Sleeping!

Tang Fei returned to the Living Room, where Old Man and Little Fatty were each holding a large bowl and drinking mutton soup at the table.

"Brother, dinner's ready." Little Fatty raised his face to greet Tang Fei. "I left the meat soup out to cool for you."

"Okay."

Tang Fei walked over and sat down, picked up his own large bowl, and started eating. There was soup and meat, seasoned with salt and garnished with a handful of chili peppers. Their meals had improved today.

"Did you take care of that little lady?" Old Man asked without looking up, noisily slurping his soup.

"I took care of it," Tang Fei said.

"What are you planning to do?" Old Man asked.

Tang Fei looked up at Old Man. "What do you mean?"

"She came from New Star, and she arrived in an Escape Pod. What was she escaping from? Who wanted to kill her?" Old Man asked.

Chewing a huge piece of sheep liver, he looked at Tang Fei and said, "Most importantly, will those people come looking for her?"

"We agreed that she'll leave once her injuries have healed a little," Tang Fei said.

"Mm, that's one way to handle it." Old Man nodded. "But that's not like you."

"What?" Tang Fei looked up at Old Man.

"With your cowardly, life-loving nature, there's no way you'd casually carry a stranger home. What happened today?" Old Man demanded.

"How is that cowardice? I'm just cautious." Tang Fei argued indignantly.

After a pause, he explained, "I just thought it would be wrong to leave someone out in the wilderness. Besides, she was badly hurt and couldn't move easily. Leaving her there would have meant certain death."

"Speak plainly."

"I was planning to leave too, but then she looked at me, and our eyes met." Tang Fei looked a little embarrassed. "I thought she was pretty, so I carried her back."

"Brother, I think she's pretty too." Little Fatty chimed in. "She's just too skinny. She doesn't look like she has much strength, so she's not suited for smashing rocks."

Smack!

Old Man rapped Little Fatty on the head and cursed, "What's it got to do with you?"

Little Fatty looked aggrieved, but he did not dare argue with Old Man. He quickly lowered his head and gulped down his soup.

"Stop hitting him all the time." Tang Fei frowned and looked at Little Fatty. "And if you must hit him, don't hit his head. He'll get stupid."

"With his intelligence, hitting him might even knock some sense into him." Old Man was unhappy that Tang Fei had interfered with how he educated Little Fatty. "We're talking about you. You thought she was pretty, so you carried her home. Do you want to keep her here?"

"Do you think I can keep her?" Tang Fei asked.

"No."

"."

"I'm not trying to put you down." Seeing Tang Fei fall silent, Old Man thought the boy's tender heart had been wounded. Young men admired beauty; that was only natural. He comforted him, saying, "Think about her face, her figure, her clothes, the grace she showed in every movement. Do you think this barren land can hold someone like that?"

"Is she drawn to the fact that you never bathe, or does she like that you never cut your hair? Or maybe she enjoys the thrill of never knowing where the next meal is coming from? A man needs to know his place."

"When did you ever see her make a movement?" Tang Fei curled his lip. He hated it most when Old Man put on that know-it-all act to lecture people. "When you saw her, she was still unconscious."

"Imagination. Imagination, do you understand? With her looks and temperament, if she put on an evening gown slit all the way down to here..." As Old Man spoke, he lewdly drew a huge V shape over his chest. "Or wore a smart Phoenix Empire military uniform, wouldn't she be dazzling?"

"Oh, right, she said her name was Phoenix," Tang Fei said.

Old Man's expression stiffened slightly, then he immediately relaxed. "There are probably ten thousand, if not eight thousand, people named Phoenix in the Phoenix Empire. It's nothing unusual."

Tang Fei nodded, then looked at Old Man suspiciously. "You seem pretty familiar with the Phoenix Empire. You talk as if you've been to New Star."

"Just because I haven't eaten pork, does that mean I've never seen a pig run? Have you forgotten who I am? I'm the most famous guide in Hate Mountain District. When those important people from New Star come looking for adventures or ancient tombs, how could they do without me? I've heard them talk about plenty of things on New Star."

"Look how proud you are." Tang Fei could not help pouring cold water on him. "You only heard people mention it a few times, yet you act like you lived there for years."

"I wouldn't go there anyway. What's so great about New Star? It can't compare to our Hate Mountain." Old Man crunched noisily through the two-headed sheep meat in his mouth. "Here, we can eat whatever we want, smash rocks whenever we want, and go without bathing whenever we want. Can they match that?"

