Un cœur pur dans un pot de jade

Chapitre 4

I smiled helplessly. This person actually has a bad temper and is very stubborn. If you say a few words to him, he will stop talking.

Although he shouldn't have said anything anyway.

"I still want to eat yesterday's peaches."

He looked at me and nodded.

About twenty minutes later, he picked the peaches.

Actually, I looked out of the cave and couldn't see any peach orchard. The valley is very big, so he must have gone to a very, very far place to pick peaches for me.

It seems like late summer or early autumn now, and the peaches are just ripe. But after autumn comes winter, and I'm worrying about what to eat when there's nothing left in winter.

He picked a few extra peaches today and ate one himself.

But he only ate one, while I ate four.

But I still felt a churning sensation in my stomach, even though there was nothing there.

"How did you actually get here?" I asked him, idly poking at the fire with a twig.

He didn't answer, so I asked another question: "Are we going to stay here forever? Do you know how to get out?"

He still didn't answer.

"Savage—!"

He turned his head, the firelight illuminating one of his eyes, while the other remained somewhat dim.

He picked up a twig and wrote on the ground: Why.

Why go out?

He nodded.

"Because it's so boring here. Do you want to stay here forever?"

As I expected, he nodded again.

"But I don't want to!"

He still wrote on the ground: Why.

"I don't like it here. It's so stuffy, there's nothing here, no one else around, I can't eat, I can't play. If I stayed here, I'd either suffocate or die of boredom. I'll die sooner or later!"

He lowered his eyes, looking at the few words he had drawn on the ground.

"You shouldn't stay here either," I urged, "Let's go out together!"

He started writing again: I don't want to.

"You don't want to? Why?"

He wrote down two words: fear.

What are you afraid of?

He turned his head and looked at me.

I guess what he meant was: he's afraid of losing me.

But this reason is really...

There are probably too few people here, which is why he mistook me for someone else. But if we were outside, there would be people everywhere, and he could easily mistake a lot of people for others. Wouldn't that be great?

“You won’t lose me,” I said.

His body trembled. In fact, he was sometimes more clear-headed than anyone else; he just couldn't quite grasp certain things.

Perhaps he deliberately avoided those real things, preferring to live in his own fabricated lies.

"Do you still remember who you are?" I asked.

He neither writes nor nods.

Actually, he never shook his head, but I think he should sometimes.

"You..." I only managed to say one word when I suddenly remembered something. "Take your pants off!" I made the request in a very lewd way.

He immediately looked at me, clearly also feeling that the request was a bit excessive.

"I actually forgot about your injury?!" I pounded my head. What kind of person am I? How could I be so selfish and only care about my own anger and unhappiness, that I didn't even remember that someone cut off a piece of flesh from me! The way he abuses his body shows that half of his injuries could have been avoided.

“Take it off, do you hear me!” I started yelling again.

He stood up and pulled down his pants.

Then I saw him using a piece of cloth to tie his thigh, the cloth already soaked in blood.

I turned my face away, knowing that I would definitely choke up if I spoke now.

"You can't be so reckless!" I went over to check his wound. "If you keep doing this, I'll never speak to you again!"

I looked up and waited for him to nod. After a long while, he looked at me and finally nodded slightly.

That Sheng Huan is so lucky. I suddenly thought, this man is such a fool.

I tore off my pajama sleeve and re-bandaged his wound. That's all I can do for now; I don't know how to do anything else. I just hope he doesn't bleed to death.

He put his pants back on, and I sat to the side watching him.

He sat back down and looked at me.

The two of us sat facing each other like a pair of lunatics.

But I think he's been alone here for too long, and being lonely like this might help him clear his head.

After watching for a while, I reached out and nudged him, "Let's talk for a bit."

He nodded.

"What do you like?" I asked.

He picked up a twig to write, but couldn't write a single word for a long time.

"What do you like to eat?" I asked again.

He remained holding the branch, motionless.

"So what do you like to do when you have nothing to do?"

He put down the branch and lowered his head.

I feel like I'm such a bad guy; I've bullied the savage again.

“Then you can ask me,” I said to him. “It’s your turn to ask me questions.”

He thought for a moment, then slowly picked up a branch and wrote on the ground: What do you like?

Answer: "I like men."

What do you like to eat?

Answer: "Chicken, duck, fish, and meat."

What do you like to do?

I smiled, and didn't presumptuously add the word "love".

"I like talking to people, I like people listening to me, I like shopping for clothes, I like swiping my credit card when I'm broke, I like playing games online, I like sleeping during the day and working at night, I like watching the sunset late at night and the sunrise early in the morning, but I can't get up."

He looked somewhat confused as he listened to me; I really didn't expect him to understand.

After his initial confusion, he picked up a twig and wrote on the ground: "Don't leave."

I raised an eyebrow at him. If I could leave, I would have left long ago. I don't need him here reminding me.

"Okay." So I nodded casually.

He seemed to see through my insincerity. Although he smiled at me with a cheerful expression and his long beard trembled, there was a kind of despair in his eyes as he watched something about to slip away.

Why is he in despair again? I really want to slap myself, not because I made him despair, but because I always associate despair with him. This feeling is too strong. This damn savage, he'll probably infect me with suicidal thoughts in a couple of days. His outlook on life is too negative, even though I have no idea where this savage came from.

“Savage,” I stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder, “you don’t trust me at all? Am I really that unworthy of your trust?”

Although asking this question makes me feel utterly shameless.

The savage gripped the branch tightly, and with a snap, the branch broke. I looked down and saw that his knuckles were turning a ghastly white from gripping it so hard.

"Never mind." I pouted and retreated.

He came over and hugged me tightly, and I was once again embraced by this savage.

Looking back now, I realize I was deliberately provoking him. Why would he suddenly hug me? Actually, I was also afraid he would leave. If he lost his mind and left on his own, there would be no one to hug me or light a fire for me anymore. Wouldn't I be left to fend for myself?

I reached out and rested my chin on his shoulder. The scent after his shower was faint and mild, and even the lingering sourness that reminded me of yogurt no longer made me feel nauseous.

I patted his back and felt him slowly relax as he hugged me.

"Savage, let me tell you a story."

I didn't begin to tell a story that could be told in a single sentence until he gently nodded beside my ear.

"The story goes like this: Once upon a time, there was a king who caught a bird. He liked the bird very much, so he ordered craftsmen to make the most magnificent cage in the world for the bird to live in. The next day, when the king went to check on the bird, he found that it was dead. That's the end of the story."

The savage had been brushing the hair off my back, but then his fingers slowly stopped.

He stepped back from me, looking at me with a strange expression.

"Savage?"

He was probably angry, and silently turned around to add more firewood to the fire.

I stared at him and felt sorry for him, always sitting quietly alone in this kind of place.

Or perhaps I shouldn't have pressured him. He was afraid I would leave, but I likened him to a caged bird. He just wanted to be with me; he wasn't so crazy as to want to trap me.

So ultimately, I'm the one who wronged him. If it weren't for him, I would have starved to death here. Even if he only treated me as someone else, I still took advantage of him. He was good to me and listened to my every word. He didn't actually do anything to wrong me.

But I can use someone else's identity to hurt him, and with a casual remark, I can make him happy or despair.

Actually, I could lie to him, at least to make him a little happier.

So I walked over to him. He turned his head, first saw my feet, then looked up and met my gaze. His eyes were simple yet profound. Slowly, he lowered his head.

“Shall we go watch the sunset?” I grabbed his hand and suggested enthusiastically.

Sunset... the sound echoed in the cave.