If you only look at one side of it, Fred and Karen seemed like nice people.
They were warm-hearted, prestigious, and liked to help people.
Their personalities did seem odd, but every place had its own different cultures and rules, the same could be said about people.
Nell could not make up her mind.
The good thing was that they were not doing anything, just that small details felt jarringly out of place to her. As long as they did not do anything harmful to them, she did not want to go around accusing people either.
With that in mind, her approach towards the couple softened a little.
Nell walked over to Fred who was still smoking and smiled, “Good morning, Fred.”
Fred turned to look at her, slightly squinting his eyes. “Morning. Karen has already made breakfast for you, help her set it up and we can eat together.”
Nell nodded and helped the limping Nancy to a chair before making her way to the kitchen.
In such a remote village, there is not much good food to eat, regardless if it were lunch or dinner.
Thus, Nell did not have any expectations except that it would be a simple breakfast.
Unexpectedly, Karen was a very capable and refined young lady, breakfast looked very hearty as well as beautiful.
On the table were deliciously fragrant wheat porridge, freshly steamed buns made from flour, and some fried You Tiao.
In the city, this kind of breakfast would be considered simple and plain, but…
On a morning where you are stuck in a place where you either improvise or starve, this food looked heavenly.
Nell looked at the steaming wheat porridge and You Tiao with bright, shining eyes.
Unable to hold it in she exclaimed, “It’s beautiful! And it smells amazing!”
Karen smiled shyly as if it were the first time anyone had complimented her in her life.
“It’s quite a simple breakfast, I’m not sure if you’ll like it. Go ahead and try it.”
Nell nodded enthusiastically and helped her bring the food out to the table, then everyone sat down at the table and started to eat.
Mid meal, Fred casually asked, “We know that your nickname is Little Seven, but what’s your actual name?”
Nell froze for a moment and shared a look with Nancy before replying, “My name is Nell Jennings.”
She did not try to hide it. To be honest, even if she did say it earlier it would be unlikely that the people here have heard of her, let alone recognize her.
As expected, Fred just slightly nodded. “Does your family know you’re out here on holiday?”
That question on the other hand was more subtle.
Nell and Nancy exchanged another glance before unanimously responding with, "No."
"Where you come from, is it far from here?"
Nell smiled. "It's really far. At least a few thousand kilometers away."
"That's very far." A small glimmer appeared in Fred's eyes, and he smiled, "so your family doesn't know you're in trouble huh?"
Nell smiled back, "Who knows? Things happened so quickly and we don't have our phones, so we can't even contact them."
She then genuinely asked, "Excuse me, Fred, but is there anywhere nearby that we can go to make a call? I want to call home to report that I'm safe."
Fred stroked the few remaining hairs on his beard and said, "Getting to a phone is quite difficult, you'd have to travel for a day and a night to the next town over. There's for sure a phone there. But there was a landslide recently so the road is blocked and you cannot get through now."
Still, she could not just come out and ask it for no good reason, so she buried the question deep in her heart.
When it was midday, Fred returned and brought along the village doctor with him.
Nancy recognized the doctor. It was the same one that came to treat her leg, and today he was here to change the bandages and medication.
In such a remote village, it was expected that there were no especially good treatments or medication. They all used medicinal herbs that they made themselves and applied it in a traditional way.
Come to think of it, when Nancy was going through training she was also always getting hurt.
After a while, she started picking up treatments as a pseudo-doctor herself.
Any external surface wounds or bone fractures she could treat herself.
Which medications worked, which treatments sped up recovery, she knew it all.
That’s when she decided to ask a few other questions while the doctor was treating her, and based on his answers she would see if the treatment was really effective or not.
The village doctor was not half bad. The medicinal herbs that he used were all herbs that she knew, and they were all effective in healing a broken bone.
After the bandaging, Fred brought the village doctor back out.
“I saw that you were weaving a bracelet earlier, what was it?”
Karen rummaged her pocket and brought out a half-woven red rope.
“Did you mean this one?
Nancy nodded.
Strands of red rope were weaved together to form a neat and tidy bracelet. It was really pretty.
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