Chapter 9

The hunger in his stomach was not as intense as the pain from his wounds. Lifting his arms, he looked at the wounds on his hands, which had been rubbed raw by the sand. To his surprise, he found that the skin that had been rubbed off had been covered with something that looked like rotten leaves. Although the wounds continued to hurt, he could feel a slight coolness and tingling from the leaves.

"Who did this?" The image of Huoya suddenly flashed in Gao Feng's mind. The leaves in his hand were clearly chewed by someone's teeth. Thinking of Huoya's big yellow teeth, his stomach involuntarily tightened. He sat up abruptly, wanting to remove the leaves from his hands, but then he saw that his entire body was covered with this stuff.

After some hesitation, Gao Feng remembered that it wasn't just Huoya who could treat his wounds. At least one other person in this house could do it. He scanned the room but couldn't find Xiao Qinu. The door was bolted, and his gun and military knife were still there. In his confusion, he looked under the bed and saw a small figure curled up like a cat, occupying one-fifth of the space under the bed. Everything was neatly arranged, and nothing had been touched.

Seeing Xiao Qinu's obedient appearance, Gao Feng felt a warm feeling in his heart. He slowly stood up and, as soon as his hands left the support, he was startled by Xiao Qinu standing beside him. No one knew how Xiao Qinu had quietly crawled out. Gao Feng shook his head and pointed to the herbs on his body, saying, "Do you have more? Get some for me..."

Sitting on the bed, he looked at the red sand outside the door and couldn't help but recall the moment he killed Kuitu yesterday. The instant he dodged the Fangya knife, his body moved as if it had been rehearsed a thousand times, but in his memory, this move had another name: the gun-grab technique.

Using the gun-grab technique to dodge the Fangya knife was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but Gao Feng was more curious about his past identity. He thought he was a soldier, but soldiers didn't need to practice the gun-grab technique, did they? What kind of person was he? And the ruthless way he stabbed Kuitu in the neck—could he have held back? He could easily have just placed the military knife at Kuitu's throat, but why did he stab him with all his might? Was he a cold-blooded person by nature?

While lost in thought, Xiao Qinu brought Huoya in. Huoya smiled foolishly at Gao Feng and put down a hard, flat cake made of sand jujubes, saying, "This is today's meal. We don't need to practice killing techniques for the next two days, and we don't need to wait for the assessment. The tribe is busy with disaster relief..."

Huoya didn't stay long, fearing that Gao Feng would ask about the money for the Fangya knife. A Da watched the Fangya knife closely, and no matter what he tried, he couldn't steal it. Huoya also felt embarrassed.

Seeing the sand jujube cake, Xiao Qinu lost her usual calm. Her pure eyes showed desire and heat. Clearly, the basic need for food was the hardest temptation for anyone who was hungry. Gao Feng was momentarily stunned by the greed in her eyes.

Tearing off half of the sand jujube cake, he compared it to Xiao Qinu's size and shook his head, tearing off another half. He was afraid that Xiao Qinu would eat herself to death. The cake weighed about seven or eight pounds, and even a quarter of it was two pounds. When he handed it to her, Xiao Qinu looked at Gao Feng in surprise, too scared to reach out.

The sand jujube cake was not a good thing, at least not for Gao Feng. It was tasteless and had no texture, like chewing on white wax. But this was the most formal food in the western wilderness, rich in nutrients, and could satisfy an adult warrior for two days. Most slaves and children ate the bran left over from grinding sand jujubes, which was even coarser. The Qinus ate whatever they could find, even digging through livestock droppings to find undigested seeds when they were hungry.

So Gao Feng's kindness was rejected by Xiao Qinu, which gave him a headache. Looking at Xiao Qinu carefully, Gao Feng still couldn't see her face through the blackness. Her messy hair was more abstract than a bird's nest, and her black hair had been dyed red by sand and dirt. Her clothes were a sack made of grass stems, with three holes cut out from the bottom and sides, just covering her. If she pulled her head and arms in, she would look like an unremarkable sack.

Without commenting on Xiao Qinu's disguise skills, Gao Feng thought about it and suddenly had the image of a puppy in his mind. It seemed that raising such a small Qinu wouldn't be too difficult? Just like raising a puppy.

"Go and wash yourself... When you're clean, you can eat..." Gao Feng said to his first follower. Xiao Qinu nodded obediently and turned to leave, leaving a pile of fresh leaves behind.

"Smarter than a puppy," Gao Feng nodded, looking at the moving sack, then spat, "This isn't a dog..."

The leaves left by Xiao Qinu were familiar to Gao Feng. They seemed to be the fodder for livestock, as he remembered from Sanzhao's memories. The tribe had better healing herbs, but the herbs were kept by the third elder, and he wasn't a formal warrior of the tribe, so he couldn't get them.

The leaves in front of him were the common healing herbs used by the Qinus, but unfortunately, they didn't heal wounds well and were slightly toxic, as evidenced by the tingling in his wounds.

