Early in the morning, Meili woke up under the invasion of dew.
She opened her eyes and saw the faint white light, and the tall figure by the lakeside not far away.
That man as big as a small mountain raised his hand and removed the white skull on his head, revealing the… furry head underneath.
Two round white ears sat on top of his head, probably bent down from being pressed by the skull helmet. With a big swipe of his palm, they stood upright again.
That snow-white fur, in the morning light, gave off a hazy glow, looking very soft.
The furry head lowered, the sound of splashing water, he was rubbing his hands and washing his face.
After just a few scrubs, as if sensing her gaze, he turned around and looked toward her, revealing his front.
Sure enough, it was a white bear. Black, round eyes, a dark, wet nose, and the sides of his bear mouth naturally curved upward, making it look like a smile.
—A round-headed, round-brained little bear with a smile as sweet as honey.
Meili: “.…” It’s a little bear! No, I’m not fully awake yet.
She thought blankly, closing her eyes again and turning over.
After a while, Meili suddenly opened her eyes wide and sat up, looking toward the lakeside.
Muli’s tall figure was crouching there washing his gloves and cloak. She didn’t know what material his cloak was made of; after washing it, he picked it up and gave it a shake, and the water droplets slid off one after another, not sticking at all.
He tied the freshly shaken-dry cloak back onto himself.
Meili’s gaze paused on his head. The skull there was firmly worn, and she couldn’t see what the face underneath looked like at all.
She really started to doubt whether she had been dreaming just now, whether that scene she saw was just her imagination.
Although Muli was tall enough to be a little frightening, she admitted that the first time she saw him standing, she thought he looked like a bear. But in this half month, from the way he talked and acted, he was clearly a person. How could she suspect that underneath these clothes was actually a little bear?
That shouldn’t be right.
She ran to the lakeside, cleaned up her filthy self, and cleared her head a bit.
The black dust on her face was washed away, revealing a beautiful face. Meili had only heard the mercenaries say she was very pretty; now she finally saw her appearance clearly reflected in the lake.
A strange face.
She touched this face, confusion in her eyes. Very quickly she collected herself, using the lake as a mirror to braid her messy hair and pin it tightly to her head. Then she found a piece of cloth from the wagon, tore off a strip to bind over her face, and used the rest as a cloak wrapped around her body. Aside from not having a skull helmet on her head, she and Muli now looked like they matched in style.
Wrapping herself up tightly indeed gave her a sense of security.
Meili had long been unable to stand that gift-wrapping-like dress on her body. It was just that in the cage before, nothing was convenient. Now it was different.
While she busied herself tidying up, Muli had already finished making breakfast. After the two of them ate, they would have to get on the road.
Meili sat opposite him, still unable to resist letting her gaze frequently drift to his head.
Was there really an adorable little bear under that skull helmet?
“What are you looking at?” The youthful voice seemed a bit unhappy.
If it had been a burly man with a fierce, coarse voice asking “What are you looking at,” Meili would definitely have been afraid. But with this voice, she only felt like the younger brother across from her was about to throw a little tantrum.
She recalled the little bear she had seen in her “dream” that morning, and said aloud, “I just think your skull helmet looks really great, it looks very impressive.”
Muli didn’t like speaking, most of the time he stayed silent. Meili thought that with her casually saying such a line, Muli wouldn’t respond anymore. But soon she heard him say, “This is the skull of a magical beast. It was the first magical beast I hunted.”
Even though he tried to stay steady and serious, Meili still heard a bit of little-boy-like pride.
Just from that one sentence of his, Meili could tell that he truly liked this skull helmet, so she carefully complimented him with a couple more lines.
“These teeth are so long, and the mouth is so big, it must have been a very powerful magical beast. You’re amazing.”
Then she smoothly complimented the cloak.
“And this cloak, it doesn’t seem like ordinary cloth. I saw it doesn’t get wet at all, it’s so convenient.”
Originally, someone who could go the entire day without saying a single sentence, Muli had finished today’s two lines and had no intention of continuing the conversation. But hearing her mention the cloak, he held back for a moment, and still couldn’t resist adding, “This is also the hide of a magical beast. I hunted it too.”
Meili’s gaze involuntarily turned gentle, she smiled a bit: “You really are incredible!”
After this brief conversation, the atmosphere improved a lot. Looking like he didn’t want to talk, Muli still taught her the carriage-driving techniques again before they got back on the road.
As Meili practiced driving, she was a little surprised to find that Muli was actually pretty easy to coax.
Actually, Muli was also thinking, this red-haired woman was nice, her way of talking was pleasant, and she was different from those mercenaries.
He really wasn’t used to talking, after all he had lived by himself for a very long time. But those mercenaries rejected him, and whenever they chatted, they always talked about boring things like sleeping with women, so he gradually became lazier and lazier to speak with them.
Most importantly, when this red-haired woman heard his voice, she didn’t laugh at him.
He thought about it and felt that this might be the difference between the men and women outside. No wonder those mercenaries always said women were good. Now he also felt that in the end, women were better.
