Setting Sail

Big eyes staring at small eyes!

After a full ten-plus minutes, Bai Yang raised both hands and placed them on Little Cat's shoulders.

"Sit down first."

"Oh."

Little Cat obediently sat down and looked at him, and he himself sat down across from Little Cat.

Gathering his thoughts for a moment, Bai Yang looked into Little Cat's eyes, very seriously and word for word, "I understand what you mean..."

"Then, does young master want me?"

Little Cat interrupted Bai Yang with a hint of anxiety.

"..."

Bai Yang opened his mouth, then suddenly broke into a laugh. Why the hell was he agonizing over this? If heaven gives and you don't take, you'll be struck by lightning!

Gazing at Little Cat, he said very earnestly, "From now on, you're my person!"

Having obtained the answer she wanted, Little Cat smiled—she smiled so happily that the gloom was swept away in an instant.

"@#￥%...&**&(￥#￥￥@..."

A mess of strange, jumbled cries suddenly came from outside the house, followed by the sound of a crowd dispersing...

Holy crap, Bai Yang jumped in fright. Turns out there were a bunch of people eavesdropping outside?

Little Cat wiped away her tears, looking at Bai Yang with a smile so tender it was like water.

Bai Yang felt extremely awkward, a thrilling sense of guilt welling up in his heart!

This girl belonged to him from now on; he hadn't even had to put effort into pursuing her—she had thrown herself at him. Weren't they envious...

Catching sight of the glaring little scratch on Little Cat's neck, Bai Yang slapped his forehead and stood up, saying, "Wait here a second."

He got up and went back to his own room, then flashed back to the villa on Earth's side, found the first aid kit, and flashed right back.

He placed the first aid kit on the table, opened it, took out alcohol and cotton balls, dampened one, and walked over to Little Cat's side, saying, "Be a good girl, don't move. It might sting a little."

Little Cat blinked at him and nodded, staying completely still.

Bai Yang approached with the alcohol-soaked cotton, supporting her shoulder with one hand. Perhaps because their relationship was "different now," this single touch made them both tremble slightly as if touched by an electric shock...

Stay calm, stay calm. She's meat in the bowl now, what the hell are you getting so worked up for?

Muttering to himself to calm down, he carefully wiped the blood from her neck. When the alcohol touched the wound, Bai Yang could clearly sense her muscles flinch from the pain, yet she stayed remarkably well-behaved and didn't move an inch.

Bai Yang lowered his head. Their heads were barely a few centimeters apart, and her slightly sweet, warm breath drifted across Bai Yang's ears and face, tickling him and driving him wild with distraction. I can do whatever I want with this girl, yo... Cough, cough... Stop right there...

The wound was tiny—just broken skin. After wiping away the blood, he slapped a band-aid on it and it was done.

Bai Yang felt a bit dazed. Just like that, inexplicably, he had a girl of his own. The feeling was so magical that it made him feel it wasn't real at all!

Little Cat's neck was slender and graceful, just like a swan's. Her skin was a healthy wheat color, yet amidst its wildness, it was as smooth as Dove chocolate.

Women here dressed very casually; the upper body was wrapped in a rough chest cloth covering the breasts, and the lower body was just a pair of shorts. Little Cat's outfit was the same—nothing above the breasts, her slender waist bare, and her two long legs completely uncovered, giving fashion models on Earth a run for their money.

When tending to the wound on her neck, whenever he lowered his head even a little, he saw the deep cleavage squeezed out by her towering breasts beneath the chest cloth, and further down were her straight, slender legs. Damn it, this made his hot-blooded youth almost unable to keep control...

I've got to get her a few outfits. With this kind of attire, wouldn't I lose a fortune...

He hadn't thought much of it before, since the women around here were all dressed similarly, but now his mindset was different, and his petty, selfish nature was thoroughly exposed.

Good grief, Little Cat worked out regularly, and her figure could be called demonic—especially those full, bulging breasts. Bai Yang couldn't imagine how much impact it would have if she wore a proper bra!

He didn't dare think about it anymore...

Throughout the whole process, Little Cat squinted slightly. Her gaze was no longer apprehensive, but instead carried three parts shyness, three parts nervousness, three parts happiness, and one part panic...

A man serving a woman was something that simply did not exist in Little Cat's worldview.

