Chapter Five: I'll Listen to My Sister

In the stillness of the night, only the occasional crackling of firewood and the varying depths of breathing could be heard in the dilapidated temple.

Chen Qing leaned back against the cold base of the Buddha statue, seemingly resting with her eyes closed, but in reality, her consciousness was immersed in the system interface. She repeatedly browsed the store, waiting for midnight to pass so she could see the results of her two days of fasting diet.

Time passed by, minute by minute, and it was twelve o'clock.

Chen Qing immediately checked her weight loss points and found that they had indeed been updated. Her original weight loss points of 0 had now become 1300.

1kg can be exchanged for 1000 weight loss points, so she has lost more than two pounds?

Chen Qing has been here for three days. In these three days, she hasn't eaten or drunk anything. Given her high starting weight, she should have lost weight quickly in the early stages, but due to the poison Zhang Shi gave her, even without food or water, her weight loss is not ideal.

On this famine-stricken journey where food and clothing were scarce, losing sixteen pounds healthily was no easy feat.

The Zhang mother and daughter guarded against her thinness as if she were a thief, while the original owner's body, ravaged by drugs, had an outrageously slow metabolism.

Chen Qing insisted on not eating or drinking, even though she knew it was an unhealthy way to lose weight, in order to save some weight for later.

But how long can she hold on?

Hunger gnawed at her will like a persistent, stabbing pain. A burning, cramping pain shot through her stomach, and her throat was parched. She licked her chapped lips, forcing herself not to look at the sleeping people around the campfire, or the food that might be stored beside them.

Just then, a very faint rustling sound approached.

Chen Qing suddenly opened her eyes. In the darkness, her gaze was as sharp as a hawk's, accurately capturing a small, thin figure cautiously moving towards her.

It is Pei Xuan.

He moved like a wary wildcat, his footsteps so light they were almost inaudible. Seeing Chen Qing awaken, he paused, then quickened his pace, swiftly reaching her side and crouching down.

"Sister," he whispered, his voice low, carrying a hint of flattery and a barely perceptible probing. He pulled something from his pocket and quickly shoved it into Chen Qing's hand.

It was cold and hard to the touch; it was a coarse grain bun.

Chen Qing raised an eyebrow, using the shadow of the Buddha statue and the faint starlight as cover, and looked at Pei Xuan. His face was expressionless, only his eyes shone brightly in the darkness, as if they were filled with the words "Praise me quickly."

"Where did this come from?" Chen Qing asked in a breathy voice, not eating immediately. She hadn't forgotten that the relationship between this kid and Chen Jiao was a bit hard to figure out.

Pei Xuan pointed in the direction where Chen Jiao was resting and whispered, "That woman gave it to me, I didn't steal it, you should eat it."

He thought Chen Qing was complaining about the origin of the cornbread, and then he gave her a fawning smile.

Chen Qing held the cornbread in her hand; it was as hard as a rock. But at this moment, it was undoubtedly a lifesaver. She didn't suspect Pei Xuan of poisoning her. In this situation, if he wanted her dead, he could simply stand by and watch; there was no need for him to do anything more.

She was just a little curious as to why Pei Xuan had suddenly carried her away yesterday, and why he had come back today and was trying so hard to please her. What was his true intention?

But she didn't eat it. Accumulating weight loss points was her most important thing right now.

"I'm not hungry, you eat."

Chen Qing handed the cornbread back to him, her voice calm.

Pei Xuan was stunned, a hint of astonishment and confusion flashing in his eyes. He had personally witnessed Chen Qing's eyes turning green with hunger earlier, and now that food was being offered to her, she was refusing it?

"Sister..." He wanted to persuade her again.

Chen Qing interrupted him, her tone commanding and leaving no room for argument: "Eat what I tell you to eat. Only when you're full will you have the strength to do things for me."

Pei Xuan looked at her, remained silent for a moment, and finally took the cornbread, lowered his head, and began to nibble at it in small, very quick bites. He ate very quietly, and even the sound of his chewing was almost inaudible.

Chen Qing watched him wolf down his food while trying hard to control himself, feeling nothing. Expecting gratitude for kindness was one of the survival rules of chaotic times. She needed an obedient and useful dog.

"What did Chen Jiao say to you?"

After he had almost finished eating, Chen Qing spoke up calmly.

Pei Xuan swallowed the last bite of cornbread, licked the crumbs from the corner of his mouth, and told without any concealment how Chen Jiao had tested him to see if he knew Chen Qing, how she had pretended to care about Chen Qing not eating, and how she had finally ordered him to monitor Chen Qing's every move.

"She thought that my sister had a crush on me, which is why she gave me the food."