Because that big bandit group had stationed themselves in this area, there were no traces of other bandits or wild men nearby, so Meili and Muli’s two-person team was able to travel the whole day peacefully without anyone bothering them.
Along the way, they only encountered a horned wild beast. It had just rushed to the roadside and raised the horns on its head provocatively when Muli leapt out. By the time Meili noticed the little accident ahead, that horned wild beast had already been killed and placed on the wagon by Muli, and then became their dinner.
They only ate two meals a day, and at night they stopped somewhere with a water source to rest. Muli dragged that unlucky beast over to skin and disassemble it.
After yesterday’s buffer, Meili’s condition was alright today. Her limbs were a bit weak and sore, but she wasn’t collapsing and unable to move. She took the initiative to move to Muli’s side, wanting to help him handle the prey.
Muli had never shown any intention of asking her to work. He was used to doing everything himself, and could do everything very well.
Meili watched as he cut through the hide and flesh of the prey with two strokes, peeled off a complete sheet of skin, then used the knife to separate the front limbs, hind limbs, and each part into chunks. His movements were clean and sharp, not a single wasted motion, as if he had already butchered thousands of such beasts.
Meili ended up unable to help at all, standing to the side helplessly while watching him. Seeing blood splatter onto the skull covering his head, there was a natural, ferocious aura about him.
—The way he chopped at the prey was no different from how he had cut magical beasts and bandits before.
Meili reached out and wiped off the bit of bloody water on the skull.
Muli’s swift motions paused, and he glanced at her once.
The eye sockets on the skull were pitch black, making it impossible to see his gaze, but he probably wasn’t angry.
The prepared meat was hung over the fire to roast, the most primitive method. Meili thought of the cooking she had witnessed from Muli yesterday, and offered, “I can roast meat. Let me do it?”
There were only the two of them left. And Muli was easier to get along with than she had initially thought. Maybe she could have another way out. She had a little plan in her heart, deciding to build a good relationship with Muli.
Meili had taken care of herself since she was young. In order to please her indifferent mother, she had worked hard to learn many things as a child, wanting to make delicious food… Compared to Muli, she was a different kind of capable.
Rolling up her sleeves, taking out the cooking tools and some seasonings she had found in the wagon, Meili recovered a bit of the feeling she was familiar with.
Life was her battlefield.
Survival was Muli’s battlefield. He grew up in a harsh polar environment, and anything edible could be eaten. He never complained. All the food along the way had been simple and not much different from each other. But today, this meat was just too fragrant and too delicious!
Holding the plate, he forked up the meat that had been cut into small chunks and was giving off a charred aroma, stuffing them into his mouth without any pause, unable to even lift his head.
Meili flipped the roasting meat, adding the cooked pieces to the large plate Muli was hugging.
“Is it good?” she asked.
There was no need to ask. His faster-than-usual eating speed was enough to explain everything.
The muffled young voice answered, “Good… mm, good.”
It sounded very endearing.
Like a little pitiful one who had been hungry for a long time and had never eaten his fill.
The meat from the two hind legs had been cut off and roasted; almost all of it was stuffed into Muli’s stomach. She even heard him make little “ah-woo,” “wah-woo” sounds when he was happily eating.
That meal took a long time. Muli looked full, the two big gloved hands patting his slightly rounded belly.
Suddenly, he leaned back and fell over, not moving.
Meili was startled by the noise of him falling, then realized he had only fallen asleep.
She cleaned everything up, wrapped herself in the cloth cloak, and sat beside Muli. After sitting for a while, she noticed that the edges of the big mouth on his skull cover were shining with grease in the light of the fire. It looked a bit uncomfortable.
She leaned forward and gently wiped the grease around the mouth of the skull with a cloth.
Muli actually wasn’t asleep. He was just very full, resting, and too lazy to move.
In his view, the red-haired woman was very weak, so even when she leaned over, he didn’t react. A well-fed beast wouldn’t care about a small animal appearing nearby.
But her wiping his mouth… felt a little strange. That was just the skull cover, not his body. Why did he feel a bit ticklish around the mouth?
He didn’t move, and through the eye sockets of the skull he looked at the red-haired woman, as if for the first time truly seeing what she looked like.
—She was alive now, unlike those days she was locked in the cage. Back then, the red-haired woman had been dead.
Meili carefully finished wiping the skull and moved back to her own spot, hugging her knees as she slowly fell into sleep.
In the silent night, the fire went out. Meili, feeling cold in her sleep, wriggled and found a nearby heat source.
She rested her head against Muli’s arm.
The bushes in the forest rustled, and a quiet breathing sound approached the two wagons. Someone was stealing things from the wagon, and there were sounds of drawing a blade.
Muli, who looked asleep, twitched his ears, raised his arm, felt for the bone spike at his waist, and threw it.
A muffled grunt rang out, then there was no more movement.
At dawn, Muli had rested enough. He opened his eyes and silently got up, stepping past the still-sleeping Meili. He walked to the corpse by the wagon, pulled the bone spike out of the corpse’s head and put it back at his waist, then dragged the corpse into the forest, dug a pit, and buried it.
