Hu Caiyi's refusal to eat rabbit had nothing to do with being a picky eater.
The main reason was that her family ran a rabbit farm. Rabbit at was not only abundantly available but severely in surplus. Rabbit braised with potato, al after al, year after year, and you would find yourself unable to even look at the stuff.
She wasn't especially fond of chicken either, in truth. The main thing was that she had kept a crow when she was young and been pecked by it, leaving her with a certain fixation regarding all birds ever since.
What she truly enjoyed was sinking her teeth into a chicken's neck and snapping it clean through.
She hid it well, but Li Qiuchen had noticed this amusing little detail.
He packed the necessities, hired a puttering carriage, loaded the two young misses aboard, and set out on the journey back to his old ho.
A puttering carriage was the kind that ran on coal instead of feed, and when it finished its coal it chugged out smoke from the sides. Li Qiuchen had never managed to work out exactly how it functioned.
On the outside it looked genuinely like a horse. It was a living creature that breathed.
But the interior seed to have undergone so kind of modification, leaving it in a state that was half biological and half chanical.
Yun County had many similar pieces of unusual engineering, such as the street lamps that lit themselves automatically at nightfall and machines that roasted lon seeds on their own.
They weren't commonly seen in the marketplace, and most of them were concentrated around the old mining pits.
They were said to be remnants of a golden age, when the mining industry had been at the height of its prosperity.
Li Qiuchen's reasons for this trip ho were twofold. First, he wanted to look in on the small dwelling he had built and collect so dicinal herbs while he was there. Second, he needed sowhere remote and undisturbed to take the Spirit-Gathering Pills.
His plan was to advance his cultivation to the great completion of the Qi Refining realm before the start of the next term.
Each ti the Withered Wood Technique required a blood exchange, it demanded the absorption of large quantities of life energy.
The simplest thod was to go and kill soone.
But Li Qiuchen had an alternative.
Elder Jiang had given him a considerable supply of Spirit-Gathering Pills, and their effect on advancing cultivation was significant.
He had not dared take them before, wary of making too large a disturbance or raising his cultivation too visibly and drawing unwanted attention.
Now he had finally resolved that particular concern.
Let them pay attention if they wanted to. He was going to stop holding back.
As an inner hall disciple, if you couldn't even let your abilities show, how were you supposed to get along with your senior brothers and sisters going forward?
A bird in the hand was worth ten in the bush. Pills swallowed were real cultivation gains. Hoarding them uneaten would only see them go to waste.
In the northern frontier, the sixth month had sumr but no scorching heat.
The weather was clear, a gentle breeze moved through the air, birds called and flowers blood, and there was none of the sticky discomfort of southern sumrs.
Hu Caiyi had been saying the countryside had nothing to offer and she didn't want to go, but the mont they passed through the city gates she went half-wild, chasing dragonflies and butterflies all the way down the road.
Since the events of the fourth month, the girl had been cooped up at ho, and every ti she went out she'd been on edge with anxiety. She was thoroughly pent-up.
Out of caution, Li Qiuchen didn't go too far after leaving Yun County. He stopped to rest for a while and confird there was no one following before allowing himself to relax.
Caution was necessary.
Hu Caiyi had been targeted twice now, and both tis the attack had been aid specifically at her.
With Boss Hu having gone ho to recover and taken his wife with him, leaving Hu Caiyi alone in the house, there was clearly sothing particular about this girl.
Having sothing particular about you wasn't unusual. Who in this day and age didn't have sothing particular about them?
Tang Xiaoxue had her own secrets too.
When they had first arrived in Yun County it had been frozen over, the roads iced solid and difficult to travel. Now the roads were considerably better.
The little carriage puttered briskly along, and they arrived at Blue Stone Platform before the sky had fully darkened.
They spent the night at an inn, then continued onward the next morning.
The mont he entered the territory around Crotch Mountain, Li Qiuchen felt the true sensation of coming ho.
He had grown up in these mountains from childhood, and for the better part of a year after escaping Songlin Village he had lived as a wild creature through these hills, practicing genuine survival.
Every tree and blade of grass looked as though no ti had passed.
"Li Qiuchen, where exactly is your ho?"
Once they entered the mountains there were no proper roads, and the little carriage had to be left in the village at the foot of the hill.
A year had gone by, and Li Qiuchen's bearing had changed considerably. The elderly village chief, hard of hearing and dim of sight with age, still didn't recognize him.
The only one who suffered for it was Hu Caiyi, the great young miss, who had dressed for the outing in advance but still found the mountain environnt quite challenging. She hiked her skirt up and tiptoed cautiously in Tang Xiaoxue's wake, looking for all the world like soone picking their way through a very unpleasant patch of ground.
"Once you're in the mountains, you're in my ho."
"Ah? So tonight we're... sleeping in the mountains?"
"Correct. And at night there are wolves, tigers, leopards, and brown bears."
"Eugh!"
In truth there weren't that many.
Back when Li Qiuchen was a child, the adults in the village had always used that line to frighten him. When he had escaped on his own and actually lived in these mountains, he had quickly found there was nothing like the number suggested.
As the saying goes, one mountain cannot hold two tigers, and the point wasn't that tigers were especially ill-tempered, but that the small animals in any given stretch of mountains were only enough to sustain one. Wolves, tigers, and leopards did exist, but they didn't congregate. Too many in one area and they would simply starve each other out.
Still, frightening children was wonderfully entertaining.
Especially soone like Hu Caiyi. A couple of offhand remarks and her face went white, her body trembling.