Pei Xuan added at the end, his tone carrying a hint of barely perceptible sarcasm.

Chen Qing scoffed. Just as she expected. Chen Jiao's petty schemes were no match for her.

"So how do you plan to report to her?" Chen Qing asked with great interest.

Pei Xuan raised his head and looked directly into Chen Qing's eyes. His beautiful eyes were filled with a calmness and cunning that were beyond his years: "Sister, I will say whatever you want me to say."

A perfect answer.

Chen Qing nodded in satisfaction: "Very good. Then tell her that I do like you a little, that I accepted the food you gave me, and that I want to take you to Cangcheng to find my fiancé."

She wanted to use Pei Xuan as her informant to give Zhang and her daughter the illusion that she was about to rise to a higher social status, so that she could force them to take drastic measures against her until they exposed their true colors.

Pei Xuan's eyes flickered slightly, as if he understood Chen Qing's intention, and he nodded solemnly: "I understand, sister."

"Go back to where you belong. Don't arouse suspicion."

Chen Qing waved his hand, closed his eyes again, as if nothing had happened.

Pei Xuan gave her a deep look, said nothing more, and silently disappeared into the darkness, just as he had come.

In the latter half of the night, the wind and snow seemed to intensify, with the gale-force winds whipping up snowflakes and seeping in through the cracks of the dilapidated temple, bringing a biting chill.

Chen Qing huddled in the corner, relying on a sliver of willpower to resist the dual torment of cold and hunger. The injury on his leg had mostly healed thanks to the system's healing medicine, but the weakness caused by excessive blood loss and physical exhaustion remained intense.

Sudden--

"Awooo—!"

A mournful wolf howl pierced the silent night sky, extremely close, as if it were right outside the dilapidated temple!

Then came more wolf howls, accompanied by the restless barking and whimpering of wild dogs.

The people in the temple were instantly awakened!

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Chen Jiao screamed in fright, tightly gripping Zhang Shi beside her.

Chen Zhenyan also suddenly stood up: "What happened outside?"

"Master! Something terrible has happened! There are more and more stray dogs outside!" A night watchman rushed in, his face filled with terror. "Those stray dogs... their eyes are all green! There are so many of them!"

Chaos erupted inside the temple. The women trembled with fear, and the servants, though armed with sticks and machetes, were pale with fright in the face of the ferocious pack of wild dogs.

Chen Qing's heart sank. She should have cleared out most of the stray dogs outside the dilapidated temple, so why were there a pack of them attacking her?

The only possibility is that these stray dogs came from elsewhere, drawn by the scent of blood.

The people she killed were probably just thrown out and not buried. The smell of blood from the cannibalism attracted even more wild dogs. These packs of wild dogs, accustomed to eating human flesh and starving, were extremely aggressive, and an ordinary campfire might not have deterred them.

"Quickly! Make the fire burn hotter! Add everything that can burn!" Chen Zhenyan remained relatively calm as he loudly gave the order.

The servants hurriedly added firewood, and the flames quickly rose higher, illuminating the temple brightly.

However, the howling didn't go away; instead, it grew closer. Through the cracks in the door, one could even see pairs of eerie, greedy green eyes gleaming in the darkness.

With a loud bang, the dilapidated wooden door shook violently, and the latch groaned under the strain.

"They're going to ram the door!" someone shouted.

Panic spread like a plague.

The screams of Zhang and her daughter in fear were incessant.

Chen Qing forced himself to calm down, and quietly gripped the dagger hidden in his sleeve with one hand.

There are only seven free bullets a day, and any extra bullets need to be purchased with weight loss points. We don't even know how many stray dogs are out there. Is it worth exposing our abilities for these people?

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The pack of wild dogs began frantically ramming the wooden door and the windows blocked by tables. The sound of breaking wood echoed continuously, and it seemed the defenses were about to be breached.

"Hold on! Hold on, all of you!" Chen Zhenyan shouted hoarsely, but involuntarily shrank behind the Buddha statue.

Chen Jiao and Zhang Shi hugged each other and cried together.

At this critical moment, Chen Qing suddenly stood up, her action drawing everyone's attention. Under the astonished gazes of the crowd, she strode towards Chen Zhenyan, who was being shielded by numerous servants.

"Father, how much food do we have left? If we want to survive, we can only feed these wild dogs and let them leave on their own."

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhenyan frowned and called over the butler: "How much food do we have left?"

The steward rushed over, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, and said, "Reporting to Master, there are still two sacks of dry rations left."

"Listen to the young lady, throw it out to feed the stray dogs!"

Chen Zhenyan made a quick decision; compared to his own life, this little bit of dry food was nothing.

