“Change clothes?” the nurse echoed, her brow furrowed in confusion as she looked at the blushing girl on the bed.
“What have you been up to? Didn’t the military doctor tell you to rest properly?”
“I *was* resting properly, but…”
“How could resting properly result in soiled clothes and trousers?” the nurse retorted, a hint of impatience in her voice.
“I’ll have an aide come help you change, and we’ll get the bedding changed too.”
“This wasn’t something I could control… Wait, an aide? An *aide*?!”
‘It couldn’t be…’
Fortunately, this “aide” was not the towering, formidable male nurse Lin Yu had envisioned—one who moonlighted as security and was capable of “physical anesthesia.”
Instead, it was a group of local women employed by the Diacla Army.
Though they possessed no magical talent, no professional medical knowledge, and didn’t even speak the local language, they were still capable of certain basic tasks.
This was particularly true for laundry and cleaning—you couldn’t expect frontline soldiers, accustomed to carrying rifles and holding the line, to willingly undertake such chores in a hospital.
Having proper nurses and medics perform these tasks would, to some extent, be a waste of human resources.
The woman who appeared before Lin Yu was one such “mountain-foreign” woman, whose appearance was almost indistinguishable from a Diaclan.
The sole difference between her and an ordinary woman of the Diacla Empire was her inability to speak Diaclan.
Of course, her traditional “mountain-foreign” attire also stood out starkly amidst the nurses’ white uniforms and seemed jarring against the soldiers’ military green jackets.
With no shared language, there was no need for superfluous conversation; the aide simply walked to Lin Yu’s bedside and took her blood-stained trousers.
“Thank you… wait, what—what are you doing?!”
No sooner had Lin Yu uttered her thanks than she watched in alarm as the aide began to ruthlessly pull back her blanket.
The window was open, allowing a constant breeze to drift through, and the cool air in the ward immediately rushed into her warm bed, causing her to instinctively retract her legs and clamp them tightly together.
Being chilled by the sudden draft was secondary; what truly mattered was the aide’s actions.
Lin Yu was currently without trousers, completely naked underneath.
And the ward door was still wide open!
She immediately scrambled to regain control of the blanket, desperate to keep her thighs from being exposed.
“No, don’t take my blanket! Does anyone, anyone here speak the mountain-foreign language? Tell her! Let go—”
In the struggle, she realized her strength was no match for the middle-aged woman, and she steadily began to lose ground.
While Lin Yu’s strength wasn’t extraordinary, it was certainly above average for her age.
Not every fifteen-year-old girl had the luxury of eating her fill every day.
Though she couldn’t arm-wrestle an adult man, she definitely wouldn’t be overpowered by a middle-aged woman.
The strength she had displayed previously, when moving injured soldiers, proved she was far from a frail, helpless maiden.
Yet, due to her uncooperative left arm, she could barely exert any force, relying solely on her right hand to tug at the blanket, a futile effort against the aide.
‘It’s all because of this injury… otherwise, I never would have let this blanket, my only cover, be snatched away…’
After wrenching the blanket from the bed, the aide then audaciously went a step further, driving Lin Yu off the bed as well.
Lin Yu huddled miserably to one side, clutching her left arm, her bare feet pressing against the cold tile floor.
After about half a minute, someone finally heard the commotion and rushed over from outside the door.
It was Yang Xi.
Knowing her clothes and bedding were to be changed, Lin Yu had specifically asked Yang Xi to keep his distance for these few minutes.
Perhaps her cries for help had been loud enough to draw him back, even from a considerable distance from her private ward… but he was far too late!
It was like knowing to steer *after* the car hit the wall, knowing to buy *after* the stocks soared, or knowing to blow your nose *after* the snot reached your mouth.
Lin Yu had already been driven from her bed, standing miserably to the side, enduring the cold and humiliation for what felt like ages.
And *now* he decided to come help—it was utterly pointless!
Yang Xi’s arrival at this moment not only failed to alleviate the situation but instead made Lin Yu feel even more uncomfortable.
The hem of her hospital gown wasn’t particularly long, and due to her short stature and slender frame, it barely reached her upper thighs.
If one were to step back and observe, it looked almost like a “boyfriend shirt” worn in a state of utter undress.
Not only had she been driven from her bed by the local aide, but now she stood before Yang Xi in such an embarrassing state, her already flushed face deepening to a profound crimson.
‘I… I have to save face!’
She desperately tugged at the hem of her hospital gown, trying to pull the coarse fabric further down to cover her legs.
“Yang Xi, that woman, she… she…”
Upon seeing Lin Yu’s exposed long legs, and her collarbone bared due to incorrectly buttoned hospital gown, he immediately averted his gaze to something irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the instigator of all this, the middle-aged “mountain-foreign” aide, calmly continued to tidy the bedding behind them, completely at ease.
She rolled up the blood-stained sheets and blankets, taking them away along with the soiled hospital trousers.
“What happened?” Having quickly assessed that there was no danger in the room, Yang Xi began to inquire about Lin Yu’s current predicament, all the while carefully avoiding her gaze.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She… she drove me off the bed, leaving me no choice but to stand here…”
With Yang Xi standing before her, seemingly there to support her, Lin Yu’s voice softened considerably, hoping to better emphasize the grievance and unfair treatment she had suffered.
However, Yang Xi did not act against the aide as she had expected.
Instead, he stood his ground, analyzing the situation for Lin Yu: “She’s likely responsible for tidying the ward.
You soiled the bed, so it’s only right for you to get off so she can clean it.”
“But, but—”
Just as Lin Yu’s rebuttal caught in her throat, another figure appeared outside the open ward door: Nangong.
She stepped aside to let the aide, laden with soiled bedding and clothes, pass by, then greeted Lin Yu and Yang Xi with a smile.
“Hi! How are you? Surprise…”
The brilliant smile on Nangong’s tired face suddenly froze, and her gaze, as it fell upon the two, was tinged with a significant amount of awkwardness.
“Well… I was hoping to give you a surprise, but it seems you’ve given *me* one instead.”
Nangong quickly stepped forward, approached Yang Xi, and placed a hand on his shoulder, turning him halfway around.
“Yang Xi, stay exactly like that, don’t move.
If you dare to glance at Lin Yu again, I’ll help her dig out your eyes.”
She then swiftly removed her own jacket, carefully wrapped it around Lin Yu’s waist, and gently pinched her cheek.
“Ahem, ahem, Lin Yu…” Nangong cleared her throat twice, adopting the earnest tone of an experienced elder as she advised, “According to our Diaclan customs, such… activities… are best avoided until you two have formally established your relationship.”
“…”
Just as expected, Nangong had immediately misunderstood her attire.
“Nangong, please listen to me, it’s not like that—”
Lin Yu reined in her exasperation.
“Then how *is* it?” Nangong pressed.
A simple explanation would no longer suffice; she would have to launch into a tearful accusation to clear up the misunderstanding.
The accursed aide had disregarded her protests and insisted on snatching the blanket, and the accursed nurse had failed to explain things clearly, leading to her being treated this way.
And the accursed Yang Xi, why did he have to come now, of all times, neither early nor late?
Huddling beside Nangong, tearfully recounting her grievances, Lin Yu finally explained why she was standing in the ward dressed as she was.