If you kept at it, her tail would shoot out from behind her and the fiery red fur would all bristle upright.
They climbed the hillside and ca to the small lake, and Hu Caiyi imdiately forgot everything Li Qiuchen had just said, running to the water's edge and bouncing with delight.
"Oh! What a beautiful lake!"
"Can we swim here?"
Tang Xiaoxue was visibly itching to do the sa.
Li Qiuchen held out a hand to gauge the temperature and wind, then nodded. "You can, but just a mont!"
This girl was the complete opposite of Hu Caiyi. Beneath her calm exterior her inner character was entirely unrestrained and wild, and he had never quite worked out how the two of them had beco such close companions.
What properly raised child started undressing the mont soone said swimming? What had the teachers been teaching them about proper conduct?
Li Qiuchen found a suitable spot along the bank where several large trees stood close together. He pressed his hand to one of the trunks and channeled life energy into it. The bark split open and fresh branches grew out, interweaving with the branches of the neighboring trees, quickly forming the fra of a small structure.
He pulled several rolls of pre-prepared reed matting from his storage bracelet and fitted them over the gaps, and a simple treehouse was complete.
"That's amazing!"
Tang Xiaoxue's eyes went wide and she couldn't help calling out in admiration.
"If you can do that, you could build a house anywhere you go, couldn't you?"
This one is specifically for the two of you. I don't actually need it myself.
"Go and play with Miss Hu for now. Let
tidy things up here and get a fire going so you have sowhere warm to co back to after the water."
"Alright!"
Tang Xiaoxue gave a nod and went pattering off.
Li Qiuchen had always considered himself a person of professional integrity.
You took the employer's silver, you carried the employer's concerns.
Whatever the quality of his attitude or service, it had to be worth what both employers were paying.
His storage bracelet had limited space, and this ti it was packed full of daily necessities for the two young misses. Food and water, spare clothing, bedding and blankets.
He stuck several wooden posts into the ground and coaxed a knee-high fence to grow from the earth around the area. He swept away the dead branches, rotting leaves, and sharp stones, produced a flint striker to light the fire in the stone hearth he had arranged, and set the iron pot over it.
The laughter and splashing of the two girls approached from a distance.
"You're... you're really going to swim?"
Hu Caiyi looked over the treehouse with satisfaction, but Tang Xiaoxue's suggestion gave her pause.
"I can't swim..."
Tang Xiaoxue was dismissive of this concern. "What does that matter? Don't you want to play in the water?"
"But... but..."
Hu Caiyi stole a glance at Li Qiuchen and said quietly, "Girls shouldn't do things like this..."
"I won't look."
Li Qiuchen offered this reassurance helpfully, which imdiately sent Hu Caiyi's face blazing red.
"Of course you won't look, but that's not what I an. Girls should have so restraint..."
"Enjoy yourselves. I'll go out and catch so ga for dinner. I'll be back in an hour."
What was there to look at? Two little children.
Li Qiuchen had no interest in sticks and twigs.
"Don't go into the deep parts. I know neither of you is likely to drown, but swallowing water is still unpleasant. Co up and warm yourselves by the fire when you're done, and use the hot water in the pot to wash off. If anything feels wrong, shout for . I'll be nearby and I'll hear you."
He thought for a mont and added, "If you see any unusual clamshells, don't reach out and pick them up. The freshwater mussels here bite."
"Huh?"
Hu Caiyi imdiately started fussing. "Does that an... if I accidentally step on one underwater, it'll bite my toes?"
"It will."
"Ah?"
Li Qiuchen left the treehouse and walked into the forest.
He had barely gone a few steps when Hu Caiyi's voice rang out in sharp alarm behind him. "Xuexue, what are you doing? Put your trousers back on!"
Well. Tang Xiaoxue was evidently of the no-clothing school of swimming.
Which brought him back to the question of how the two of them had ever co to be friends.
Li Qiuchen didn't go far. He made a circuit of the forest and caught two pheasants.
He had plenty of stored provisions in his bracelet and didn't strictly need the ga. Mainly he had co out to get a feel for the surroundings and check whether anything dangerous was nearby.
He had walked through this stretch of forest many tis before and in theory there was nothing untoward about it.
After a full circuit he erged on the far side of the lake, and from a distance he could see the two small figures standing at the water's edge furiously splashing each other, their shrieks carrying clearly across the water.
The stone mussels in the lake disliked noise of this sort and had migrated to his side of the water.
Li Qiuchen took one look to confirm both girls were fine, then walked back into the forest on his side to continue his patrol.
When the sun had tilted well toward the horizon, he returned to the treehouse, knocked on the door fra, and stepped inside.
The two young misses were huddled in front of the hearth wrapped in blankets, shivering.
Sumr or not, the temperature swings in the mountains between day and night were significant, and the evening wind had left both of them sneezing.
Li Qiuchen emptied out the bathwater, cleaned the pheasants, and began preparing the evening al.
"Are you using that pot?"
Hu Caiyi crouched nearby with wide eyes and said in a halting, quiet voice, "Steward Li... I just... put my foot in it."
"I've already scrubbed it out and put fresh water in."
"I know... what I an is... could we use a different pot?"
"The countryside doesn't offer much. Make do with what we have."
"Eugh!"
Hu Caiyi looked close to tears. "You said the water in the pot was for washing off. Why is it now being used to cook in?"
The young miss had absolutely no practical life skills.
Li Qiuchen turned to Tang Xiaoxue. "Do you mind?"
Tang Xiaoxue was entirely unbothered. "When I was little I used to pee in the pot!"
[NEXT CHAPTER]
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