"Mm. We can." Tuoba Yan scratched his head and glanced at the endless bald peak outside. "But we might not get there until tomorrow morning. We have to leave Qiming Mountain at night, and it's difficult for a carriage to enter the mountain."
He sounded convincing, and Meng Shaode thought, "Where are you going to get a carriage?" His tone was full of disbelief.
Wu Dalei, however, had stars in his eyes. If this young brother could get a carriage, no, even an ox cart or a mule cart would do, then couldn't he travel with Brother Meng?
Cai Lihua felt bored listening. She hadn't slept well last night, and on top of that, their food, rabbit meat, and pheasants had all been stolen. She could only keep her eyes half-open, listless.
"Is that true or not, Little Yan Yan?" A Jiu was a little skeptical. He was someone who couldn't even manage his own affairs.
As if it was acceptable for others to doubt him, hearing A Jiu's words, Little Yan Yan's face turned red. "Sister A Jiu, you have to believe me."
Seeing his emotional reaction, A Jiu quickly said, "I... I don't disbelieve you, it's just that a carriage is really hard to come by in this situation."
"Then Sister A Jiu, just wait. We'll set off tonight. After one night's journey over three mountains, there will be a carriage waiting for us."
After saying this, Tuoba Yan turned and left.
His back was different from the past few days; there was a sense of loneliness in it.
A Jiu didn't know if she was mistaken, but Little Yan Yan had changed.
"Then... perhaps we should trust this kid for once?" Meng Shaode said after a long period of quiet. He felt a bit embarrassed about his suspicion of the person earlier that day. "Lihua, what do you think? And you, brother?"
Cai Lihua didn't say anything. She was the cook, and her mind was filled with the stolen food. "You decide," she said, not caring. As the saying goes, one doesn't know the cost of firewood and rice until they run a household. Right now, her culinary skills were completely useless.
As for Wu Dalei, his eyes were full of light. Humans are naturally gregarious animals, and even if he didn't know if the young man could get a carriage, he was happy to stay together for one more day.
Cai Lihua saw that a decision had been made and got up silently to go to the kitchen. She sat there with a look of helplessness. There was nothing left, what would they eat? She glanced through the half-door hanging askew in the door frame, which she had intended to take down for firewood yesterday. With nothing else to do, her stomach rumbled again. She could endure it, but her daughter, who was as thin as a twig, was pitiable. Thinking of this, Cai Lihua stared intently at the empty stove, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Mom, can you cook with watermelons?"
A Jiu leaned against the broken door frame, smiling as if she were detached from the world. That was good; she was most afraid of her daughter looking like she was suffering, just as she had on the day they first met.
"We'd need them first. I can make anything if we have it."
"That's good. Mom, look at what I have." A Jiu tossed a peach in her hand to her mother from a distance. Cai Lihua caught it and found that the peach was as big as her fist. Even with a layer of sand on it, it was enough to dazzle Cai Lihua's eyes. "Wow, a peach! Where did you get it, daughter?"
"Over there." A Jiu pointed to the bottom of the valley, leaning against the door frame. Seeing the smile on her mother's face, she felt happy too. The peach tree was already dry and withered, its leaves covering the peach blossoms she had seen the night before.
"Ah?" Cai Lihua looked at the bottom of the valley in surprise. There was indeed a tree there. But she hadn't seen this tree when she arrived? Had she been too tired to notice?
"Mom, I dug it out of the dirt there."
"Really? No wonder it's covered in sand." Cai Lihua was very excited at this moment and quickly ran out the door. A Jiu didn't follow. She only saw her mother digging through the soil and discovering the first peach, laughing like a child. She quickly began digging like a dog in the dirt. Before long, there was a pile beside her as big as a small hill. "Hehe, this is great." A Jiu, standing in front of the wooden house, could hear her mother's joyful exclamations.
Just then, a person appeared on the opposite mountain. A Jiu's smile disappeared. Her gaze shifted upwards, and she saw that the person was the second-in-command who had come to rob them last night.
"Mom, stop digging, stop digging!" A Jiu shouted loudly. It was because he had led people to ransack their place last night that A Jiu had desperately dug pit after pit, fearing they would run out of food. She had dug so many pits that could bury watermelons, her ox-horn knife was intact, but her wrists were about to break.