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Xie Jin froze. "There won't be any. Don't be afraid."

Shen Lantang still wasn't convinced. "What about tigers? Lions?"

"No. There won't be either."

"How can you be sure?"

Xie Jin: "..."

"All right, all right." Shen Lantang tried to reassure herself:

"We're not far from the main road, and we passed villages on the way here. We're right beside Zhaojing, too. Surely the authorities wouldn't allow wild beasts to hurt people. They must clear them out of the mountains regularly. Yes, that must be it."

Only after that bout of self-reassurance—or rather, self-hypnosis—did Shen Lantang manage to summon a little courage. She had picked plenty of fruit along the way. Now that things were less urgent, she even had the leisure to wash some and bring it over to Xie Jin.

"Dinner!"

"Mm."

Xie Jin ate the sweet-and-sour fruit as he watched Shen Lantang untie the cloth around her leg. After all that walking, her wound had rubbed raw and started bleeding again. Once the cloth came off, bright red blood covered her fair calf.

Shen Lantang rinsed the bloodstained cloth in the water, then slowly cleaned her wound with fresh water. Throughout it all, she kept her lips pressed tight and her cheeks puffed out. Her whole face said It hurts, but she never complained once.

After cleaning the wound, Shen Lantang limped back and brought Xie Jin some water. They had found a hollow piece of bamboo on the road and fashioned it into a water flask. It worked better than leaves.

"Thank you."

The night passed in a haze. Shen Lantang was careful of Xie Jin's injuries and didn't want to touch him, but they were stranded in the wilderness, shaken and exhausted in body and mind. She couldn't help wanting a little warmth from her