Excruciating pain instantly spread throughout this body.
Unable to withstand the pain, I followed this body’s instinct and let out a miserable howl.
Immediately after, I clenched my teeth, suppressing the sound in my throat, trying not to sound too pitiful.
I knew that Xie Zhuo…
I looked at him, and sure enough, his face had turned deathly pale, and his breathing had halted.
He would be heartbroken…
“Little wolf…” He immediately crouched down, but dared not touch me, only gathering soul power in his palm before covering my wound with the light.
He was helping stop my bleeding, but the expression in his eyes made me feel as if the wound was on his own body.
“Whimper…” I wanted to tell Xie Zhuo I was fine. But a dog’s cry at this moment sounded more like I was in pain.
Xie Zhuo’s hand trembled over my wound: “It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt, soon it won’t hurt anymore.”
He wanted to comfort me, but his voice was so powerless.
At this moment, footsteps came from behind Xie Zhuo. I opened my eyes to see Zhu Lian approaching from behind him.
He held a dagger in his hand, and on his face, pale from years of weakness, his eyes looked particularly vicious.
“They should never have let you live! They should have killed you long ago!” He said this while raising the dagger high.
“Woof!”
I wanted to warn Xie Zhuo to be careful, but as my voice came out, soul power surged from all around Xie Zhuo’s body. In an instant, it directly threw Zhu Lian to the ground.
Zhu Lian rolled several times on the ground. When he stopped, he immediately vomited a mouthful of blood.
Xie Zhuo didn’t look at him, continuing to use soul power to treat the wound on my leg until the bleeding stopped.
“It’s all right now,” Xie Zhuo stroked my head and picked me up. “I’ll take you back and apply medicine.”
Xie Zhuo carried me, picked up my artificial leg that had been shot away, and then headed back.
He didn’t look at Zhu Lian, intending to walk right past him, but Zhu Lian, lying on the ground, seemed unwilling to give up and grabbed Xie Zhuo’s ankle.
“You shouldn’t exist, you shouldn’t have come into this world, you should just die.”
Xie Zhuo’s embrace tightened. I looked up at him to see his lips pressed tightly together. He didn’t speak, finally kicking Zhu Lian’s hand away and walking straight off.
Carrying me, Xie Zhuo took long, quick strides. Many tribe members we passed noticed Xie Zhuo’s unusual state, all casting glances our way, but no one came forward to ask a single question.
Xie Zhuo carried me back to the tent like this.
He placed me on the bed, then gently applied the salve he had made to my wound.
The salve was cold and somewhat painful. I shrank back slightly, and he looked at me, frowning as he said: “Bear with it…”
I gave a “woof” and endured.
“For the next few days, don’t run around, move less.”
These commands, word by word, were exactly like the Xie Zhuo in my memory, things like “Get up, the ground is cold.”
And “Come here, stay behind me.” In the past, I had dismissed these as meaningless words, ignoring them. Now, thinking back, I felt even more sorry for him.
These were the only words of comfort and protection Xie Zhuo knew.
Because he had never heard them, had never been cared for, never been protected.
He only knew how to speak from the most basic facts, saying the most common, most easily tiresome phrases.
“Xie Zhuo…”
My heart was so sore, I could only nudge his hand with my head, but he pulled his hand away.
“Don’t move, there’s still medicine.” He continued to focus on my injured stump.
Actually, under his soul power treatment, the wound had already healed quite well, but he still carefully applied the salve over it, and finally wrapped it simply with cloth strips and cotton thread.
While bandaging the wound, his expression was focused, but he murmured: “Wait a little longer, soon I’ll be able to take you away from here.”
Hearing this, I was slightly alarmed. I looked at Xie Zhuo and saw that his expression didn’t seem false. He was truly considering leaving…
“Woof…” I made a worried inquiry.
Xie Zhuo gently touched the bandaged wound, then looked at me: “The outside world is vast. I’ve heard them say it’s much wider than here. Later, I’ll take you with me, and we’ll leave this place.”
One person and one dog, going to the outside world to live a free life, without criticism, exclusion, or coldness, perhaps seeing new things, meeting new friends.
I felt that Xie Zhuo had such expectations.
Perhaps, from the moment his mind opened, he had begun planning another life. If these days were too mired in struggle, he wanted to strive for a different life through his efforts.
He learned knowledge, practiced techniques, and also learned medicine-making, hunting, and crafting small tools—all actually preparations for leaving on his own…
But, Xie Zhuo…
He didn’t leave so easily.
I roughly knew his destiny.
I had heard him say he destroyed his entire clan, killed his closest kin, he…