Chapter 53 – But now, she felt that being able to eat artificial meat was also a kind of happiness (1)

There wasn’t a trace of light in the night sky. The cold wind kept the falling snowflakes fluttering in the air. As the wind blew across the snow-covered treetops. it made a rustling sound.

The animal skin that Ruan Qiuqiu was using as the torch part was almost completely burned away. Only the firewood underneath was still tenaciously burning.

The remaining flame on the firewood was very small and only gave the weary them flickering glimmers of light.

Ruan Qiuqiu once again felt lucky that the firewood in Mr. Gray Wolf’s cave was special. Despite the strong wind and snow, the fire on the wood hadn’t been extinguished.

When the torch was about to burn out, she and Mr. Food Reserve finally reached their cave.

Although she could hear the roars and howls of animals on their way back, they were lucky enough to not encounter any dangers except for the stones on the ground and the whirling snow.

The firewood in the stone stove hadn’t gone out yet, and the snow in the pot had melted.

It took a lot of effort for Ruan Qiuqiu to support Mr. Gray Wolf to the bedroom. She pulled the animal skin blanket aside and used the last bit of strength to get Mr. Gray Wolf onto the bed.

After that, she slumped down on the nearby stone bench. Ruan Qiuqiu felt as if her nose was frozen to the point that it was no longer part of her.

She recuperated for a few moments before sluggishness standing up.

The firewood she had used as a torch was burned down to the point that the flame was about to touch her hand. She put the remains of the torch into the stone stove. She poured out two bowls of hot water to cool it down and poured the remaining hot water into a wooden basin, then she refilled the stone pot with fresh snow to heat that up too.

Ruan Qiuqiu trembled when she got close to the warm fire. Her knees and palm felt hot, and there was an itchy sensation.

But, she didn’t have time to care about this. She put down the bedroom’s curtain and moved the stone bench over to press down on the curtain in order to block the cold wind from coming into the room.

Ruan Qiuqiu vigorously rubbed her hands and arms to warm up so that she would stop shaking so badly. Using the limited light in the cave, she began to check on Mr. Food Reserve’s injuries.

Once she saw his condition, Ruan Qiuqiu became a bit teary again.

She had known that Mr. Gray Wolf was seriously injured when she married over here, but she had always thought that she would be able to heal him.

However, in the past few days, not only did Mr. Gray Wolf not get better, he had gained more injuries.

After she took off the black animal skin top, she saw the damage done to Mr. Gray Wolf’s back from the acidic liquid.

The combination of those black dots along with his wounds that were oozing blood made his originally smooth back look quite ugly.

Ruan Qiuqiu took a deep breath. She looked at the two scars on his cheeks as well as the missing tip to one of his ears. She felt so bad.

She didn’t have time to waste. With trembling hands, she cleaned the wounds on his back. Then, she drew on her water ability and condensed a droplet of water, which she dripped into a wooden bowl of slightly cooler water. She wanted to feed him the water.

Probably because Mr. Gray Wolf was in too much pain, it was a struggle to get him to drink the water. He was only able to drink less than half a bowl of water.

As he was drinking, his ears kept trembling.

Ruan Qiuqiu bit her lip. She didn’t get annoyed that he had gotten another animal skin dirty. She only helped Mr. Gray Wolf, who had almost become frozen wolf jerky, by wiping the spilled water from his face.

In order to disinfect, she added another droplet of healing water into the water. Once she had wiped away the dried blood and snow from Mr. Gray Wolf’s face, she saw that he had gone from having what could still be considered a bewitchingly handsome face to being truly disfigured.

The addition of two more scars on his cheeks and the black spots truly made him look ugly and pitiful.

Ruan Qiuqiu carefully stretched her hand out. Her warm fingertips touched the black spots on his cheek. As soon as she touched them, they seemed to come alive and skirt away from her fingers. It was as if those black spots could sense her existence.

What was going on?

How could those black spots, which she had thought was from poison, move?

Translator Ramblings: I thought it was sort of funny that during the next few chapters, the Chinese readers on the raw site scolded the author for being an evil stepmother to Yuan Jue. Character development-wise, its because Yuan Jue is in such bad condition that Ruan Qiuqiu pushes herself to grow stronger. If she had met him before the beast tide, as long as she refused to leave him, I think he would have ended up codding her, and she wouldn’t have grown out of her comfort zone. The author doesn’t throw so much at Ruan Qiuqiu that she can’t handle it. Little by little, she is moving away from someone that needs the safety blanket of a protector.

On Yuan Jue’s side, it seems like he’s always been the one unilaterally giving and supporting his tribe members without expecting anything in return, and now for once, he gets to enjoy someone treating him kindly even though he sees himself as worthless.

What do you guys think?