Chapter 313: Two Sleeping Beauties?
"Sister Faye, Miss Faye, where are you?"
’I’m sorry, Little Red Riding Hood. I misjudged you. You’re a true friend after all.’
Faye Yardley quickly ran out of the cave, climbed to the highest point, and shouted toward the direction of the voice, "Little Red Riding Hood, we’re over here!"
Sitting in the carriage on the way back, Little Red Riding Hood apologized sheepishly, "Sorry, when the storm hit, we just focused on running for our own lives."
"There’s nothing wrong with that. You have to ensure your own safety before you can save others. You did the right thing." Faye Yardley pointed to the two people sleeping soundly in the carriage. "See? You only came back to save us after you were safe yourselves."
The Frog Prince said happily, "See, Little Red Riding Hood? I told you to relax. Miss Faye and the others are reasonable people. Once we get home, I’ll have a doctor come over and check on them. They’ll be fine."
"They’re not seriously hurt. They’ll probably be fine after they sleep it off." Faye Yardley genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with the two unconscious people.
’It’s not like they both fell into the sea and simultaneously turned into ’Sleeping Beauties,’ right?’
’If two Sleeping Beauties kiss each other, will they both wake up?’
When Little Red Riding Hood and the others helped bring them back to their house in the village, they attracted a crowd of onlookers, but Faye Yardley politely sent them all away.
Suddenly, there were only three people left in the house, two of whom were still in a strange, unconscious state.
Faye Yardley actually did it—she physically made the two unconscious people kiss each other. Unsurprisingly, no miracle occurred.
So, ignoring the two people lying on the bed, she went to the kitchen to try and make mushroom soup.
What she didn’t know was that as she was using a torch to light the fire and prepare the mushroom soup, the two people on the bed woke up one after the other.
They stared at each other, unable to believe there was a person of the opposite sex lying next to them.
Both spoke in unison, "Did you save me?"
Faye looked at him and knew he definitely wasn’t the one who saved her. ’It must have been my sister then,’ she thought. ’Where is she?’
She sat right up, calmly got out of bed by stepping over the dazed boy, and walked out of the room to see smoke already curling from the kitchen chimney.
Arriving at the kitchen, she saw her younger sister, just as she’d expected, trying to make mushroom soup.
"Oh, Sister, you’re awake! Hold on, I’m about to put in the orange-red mushrooms now."
Faye Yardley turned to greet her, then immediately refocused on the pot of soup in front of her.
It couldn’t be helped. There was nothing to eat in the house besides mushrooms, and she had to learn to make mushroom soup herself here, or they’d easily run short on food.
Even if she had some things secretly stashed in her backpack, now wasn’t the time to eat them.
At least, this wasn’t an emergency.
So she had to seize the opportunity to learn the things she needed to do herself.
Faye walked in and watched her with a serious expression, carefully adding the ingredients and stirring in the same order she herself used to. She couldn’t help but nod. "Faye, you’re learning very well."
After all the mushrooms were in the pot, Faye finally asked, "By the way, who’s the boy lying on the bed? Did you rescue him?"
"I don’t know who he is," Faye Yardley decided to tell a white lie. "After you were swept away by the waves, I went to save you and saw you holding onto him, so I brought you both back home together."
"Is that really what happened?"
Faye Yardley nodded emphatically. "Yes. Why else would I bring a stranger home?"
The boy at the door looked at the two sisters with immense gratitude and thanked them sincerely, "Thank you for saving me. Please give me a chance to repay you."
Faye turned and shook her head. "There’s no need."
But Faye Yardley spoke at the same time as her, "Of course."
She looked at Faye in surprise, only to see Faye looking back at her in astonishment.
Faye Yardley said matter-of-factly, "Isn’t it only right to be rewarded for saving someone? If everyone just assumes that saving a life should be done without expecting anything in return, who would be willing to proactively save people in the future?"
"Faye, how can you think like that? The original intention behind saving someone is definitely not to get a reward."
"The original intention, no. But receiving a reward would encourage others who are considering it to join the ranks of rescuers. Isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?"
Seeing them starting to argue because of him, the boy quickly said, "I’m sorry, this is my fault. Let me introduce myself. My name is Ace. May I know your names?"
"Faye." Faye turned and pointed to Faye Yardley beside her. "My younger sister, Faye."
And just like that, the topic seemed to be dropped.
’Faye Yardley didn’t see any problem with asking for a reward, but her sister, Faye, thought they shouldn’t. Should she act the same way as her sister here? Or would it be better to pretend she’d been convinced?’
After some thought, however, she decided not to dwell on it for now. Instead, she turned to the boy at the door and asked, "Ace, where’s your home? If you’re okay, can you find your own way back?"
Ace glanced at Faye, then shook his head. "I don’t know. Can I stay with you for a while?"
Only Faye could answer that question, so Faye Yardley looked at her too.
As expected, Faye was kind. "It’s fine for you to stay, but we don’t have much to eat in the house, so you can’t be picky."
"Of course I won’t be picky. Thank you... both."
And so, there was one more person in the house.
While drinking the mushroom soup, Faye Yardley’s brows were tightly furrowed. She couldn’t understand why, despite using the same mushrooms and the same steps, the soup she made tasted so worlds apart from the soup Faye made.
"Don’t be discouraged, Faye. It’s your first time, and you already did a great job." Her sister, Faye, on the other hand, showed no dislike for the taste and ate her entire bowl until it was spotless.
Ace, however, just closed his eyes, braced himself, and downed it in one gulp.
This was probably a perfect example of bolting one’s food down.
Faye Yardley finished her own mushroom soup with a frown, as if she were drinking bitter medicine. It was so bad she wanted to cry.
’I don’t get it. Where did I go wrong?’
’Is it because I haven’t cooked anything myself in a long time?’
’She thought back carefully. Since her memory began, the only times she’d really cooked for herself were those few instances during her survival at sea.’
’It’s probably just because I haven’t done it enough to be good at it.’
"I’ll definitely make something delicious next time."
Faye let out a soft "Ah," then said, "I’m awake now, so naturally, I, the older sister, will do the cooking."
"Does that mean you don’t want to eat my cooking anymore, Sister?"
"No, that’s not what I meant. But I feel that as the older sister, it’s my duty to take care of my younger sister."
’Faye Yardley suspected she just didn’t want to eat her cooking anymore, but she had no proof.’
Ace coughed twice and said, "Why don’t we go hunting today?"
"No, you can’t just hunt the animals in the forest. Not all of them are edible."
This was Faye’s objection, and it made Faye Yardley’s heart skip a beat. She asked tentatively, "In that case, Sister, can we hunt wild wolves?"