The Fortunate Lady and Her Mountain Man

Chapter 227: Chapter 227: All Hope Lost

"You need to eat something light for a while. This will have to do for breakfast. I’ll make you fish soup for lunch."

Ji Huan cooled the lightly salted vegetable congee with a spoon and placed it on the kang table, which she had also brought from home.

After the long night’s ordeal, the wanderer was clearly drained of both physical and mental energy.

Even so, the moment Ji Huan pushed the door open, his eyes snapped open—an almost instinctual alertness.

Ji Huan had already formed some rough guesses about his identity, so she wasn’t surprised.

She tossed out a "Wait here" and turned to go back to the kitchen.

After she left, the wanderer tried to get up, only to find his limbs had turned to stone, completely unresponsive. Even the slightest movement sent pain shooting deep into his bones.

His brow furrowed, but he refused to give up. After several attempts, a light sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.

When Ji Huan came back in carrying a basin of water, the first thing she saw was the wanderer supporting himself on his elbows, struggling to push himself up into a sitting position.

"Don’t move!"

Ji Huan set down the basin, rushed over, and placed a hand on the wanderer’s back to help him lie down again.

Her first instinct was to check the wounds on his limbs, but the window wasn’t open yet, and she couldn’t see anything through the thick plaster casts and gauze.

She glared at him irritably. "How do your wounds feel? Is the pain a lot worse now?"

The first day after surgery is always the most painful.

Plus, one had to be extremely careful while the cast was on, avoiding any falls or slips. This was the crucial period when the Achilles tendon was healing, and it could easily rupture again.

The wanderer, however, was calm and didn’t avoid her gaze at all.

His dry, chapped lips parted slightly as he shook his head. "They didn’t tear open."

"Just because you say they didn’t, that makes it true? Are you the doctor, or am I? Didn’t I just tell you to wait? Do you have any idea how difficult your surgery was? And the difficulty is secondary! If that tendon of yours breaks again, you can forget about it ever healing properly for the rest of your life!"

Ji Huan didn’t hold back in her scolding at all.

The wanderer’s actions showed a complete lack of respect for her and Xin Ziqi’s hard work.

’Besides, does this guy think he’s some kind of superman? No matter how determined you are, you can’t joke around with your own body.’

The wanderer listened quietly without any reaction.

Her anger subsided, and Ji Huan said with a sigh of resignation, "Let me help you sit up."

She supported the wanderer’s left arm while her other hand gently cradled his shoulder. Applying force in both places, she managed to help him into a sitting position.

She adjusted the position of his legs, then quickly rolled up the cotton quilt into a bolster and tucked it behind the wanderer’s back so he could lean against it comfortably.

After washing his face and helping him rinse his mouth, she finally moved the kang table closer.

Ji Huan picked up the spoon, about to hand it to him, but then she glanced at his casted right hand and his left hand, which, though not in a cast, was wrapped in so much gauze it resembled a rice dumpling.

She paused, then picked up the bowl as well.

"I’ll feed you."

Her words were an offer, but her tone left no room for argument.

The wanderer must have understood, because when the spoon reached his lips, he hesitated for only a moment before opening his mouth.

The room was quiet. No one spoke throughout the entire process. The only sound was the soft clinking of the spoon against the rim of the bowl, crisp and pleasant in the bright morning sunlight.

If one ignored the man’s face, the scene could have been worthy of a painting.

However, neither of the two people involved seemed to think so.

From start to finish, Ji Huan never avoided looking at the wanderer’s face. She maintained direct eye contact, feeling neither pity nor fear, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

The wanderer was even more composed.

Though he didn’t often meet Ji Huan’s gaze, whenever their eyes did meet, his were a sea of tranquility.

It wasn’t a forced composure, either. Ji Huan could tell that he truly didn’t care about his appearance, nor did he feel self-conscious about it or apologetic for frightening people.

One fed and the other ate, their coordination surprisingly harmonious.

The vegetable congee was soon finished. Ji Huan then took a bowl of steamed egg from her food basket, lifting the small inverted bowl that covered it. Steam wafted out.

"I steamed this for my little brother. You get to enjoy some too."

The wanderer stared at the pale yellow substance in the bowl, a slight crease forming between his brows, but it vanished so quickly that Ji Huan didn’t notice.

When the steamed egg was also finished, Ji Huan cleared everything away and helped the wanderer lie down again.

"For the next few days, you just lie here and rest obediently. Don’t try to get out of bed for now. We’ll see how things are in a few days, understand?"

In truth, he could get out of bed once the pain subsided, but he would need crutches, couldn’t stand for more than a quarter of an hour, and had to keep his injured limb off the ground.

