章 5: Chapter 5 To Eat or Not to Eat?_1
"What are you doing with this in your mouth?" Chang'e asked.
To Chang'e's surprise, Qin Shou rapidly scratched out a line of characters on the ground—he could actually write the characters of this world! The writing resembled Chinese characters but was different, seemingly traditional characters yet more complex and variable. However, he could still roughly make out their meaning.
"Wow! After teaching you for three thousand years, you finally can write, haha... I am indeed a genius teacher!" Chang'e exclaimed excitedly upon seeing the rabbit write.
Upon hearing this, Qin Shou almost collapsed on the spot! It took three thousand years just to learn to write? And a genius teacher? If you became a teacher on Earth, you could wipe out an entire civilization!
Nonetheless, Qin Shou quickly wrote another line of characters.
After her excitement subsided, Chang'e looked closely and saw that it read: "Why the hurry, eat later, stave off hunger."
"Silly, don't joke around. Eat earlier, and then lie down without moving to reduce energy consumption—that's the real deal. I feel like I could sleep until morning!" Chang'e laughed and waved her fists with joy, like a charming little girl who had just received a lollipop. Her pure, radiant smile warmed Qin Shou's heart, making him unconsciously grin along with her.
As Qin Shou's memories continued to merge with the rabbit's, he knew that Chang'e was never a quiet girl. On the contrary, she was lively and active, laughing like a little girl, so pure as if nothing in the world could penetrate and taint her heart.
This was a girl who shone with sunlight at all times...
Such a bright, such a happy smile, Qin Shou saw it on Chang'e's face for the second time. The first was when this body of Qin Shou was first bleeding from the nose, about to die, and Chang'e pulled him back from the brink of death...
But after the smile came a pang of heartache; it hurt him to see a girl following him around, having to stay still to minimize her energy usage as a way to fend off hunger. He suddenly felt a tremendous sense of guilt...
However, Qin Shou quickly realized something and rapidly wrote: "Aren't you a fairy, can't you absorb the energy of heaven and earth?"
Chang'e blushed slightly upon hearing this and replied somewhat shyly, "The Spiritual Energy here is too sparse, and also, I don't know how to cultivate. My little Magic was taught to me by a kind Immortal when I came flying here. He said I was born with the ability to absorb some of the energy of heaven and earth, and as long as I saved it up, I would eventually achieve something. But..."
She didn't finish her sentence and immediately changed the subject: "Let's not talk about this anymore, let's go get something to eat."
Chang'e might not have said it, but Qin Shou understood. Chang'e had saved up who knows how many tens of thousands of years of Spiritual Energy, and in the end, it had all been used to save his life!
For a moment, Qin Shou's feelings of guilt intensified. His mind raced, searching through the rabbit's memories, hoping to find something that could change their fate. Regrettably, the rabbit's memories were filled with nothing but eating...
Qin Shou knew that the rabbit's frantic eating was to absorb the remaining bits of Spiritual Energy from the osmanthus tree, all for the sake of survival!
The more he delved into the memories, the heavier his heart sank. He realized that as the intervals between his attacks grew shorter, the time Chang'e had to absorb Spiritual Energy diminished as well, soon becoming barely enough to keep him alive.
In other words, if he didn't find a way to reverse the situation, he was unsure if he could survive the next attack.
With this thought, Qin Shou rapidly wrote: "Come on, let's eat!"
Saying it was time to eat was, in fact, quite simple. Chang'e went to pick osmanthus flowers, then crushed them to serve as food for both of them. As for Qin Shou...
"To eat or not to eat?" Qin Shou looked at the rough bark of the osmanthus tree, wrestling with the decision internally. But recalling the desperate situation he faced, he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth wide: "Eat!"
Crunch crunch...
For a while, the grove of osmanthus trees was filled with the dense sound of someone gnawing on bark.
The taste of osmanthus tree bark was definitely not pleasant, but Qin Shou found that his teeth were incredibly strong. The bark, which seemed extremely hard, was chewed as easily as tofu and could be readily ground up and swallowed. His stomach was also fiercely voracious, like a bottomless pit—no matter how much bark he consumed, it would disappear in the blink of an eye! He had carefully felt it, once the bark entered his stomach, it indeed exchanged for a trace of Spiritual Energy that was almost imperceptible.
As long as it existed, that was enough!
According to the rabbit's memory, the tree bark contained more Spiritual Energy than the osmanthus blossoms, so if he wanted to prolong his life, gnawing bark was the quickest shortcut!
Qin Shou had a simple plan. He had to repeat the past actions of the rabbit—keep eating, eat crazily for 24 hours without stopping! As long as he didn't die of exhaustion, he wouldn't rest his mouth! In fact, if it weren't for the rabbit's continual consumption in the past, accumulating some Spiritual Energy in its body, Chang'e, who had only absorbed Spiritual Energy for a year, wouldn't have been able to pull him back from the brink of death.
Thus, at this moment, he felt all the more that the rabbit from the past, though silly and adorable, had a heart that was unyielding and persistent! His frenzied gnawing of tree bark was driven not only by fear of death but also by his tender feelings for Chang'e...
"Eat eat eat!" Qin Shou didn't know if the rabbit's soul had been revived or what, but his eyes would turn bloodshot at the sight of an osmanthus tree, and he'd start gnawing.
However, it wasn't long before Chang'e's call reached him, and worried that she might be anxious, Qin Shou quickly ran back.
"Little one, your mouth is all covered in bark, come here. Eat some osmanthus blossoms..." Chang'e didn't have a basket, but with her clothes she had scooped up a big bundle of osmanthus blossoms, her face alight with excitement. However, seeing the scratches on her face caused Qin Shou's heart to ache.
Chang'e didn't care much about it, as if the scar was on someone else's face, nor about her disheveled clothes, and she stuffed a handful of osmanthus blossoms directly into Qin Shou's hands.
Qin Shou tilted his head back, trying to dodge. In his view, osmanthus blossoms were far superior in taste and flavor to tree bark. Collecting osmanthus blossoms was not an easy task, as the osmanthus trees here were very tall, reaching up to a hundred meters!
Moreover, due to the lack of Spiritual Energy, each osmanthus tree bore few blossoms, and considering the ones that naturally fell off, the number of blossoms that could be gathered from climbing a single tree was very limited. The bundle of osmanthus blossoms Chang'e had was the result of climbing dozens of trees.
Looking at the scars on Chang'e's face and hands, his heart grew even more distressed. How could he swallow such a thing?
But Chang'e grabbed his mouth, pried it open forcefully, and Qin Shou, afraid of hurting her hand with too much force, allowed his mouth to be pried open and let her stuff the osmanthus blossoms inside.
Qin Shou suddenly felt like a peasant opening a duck's beak to force-feed it.
But even more overwhelming was the surge of emotion...
Looking at the scars on Chang'e's face, Qin Shou twisted his head forcefully, broke free from Chang'e's jade-like hands, took a piece of charcoal, and wrote on the ground: "You eat, I'm off to gnaw on bark."
After he spoke, Qin Shou ran off, ignoring Chang'e's calls behind him, disappearing into the night.
PS: Guess how the rabbit managed to stay alive?
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