*Flashback Continued*

  It took a whole week before Xu Mey woke up. Looking at the bamboo hut through her groggy eyes, she was really confused. That’s when her eyes fell on a tall boy’s figure sitting on the floor while leaning against the wall. She tried to get up but winced in pain.

  The boy lifted his eyes off the book in his hands and smiled at her. "Are you feeling better?" He asked while passing a glass of water from under the curtain.

  "I’m……" She felt her throat stinging. She took a sip of water before trying again, "Where am I?"

  "Oh! This? You’re actually in the Forest of fireflies."

  Xu Mey frowned. "There is such a place?"

  She heard a hearty laugh. "No, I’m messing with you. This forest is actually known as the Boundless Trees." Xu Mey nodded and took another sip of water as her dark black shoulder-length hair fell on her face covering it like a mask.

  "Ah! She’s finally awake." Ru came inside the hut and looked at Xu Mey. She sat closer to her and extended her hand to hold Xu Mey’s wrist to take a pulse but Xu Mey immediately curled herself in a ball in the corner with fear visible in her eyes.

  "You scared her!" Ye Jie complained while glaring at Ru.

  "What? If I don’t take her pulse, how would I know about her condition?" Ru argued righteously.

  Ye Jie scowled but he knew he couldn’t argue with Ru. Therefore, he looked at the curled figure in the corner, shivering and spoke gently, "Hey, don’t be afraid. I know that this friend of mine looks like a bad person but trust me, sh-" He almost called Ru as ’she’ before tactfully changing his words with a cough. "He can act like a good person once in a while. He even saved your life from the poisonous berries that you consumed. Let him take your pulse."

  With Ye Jie’s gentle coaxing voice, Xu Mey’s eyes shifted a little but she didn’t move. Ye Jie didn’t push her, he waited patiently for her. Sure enough, after a few more silent movements, Xu Mey stretched her arm towards Ru but from under the curtain. Ru took her pulse and said, "You’ve improved a lot in just a week. Now, mind telling us where are you from?"

  Xu Mey’s body started trembling with fear. "Okay…… Don’t talk……" Ye Jie started looking at her condition. "Just lay down and take some rest. We won’t talk about it at all."

  Ye Jie walked out of the hut with Ru. In the next couple of weeks, whenever Ye Jie came, he’d go inside the hut and try to talk to Xu Mey. Eventually, he managed to pull her out of the hut with him and brought her to the river that flowed through the forest.

  Because of her time in the rehabilitation center, Xu Mey had developed autism and with all the scars that she inflicted on her own body, she always covered her small face with her thick black hair. Ye Jie barely managed to see her black eyes once in a while.

  While both Xu Mey and Ye Jie were sitting at the shore listening to the sound of flowing water, Ru appeared from behind with a rabbit in her hand. "Hey, best friend! Should we cook this for dinner?"

  Xu Mey looked at the pitiful eyes of the cute rabbit and blurted out, "Are you a monster? That’s such a harmless creature." She turned to look at Ye Jie and said, "Senior brother, your friend is a barbarian. Stop him before he really kills the rabbit."

  Ye Jie stroked Xu Mey hair saying, "My dear junior sister, calm down! He won’t do anything to the rabbit."

  Ru was seething at the side as she said in her fury, "Who said I won’t do anything? This is definitely my dinner for tonight." She was acting stubborn and she knew it.

  Ye Jie came up to Ru’s side as Xu Mey watched the scene with interest. Ye Jie was talking to Ru but Xu Mey couldn’t hear anything.

  Meanwhile, Ye Jie said to Ru, "Stop acting like a stubborn person. You know that her mental state is not stable. Just drop the rabbit." Ru was definitely not convinced with his words and had no intention of listening to him either. "Can’t you do this much for your best friend?"

  Ru snorted before freeing the rabbit in her hands and said, "You should stop playing that friendship card." With that, she walked away.

  Day after day, Ye Jie started spending more time with Xu Mey since Ru was sent away by her family for some time. While taking care of Xu Mey, Ye Jie grew close to that timid and bashful girl.

  It had been over a month since Xu Mey was found by Ye Jie when he took her to the closest populous area which was a village named Guan village. He was going to leave in the next couple of days and he wanted to leave with beautiful memories. But both of them were unaware of the fact that since the time Xu Mey ran away from the rehab center, their security’s been looking for her everywhere. The forest where Ye Jie found Xu Mey was only 20 kilometers away from Kun village.

  While they were strolling around in the Guan village, Ye Jie left to buy something. As she was standing alone on the road, one of the security personnel saw her and then a dozen bulky men came up to catch her. Xu Mey didn’t even get a chance to scream as a hand covered her mouth and dragged her to the vehicle.

  When Ye Jie came back, he only caught sight of her clothes in the moving vehicle. "Junior sister!" he ran after the vehicle for a long distance but he couldn’t catch up to them.

  Running as fast as he could, he reached back to find Ru and managed to see her filling up bucket with water and hooking them on a stick placed on her shoulders, she was carrying the weight with her bare feet on the rocky path.

  Ye Jie ran up to her and said, "You have got to do something." Because of him jolting her a bit, the buckets fell down spilling the water on the ground.

  "Oi! What do you think you’re doing?" Ru burst up a bit. "These were the last buckets and since you spilled them, I have to start all over again."

  "I don’t care at the moment. Ru, you’re not listening. I said you have to save her." Ye Jie didn’t pay attention to her words at all. "They took her somewhere. And I don’t even know where."

  "Explain in words not in crosswords!"

  Ye Jie finally related the whole events to Ru and she patiently listened. After he was done, she picked up her buckets and went back to the river to fill them. Ye Jie stared at her dumbfoundedly. "Did you even listen to what I said?" he questioned.

  Ru turned with buckets over her shoulder and said, "I listened and I understood as well. But I can’t help you."

  "Why not?" He shook her shoulders making the bucket drop again.

  "Stop it!" Ru shouted taking Ye Jie by surprise. "Do you want to know why I don’t want to help? Then listen! First of all, can you see what I’m doing?" She pointed at the wooden buckets and continued, "This is my punishment for helping you in saving that girl’s life without anyone’s permission. I have to take 500 buckets of water to the clan head’s house. But since you dropped my last buckets, I have to do it all over again."

  While stretching her arms, she added, "Just because I’m taller than most kids around my age, you seem to forget that I’m only 12 years old, not 20 or something. And the second reason is, I don’t like weak girls and I don’t want a timid girl like that around me."

  Listening to her words, Ye Jie realized that he really seemed to forget always that she was only 12 years old and also, that Ru was a girl not a boy. "I just didn’t want to see that girl suffer. And as a friend, I thought you’ll help." He mumbled thinking about Xu Mey.

  *End of Flashback*