Chapter 48: I’m Warning You, Don’t Try Anything Weird!
Mu Yi looked up toward the cave entrance and realized the hole was incredibly deep. She could only vaguely see a tiny piece of the sky above. It seemed to already be very late outside.
For a moment, memories from her childhood appeared before her eyes, overlapping with her current situation.
Back then, Little Chubby had been beside her.
Their parents and Little Chubby’s grandmother had found them and brought them out.
But this time, none of them were in Ruolan Town anymore.
No one would notice she was missing and come looking for her.
At first, thinking about it made her feel sad. But after another thought, it almost felt like a blessing in the middle of bad luck, because she had absolutely no idea how to explain her current situation to them.
Slowly calming her thoughts, she tried to stand up. However, the moment she moved…
Her body suddenly lost balance.
She twisted her ankle again!
“Hiss...”
The sharp pain rising from her ankle made Mu Yi tightly frown in pain, and she could not help letting out a painful sound.
Luckily, she grabbed onto the stone wall in time and avoided falling back onto the ground.
Recently, she really had been unbelievably unlucky. Could someone have secretly cursed her or something?
Mu Yi gritted her teeth.
Come to think of it, was there a chance this car accident had happened because she dragged Gu Zhiren into it...
Looking at Gu Zhiren, who was still lying on the ground, she softly took a breath.
After thinking for a moment…
Mu Yi slowly crouched down and reached out with her left hand to pull lightly at Gu Zhiren’s right cheek.
Earlier, he had hit people so fiercely, like he could easily snap her tiny arms in half.
Usually, he always wore that arrogant expression like he looked down on the whole world...
But now he looked like he was about to die. This appearance really did not suit him.
“Mmm, did you really die? Right, I can check your breathing and heartbeat!”
Seeing no reaction from him, Mu Yi immediately raised her hand toward his nose.
“You’re so noisy...”
Gu Zhiren’s voice sounded weak and low, as if he barely had any strength left.
“Huh? So you’re not dead yet.”
Hearing that, Gu Zhiren frowned and slowly opened his eyes. His narrow eyes looked like lifeless water at first, but suddenly a little light returned to them again.
“It’s good that you’re not dead. Really good.”
Mu Yi pulled back the hand she had been using to check his breathing. Then she turned around, sat against the stone wall, closed her eyes, and deeply let out a breath.
“...I thought that if I died, a certain someone would be very happy about it. After all, that person hates me very much.”
Only then did Gu Zhiren notice the pain coming from his head. He held it with one hand while enduring the pain, then pushed against the ground with both hands, trying to sit up using his own strength.
“Oh, right. If you died, I probably should feel happy. But only if you died somewhere far away where I couldn’t see it, not right beside me~”
She tilted her head while replying. Then she clapped her hands together and pressed them against her cheek, looking completely cheerful.
“Hey, can you show at least a little concern for an injured person?!”
Noticing that Gu Zhiren was struggling to get up, she still could not help reaching out to help him.
“No matter what, I should still thank you first. It’s just that... this hole is so deep. If nobody finds us, we’ll probably both die here.”
After helping him sit properly, she lightly patted his shoulder and gave a small smile, though it looked somewhat forced.
“Seriously... I don’t want to die here... especially dying together with you in the same place...”
It looked like she was about to break down. She bent her legs, wrapped her arms around her knees, and buried her entire face into her arms.
“What kind of suffering expression is this?!”
Gu Zhiren lowered his eyes and quietly watched her. He patiently listened to her endless muttering. His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
The hand closest to her slowly tightened.
Without realizing it, he wanted to raise his arm, pull the girl into his embrace, and pat her gently on the head.
But before he could lift his hand, Mu Yi suddenly raised her face in panic. She nervously looked at her left wrist, turning it over and over again.
The expression on her face became more and more sad and wronged.
“My bracelet is gone. The four-leaf clover bracelet Teacher Xiaoyu gave me is gone. Weird… where did it go…”
Hearing that, Gu Zhiren remembered what the bracelet looked like.
“A four-leaf clover… I see now.”
“Hm?”
Unable to find the bracelet anywhere, Mu Yi looked up at him with hope in her eyes. She stared at him closely. After meeting her gaze, Gu Zhiren smiled and nodded lightly.
“Do you know? Just now, we almost died together. The chance of surviving an accident like that is very low, but we survived.”
“Maybe your four-leaf clover bracelet secretly protected us.”
“And now that it finished its job, it disappeared.”
“Gu Zhiren, you…”
Mu Yi blinked a few times, then tilted her head and complained in a doubtful tone.
“Did you read too many fantasy novels? Or did you hit your head too hard?”
“……”
Gu Zhiren could feel the blood still flowing out. He touched the painful spot on his head. Seeing his palm covered in blood, he frowned and thought quietly for a moment.
“That’s a lot of blood… Gu Zhiren, if this keeps going, you really might die from losing too much blood!”
“No need to panic. This is nothing serious.”
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t finished talking yet.”
As he spoke, Gu Zhiren wiped his hand on his clothes. Even now, he still looked calm.
“Mu Yi, don’t give up hope so quickly.”
Hearing that, Mu Yi’s eyelashes trembled slightly. A memory suddenly appeared in her mind.
Back then, she and Little Chubby had waited in the cave for a long time, but nobody came.
Then Little Chubby told her a story. It was a bedtime story his grandma once told him. More exactly, it was a fable about a frog searching for water.
“...At the most important moment, if you don’t give up, despair can turn into hope.”
Mu Yi unconsciously repeated the words Little Chubby said back then.
“……”
Gu Zhiren turned his head and looked at her for a few seconds, then simply nodded.
“You’re the one closest to death right now, yet you’re calmer than me. Your brain must really be strange.”
She looked away and puffed her cheeks slightly, as if she was sulking again, though for a completely different reason this time.
“But what if nobody really comes? You’ve never even had a wife in your whole life. The only time someone called you ‘husband,’ it was another man. And then you just die like this. A rich young master like you would definitely regret it, right?”
She shook her head and sighed, as if trying to comfort herself.
After hearing her words, Gu Zhiren smiled slightly and muttered with certainty,
“Yeah, I would regret it a bit. So… how about the two of us make do together?”
“Huh?”
So he really doesn’t have a wife… Wait, that’s not the important part.
Mu Yi instantly became alert and leaned backward.
“I-I’m warning you, don’t try anything weird!”
Gu Zhiren’s expression did not change.
“I’m telling you, even if I really had those kinds of needs, I’d rather use toys than use your—”
Mu Yi quickly pointed with her finger toward a certain place. After glancing at it herself, she suddenly stopped talking midway. Her finger even trembled a little.
Gu Zhiren followed the direction she pointed and looked down. He raised his eyebrow slightly, then looked back at her. Seeing her curl her finger back awkwardly, he could not help but laugh.
“I only meant that if the worst really happens, the two of us can keep each other company on the road to the afterlife.”
At that point, Gu Zhiren shrugged helplessly and tilted his head in confusion.
“You’re the one with strange thoughts. What exactly were you imagining?”
The moment he finished speaking, Mu Yi’s bent finger instantly pointed at him again.
But before she could say anything, two voices suddenly came from above the cave entrance.
“Tch, where did they go?”
“They can’t have gone far. They must still be nearby. That bastard really is lucky.”
Mu Yi did not listen carefully to what they were saying. The moment she realized someone had arrived, she instinctively tried to call for help.
Suddenly, a hand covered her mouth.