Watching the poor wretch howl and beat the ground, Xia Ya Leiming nearly laughed himself to death, clutching his belly and rolling in the dirt.
That mean-spirited laughter only set the poor wretch off. Tears spurted out at once; he flung the bread aside, snatched up the tooth and cradled it against his chest, sobbing as though his heart would break.
When he had laughed his fill, Xia Ya Leiming stood up, picked the bread up, speared it on his fire fork and held it over the flames a while, then grinned. "You've obviously never spent time out in the wild. To eat this stuff, you have to soften it over the fire first."
Seeing that the fellow was still bawling, Xia Ya Leiming scratched his head. "Hey now, quit crying. It's one tooth, isn't it? A grown man — what's one missing tooth?" He paused, then went on with the best of intentions: "You look like a noble to me. You must be rich, right? When you get home, why not find yourself a good craftsman and have a gold tooth put in? There's a tavern keeper in our town with two gold teeth. Every time he laughs, his whole mouth flashes gold — talk about classy!"
The consolation only made it worse. At the words "gold tooth" and "flashes gold," grief welled up in the poor wretch's heart, and he very nearly sobbed out his last breath right there on the spot.
Xia Ya paid him no mind and wolfed the softened bread down himself. Then, after some thought, he finally left the sorry fellow a small corner of it.
"Hey, fair warning: if you don't eat now, the next meal isn't till noon tomorrow."
That said, Xia Ya Leiming got up and rummaged in his cloth bundle for a while, at last producing something dry and hard as a lump of coal. From way off, the poor wretch caught a foul stench and couldn't help covering his nose.
Xia Ya Leiming walked a circle around the edge of the camp, carefully broke the coal-lump open, crushed it to powder and scattered it around. Then he clapped his hands, came back, didn't bother washing — just wiped them a couple of times on his clothes — stamped the fire out and scraped the ashes aside.
The ground under the fire had been baked good and hot. Xia Ya Leiming lay down in it, let out a comfortable sigh as the warmth soaked into him, rolled over and mumbled, "'Night." With his backside pointed at the poor wretch, he was snoring like thunder in no time.
That bastard. He — he — he just left me here and went to sleep?!
The poor wretch seethed. Half of it was grief over his tooth; the other half was sheer fury at this crude oaf.
That bastard — is he, is he blind?!
Listening to Xia Ya's snores grow louder and louder, the poor wretch finally stopped crying, but he could not hold out against hunger; at last he picked up the little corner of black bread Xia Ya had left him, put it to his lips and took a small, careful bite.
His tooth still hurt, and the coarse black bread was nearly impossible to swallow, but he was starving, and however bad it tasted, it was still food. He stuffed it into his mouth in a few bites and choked so hard his eyes rolled. He was frantically pounding his own chest when he suddenly caught sight of the hateful fellow, who had rolled over at some point and was lying there with his eyes open, watching him, a mocking grin in them.
The poor wretch froze — and sprayed a mouthful of bread crumbs all over his clothes, coughing as though he'd breathed his last.
"You're definitely somebody who's used to the good life." Xia Ya, head pillowed on his bundle, one leg crossed over the other, grinned. "Hey, where are you from, anyway?"
The poor wretch glared at him murderously.
"Mm.
Your hair's brown, so you ought to be Byzantine. But you're tall — most Byzantines don't have your height; only the Odin up north are built like that. And your accent is strange too.
The Byzantine you speak is the official dialect, but your enunciation is awkward, a bit stiff, and yet you don't sound like those Odin — I've seen a few from the Odin Empire in Wildfire Town, and those fellows always lisp when they speak Byzantine, their tongues just can't bend, haha... So what are you?
What's a man like you doing out alone in dangerous country like this, and how'd you step in a hunter's beast trap?"
The poor wretch said nothing, still glaring at Xia Ya with a look of disgust.
Xia Ya snorted. "Fine, don't tell me. I bet you're a wanted man. Haha — you committed some crime, you're on the run, so you don't dare say who you are? Relax, I'm no bounty hunter. I won't turn you in for the reward."
"Then what are you?" the poor wretch finally said.
"Me? I'm a demon hunter!" With that, Xia Ya Leiming puffed out his chest with pride.
The poor wretch's face filled with contempt. "A demon hunter? With that beat-up axe and a fire fork? Hmph. I've seen plenty of demon hunters, and they're all well equipped — any single piece of their gear is worth a hundred times everything you own. Do you have demon-warding armor? Do you have a demon-breaking weapon? You look like nothing but a third-rate, ham-fisted little hunter to me."
That hit Xia Ya Leiming right on a sore spot. He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Hmph, the old geezer was right — ugly people are always the ones making a fuss!"
The poor wretch's big eyes went perfectly round; he stared at Xia Ya as though he could not believe his ears. A moment later he shot to his feet!
Never mind the wounds on his legs, never mind the ache in his head, never mind even the chipped front tooth! He snarled at Xia Ya:
"What did you say?! You're saying I'm ugly?!!"
The poor wretch flew into a rage, as though he had just heard the most unbearable insult imaginable.
