Chapter Thirty-three: Aunty Flo Pays A Visit

The three houses had taken eleven days to complete.

Lin Wan had not expected that. She had mentally prepared herself for weeks of slow, frustrating labour, of cracking test blocks and wrong ratios and four males looking at her like she had asked them to move the mountain itself, she had never had to build anything before, this was all thanks to watching videos online.

Instead, with four strong sets of hands and Qin Mo’s particular brand of focused precision driving the pace, the cob walls had risen faster than she had ever seen them go up back in any demonstration she had watched online.

One house for her and Wang. One for Keal. One for Da Jun.

Qin Mo had looked at the third house when it was finished, turned to Lin Wan and said simply, "I don’t need one," and walked back into his wooden house without further explanation.

Lin Wan had stared at his back for a moment.

’Weiwei,’ she had thought. ’Is he serious?’

[Host, the Beast King has lived alone in this caldera for six years. He is not accustomed to expressing need.]

Lin Wan had let it go.

That had been almost two weeks ago. Now she sat in the reclining chair Wang had built for her, the one she had described three times with increasing detail and hand gestures until he had gotten it exactly right, and looked out at the caldera with a cup of orange juice cold against her palm.

She swirled it once.

The orange juice had been Wang and Da Jun’s fault, technically. They had gone hunting and come back with meat and also, inexplicably, an armful of assorted fruits piled into a carrying hide. Most of them Lin Wan didn’t recognise. But sitting right in the middle of that pile like old friends were oranges, mangoes, a lemon, two pineapples and a small cluster of apples.

Lin Wan had screamed in delight at the sight.

Wang and Qin Mo, watching her face light up like that, had apparently made a silent agreement on the spot. Since then, assorted fruits, appeared every single day without fail.

Lin Wan was not going to question it.

She had already squeezed three oranges this morning, strained the juice through a piece of cloth and added just enough water to make it go further.

The seeds from yesterday’s batch were already planted in a flat patch of open ground she had cleared at the edge of the caldera. Every time she looked at that patch of turned earth her mind went somewhere pleasant.

She was there now, eyes half closed, cup at her lips.

An orange tree. No, three. A whole row of them, branches heavy, fruit dropping into the grass below, the smell of citrus sitting in the warm air of the caldera every morning like it had always been there.

She could practically feel the sun on the leaves.

The door of the wooden house opened.

Qin Mo came out carrying a clay plate, steam rising from the bowl set on it. Chicken broth, from the smell of it. Rich and savoury, with the faint sharpness of the wild herbs he had started adding since Lin Wan showed him which ones were good for flavour.

He set it on the low table beside her chair without a word and straightened up.

Lin Wan looked at the bowl. Then at him.

She honestly could not remember exactly when it had started. Somewhere in the second week, Wang and Qin Mo had quietly divided the labour of looking after her between themselves without consulting her or each other, or at least not within her hearing.

Both of them had, at separate times and without any coordination she could detect, begun preparing her bathing water before she asked for it.

It was a lot.

Lin Wan wrapped both hands around the warm bowl and looked up at Qin Mo standing there uncertain of what to do next.

She knew Qin Mo liked her. That part was not subtle, he made sure she knew. Right now, she, Wang and Qin are already family, all that’s left is for Qin to give her his mark, to complete the mission Weiwei had assigned her, thankfully Weiwei had extended the mission time.

The formal step that would begin the bond between them. But Qin Mo, for reasons that baffled Lin Wan on a daily basis, had not brought it up once.

She looked at him.

This man. This enormous, composed, terrifyingly capable man who had walked barefoot into mud without complaint and memorised every instruction she had given him from the first day, could not bring himself to say four words.

It was almost adorable.

Almost.

’Wang already said yes,’ Lin Wan reminded herself, feeling the corner of her mouth pull upward. ’So technically I’m just waiting for Qin Mo to catch up.’

She had decided last night, that she was done waiting.

She looked up at Qin Mo from under her lashes.

"Qin Mo," she said.

"Mn."

"Feed me."

Qin Mo blinked.

Lin Wan blinked back at him slowly, and then let her lips push out just slightly, the smallest, most deliberate pout she had ever deployed in her life.

The effect was immediate. The tips of Qin Mo’s ears went from bronze to a shade of red that Lin Wan had genuinely never seen on him before. It spread fast and he seemed to be aware of it because his jaw tightened slightly, which somehow made it worse.

Lin Wan lost the battle with her own face completely.

The laughter came out before she could stop it, bright and unguarded, making her bend forward over the bowl.

Qin Mo stood very still.

"You are doing this on purpose," he said.

"I would never," Lin Wan said, still laughing.

Qin Mo looked at her for a long moment, he reached over, took the spoon, scooped a careful portion of broth, and blew on it before holding it out to her.

Lin Wan, still smiling, leaned forward and took it.

It was good. It was always good now. Qin Mo had a precise instinct for seasoning that she had not expected from someone who had eaten unseasoned meat his entire life.

