Gao Yue fell into a deep sleep again, and this time she slept straight through until morning.
When she woke up, her stomach was hollow with hunger. More than ten hours had passed since her last meal, and as someone with a big appetite who only knew how to overeat rather than go hungry, she had never gone without food for so long.
She felt like she must have lost at least three pounds from this bout of starvation.
So hungry. She was famished enough to swallow a whole cow right now.
Just then, a rich, soul-tugging aroma of roast meat drifted into the cave in wisps from outside. Gao Yue was like a fish hooked on a line—she immediately propped her eyes open and sat up.
As she got up, she reached over and scratched her arm without thinking, then couldn't help but claw at the outside of her thigh a few times.
Why was she so itchy?
She scratched here, scratched there, and as she kept scratching, something felt off. Gao Yue immediately threw off the soft beast skin she'd been using as a blanket, and by the faint light filtering in from the cave entrance, she took a look—and her heart lurched.
From her arms to her chest, even down to the insides of her thighs, large patches of red rashes covered her skin. Because her complexion was so fair, the sight was especially alarming.
Her back and sides itched the worst.
She guessed it was a mite allergy.
Gao Yue instantly understood the cause and let out an involuntary groan.
The animal skin she'd been covered with before should have been fine, otherwise she would have started itching last night already. It was probably the soft beast skin that came later that was the problem.
Those soft beast skins had probably been sitting in the cave for a while without ever being sun-dried, so mites had bred in them.
Her skin was rather sensitive and fragile.
Back when she stayed in hotels, if she ever got a bedsheet that hadn't been washed properly, one night's sleep would leave her itchy all over and covered in rashes just like now, while other people would be fine.
To protect herself, she changed the sheets and covers at home once a week, drying them in the dryer and then out in the sun.
But after coming here, she'd forgotten about that, and now she'd paid the price.
It itched like crazy. Gao Yue scratched nonstop—the more she scratched, the itchier it got, and the itchier it got, the more she scratched.
But the smell of meat from the cave entrance was even more tempting, so she scratched at her skin with one hand while shuffling along in her sandals, following the scent of meat toward the cave entrance.
Outside the cave, bathed in morning light.
A huge stone slab was set over the fire pit, with many thinly sliced pieces of meat laid out on it. Moya sat by the fire pit, occasionally feeding branches into the flames.
Hearing movement from the cave, Moya looked up, about to call Gao Yue over to eat, when he caught sight of the red rashes covering her fair skin.
His expression changed abruptly.
"What happened—did something in the cave bite you?"
"Yes, and no…" Gao Yue said with a pained expression. "It's just that those soft beast skins were probably left in the cave for a while without being sun-dried, so they bred some tiny creatures invisible to the naked eye. Where I'm from, we call them mites, but they're not insects—they're a kind of microscopic organism."
"Sorry, my constitution isn't great. Invisible little creatures in untreated water make my stomach act up, and invisible little creatures in animal skins mess up my skin too."
She made a point of mentioning this deliberately, hinting that her insistence on drinking only boiled water wasn't her being fussy—she really would get sick otherwise—so that in the future no one would think boiling water for her was too much trouble and secretly give her untreated water instead.
"So it's still bugs?" Moya's brow furrowed tightly.
Giant Pythons were naturally able to repel pests—how could there possibly be bugs inside the Youpython Tribe?
Gao Yue said, "Oh, well, even though they're called bugs, they're really not bugs. Just think of it as the animal skin being unclean, that's all."
Moya looked at the female cub before him.
Her right arm was still in a splint—because he had hugged her and accidentally snapped her arm.
The bruises covering the back half of her body hadn't faded yet—because his stone bed had been too hard for her, and sleeping on it had left marks.
And now her whole body was covered in red rashes—because the animal skin hadn't been sun-dried.
The entire Giant Python's pupils shook with a tremor, agitated and at a loss.
