Du Lai doubled over laughing! All the frustration he’d been bottling up for days on this island seemed to burst out in this one moment — he was laughing so hard tears nearly came to his own eyes.

“How can you be so foolish!” he laughed out. “I told you to eat it, and you actually went and ate it! Hahahaha!!!”

Fu Miaoxue had half her face covered by the octopus. She was crying and cursing at the same time: “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it damn it damn it!…Mmph!…”

As she flailed around, one tentacle suctioned onto her tongue!

Whether from fright or pain, Du Lai couldn’t tell. He only watched as tears streamed down her face in torrents — a picture of absolute misery.

“Stop yelling. Keep your mouth closed. If it gets sucked into your throat, we’ll have a real problem.” Du Lai stood up, laughing and talking at the same time. “I’ll get it off for you. There, there. Don’t cry. It’s not that painful. Are you really this dramatic…”

He peeled off two tentacles. On the third, he discovered the suction was genuinely powerful — Fu Miaoxue’s skin was turning red from being tugged.

Du Lai felt a little sheepish.

He had only meant it as a prank. He hadn’t expected the results to be quite so effective…

“Ahem, well… your skin is just too delicate.” Du Lai continued removing tentacles while making excuses for himself. “We used to eat octopus on the boat all the time, swallowed it down in a few bites… Maybe you just don’t know how to eat it. It’s your first time, having no experience is completely normal. Stop crying…”

Fu Miaoxue stood there with her eyes shut, tears falling, crying in little hiccupping sobs.

Seeing her in such a sorry state, Du Lai actually felt rather sympathetic and wanted to get the octopus off her as quickly as possible.

But the last two tentacles were especially stubborn — one had suctioned onto her eyelid, the other onto her tongue. The positions were delicate, and Du Lai didn’t dare use force.

He found himself at an impasse.

He looked left and right, his gaze landing on the burning campfire.

“Don’t move. Bear with it a little longer.” Du Lai gripped the octopus on Fu Miaoxue’s face with one hand, slowly bent down, and picked up a burning branch with his other hand. Then he straightened and looked at Fu Miaoxue again.

Her face was streaked with tears. Her cheeks, where the tentacles had been suctioned, were red and swollen. Her hair was a mess. She looked utterly pitiful.

Du Lai let out a quiet sigh inside and said: “I’ll try using the fire to singe it. Don’t move whatever you do. If I burn your face, that’ll be a real problem.”

Fu Miaoxue shuddered and stood very still with her eyes squeezed shut.

Du Lai gripped the glowing branch and carefully brought it near the octopus. Then he precisely jabbed the tip against one of the slender, soft tentacles — and immediately pulled back, to avoid burning Fu Miaoxue’s face.

The octopus recoiled from the heat, curling its tentacle back in an instant!

Du Lai seized the moment and grabbed that tentacle. Using the same method, he then removed the tentacle that was inside Fu Miaoxue’s mouth!

Fu Miaoxue felt as though she’d been granted a pardon from death row!

She stumbled back two steps and collapsed weakly to the ground.

Du Lai pressed the octopus down onto the metal disc to roast alongside the clams. The octopus tentacles curled and contracted wildly in front of Fu Miaoxue’s eyes. She couldn’t help looking away. The throbbing numbness on her tongue still seemed to linger, and her face still burned with hot, stinging pain.

“I’ll cook it before you eat it.” Du Lai said.

Fu Miaoxue shook her head and covered her cheek, still crying.

“Traumatized?” Du Lai looked at her pitiable expression and felt another urge to laugh. “Then I’ll just give you clams to eat.”

He dug out a piece of clam meat with the knife and held it directly up to Fu Miaoxue’s mouth.

Fu Miaoxue opened her mouth and bit down on the clam — and immediately, a mouthful of crunching grit filled her teeth!

She let out a wail and cried again. The clam meat fell out of her mouth as she sat on the ground and sobbed loudly.

Du Lai looked at her crying like a small child and felt his head growing heavy. He said helplessly: “My dear young mistress, what is it now? You won’t even eat the clams?”

Fu Miaoxue wailed: “So much sand!… You did this on purpose! You’re getting back at me on purpose! Wuwuwu I’m going to tell Grandfather! You want to starve me to death, so don’t think you’re getting away with this either! Wuwuwuwu…”

Du Lai heard this, dug out a piece of roasted clam for himself, put it in his mouth and bit down — and sure enough, a mouthful of gritty crunching, every tooth aching.

“Stop crying, stop crying. I’ll rinse it for you, alright?” Du Lai brought over the bamboo tube and rinsed the clam meat with the rainwater inside. “Once the sand is washed off, it won’t grit your teeth anymore!”

He held the clam meat up to her mouth again and sighed: “This time I’m really not tricking you!”

*[Author’s note: I give up. From now on, daily updates of 2k.]*