"Throw the rations further away!"

Chen Qing gave instructions to his servants.

The window was opened, and stray dogs immediately tried to rush in. Fortunately, guards blocked them with knives, and someone else picked up a cornbread and threw it outside. Sure enough, some stray dogs were attracted by the thrown cornbread, and the collisions outside the temple gate decreased significantly.

"Great! Those stray dogs are gone!"

The servants cheered; they could live!

"Hurry up! Keep throwing! Feed them!" Chen Jiao quickly regained control, wanting Chen Zhenyan to praise her, and urged the servants to throw out the cornbread.

“No…” Chen Qing’s face was serious. She had excellent eyesight and saw that the stray dogs that had been chasing the cornbread did not eat it after discovering that it was just cornbread. They sniffed it and then ran back without any interest.

Having eaten human flesh and tasted meat, these wild dogs were no longer interested in cornbread.

"Stop throwing away cornbread! Do you have any meat? Throw the meat out!"

Chen Qing sternly stopped everyone.

Chen Jiao was startled and said in a sweet voice, "Sister, what nonsense are you talking about?! How can you throw meat to wild dogs? What will we eat if they eat it all?"

After she finished speaking, she looked to her mother for help, hoping to get her support.

Look how smart she is!

Aunt Zhang chimed in, "Yes, Qing'er, you're so ignorant of the hardships of ordinary people. That's meat! If you want to feed it to the dogs, we can feed them as much as we want when we get back."

"Ridiculous! Giving these stray dogs cornbread is already a favor; you expect to feed them meat?"

If he weren't still trapped in the dilapidated temple and unable to escape, Chen Qing would have loved to push all these idiots out to be fed to the dogs!

Pei Xuan went to the window to check. His eyesight wasn't very good late at night, but he kept staring and staring and eventually figured out what was going on.

"Those stray dogs don't seem to eat cornbread."

His voice was soft, but it landed like a thousand pounds in the dilapidated temple, so heavy that no one could speak!

"What! There are dogs that won't eat cornbread! What do they want to eat then?" Chen Jiao screamed.

"Master...Master! Those stray dogs are back again!"

The butler was so frightened by the stray dogs that they rushed back that he ran back in a panic to report the news.

Chen Zhenyan dared not delay any longer and could only order his men to quickly take out all the meat they had stored and feed it to the wild dogs.

"My roast chicken!"

"And my roast duck!"

Roasted pork belly!

Every time a type of meat was thrown out to feed the wild dogs, Chen Jiao and Zhang would scream in pain, and Chen Zhenyan's face would also be filled with regret.

He specially ordered the meat to be prepared for people fleeing the famine!

They threw them all out to feed the dogs, so what will they eat next?

Sure enough, the meat thrown out this time attracted the pack of wild dogs again. The dogs fought and howled for the food, their piercing cries lasting until the wee hours of the morning.

As dawn approached, the snow lessened. Chen Zhenyan decided that this was no place to linger and that he had to take advantage of the moment when most of the wild dogs were fighting over food to escape.

They breathed a sigh of relief when they were finally far away from the dilapidated temple and had left the howling of the wild dogs behind.

The snow was so thick that the carriage could barely move. Chen Zhenyan, along with his wife and daughters, sat in the carriage, which creaked and groaned, making it slower than walking.

Zhang looked at Chen Qing with disdain, "Qing'er, you're too fat. You're making the carriage unable to move. Why don't you get off and walk?"

Chen Qing leaned against the carriage with his eyes closed, pretending not to hear.

She was weak and hadn't eaten or drunk anything; going down to walk was no different from waiting to die.

"Exactly! Sister, you weigh almost four times as much as me, you'd better get down here!"

Chen Jiao also expressed her disdain.

Chen Qing opened her eyes, looked her up and down, and chuckled, "You shouldn't be that light, right?"

Chen Jiao's face turned green.

"Alright, enough talk, let's eat something first. We're heading to Qibao Town ahead, the road will be easier then."

The Zhang mother and daughter said no more. When the steward brought the food, they stared at each other wide-eyed at the dry rations placed in front of them, as if the sky had fallen, and shouted: "Wang Zhong! Stop right there! Where's the meat? Why is it all cornbread!"

Wang Zhong, a middle-aged man in his forties, had been the steward of the Chen family's villa for more than ten years. Upon hearing this, he said helplessly, "Reporting to the Third Miss, all the meat has been fed to the dogs. Now we only have cornbread to eat."

"father!"

"This..." Chen Zhenyan said helplessly, "Is there no meat left at all?"

"Reporting to Master, it's gone."

Chen Qing smiled and said to Wang Zhong, "Steward Wang, give me a steamed bun."