Dumb

When she saw the glistening lake with the shining dew on the plants surrounding it, Bai Shuixian heaved a sigh of relief. She was about to pass out. During the travel, she had fallen on the ground an unaccountable amount of times and tripped on who knows how many vines.

Her knees were muddy and dirty, and her hands had lots of tiny pebbles and leaves stuck on it. There was blood dripping on her ankles due to the thorny vines. She cursed at her clumsiness and stubbornness.

At the same time, she was proud of herself. Seeing the crystal clear water in front of her, she dropped to her knees and untied her bag. The first motion she did was to put her hands in the water.

As she felt the coolness of the water eroding the pain away from her hands, she rolled up her pants and splashed water on it. She then looked at the spores on her clothes. The first time she saw them was on Zhu Jin's body and she did not look at how he removed them from his body.

Sighing, she decided to use the forceful method to remove the spores from her body. At first, she thought that it would be painful because Zhu Jin had explained that they stuck to the body and sucked out blood. However, now that she was removing them, it was completely painless.

Contrary to her thoughts, the spores were quite weak and soft to the touch. In fact, they were so nimble and brittle that it broke as soon as she tried to grab them. It was unexpected and when the spores dropped to the ground in their shattered state, they bore into the ground as though about to start a new future.

This process intrigued her and she wanted to examine what the plant's growth stages were. How did they grow and such? These questions plagued her, but dealing with the meat was of most importance.

Once she finished washing her hands and cleaning her wounds, she removed the outer layer of her robes and ripped off a piece of cloth from them. She made sure to rip off a piece that was dry and not dirty. Though there were little spots that remained untouched, there was enough space untouched that they were enough to wrap all of her wounds.

After she finished wrapping her wounds, she stood up and tied the bag to her back again. Traveling up the lake where the tide came from, she only stopped when she saw a waterfall. Then, she thought about the distance she just traveled.

This abrupt thought wrecked her as she realized that she was far from the cave. Farther than Zhu Jin would have expected and farther than she expected. Should she go back a small distance just in case?

Since she did not want to risk dying yet, she decided to go back about a hundred meters. When she came to a good spot to clean the meat and sticks, she squatted and opened her bag. Smelling the meat to make sure it had not expired, she took out everything.

Finding that the meat was not expired, she ripped another piece of cloth and laid it down on a flat patch of grass. Then, she grabbed the first piece of meat and started rinsing it.

When she was almost done washing the meat, the moon was already starting to fall. The sun had not come up yet, but the moon was about to disappear. She had not noticed this earlier since she was distracted, but now the sky had her full attention.

Seeing the situation, she hurried up and tidied everything up. As she did so, she felt a bad feeling. She did not know why she had a heavy feeling in her heart, but it caused her to unconsciously have a tiny fear in the forest.

This fear was much different from Zhu Jin's occurrence. It was built on pure terror and freight despite not having seen anything fearsome. Even when she moved as fast as she could, she still felt that a horror scene would occur in front of her.

As her legs began to walk faster, her heart started to beat faster. She went from a walking pace to a power walking pace to a jogging pace. Finally, she started sprinting as fast as she could while trying to retrace her steps as she did not want to get lost in the gigantic forest.

However, as though the heavens or the forest did not want her to live or something, everything before her eyes looked unfamiliar. The original beautiful pink flowers she passed by were nowhere. The gigantic leaves from the vines that were on the ground due to her tripping over them were not on the floor.

She asked herself, "Am I lost?"

As soon as she asked that question, she rejected it.

"How could that be?" she stated.

She prided herself to be smart and have the best understanding of geography. There were many lessons she had learned as she looked upon her moving body in her unconscious state. One of those leaving symbols to make sure she did not get lost.

Yet, she did not recognize anything. Where was she? She was now able to hear the pounding of her heart and her increased pace soon came to a slow.

When she met with a dead end, her steps completely stopped and she slapped herself on both cheeks while scolding herself, "How can you be so stupid to get lost?"

Even when she was distracted with herself though, she was unable to get rid of the alarm in her body. Now, she was also able to sense something. Something she did not feel earlier due to her anxiety from getting lost.

As the feeling became stronger, she looked around her. She looked from left to right and right to left. She turned around to see if there was anything behind her, but she saw nothing.

However, when she turned back her panic increased. This painful feeling that she had, she wanted to know what it was so badly. She hated having this feeling in her and wanted to get rid of it.

At the same time, she wondered if it was Zhu Jin who was stalking her again. Only Zhu Jin knew about her and knew where she was. She was thinking that maybe he was playing a prank on her.

To test out her theory, she called out, "Zhu Jin!"

She heard no response, but the silence. Confused, she wondered if she should try to call out again. Should she move along or should she call out his name even louder?

Choosing the latter, she shouted loudly, "White tiger! Zhuuuuu Jiiiiiin!"

Once again, she heard no response. In the quiet silence of the night, there were no detectable movements and no animal that seemed to be following her. She wondered if she was wrong in her theory.

Wanting to test out the 'third times a charm', she yelled out his name the loudest she could, 'ZHUUUUUUUUUUU JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!!!!!!"

With no reply to her loud voice echoing throughout the forest, she gave up. Maybe she was just being paranoid? Or was it her being pessimistic?

Since her theory was proven wrong, she slapped her cheeks again and calmed herself. Cheering herself up, she went back to normal and tried to retrace her steps again. She had one goal.

"I must get back to the cave before sunrise," she determinedly said.

Going back the way she came from, she finally started seeing areas that she recognized. As she continued walking, she started to point out places that she remembered and passed when she went to the lake.

She then berated herself, "How could I be so stupid to take the left instead of the right?"

When she passed another spot, she scolded herself again, "Oh my goodness, Bai Shuixian, are you an idiot? The flowers were right in front of you! Why did you take the opposite way?!"

Once she passed the big leaves on the ground, she shouted at herself, "ARE YOU FREAKING RETARDED!? THEY WERE RIGHT IN FRONT YOU! AAAAH!"

At this moment, she was raging at her own stupidity. She did not consider the fact that she had been too focused on one thing. She also did not consider the fact that she was one dimensional and ignored the marks left behind by her.

Every few steps, she would scold herself again and again. However, the more she walked, the more tired she became. She wanted to complain about how far the lake was.

Bai Shuixian wanted to go up to Zhu Jin and yell at him for not telling her the distance between the cave and the lake. No matter how beautiful the scenery was, she did not want to waste her small and limited energy on walking. That was just too harsh on her physic.

With her nerves calmed and no tragic events happening to her, she did not know that an individual was following her. His eyes followed her sharply with prying eyes. The more she walked, the quieter he got.