70. After match

Mei Lin didn't answer and after waving with her hand, two spirit fruits appeared. Xia took one and started eating it. Xia ate the fruit in no time and went to add more wood to the fire. "I am still hun…"

Xia stopped complaining as she saw deadly pale Mei Lin. Unlike yesterday, Mei Lin looked much worse and her face was much paler than before and Mei Lin didn't even open her eyes. "Hey Mei Lin, are you all right, you look much paler than yesterday."

Mei Lin was in a trance from blood loss and she couldn't focus on Xia and what she was talking about. Mei Lin tried to grab one of the fruits and before she managed to do that, Xia stopped her.

"Are you hungry? Do you want to eat?" Mei Lin mumbled something, which Xia didn't understand, but from what Mei Lin wanted to do, she picked up the second spirit fruit and started feeding it to Mei Lin.

It took a while, but Xia managed to feed the whole spirit fruit to Mei Lin. "Do you want another one?" Asked Xia, but Mei Lin already hid her hand under the blanket, once again not responding to Xia.

"What about your neck? Do you have some bandages or something?" Xia took the blanket and pulled her off Mei Lin. Mei Lin didn't have any strength to stop her and she uncovered her body.

Mei Lin was thoroughly covered by her red robe, with only her neck exposed. Xia looked at Mei Lin's neck and saw raw, exposed flesh. It looked disgusting and extremely painful, with a few veins clearly visible and blood strangely moving through them.

In Mei Lin's hand appeared a green corked bottle. Xia looked at the bottle and opened it. Instantly, a rich fragrance of herbs filled the air, and Xia felt she could breathe much better with just one inhale.

Xia saw, that inside were six small green pills. "How many pills do you want?" "No."

Xia didn't understand, so she rolled out one pill. "Comon open your mouth. I will give you one pill all right?" Xia fed Mei Lin one of the pills and corked the bottle once again. Then she placed the bottle into Mei Lin's hand and the bottle disappeared.

Meanwhile, Xia carefully undid Mei Lin's robe, exposing her chest. Mei Lin's small breasts emerged, and Xia took in the sight of her bruised body. Mei Lin's ribcage appeared like a desolate battlefield, her skin dry and as pale as her face.

Xia didn't mind Mei Lin's deadly white skin, but the sight of her ribcage was concerning, and the dried skin looked unusual like it was dried off blood. "Did you get injured fighting the bandits?" Xia asked, her voice filled with worry. "Your wounds look severe. You shouldn't move too much until they've healed properly."

"No, we need to… We should resume our way into cit. We can't sty her for long. We cant protkt ourslf agan badits."

Xia didn't understand Mei Lin's attempts to say, so she ignored her. Mei Lin was too exhausted, so she let Xia do whatever she wanted and slowly fell asleep once again. Xia wanted to help Mei Lin but had no idea how.

*****

A few hours later.

Mei Lin woke up as Xia tried to tend to the injury on her neck. Mei Lin's eyes opened a little, but she could barely see Xia. Her eyes kept closing, but Xia had prepared hot water for Mei Lin to drink. Being only ten years old, Xia didn't have much except basic survival items, and no bandages. Her brother had carried all the medical supplies, leaving Xia with just a few cooking utensils.

"Mei Lin, can you hear me? We need to get to the city as fast as possible. We can't stay here; the bandits will surely come back, and we can't escape like this. We're also nearly out of food, so try to get up. We need to go."

Mei Lin couldn't get up alone, but with a lot of help from Xia, she managed to sit up and drink a little water. Mei Lin felt like throwing up but was too exhausted to do so. As the water dribbled down her chin, it found its way into her exposed neck wound, making her feel worse than dying.

Blood tears instantly started flowing from Mei Lin's eyes as she looked at Xia. Xia saw the tears streaming down Mei Lin's face and realized that the hot water had seeped into her wound, causing immense pain. Xia quickly stopped feeding her and laid her back on the mat. Mei Lin continued to cry, but not as intensely as before.

"I am sorry, I didn't know…"

Xia drank the rest of the water and added the last parts of the wood to the fire. Wood starts quickly screeching at start burning, heating the tent more and more. Xia placed the blanket tightly on Mei Lin not letting her exposed neck outside.

Mei Lin's face looked suddenly much better than before, but Mei Lin looked still bad. Xia prepared everything and was waiting for the new water to boil. After the water was boiled, Xia woke up Mei Lin once again.

"Mei Lin, do you have something for storing the water in? We need to make some supplies for the journey, so we don't need to boil them every time we need to drink."

Mei Lin was already a little bit more sane, so she waved her hand and pot appeared on the blanket. It took Xia more than half an hour to till the pot up, and then, Mei Lin stored the sealed pot back in her storage ring and Xia picked up the tent, she helped Mei Lin to get up and placed the mat and tent in the storage ring.