Chapter 574: Unconscious Man
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grand line
A desert country
Kassa, a small border town that is about to be forgotten.
In a simple rammed earth bungalow, an old woman with tanned skin, thin figure, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and slightly sunken cheeks was holding a small bowl with broken porcelain and carefully feeding water to a young man lying unconscious on the bed.
The lighting inside the house is poor, but compared with the scorching sun and scorching heat outside, this piece of shade seems extremely precious.
"Alas~ I don't know whose poor child this is. His family must be worried sick!"
The unconscious boy had a handsome face, and his furrowed brows added a hint of melancholy.
Watching the clear water in the bowl slowly becoming less, the woman touched her dry upper and lower lips, and her throat couldn't help but make a swallowing motion. She was also very thirsty, and the water must have felt especially sweet!
However, even though no one was watching, she did not put the bowl into her mouth. She fed the boy the entire small bowl of water. Until the end, when she saw a few water drops hanging at the bottom of the bowl, she could not bear to waste it, so she brought the bowl to her lips and licked it.
"Mother, I'm back!"
A clear and pleasant voice like that of an oriole came from outside the door, and then the door was pushed open, and a dusty figure walked in. The man was wrapped tightly, with only a pair of bright big eyes showing.
"My dear Ayusa! I'm so glad you came back safely!"
"Don't hug mother, I'm dirty!"
Ayusa stretched out her hand to stop the other party.
The woman ignored her and walked up to her and insisted on hugging her. Then she quickly went to the corner of the room, clasped her hands together, and expressed her gratitude devoutly towards the wooden sculpture of a whale on the table.
“Thank God for my child’s safe return!!”
"Hoo~!"
After entering the house, Ayusa first carefully put down the huge backpack behind her, then began to untie the headscarf wrapped around her head and took off her long coat, revealing her delicate face and good figure hidden under her clothes.
"Come on, drink some water first. I'll cook something for you now."
The woman quickly brought a bowl of water and said with concern.
"Mother, drink it yourself. Look at your chapped lips. I'm not thirsty. Have you forgotten that I went to exchange supplies? I'm carrying a large bag of water and dry food on my back. How can I be thirsty?"
Ayusa gently pushed the bowl to the woman's mouth, pointed to the bulging backpack on the ground and said.
"Oh yeah, look at me, I almost forgot."
Upon hearing this, the woman brought the bowl to her mouth. Her thirsty body had instinctively been drooling over the bowl of water for a long time. At this moment, she could no longer hold back and drank up all the water in the bowl in a few gulps.
"Oh, it's so hot~ It's so hot! The sun outside is really hot!"
Ayusa took off her clothes while talking, and soon she was left with only a pair of cool shorts and a bra that was just enough to cover her proud breasts.
The woman didn't say anything about girls being more conservative, because according to their local customs, girls tend to dress cooler.
In the past, celebratory dances would be held during the harvest season. Girls would dress up and wear sexy dancers' clothes to attend the dances. However, that was many years ago. In the past decade, there has been less and less rain, and in the past three years there has not been a drop of rain. The land under our feet has not produced a grain of food for a long time, let alone the joy of a good harvest.
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"How is it? Hasn't he woken up yet?"
Ayusa asked.
The woman nodded and sighed worriedly.
"He has been in a coma for four days. This poor child, there is no one here who can treat a disease, and we can't take him out to see a doctor. What a good boy, what will happen if he can't make it! Please bless him, God!"
As the woman spoke, she began to clasp her fingers together and pray devoutly.
"Oh, mother, he might have been knocked unconscious by pirates who robbed him of all his belongings and then dumped him in the desert. When I found him, he was lying naked in the desert. If I hadn't carried him back, he would have been dried up by the sun."
Speaking of this, Ayusa couldn't help but recall the scene at that time. When she thought about how an innocent girl like herself was carrying a naked man, even though she had a carefree personality, her face couldn't help but get hot.
"So just do your best. If you can't save him, it's his own bad luck. If we bury him and erect a tombstone for him, he will thank us in his dreams. Mother, don't blame yourself too much."
Ayusa advised.
"You can't say that. The Whale God will not give up saving every kind-hearted person lost in the desert. The God guided you to meet him in the vast desert. This is a rare fate. The God must want us to save him!"
"Hahaha, come on, mother, stop believing in gods all day long. There are no whales swimming in the desert. They are just a kind of spiritual sustenance made up by the merchants who walked in the desert in the past. If there really is a god, he shouldn't have watched us have no rain and no harvest for so many years."
Ayusa said with a smile.
"Pooh, pooh, pooh, Ayusa! You can't be disrespectful to the gods!"
"Aren't people saying that the caravan that is willing to trade with us and bring us food and water is also flying the "whale" flag? They must be the messengers sent by the Whale God to save the world from suffering!"
The woman firmly believed.
"Okay, I'm sorry, I made a slip of the tongue, I apologize to God! Please bless my mother!"
Ayusa soothed.
Life is hard enough, and it's a good thing for my mother to have a belief as a spiritual support.
The woman laughed when she heard this and asked again.
"Did the exchange of supplies with the caravan go smoothly this time?"
"It went smoothly, very smoothly! People from several towns near us went to trade. The mayor was worried that if we went too late, the Chamber of Commerce would have collected enough goods from others and would not want our goods anymore. He kept urging everyone to hurry up. Everyone was also anxious, worried that if they couldn't exchange for supplies, they would be doomed. So the team walked faster and faster. Mother, look, my shoes are worn out and I have several blisters on the soles of my feet."
"Come, I'll apply some medicine on you."
The woman hurriedly fetched a small clay pot filled with a dark, sticky liquid. Fortunately, the smell was not bad, but a unique herbal fragrance.
"I'll apply the medicine on you, and you sit down and continue talking. What happened next?"
The girl sat obediently on the edge of the bed, with her feet on her mother's knees.
"Later...Hahaha, it was itchy! So itchy!"
Feeling the gentle touch and coolness on her feet, Ayusa twisted her body violently and laughed.
The unconscious man on the bed was inexplicably elbowed several times and slowly opened his eyes.
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