Both of the wanderer’s legs were in casts, which would make it difficult to keep one off the ground. However, the cast on his right leg was just for show, so it didn’t require much consideration.

To put it bluntly, Ji Huan was doing this on purpose. It was his own fault for not listening.

Seeing the wanderer nod, Ji Huan picked up her basket and was about to leave when she suddenly stopped.

"Um... do you need to take care of... your personal business?"

The wanderer turned his head to look at her, a hint of confusion in his eyes.

Ji Huan coughed. "You know... to relieve yourself..."

The wanderer’s face seemed to freeze as he stared blankly at Ji Huan.

"If you need to, just wait a minute. I’ll get someone to come help you."

Ji Huan kept a straight face, trying her best not to let her expression change.

With that said, she left the room briskly, remembering to pull the door shut behind her.

In the quiet room, only the wanderer remained, still not quite processing what had just happened.

’Why can’t I say things I’m used to saying just because I’m in a different environment?’ Ji Huan grumbled to herself after leaving the earthen hut.

’Then again, the setting is different. I really can’t be too direct, or I’ll sound like some kind of hooligan.’

Ji Huan went home, washed the bowl and chopsticks, and then led Dabao to the Hu family’s home.

Besides finding someone to help, she was also thinking about something else. She wondered if Hu Liang was back from the Cao family’s house yet...

Hu Liang had returned from the Cao family’s home late last night, and he brought back some shocking news.

"They agreed to call off the engagement?"

Ji Huan’s reaction was identical to that of the rest of the Hu family when they first heard the news.

She just couldn’t understand it. After making such a huge scene—with threats of hanging and suicide—they just agreed to break the engagement so easily... What were they after?

Widow Xie didn’t care what they were after. As long as everyone was safe and the engagement was off, nothing could be better.

Because of this, even her face, which had been gloomy for days, finally brightened up.

Even Hu Ximei was in a noticeably better mood.

Hu Liang, on the other hand, looked utterly heartbroken.

Ji Huan used the excuse of needing Hu Liang’s help to leave the Hu family’s home with him.

On the way to the earthen hut, Ji Huan asked hesitantly, "Did Cao Yunyun agree to it too?"

"She said that if I insisted on breaking the engagement, she would kill herself."

’That’s more like it,’ Ji Huan thought.

"So what did you say?"

"I..." Hu Liang opened his mouth.

"I told her that if she died because of this, I would give her my life in return, but I would absolutely never marry her."

"..."

’No wonder something seemed off when I saw him today. The base of his ears and his neck are covered in scratch marks.’

’I thought at first that Widow Xie had scratched him, but now it seems it must have been the Cao family.’

After all, they had invited him over, ostensibly to talk sense into their daughter, but in reality, to repair their relationship.

But what does he do? With one sentence—that he would never marry Cao Yunyun—he slammed the door on all possibilities.

He had spoken so definitively, it would have been hard for Cao Yunyun not to give up hope.

Naturally, the Cao family wasn’t going to show him any mercy after that.

When Hu Liang spoke again, his voice was steeped in bitterness.

"Sometimes I think about it, and I feel like I’ve wronged her. We’ve been engaged since we were children. If she hadn’t insisted, it would have been called off long ago... But I don’t understand why she’s become like this... She’s not a bad person, she’s just muddle-headed. But that muddle-headedness almost cost Ximei her life. In the future, could it harm my mother, my brother, and my two nephews..."

This was the fundamental reason that pushed Hu Liang to make his final decision.

Hu Liang didn’t have strong feelings about Mrs. Wang, the instigator, but when it came to Cao Yunyun...

It could only be said that the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.

One might forgive being hurt by a stranger. But being hurt by the person closest to you, the one you trust the most? That is absolutely unforgivable.

"But when I think about how she almost... because of this... my heart..."

Seeing his distress, Ji Huan didn’t offer any particular words of comfort.

"It’s normal to feel a sense of guilt. You should ask yourself, do you regret it?"

Hu Liang considered this question seriously for a long time before finally, slowly shaking his head.

"I know in my heart, I really can’t marry her anymore."

Even if he were willing to give Cao Yunyun another chance, Widow Xie and Hu Ximei would never agree to let her marry into the family.

And he could never, under any circumstances, abandon the family he depended on for the sake of love.

"Then just look forward! Find something to keep yourself busy, and you won’t overthink things."

Hu Liang was a little lost, unsure of what he should do.

Ji Huan stood at the fork in the road leading to her house. She pointed toward the earthen hut across the way, repeated the instructions on how to help the wanderer, then waved goodbye and led Dabao home.

Hu Liang stood rooted to the spot. He looked at Ji Huan’s carefree retreating back, then at the earthen hut, and all his sentimental melancholy vanished in an instant.

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