"Isn't it true?" Xia Ya Leiming said, with perfect righteousness, looking down on the fellow. "As a man, your looks are an insult to the very word ‘man.’ Look at you — tall as you are, you're so puny you can't even pry open a beast trap by yourself. And that face of yours — a handsome man ought to have a strong build, a solid frame and muscle, a square face, thick brows, a wide mouth, and ideally a scar across his cheek. He drinks deep and eats big... that's what makes a real man."
God, forgive this poor bumpkin...
Clearly, as a lad who had seen little of the world, his sense of aesthetics was this warped — to a large degree... no, wrong; it ought to be credited entirely to that old geezer, already dead and gone!
Because that old geezer, wanting to cut a lofty, dignified figure in front of his adopted son, had described his own looks as the standard of the finest-looking man in the world.
Uncouth, brawny, scarred — and good at eating, drinking and sleeping...
Xia Ya had grown up knocking around a place as steeped in sin as Wildfire Town, and it had given him a certain basic cunning in dealing with people, but one had to admit that in some respects he was hopelessly green.
The poor wretch's mouth hung open. This time it wasn't anger; he was simply stunned speechless by the fellow's absurd talk.
"...As for you, being a man is a sheer waste. If you were a woman, now..." Xia Ya blinked.
"...If I were a woman, then what?" the poor wretch couldn't help asking.
"If you were a woman, you'd be even uglier." That line nearly made the poor wretch spit blood.
"Ugly! You actually called me ugly!!" The poor wretch was furious!
Heads might be cut off, blood might flow — but for a beauty like him to have his looks belittled, no beauty in the world could stand for that!
"Then tell me, you bumpkin — what counts as a good-looking woman?!"
"First, big breasts and a big rear." Xia Ya raised both hands and drew two wildly exaggerated curves in the air. "A woman with a big rear can bear plenty of children, and a woman with big breasts has milk enough to feed them. Also, hands and feet on the thick, broad side, so she can work — haul water, forge iron, wash clothes, cook. Heh heh."
The poor wretch wasn't angry anymore. He fixed Xia Ya with a peculiar look as the fellow rattled on with relish. "Hey, then... what about the face? What do you think a good-looking woman's face should look like?"
"Her face? Does it matter what a face looks like?" Xia Ya seemed to find the question absurd. "The old geezer used to say: blow out the lamp, and one woman's looks are the same as any other's."
He deliberately put on the look of a man of great experience.
...The poor wretch was beginning to feel sorry for this poor little bumpkin.
"Uh... this ‘old geezer’ you keep mentioning — who is he?"
"My adoptive father."
The poor wretch sighed, looked at Xia Ya and asked quietly, "All these things you've been saying — your adoptive father taught you that?"
"Yep."
"Mm. I understand now..." The poor wretch's tone was utterly certain. "Your adoptive father must be your enemy."
They were getting nowhere, so both of them rolled over and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, the poor wretch, half asleep, felt the cold creep into him; the ground the fire had baked warm had cooled, and he curled into a ball, still unable to keep the chill out. In his sleep he instinctively scooted toward the only source of warmth he could sense beside him.
Half asleep, Xia Ya felt something soft burrow into his arms. Never one to stand on politeness, he rolled over and slung a thigh across the other's waist. In his drowsiness it was like hugging a soft, squishy quilt, and he even rubbed against it a couple of times with a wicked sort of relish...
Just before dawn, the poor wretch woke first. He hadn't slept soundly all night, and the moment he opened his eyes he discovered something horrifying.
Since when am I being hugged in this bumpkin's arms?!
His instinct was to scream, but he realized at once that the bumpkin was still sleeping exactly where he had lain down the night before; it was he himself who had shifted a good distance over — and his memory was vague, but... wasn't I the one who snuggled over there last night?!
His heart pounded. The bumpkin gave off a nasty, earthy smell, but that hot, snug embrace — the cold-fearing poor wretch truly could not bear to leave it.
But then, the instant he stirred, he discovered something even more horrifying!
Er... let's take this apart carefully, shall we...
First: Xia Ya had one thigh thrown across the poor wretch's body.
All right, that was out of line, but compared to what came next it was nothing at all.
Second: Xia Ya was a young, vigorous man, and judging by his standards for a "good woman," he was clearly still a virgin. So in the morning his body produced the instinctive reaction that every man under heaven produces.
The moment the poor wretch moved, he felt it — at the base of the other's thigh, right where it pressed against him, something hard was jammed tight against his body.
Even through several layers of clothing he could feel that deadly weapon's restless stirring and its ferocity.
Young as the poor wretch was, compared with this bumpkin who knew nothing at all, he still understood a few of the basic facts of life between men and women.
It took him only an instant to work out exactly what that hard thing jammed against his waist was!
God Almighty be his witness! In all seventeen years of his life, the poor wretch had never been violated in such an outrageous fashion by any man!
So he reacted at once, purely on instinct.
Back arched, knee drawn up... put your back into it...
RAM!!!
"Aaaah!!!" A shriek.
"Aaaah!!!" A howl of agony.