Leaving Home

On a river bank, women washed their laundry and men fished, hoping for some food. Children played in the water and on another side, some took bathes. It was all peaceful with the sun shining making the water glisten brightly and the dew on leaves light up like the sun's halo.

However, a second later and the peace was destroyed with someone's shout. Their scream, panicked, shocked, and definitely full of fright. With the development of that loud screeching yell, all the men and women looked at each other and headed toward the location of the source.

"What in the world is going?" someone asked with annoyance.

Another followed up, "What's going on?"

"Why did you scream like that?" someone else asked with worry.

Soon, a scared voice repeated, "B-bo… b-b-bodies… T-t-two of of them…"

"Hm? What do you mean? Where?" a voice asked.

The person who had stammered the words out then pointed to the river. Everyone then looked at where the person was pointing to and saw the two bodies. All the people asked and gossiped amongst themselves whether the persons on the river were dead.

"Brother, let us go retrieve the bodies? What if they are still alive?" someone suggested.

"Alright," the person addressed as brother agreed.

Soon after, the two bodies were recovered and everyone gasped. The women sighed in jealousy and sympathy, whereas the men sighed in envy and greed. The two bodies recovered, one was a woman beautiful as a flower and the other was a man handsome as the moon.

"Brother, are they still alive?" the person who had agreed to help earlier asked.

Putting his hand on their wrists to check their pulse, he answered, "They're still alive. Their pulse is strong. I believe all these wounds on their bodies must only be external wounds."

"Ah, that's good. It would be such a pity if people as beautiful as them were to die," the person who called out brother remarked.

"Ah Zhou, Ah Yu, Ah Ling, help me carry them to the house," the person told them.

Ah Zhou helped the person carry the man while Ah Yu and Ah Ling helped carry the woman. At the same time, they could not help but to sigh. The man was heavy in weight and the female was light in weight, but for some reason seemed to be easy to carry making the four not help but to have speculations.

Laying the two people on the beds, Ah Zhou asked, "Brother Fang, since it's just external wounds, why won't they wake up?"

"Indeed. The water from the river is cold and will certainly wake up people even if they are half dead," Ah Yu stated.

"Perhaps they are tired," Brother Fang answered. "Some people, once exhausted, will never wake until they have recovered from fatigue."

"I see," Ah Ling nodded in understanding. "Then, Teacher Liao, are you able to estimate when they will wake up?"

"I am unable to predict," Brother Fang answered. "Ah Zhou, bring a set of my clothes here. Ah Yu, go ask a lady to help change this young lady's clothes. Ah Ling, help give me my physician kit."

Echoing an "okay" they all left. Once they came back, they brought the materials asked by Brother Fang. The lady also changed the wounded woman's clothes after Brother Fang finished wrapping her wounds.

By the time Brother Fang finished cleaning and dressing their wounds, the sun had already set. When he looked out the window and saw that it was already so late, he told the three boys to go rest. At the same time, he also headed out and left to his own room to sleep for the night.

Once quietness shrouded the room, the lady woke up and quietly said with a bit of pride, "Zhu Jin, what did I tell you?"

"Alright, no need to rub it in. I'll believe in everything you say now," Zhu Jin said with resignation as he got up from the bed. "Hey, come check my wounds."

"That physician already took care of your wounds. No need to have me look at it," Bai Shuixian told him.

"Just in case. I don't trust in anyone's skills but yours," he said.

"Fine," she gave a small sigh as she got off the bed. "Hm… They could have used a better balm. Well, not that it matters. You're a man, so scars shouldn't matter."

"Hey! Just because I'm a man doesn't mean I don't care about appearances!" Zhu Jin quietly shouted.

"Yes, yes, I know," she calmly responded as she took out a turmeric salve.

After that, she unwrapped Zhu Jin's wrappings and asked, "I told you to not scratch yourself so deeply. Now who's fault is it?"

"It was just a tiny scratch," Zhu Jin said. "I didn't know that it would be this deep when I scratched it."

Shaking her head, she told him, "I never thought a tiger had such thin skin."

"Hey! You! Shut your mouth! I don't have thin skin! My skin is thicker than yours by ten times!" Zhu Jin shouted, enraged at her insult.

Rubbing the turmeric salve on Zhu Jin, Bai Shuixian said, "You should be quieter. If they find out that you're awake and so alive at night, they're going to kick you out."

"Aigh… Fine, whatever," Zhu Jin remarked. "Seriously, talking to you is such a pain."

"Hm, understandable," she agreed while wrapping his wounds again with new cloth.

"What about your wounds? You're not going to take care of them?" Zhu Jin asked.

"I'm not an idiot to leave scars on myself," Bai Shuixian stated.

"Huh? But, I clearly saw that you cut yourself deeply," Zhu Jin remarked.

Unwrapping her wounds, Bai Shuixian showed the areas that she had cut earlier. There was no cut at her legs, arms, or stomach at all. Not even a tiny scar or mark to show that she had harmed herself.

"H-how can that be?" Zhu Jin asked in shock and confusion.

With a prideful grin, she said, "I coated my knife with lathyrus ointment before stabbing myself."

"What's that?" Zhu Jin asked.

"It's something I made so that if one day I needed to hurt myself to prove something to others, I could do it without experiencing pain nor the after effects," Bai Shuixian answered. "The scars would only be temporary and just a fake visual that's left behind for a few days."

"But it's only been a few hours," Zhu Jin remarked.

"Well, I didn't expect the water to be so cold," she sighed with pity. "I worked so hard only to have it rubbed off while I was drowning. I can see why humans don't want to die from drowning now."

Zhu Jin scoffed at her sighs. How greedy can you be? What a way to joke about life.

Sighing at her arrogant remarks that went on for minutes, Zhu Jin said, "Let's go to sleep. They're going to come back tomorrow."

Hearing what he said, Bai Shuixian agreed and laid back in bed. As she closed her eyes, she thought about how the water was strange and different from what she thought. However, she eventually calmed her thoughts and went to sleep.

Once the windows of her room was opened, the sunlight went onto her face and woke her up. Squinting her eyes, she tried to see who it was that interrupted her beauty sleep. At the same time, she was too lazy, so her arms had first come up to her face trying to block the escaping light.

"I apologize, did I wake you up?" a warm voice kindly called out to her.

Putting her arms down and getting up into a sitting position, she looked through her blurry eyes to see who it was. After a few seconds of trying to adjust to the daylight, she was finally able to see who the person was that interrupted her sleep. She had to admit, he was not the best looking man in the world but he could probably rival the normal average man.

"Not at all," she answered, albeit a bit sleepily.

"Are your wounds alright? Last night, I checked and you had a cut on your abdomen. However, I did not want to be rude, so I had another lady check on that area," the man said.

"Yes," Bai Shuixian answered with a short, curt reply.

Looking around, she saw that Zhu Jin was still dead asleep. She did not want to be the only person awake and talking to a stranger, so she tried to wake him up secretly. However, he still did not react.

A little unused to being by herself with strangers, Bai Shuixian got up from her bed with intentions to knock Zhu Jin awake.

When the man saw that she was heading towards the sleeping person, he told her, "You do not have to worry about him. Last night I checked, he only had surface wounds. He should wake soon."

"I know," she gave another short reply.

Once she reached Zhu Jin, she pulled his hair. Seeing that he still was not waking up, Bai Shuixian pulled even harder on his hair. After pulling for a while with no progress, she slapped the man.