Chapter 21: Miss Mianbao and Mr. Fox (Middle)

“Lighter, do you even know how to bandage a wound?”

“No! This is my first time!” Mianbao answered with great honesty, using strips of cloth torn from Hu Qingyu’s clothes to wrap his wounds round and round.
However, as it was her first time eating crab, her technique was truly hard for Hu Qingyu to compliment.
She had no sense of how much pressure to apply, often making his wounds throb with pain.

However, this little bit of pain was nothing to Hu Qingyu.

“Alright.” Mianbao looked with satisfaction at the fruits of her labor—Hu Qingyu’s various wounds, all bandaged up sturdily and flawlessly.
She wiped the fine sweat that had stuck strands of hair to her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Alright! Hurry up and tell me!” Mianbao was eagerly anticipating hearing a true story of another world from someone who was from there.

“Miss Mianbao, let’s find a way out first. I’ll tell you as we walk.” Hu Qingyu turned his body from side to side, surveying the surrounding terrain.
They had rolled down from the steep slope behind them.
This slope was not only steep but also terrifyingly long.
It was impossible to go back the way they came.
They had to find another way out.

Mianbao picked up the backpack containing “Sirius,” which had fallen with them and rolled a short distance away, and trotted to catch up with Hu Qingyu, who had already walked some distance.
‘He’s clearly an injured person, yet his stamina is so good.’

“Miss Mianbao, since you live in this area, do you know of any other way out?” Hu Qingyu asked, looking down at Mianbao beside him.

“No.” Mianbao answered very directly.
She lived in this area, and she knew the roads, but only the roads in the village.
She even knew some of the secret paths in the village, but as for the roads outside the village, Mianbao didn’t know them at all.

‘This Hu Qingyu person is really strange.’ Mianbao once again applied the word “strange” to Hu Qingyu.
When she was bandaging his wounds, he was bossy and dissatisfied with this and that, acting high and mighty and extremely punchable.

But now he was addressing her with the respectful title “Miss Mianbao.” It was truly strange.
As expected of “Mr. Fox.”

“Alright, hurry up and tell me!” Mianbao was already looking for a way out with Hu Qingyu, so she pestered him again to tell her about the magical continent he called “Shenzhou,” like a little girl eager for her father to tell her a bedtime story.

“I know.” Hu Qingyu didn’t refuse this time.
His eyes darted around, searching for a way out, as he nonchalantly told Mianbao about his life in “Shenzhou.”

Hu Qingyu was born into a royal family and enjoyed endless glory and wealth from birth.
However, his purple hair and purple eyes, which were different from ordinary people, made people wary of him.

“Whoa, the emperor’s son!” Mianbao’s eyes immediately turned into a pair of shining stars.
“Doesn’t that make you a prince!”

A prince!
Mianbao never thought she would be able to befriend a prince in her lifetime, even if he was just a prince from another world’s kingdom.

Hu Qingyu’s appearance was a bit strange, but his father, the emperor, had always doted on him and had even decided to pass the throne to him.

“Wow, if you go back in the future, you’ll be the ruler of a country!”

“Actually, I don’t particularly want this position of ruler,” Hu Qingyu said with a smile.

“Wow, you!” Mianbao pointed at him and said, “A person must have dreams! Otherwise, what’s the difference between you and a salted fish!?”

Hu Qingyu stared into Mianbao’s eyes and asked, “Then what are your dreams?”

“Uh…” Mianbao was stunned for a moment.
Actually, having lived in Lange Village for so many years, she had just wanted to live like this.
She had no dreams.
“I don’t know…”

“Hmph.” Hu Qingyu glanced at her.
“Because of my appearance, many people said I was an unlucky person.”

“To prove myself, I did my best for the people and the country…”

Next, Hu Qingyu told Mianbao about some of the things he had done and some of the people he had met.

“You mean, there’s another villain who followed you to this world??”

Hu Qingyu nodded.
“If he hadn’t taken the opportunity to injure me during the chaos, how could that magical beast have hurt me?”

“Wow, then are you going to continue hunting down that person named Ye Cheng?” Mianbao tightened the strap of her backpack on her shoulder.

“Yes, I will continue to investigate his whereabouts.”

After Hu Qingyu told Mianbao more about the customs and fun things in “Shenzhou,” they stopped to rest.

This place was too unfamiliar to them.
The dense trees that blotted out the sky made Hu Qingyu always feel like he was walking in circles.

“But why haven’t we encountered a single magical beast along the way?” Hu Qingyu frowned.
‘It’s not normal, too abnormal.’

“What’s so strange about that? Not every place has magical beasts. We should count ourselves lucky. It would be so much trouble if we ran into magical beasts,” Mianbao smoothed out the skirt behind her hips and sat down on the ground very ladylike.
This was the ladylike etiquette she had been forced to train in for several days.
The teacher from Kunta’s side was truly professional.
To be able to train Mianbao so well in just a few days, the professional Mianbao was about to cry.

“Mr. Fox~” Mianbao suddenly called out to Hu Qingyu.
When Hu Qingyu’s gaze fell on her face, he saw a glimmer of slyness in Mianbao’s eyes.

“Miss Mianbao, is there something I can help you with?” Hu Qingyu asked politely.

Mianbao ran to Hu Qingyu’s side and said softly, “Look, it’s just the two of us now. Kunta and those old hags can’t find us. Why don’t we—”

Mianbao’s whispering in Hu Qingyu’s ear made him feel a hint of allure in her words.

“No, no!” Before Hu Qingyu could finish listening, he shook his head with a red face.
“Miss Mianbao, how could you be so…”

“Damn it, what are you thinking!” Mianbao slapped Hu Qingyu hard.
‘What kind of things are in this person’s head? And he’s a prince,’ “I said, why don’t we take this opportunity to escape from Kunta?”

Originally, Mianbao had planned to go back to Lange Village today to discuss this matter with her parents, but now that such a change had occurred, it was better to take this good opportunity to escape.

“Why?” Hu Qingyu was a little puzzled.

“Because! I was forced to sign a contract of servitude! I don’t want to stay there at all!” Mianbao said frantically.

“This…” Hu Qingyu stroked his chin and thought for a while, finally deciding, “Alright, I promise you.”

Mianbao’s face lit up with joy, and the fatigue on her body was instantly thrown to the winds.
“Then let’s hurry up and find a way out!”

Hu Qingyu looked up at the sky.
In another hour, it would be almost night.
They should walk as far as they could.

When the sunlight filtering through the leaves turned into the blood-red glow of the setting sun, the two of them found a hot spring in a place surrounded by rocks.

And this place was incredibly beautiful.
The氤氲mist, the scattered points of light in the air, and the unknown bright blue butterflies flapping their wings, appearing and disappearing in the mist.

Mianbao looked down at her clothes.
They were covered in dust and blood.
And she seemed to have worked up a sweat.
She hadn’t felt it before, but now that she saw this hot spring, she felt sticky and uncomfortable all over.