Picking up a pale red leaf, Gao Feng felt his palm heat up. Using the method he used to extract the essence of the wood stump flower, he placed the leaf in his palm and slowly felt the change in the traction at his fingertips. When his mind fell into a calm, the heat in his palm turned to coolness, and the leaf visibly withered. Tiny droplets of liquid flew out from the leaf, rolling and coalescing into transparent droplets in his palm, which looked delightful.

The droplets emitted an indescribable fragrance of grass and trees, clearing Gao Feng's mind and reducing his agitation. He carefully moved the droplet to the wound on his neck, left by Kuitu. After a moment's hesitation, he decided to apply it to his hand, where the coolness felt like a soothing ointment, making him exhale deeply in relief.

Xiao Qinu came in naked, her wet hair smoothly贴在她的脸颊上，全身滴着水珠。她并不细嫩的皮肤上全是大红的色斑，犹如被砂纸摩擦过。Gao Feng扫了一眼，不敢细看，抓起床上的兽皮褥子扔到小女孩身上，嘀咕道：“自己想办法做衣服，我这儿只有沙枣饼，不吃就饿死吧……。”

说完，他拿起半个沙枣饼走出屋外，感到脸颊一阵燥热，哪怕Xiao Qinu只是一个不到七岁的小丫头片子，他也由衷地感到羞愧。

“难道我是个萝莉控？”蹲在属于自己的房产前，吃着沙枣饼的Gao Feng凝视着搬运沙子的人群，纳闷地想到，然后他又想：“萝莉控是什么？”

Gao Feng毫无形象地蹲在自家门前吃东西，望着源源不绝的运输队向围墙外面搬运沙子，偶尔可见一只手臂，或者一条大腿从一筐筐沙子里面僵直地露出来。

没有怜悯，没有叹息，也没有怨恨这该死的世界，Gao Feng嚼着吃食冷眼旁观，身上的伤口按照他自己的方法清理了一遍，能够感受到伤口正在向良性愈合，但他却不准备给其他人帮助，因为这里的人和他没有什么关系。

这时，Gao Feng看到了Huoya，Huoya正和一个部落勇士清理着自家门口的沙子。相比认真干活的部落勇士，Huoya则一手拿着Fangya刀，一边心不在焉地掏沙子。没过多久，就看见Huoya躺在地上打滚，部落勇士正在用一根折断的长矛狠抽Huoya。看到这里，Gao Feng突然微笑了，这也是他来到这个世界的第一个微笑。

Huoya偷懒被自己的A Da抽了一顿，却让Gao Feng感到一种羡慕。至少，Huoya的A Da在用另一种方式关心着他，而他却感觉在这个世界，连一个犯了错，抽自己的人都没有。

他从不认为Heizhao是他的父亲，甚至连Sanzhao的记忆也是如此。Heizhao在Sanzhao的心中更像一个符号，一个抽象的动词，一个没有太多交集的陌生人。Gao Feng不知道Dazhao和Erzhao是怎么和Heizhao相处的，至少，他不用为接受这样一个突然砸到头上的老子焦心竭虑。

“Sanzhao，Sanzhao哟！！！我给你送好东西来了……。”一声声亲热的呼喊将Gao Feng从Huoya那边拉过来，扭头看到一个满脸堆笑的部落勇士端着一盘子东西向他走过来，盘子上堆着一堆还在冒着油水的烤肉。

这个部落勇士有着其他人所不具备的油滑，部落勇士视之为生命的Fangya刀随便插在屁股后面，那露出皮套子的刀刃都沾满了各种黑的黄的绿的污渍，倒是他的身上，脸上收拾得干干净净，让人一看便新生好感。至少一个爱干净的人总比一个脏兮兮的人，更容易让人接受。

Gao Feng嚼着面饼站起身，疑惑地看着这个家伙。如果没有记错的话，这个人应该负责部落的牲口管理，在重大的庆典中，随侍最期待的烤肉都是他亲手分配的。难得的是，他能根据随侍身后A Da在部落中的地位，恰到好处地给随侍们分配。Gao Feng印象中的记忆里，每次庆典，Sanzhao得到的烤肉都仅次于Dazhao和Erzhao。

“昨天死了不少畜生，今天吃肉，我怕你不知道，这不是给你送过来了……。”

“谢谢杆子叔，每个随侍都有么？”有烤肉，Gao Feng自然笑纳，说话也亲热了几分。这个被部落称为滑杆子的老滑头很欣慰Gao Feng这么叫他，小心地张望左右，故作神秘地对Gao Feng说道：“别声张，只有你有，大爪都没有。昨天你杀了Kuitu，可把我们吓了一跳。以后想要吃肉，就和你杆子叔说，就算杆子叔不吃，也得跟你留着……。”

Gao Feng心中很是不屑杆子的作态，这盘烤肉有没有盖盖子，隔多远人家都知道。杆子给自己送烤肉，不过他也没有弄明白其中的道理。大爪没有，他有？难道是杀了Kuitu的奖励？

杆子和Gao Feng说了几句没有营养的闲话，摇摆着比别人更肥一些的屁股转身离开，半路上还刁钻地将走路没长眼睛的Qinu踹了一个半死，却不是个心胸宽广的人。望着杆子的背影，Gao Feng皱起眉头，他感到掌心竟然在发热……。