Not daring to look into Little Cat's watery eyes, Bai Yang packed up the First Aid Kit while steering the conversation elsewhere. "Little Cat, tell me about what you know."

"What does the young master want to know?"

"Just everything you know. The people here, the surrounding areas you know of, where you've been, what you understand—I want to know it all..."

Bai Yang gestured as he spoke.

Little Cat blinked in mild disappointment. Thinking it over, she said,

"The people in the village make their living by hunting, gathering wild fruits and herbs to trade for salt and iron tools... In this jungle, there are still many, many villages like ours, scattered all over. None of us mountain folk can read, and there's a lot we don't understand. The farthest place we've ever been to is Deyang Town; Grandfather even went to a large town once when he was young, which is why he's the village chief. This world is huge, huge, huge. I've heard the people outside are extremely powerful, divided into divine path cultivators and martial path cultivators, but we don't understand any of that..."

Little Cat said a great deal, but it was all rather vague, and often she couldn't express herself properly. Coupled with the fact that Bai Yang didn't fully understand, he couldn't form a clear concept in his mind at all, only gaining a hazy awareness of this world.

The world was huge, though exactly how big he didn't know. There were incredibly powerful people in this world, but he had no clear concept of just how powerful they actually were.

"Then when do you guys usually go to that Deyang Town to trade?" Bai Yang asked, making gestures with his hands.

"I don't know. You'd have to ask Grandfather. Generally, when our furs, jerky, herbs, and brewed wine pile up to a certain amount, we take them to Deyang Town to trade. Grandfather makes the call on that."

"Is that so?"

Bai Yang scratched his head. Why didn't they have a fixed schedule for holding a market here?

"I'll go ask the young master."

Seeing Bai Yang's troubled expression, Little Cat took the initiative to ease his worries and went to ask for him, returning a short while later.

"I asked Grandfather. In about three days, we'll probably be able to go to Deyang Town to trade..."

A few days passed in the blink of an eye.

During these few days, Bai Yang ran back and forth busily. Mainly, he made a few trips to Earth's side, having Xiong Da specially make molds to forge a set of Titanium Alloy Equipment for Little Cat. After all, Little Cat was "his person" now, and he had to look out for her safety. Because a single mold could only produce one set of armor, Bai Yang had spent a full fifty thousand—and that was even the friendly rate!

Little Cat's measurements had been taken by Bai Yang's own hands, and he had taken plenty of advantage of her in the process...

Bai Yang was not a "vegetarian," but he hadn't taken the little girl all the way through these past few days. There was a malicious woman named Aunt Flo who kept stepping in to stop any hanky-panky...

Cursed with bad luck, Bai Yang simply couldn't bear to watch the local practice of dealing with Aunt Flo by stuffing plant ash between cloth strips, and he had ended up having to teach the girl how to use sanitary pads...

Aside from all that, he constantly had to drop by his parents' place to maintain his presence so as not to become a missing person. The rest of the time he basically lived in the village, and his language skills had gotten smoother by a fraction...

Early this morning, the people in the village began bustling about. Even the customary morning exercise was skipped, creating a scene of roaring enthusiasm.

Today was the day the villagers set off for the so-called Deyang Town to trade.

Dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, and outdoor knee-high leather boots, with a black windbreaker thrown over top, Bai Yang squatted listlessly on a large boulder by the river in the middle of the village, watching the villagers bustle about.

Behind him stood Little Cat, fully armed and refusing to leave his side, while a few meters away was Zhao Shi, the captain of the guards, also fully armed.

There were no boats on the river cutting through the village, only four thirty-meter-long wooden rafts. Under the villagers' hurried labor, the rafts were piled high with furs, smoked meat, large jars filled with Hundred Fruit Brew, along with some herbal plants Bai Yang didn't recognize and coarse bolts of cloth.

Had it not been for Bai Yang's strenuous dissuasion, the bolts of cloth he had gifted the villagers would have been hauled off to be sold as well...

After a solid two or three hours of bustling, the cargo finally finished loading. Aside from the goods, each of the four wooden rafts had twenty or thirty fully armed, burly men standing on them.

When the morning sun rose, Bai Yang walked to the front of the first raft, pointed ahead, and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Move out..."!

(Constantly deleting and rewriting, deleting and rewriting, agonizing to death. These two chapters are a particular pain in the ass, so I'm too embarrassed to beg for recommendation votes and collection support.)