"There aren't any wild beasts on New Star, no acid rain either, and they don't have to smash rocks every day. I heard they use machines for everything," Little Fatty cut in.

"What the hell do you know?" Old Man shot Little Fatty a sidelong glare. "There are people up there—people everywhere. Human hearts are far more terrifying than a beast's fangs."

"You've never even hunted beasts. What do you know?" Tang Fei undermined him from the side.

Ever since he could remember, he had had to take a shovel into the mountains to dig up earthworms and ground rats.

From childhood to adulthood, he had borne the burden of supporting the family.

"Bullshit. When you two were little, wasn't I the one who raised you, feeding you and cleaning up your shit? Could you hunt the moment you crawled out of the womb? If I hadn't gone hunting back then, what would you two have eaten? What would you have drunk?" Old Man cursed furiously.

Tang Fei and Little Fatty fell silent.

Old Man was telling the truth. They could not refute him.

Old Man glanced at Tang Fei. "Don't be sad either. People who were never meant to belong here are merely passersby in your life. Just like the prey you bring back every day—two-headed sheep today, wild boar tomorrow. In the end, it's best to just eat them."

Tang Fei was horrified. "Didn't we agree we wouldn't eat people?"

Smack!

Old Man slapped Tang Fei on the head and said in exasperation, "That's not the kind of eating I meant."

"Then how are we supposed to eat her?"

"Sleep. I meant sleep."

"Why would I sleep with her? Isn't it good enough to sleep in a bed by myself? It's big and wide. I can sleep however I want, roll around however I want..."

"."

Old Man looked at Tang Fei, then at Little Fatty, who had buried his head in his large bowl. These two little brats' adolescent problems needed some serious attention too.

But how was he supposed to teach them about that?

He could not exactly find a woman to demonstrate it for them on the spot.

Besides, where was he supposed to find a woman...

Of course, there were quite a few women in the human settlement. Given his brawny physique and his skill at smashing rocks and building houses, plenty of women would probably be willing to sleep with him.

It was just that he did not fancy them.

"Anyway, the eating I mean isn't the eating you mean, and the sleeping I mean isn't the sleeping you usually do." Old Man looked flustered and furious. "Anyway, once that little lady leaves, just don't wipe your tears and cry."

"How could that happen? I can't wait for her to leave," Tang Fei said.

Old Man looked at Tang Fei skeptically. "Why?"

"We agreed that once she gets back to New Star, she'll thank me for saving her life by giving me a flying car, three Pulse Rifles, and a ton of supplies."

"Just think about it. Once I have those, I can drive a flying car out to look for prey, carry a Pulse Rifle, and kill any god in my way, slaughter any Buddha in my path. Even if I run into a mutated King Kong Tiger, I'll be able to cut off its hind leg and make you skewers..."

"Are you stupid?" Old Man stared at Tang Fei in astonishment, feeling that all his years of education had been a complete failure. "You believe what a woman says?"

"."

"Didn't I tell you the story of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber? What did Zhang Wuji's mother tell him? Never believe a woman's words. The prettier a woman is, the better she is at lying. That little lady you brought back is so pretty, with a chest where there should be a chest and a butt where there should be a butt—she must be a very good liar."

Tang Fei looked at Old Man and smiled. "Even without those things, I would have brought her back anyway, right?"

"That's true." Old Man nodded. "You brat have a sharp tongue but a soft heart. If you didn't spend all day helping those widows and orphans outside, we wouldn't be living like this."

"They've helped us plenty too, always mending and patching clothes for us three grown men. It's only right to return kindness with kindness. Since we were going to save her anyway, if she's willing to repay us, and with things we actually need, then that's even better. If not, we'll just consider it a good deed, like rescuing a stray cat or dog. Don't you think?"

Old Man looked at Tang Fei. "Did she really promise you those things?"

"Yes." Tang Fei nodded. "At least, that's what she said."

"Go get a bowl and fill it with meat soup," Old Man urged.

"What for?"

"We can't let our distinguished guest who came from so far away go hungry. She's weak right now and can't eat meat. Give her more soup so it goes down easier. Mutton is nourishing, and it'll help her recover faster and go home sooner. A pretty young girl like that has gone missing—who knows how worried her Elder must be."

"Alright." Tang Fei agreed.

Little Fatty looked at Old Man, then at Tang Fei busily ladling soup, and softly sighed.