"What about you?" Xiao Wu changed the subject, her gaze falling on the short blade Zhu Zhuqing had just sheathed.
"Have you gotten used to it?"
Zhu Zhuqing did not answer immediately. She turned her head and glanced at the corner of the curtain flapping outside the tent, her eyes settling on the distant gray horizon. "I don't need to get used to it. I only need to survive."
Looking at her profile, Xiao Wu suddenly felt that this usually quiet woman carried a silence she could not yet fully understand.
She did not press further. After sitting quietly for a while, she stood and dusted off her skirt. "I'll be going, then. Tomorrow's a rest day. Do you have any plans?"
"No," Zhu Zhuqing said.
"Then I'll come find you."
Zhu Zhuqing did not refuse, merely nodding lightly.
By the time Xiao Wu left Zhu Zhuqing's tent, night had fully fallen.
Scattered lights had lit up throughout the camp. Oil lamps hung outside several tents, their dim yellow halos swaying faintly in the cold wind.
She headed south along the camp's main road, bypassing several rows of tents and crossing an open space piled with supplies before finally stopping in front of a gray tent noticeably larger than the others.
This tent had been specially assigned to Rapunzel. Rather than a tent, it was more like a simple field clinic.
Its entrance was always open, with several lamps lit inside. Through gaps in the curtain, figures could be seen moving about within.
Xiao Wu did not go straight in. She first poked her head inside and saw Rapunzel crouching before an injured soldier, holding a bowl of freshly brewed medicine and feeding it to him spoonful by spoonful.
The injured soldier looked no older than seventeen or eighteen. His