went out to chop wood. I wanted to pick some for you to see too.”

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Yue Jiaojiao had received many beautiful and expensive roses before, but none of them had escaped the fate of being thrown into the trash can.

Yet, when she looked at Zhao Zhan with the flowers, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter and then sigh with a soft smile. “Aren’t you a silly man?”

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Seeing her smile, Zhao Zhan couldn’t help but feel butterflies in his stomach. He walked over and carried her to a chair. “If you like it, I’ll pick new ones for you every day. There are many kinds of flowers on this mountain. I’ll carry you on my back and show you around when the sky clears up. No one in the entire Willow Village knows this mountain more than me.”

At the mention of this mountain, his spirit seemed to be in high spirits.

Yue Jiaojiao listened attentively and asked, “Other than beasts, is there anything else that can be eaten on this mountain?” After she said that, her tone changed to one of excitement. “When the rain stops, let’s go to the east side of the cave to take a look.”