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When Aleya opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a fire.

Then, she smelled the scent of meat.

Afterwards, she sensed that the clothes she wore were different. Her armor was removed, the blood-stained clothes were nowhere to be seen, and her current attire was a full, dry cotton outerwear.

Naturally, the one sitting in front of the fire barbecuing was me. Seeing Aleya wake up, I grabbed a stick of barbequed bear meat and placed it into her hand. Then, I shifted my seat right next to her side and took a bite of the barbequed bear paw in my own hands. Taking a bite ended up with my tongue being scalded by the still-hot meat, so I desperately breathed in and out to cool the sensation.

Aleya didn’t immediately eat up the meat skewer in her hands, instead apologizing:

“Sorry, young master. I promised to make simmer-fried bear paws for you.”

I gave her some perfunctory words:

“Barbequed is also quite delicious. Besides, I was just speaking casually. At the time, my anger was soaring through the roof……”

After I said my part, I went to brush the hair on my head, but sadly the hair on top of my head was nowhere to be felt. Fortunately, the hair on the sides of my head were still as lush as ever and there was enough to “provide assistance” to the middle-top area. With a lowering of my head, the front hair covering the bald spot fell back down and my egg-in-a-birds-nest spot came into full display. Aleya went ‘pfft’ and giggled softly.

She caught herself shortly after, drew a taut face, and said:

“It is Aleya’s fault for being incompetent and unable to protect young master.”

I bit into the bear paw’s meat. The fragrance hidden within the crispy golden barbequed skin burst out. Though the meat was a bit stiffer than I had expected, resembling jerky, its texture wasn’t at all like wood bark, but rather more of a chewy jerky. It was fortunate that I had brought all sorts of condiments with me like scallion powder, ginger powder, cooking wine, white sugar, fine salt, cumin, and so on. Apart from the relatively-more-expensive chili powder, all the other condiments were all on my person and was enough to season some mouth-watering food.

“What you’ve achieved is already pretty good. Even if there were many flaws. However, I know very well in my heart how you’ve followed me during those harsh years in Lingyun City, how hardworking you are and how many hardships you’ve gone through, as well as how you’ve cleaned up after my messes……the amount of times you’ve cleaned up after me is too many to count. But if we’re talking about how many times you’ve truly gone through life-or-die situations, then you’ve never gone through any. After all, there was only one thing that kept us safe at the time; the two of us relied on my status as the Overlord’s son to act tyrannically and commit ‘misdeeds’. It was also due to this that not many people dared to confront us on our behavior.”

This statement was indeed true.

The corners of Aleya’s mouth raised ever-so-slightly as she responded:

“Aleya has no guarantee that she can give young master that she will be able to beat her opponent next time. But regardless of who wishes to harm young master, they must all tread over Aleya’s corpse.”

She took a small bite out of the barbequed bear meat, her cheek bulging as she chewed.

I remarked:

“There’s no need to eat so attentively. Look over there for example, doesn’t do **** yet still eating with extreme happiness.”

After I finished speaking, I pointed a finger over at the Red-Mane Bear’s corpse.

Aleya looked over at where my finger pointed and immediately saw a slime on the Red-Mane Bear’s stomach gorging itself. In my opinion, this slime’s face was really too thick. It didn’t exert any strength when it came to the fight, then pestered me until no end to eat after the fight was over. I cut the Red-Mane Bear’s two paws and some tender meat for skewers, then its semi-circle mane and put it away with the shining horn before finally throwing the remaining corpse at the slime.

The slime seemed to apparently understand my complaint since it turned its body to ‘biijii biijii’ at me in what seemed to be a protest.

After Aleya finished eating the meat skewers in her hand, she suddenly whispered to me:

“Young master, my clothes……”

I replied without any unnaturalness:

“Not a problem, I saw that it was dirty so I simply helped you change. I helped you wash that set of clothes clean, it should be dry soon.”

Aleya lowered her head and mumbled in a low voice:

“Young master……”

I patted Aleya’s shoulder and consoled:

“Don’t worry, Aleya.”

Aleya lifted up her head in confusion. I gave her a thumbs-up and exposed a clear and bright smile:

“Even though it might not be sufficiently ample now, it will one day grow.”

Aleya stared blankly at me and slowly began showing a smile, but the corners of her lips seemed to be trembling violently and it was clear as day that her false smile couldn’t be maintained for long. I leaned my head upwards and gazed towards the sea of stars glittering in the sky. The only thought that came into my mind was that the Big Dipper really resembled the lying down Aleya. Her fair figure when I was helping her change clothes emerged in my mind. I held the small bamboo skewer in my mouth as I reclined onto the grassy lawn and couldn’t help but remark:

“But as far as I’m concerned, you, accompanying my side, are beautiful regardless of what growth stage you’re in.”

I didn’t go check up on Aleya’s reaction nor did I tease her again.

But I could feel that the resentful and aggrieved aura by my side scattered.

Frankly, this place here is much more free than Lingyun City.

There’s no need to listen to my older brother’s mocking and ridicule, no need to behave a certain way according to my dad’s complexion, no need to meet people pointing fingers at me every day.

The sea of the stars in the sky is pretty and the girl by my side is the one I like. Except for the hindrance known as the slime, there’s basically nothing for me to be fussy about.

But before long, I sensed something covering up my line of sight.

Several golden small balls circled in my eyes.

I sat up swiftly and then discovered that it was the little slime hopping over. After it finished eating the Red-Mane Bear, it had changed its appearance. Its pale golden body had somehow gone back to its colorless state for some unknown reason while the golden splendor condensed into 6 small spheres slowly rotating around its surroundings. It very much looked much like satellites orbiting an equator.

“Biijii!”

The slime called out. Two of the six spheres floated out, went over to grab the other bear paw that had been roasting by the bonfire, and passed it over into my hands. I reached out to accept it and the slime, upon seeing this, rotated its main body as if to show off to me.

I patted its head and said:

“Indeed you’re very sensible. You knew that I still hadn’t eaten my fill so you specially made some curry fishballs for me.”

After speaking, I reached out to grab the pale golden spheres by its body.

The little slime ran away in fright, shivering as it hid behind a tree.