He already knew how fragile Gao Yue was, but every single time, she managed to redefine his understanding of the word!
She had now gone from being a "fragile female cub made of wood" to a "fragile female cub made of snow"—everything in the outside world was dangerous to her, and the slightest carelessness could get her killed by illness.
Gao Yue felt quite embarrassed.
Actually, it was probably because her constitution had gotten so poor. As a child, her skin hadn't been this sensitive and wouldn't have reacted so strongly. It was probably that her health had declined over time, tipping into a subclinical state, and after that even the smallest issues started showing up.
Moya said, "I'll go ask the Medical Priest for some ointment."
Gao Yue quickly grabbed his arm. "No need. It looks bad, but it'll actually clear up in a couple of days on its own. Putting ointment on might actually make it worse."
She didn't want to cause that much trouble.
After a few words of persuasion, she managed to talk Moya out of it, but he said, "I'll throw out those animal skins in the cave later. I'm going to go buy a few new animal skins from someone else right now."
Gao Yue didn't agree.
She liked these soft beast skins far too much—they were incredibly comfortable to sleep on. Besides, he'd specifically bought these skins for her, spending a great deal of gemstones on them. How could she let him spend even more?
Besides, newly bought animal skins weren't guaranteed to have been sun-dried either, and mites that hadn't tasted flesh yet might bite even harder.
"No, no, no, no need to swap them out. I really like these skins—just leaving them out in the sun for a bit will fix it." She hurried to persuade him.
Moya's expression stayed dark, his agitation barely contained, and he still wanted to throw out the soft beast skins in the cave. Only after Gao Yue's repeated persuading did he finally give up on the idea of replacing them.
Instead, he decided to have the animal skins in the cave sun-dried.
Sun-drying them required a wooden rack.
Hanging them from tree branches wouldn't work, since the leaves would block the sunlight and prevent proper sun exposure.
Moya then told Gao Yue to go eat the roast meat, while he himself went and felled a large tree outside the cave, beginning to split the trunk with a bone knife to build a wooden rack.
The roast meat over the fire pit was nearly done.
Gao Yue put out the fire in the fire pit and looked at the roast meat on the stone slab.
The meat had been cut into small pieces and roasted on a rock, sizzling away, wrapped in an enticing caramel-colored crust. The fatty parts had turned golden and translucent, with the rendered fat bursting out waves of rich aroma.
The smell was mouthwatering.
She picked up a wooden skewer nearby, speared a piece of roast meat, and started eating.
She bit down, and it was crisp outside, tender inside, fragrant through and through. The outer layer had a slight crispy char, while the meat inside was extraordinarily tender, without a trace of gaminess—instead carrying a faint milky sweetness.
The meat had only been sprinkled with salt, no other seasoning added at all, yet it was so delicious that Gao Yue's eyes lit up.
Back when she was working, she'd known someone who often posted on their social media, advertising the free-range black pigs raised in their hometown village. That pork cost three times more than ordinary pork, but it was all naturally raised.
Just to give it a try, Gao Yue had once ordered a small amount of that pork through the social media post. What she received turned out to be incredible—even just steamed plain and sliced, it was unbelievably tender, and after that she couldn't bring herself to eat ordinary pork anymore, feeling that regular pork always had a faint gamey smell she couldn't stomach.
And now, this meat was even better than that black pig meat.
It was absolutely amazing!
Gao Yue sped up, not caring that the roast meat was still hot, unable to wait before digging in eagerly, and even though the heat made her keep sucking in air, she couldn't stop eating.
As she ate, she gave Moya, who was busy carving wood, a big thumbs-up.
Waaah, this is so good, thank you for blessing me with something this delicious.
Seeing her like this, Moya's previously troubled mood cleared up quite a bit. This cub was fragile, sure, but her personality was actually pretty cute.
After wolfing down three pieces, Gao Yue finally remembered Moya beside her and quickly urged him to come eat too.
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