Mm... ah...
Yuxuan furrowed her brow tightly, wriggling back and forth in her bedding like a caterpillar.
Her lower abdomen felt awful. She had drunk too much water and really needed to pee.
Resisting the discomfort, she slowly unzipped the tent just a crack.
A fresh, chilly night breeze rushed over her face, carrying the damp fragrance of earth, accompanied by the crisp chirping of distant frogs.
So cold. She really didn't want to get up.
Why did this body even have physical needs? Weren't otherworldly beauties supposed to be free of such troubles? They were all liars.
This situation was just like waking up in the dead of winter—she simply didn't want to move at all.
Could she hold it a little longer? If she went out now, she'd have to rewarmed her bedding all over again when she got back.
Gurgle, gurgle...
Ah, she had wondered what that was—it turned out her dear little stomach was starting to churn.
No, she couldn't hold it anymore.
Yuxuan scrambled up quickly, not even bothering with shoes, and ran toward the distant woods. She found a relatively secluded spot. Who would be out in the forest in the middle of the night? So Yuxuan let down her guard completely.
After finishing her business, Yuxuan slowly emerged from behind a tree, a faint flush tinging her cheeks.
Hmph!
This feeling was so bizarre. Wearing a whole new set of equipment, she felt rather awkward.
Alright, alright, she had better hurry back. She was dying of sleepiness.
As she groped her way back step by step, the glow of a fire lit up by the nearby river.
Torchlight? Deep in the mountains in the middle of the night, why would anyone be here?
All sleepiness vanished from Yuxuan's mind in an instant. She perked up and crouched down in a clump of bushes.
The torchlight drew closer and closer, reaching the riverbank, and the sound of voices drifted over.
"Ah, I wanted to go to the celebration banquet too. We clearly worked so hard to defeat the Demon King, yet in the middle of the night we have to be sent out by The Church to look for some amulet."
An amulet? That must be the thing stuck right in her chest.
How hateful! The Demon King was already dead, wasn't it normal to lose a few items? There was no reason to reclaim something after it had already been used.
Yuxuan parted the branches with her hands to find a better view, and quickly counted about five or six people approaching her direction.
Great, now she couldn't slip away even if she wanted to. She'd better just hide here for a bit.
"Didn't you drink enough at the afternoon banquet? The first squad should have already checked around the vicinity at noon and found no trace."
So they had already come looking for her at noon. That must have been when she was out gathering fruit—thank goodness for that timing.
"I mean, does an amulet really need such a big fuss? Now that even the Demon King has been defeated, couldn't they just consider it a contribution? Why deploy three armies to search for it?"
"That amulet holds the most intense aura of the Goddess and was forged with a year's worth of painstaking effort. Even if it counts as a contribution toward eliminating the Demon King, we still have to make a symbolic effort to find it."
"What do you mean by symbolic? Do you think I'm blind? I was right beside the Demon King back then and saw it throw the head with the Goddess Amulet embedded in the center."
"Yes, yes, I wouldn't dare. Captain, so let's just find it quickly and hurry back to sleep, shall we?"
"There's a tent over here, Captain."
Oh no. Oh no. She'd been spotted after all. What should she do about her leftover fruit? To get back into the bedding sooner, the inside probably still retained some warmth.
No, as soon as they walked past, she'd have to make a run for it.
Wait, wait, wait! Who are you? Your teammates all ran over there, what are you coming over here for?
Yuxuan heard the sound of a zipper—the exact sound of a man unzipping his pants to use the restroom.
Brother! I'm begging you not to pee here, I've never been so humiliated in my entire life!
He carefully unzipped his pants, looked up at the night sky, and began to pee.
The sound of flowing urine was exceptionally clear in the silent night. After finishing, he gave a comfortable shiver, straightened his clothes, and rejoined his teammates.
Ancient history had Han Xin's humiliation under the crotch; modern history had Yuxuan's humiliation of being pissed on.
You're dead! I'm marking this grudge!
If it weren't for the fact that there were so many of you, I'd definitely make your little thing look just like mine!
"Captain, did you find anything inside the tent?"
"This must be some kind of small beast. It probably came here to sleep—look, the bedding even still has a bit of warmth."
"Why couldn't it be someone spending the night here?"
"Who in their right mind would spend the night here? These are the Raymond Mountains, and besides, there's a pile of blue alien fruit right here."
"No way, seriously? If you eat those without properly preparing them, you'll get diarrhea. What kind of beast is so fierce to eat so many?"
"Keep your voice down. I don't want eight of us going out and seven coming back. If you attract any beasts, we'll sell you out first."
"I was wrong, Captain. Don't be like that."
As the Knights' voices gradually faded into the distance, Yuxuan carefully poked her head out of the bushes, and after confirming the surroundings were empty, she jumped out.
The very first thing she did was quickly untie the heavy overcoat she was wearing and throw it without hesitation into the small river flowing nearby.
If it weren't for the fact that this damn coat had a hood, she probably would have lost her temper and confronted him long ago!
Well, for now, she'd just let it soak in the river water and dry out; maybe she could still manage to wear it somehow.
Hearing that captain mention seeing the item with the Goddess Amulet thrown away, and dispatching a squad to search for it, made this little thing seem rather important indeed.
Actually, she had tried to take it off before, but no matter how hard she tried, it was no use, as if it had embedded itself deeply into her body.
As for the beasts in these mountains, Yuxuan wasn't particularly worried.
Anyway, she could practically be considered a monster herself now. Those beasts would be lucky not to run away in terror upon seeing her, let alone dare to provoke her on purpose.
Honestly, not only was her nice tent messed up, but there were also these rotten fruits. The color looked wrong at a glance—they really were what gave her diarrhea!
The more she thought about it, the more irritated she felt. The bedding she had finally warmed up had turned ice-cold again.
Furious!
Strange, what was wrong with her anyway? It was just warming up the bedding again, was such a huge emotional fluctuation necessary? It must be because she'd been too tired lately.
This sleep was exceptionally sweet and deep for Yuxuan.
It wasn't until the sun was high in the sky and at its most scorching that she slowly woke up.
Actually, she was still quite sleepy and didn't want to get up at all, but unfortunately, being by the river, there were simply too many bugs.
Last night, just because she had carelessly forgotten to zip up the tent, she had been bitten by mosquitoes to the point of insomnia.
Rubbing her sleepy eyes with one hand, Yuxuan sat up and looked down to find her arms covered in red mosquito bites.
Living in the wilderness like this for long wasn't a solution... but before that, she'd just have to make do for a while.