She looked up at him over the spoon.

Qin Mo looked back at her.

His ears were still red.

At the doorway behind them, Wang stood with his arms folded, watching his mate bat her eyes at the Beast King and watching the Beast King’s ears betray him completely.

Wang was satisfied at their present position, fulfilling the mark is all that’s left

He stood there for a while.

Then, seeing that neither of the two people in front of him were going to notice him anytime soon, he turned and went back inside. He cleaned the main room, straightened the sleeping space, and then carried two bowls of the remaining broth out through the side passage to where Keal and Da Jun were sitting outside their houses.

Da Jun took his bowl and looked toward the main area. "Is Lin Wan eating with the Beast King?"

"Yes," Wang said.

Da Jun looked at Keal.

Keal looked at Wang.

Wang said nothing and went back inside.

By the time breakfast was finished and the bowls were cleared, the sun had climbed high enough to warm the whole floor. Lin Wan stretched both arms above her head and looked out at the valley beyond the cave entrance, the trees visible at the far edges, the sound of the river carrying faintly on the air.

"I want to look around," she said. "I’ve been inside this place for almost a month. Those who don’t know, may think I’ve been locked up or dead, I need to see what’s out there, I need to move before I rust."

Wang nodded. "We’ll go."

Qin Mo nodded once. "I’ll take you through the east path. There’s a ridge that shows the full valley from above."

Lin Wan stood up quickly.

And then stopped.

She felt the warmth, low and immediately familiar, the kind that arrived without warning and with no concern whatsoever for timing or convenience. Lin Wan stood completely still.

’No,’ she thought. ’Not today. Not right now.’

Her body had no response to this except the warmth spreading further.

She pressed her knees together.

Then she began walking toward the house in a way that she was fully aware looked strange, short careful steps, her face going red in real time.

She did not look at the reclining chair. She did not dare look back at Wang and Qin Mo, She looked straight ahead at the door and moved toward it, with awkward steps.

She felt it the moment she was through the door. She went directly to the bed and dropped onto it face first.

The bed caught her. Soft, padded, built from exchanged materials and her own stubborn insistence that she was not sleeping on stone for the rest of her life. Right now she was very grateful for it.

Outside, the silence lasted approximately three seconds.

Then she heard it. The shift in the air that meant multiple large males had just registered something and were now moving. Footsteps. More than two sets. Someone was coming toward the house.

"Lin Wan." Wang’s voice, through the door. Controlled but with an edge she recognized. "Are you hurt?"

"I’m fine!" she called back, her voice slightly muffled by the bedding.

"You’re bleeding," Qin Mo said. Flat. Urgent under the flatness.

"I know," Lin Wan said. "I’m fine. Don’t come in."

A pause.

Then the sound of a third set of footsteps, lighter, moving fast, followed immediately by Keal’s voice from somewhere outside.

"Da Jun, stop."

"She’s bleeding, I just want to. . ."

"Da Jun." Keal’s voice dropped. "Come inside. Now."

"But. . ."

"Now!."

She heard the door close.

Inside their house, Lin Wan could faintly hear Keal’s voice, lower now, explaining something to Da Jun in short sentences. She couldn’t make out the words.

She didn’t need to, just the thought that everybody with their dog like nose knows she’s on her period, made her wish the ground would open and swallow her.

She rolled onto her back, stared at the ceiling, and addressed the immediate problem.

’Weiwei,’ she thought. ’I need sanitary pads. Or cloth. Anything. Please.’

[Ding! Host request acknowledged. Compensation dispensed.]

Something appeared in her hand. Lin Wan looked at it. Proper sanitary pads, the kind with adhesive backing, individually wrapped. She could have cried.

"Thank you," she whispered.

She handled herself, changed, and lay back down with a thin cloth over her lower half. The cramps had not started yet but they were coming, she could already feel the warning pressure building.

Outside the door, nobody had moved.

"Hot water," she called out. "That’s what I need."

Movement immediately. The sound of someone going to get it, two someones, both at the same time, which meant they had probably nearly walked into each other.

Lin Wan pressed one arm over her eyes.

Wang brought the pot. He set it just inside the door without crossing the threshold and withdrew. Lin Wan sat up, poured some into a cup and drank it slowly, holding the warm pot against her lower stomach with both hands.

Better. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

A little.

Through the door, she could hear them both still out there. Not pacing exactly. But not going anywhere either.

"You know," Lin Wan said, loud enough to carry. "If the two of you are going to make this kind of fuss every single time, we’re going to have a very exhausting few months ahead of us."

Silence.

"Every time?" Wang said.

"Every month," Lin Wan said. "Give or take."

The silence that followed this was a different kind of silence entirely.

Lin Wan lowered the pot from her stomach and looked at the door.

"...Wang?"

Nothing.

"Qin Mo?"

Still nothing.

She pushed herself upright and opened the door.