If it weren't for remembering that she had planted three pomegranate trees last night, Ajiu would have thought she was still sleeping in the forest while fleeing famine.
"Who is it?" Ajiu didn't have time to think, asking as she picked pomegranates and stuffed them under the bedsheet.
"It's me, Tongzi. I saw you didn't eat dinner, so I specifically saved a bowl of wild vegetable soup for you."
"Oh, I'm not hungry. Brother Tongzi, you eat it yourself." What if he saw pomegranate trees growing in the room? That would be disastrous.
"How can you not be hungry?"
Ajiu, hearing Tongzi's incessant voice, scratched her head anxiously.
"Little Sister Ajiu, give the food to me."
"You, you—how did you get in?" Tongzi's voice was filled with surprise.
Ajiu's hairs stood on end at the familiar voice. She quickly opened the door a crack, sidled out, and hurried to close the door.
As expected, Tuoba Yan was wearing a soldier's uniform, a long saber hanging at his waist, swaggering as he held the bowl.
"Excuse me, this is my friend. Brother Tongzi, you should rest early."
Ajiu, terrified and breaking into a cold sweat, pulled Xiao Yanyan into the room.
"Why are you here?" Ajiu fumbled with her hands, pushing aside the pomegranate trees to make a gap, then took a chair from the table and offered it to Tuoba Yan.
"Whoa, little sister Ajiu, you're planting them inside too..."
"Hush, speak quieter. I'm asking you a question." Ajiu strained her ears to listen outside. After a long while, Brother Tongzi's footsteps gradually faded away:
"Speak quickly."
Seeing Ajiu's unhappy expression, Tuoba Yan immediately stopped joking around. "You haven't been back for two days, and I was worried, so I came. They wouldn't let me in, so I knocked one out while they were patrolling the village last night."
"Ah?" Ajiu blinked, looking at Tuoba Yan incredulously. "You didn't beat him to death, did you?"
"Xiao Yanyan swears he absolutely did not," Tuoba Yan quickly swore to the heavens.
"Oh, that's good, that's good." Ajiu let out a sigh of relief. "You must remember what I told you."
"I remember. First, I can't say you're a ghost. Second, I can't kill anyone." Tuoba Yan looked at Ajiu cautiously, hoping his sincere attitude would make her smile.
But Ajiu had no mood to smile. Dawn would break in three hours.
She had to quickly pick the pomegranates and deal with the pomegranate trees.
"Throw this tree into the woodshed," Ajiu instructed, then hid the picked pomegranates under the bed.
Then she thought it was not right. The door wasn't locked. What if someone came in while she went to the yamen at dawn?
Thinking this, Ajiu put all these pomegranates into her spatial grid.
"Tuoba Yan, are you done?"
Ajiu started. Who was it again?
She went out of the room and stood in the yard, looking in the direction of the voice. Someone outside the courtyard wall was calling Tuoba Yan.
Xiao Yanyan, who had just come out of the woodshed, was uninhibited. "Done, done."
"What are you doing?" Ajiu pulled him over and asked in a low voice, "You didn't come alone? Who else did you bring?"
Commoners sneaking into the city privately was a capital offense.
"A colleague. The person I knocked out looked like a newly reported recruit, crying about not wanting to be a soldier. And not many people remembered his name, so I chose this point to strike.
Think about it, Sister Jiuer, a stranger's name, but when roll is called, someone will be missing, right? I thought the uniform looked good, and it was imposing, so I sneaked in."
"..." Ajiu's mouth twitched. How crazy was this guy? If he was caught impersonating someone, he'd be beheaded.
"I can't talk to you anymore, Sister Jiuer. I have to go on patrol. I told my colleagues I was coming to see my sister."
Saying this, Tuoba Yan grinned exceptionally brightly. He turned and leaped onto the wall.
A burst of laughter came from outside the wall. "Kid, you're not looking at your own sister, are you? Tell me, is she your sweetheart? Otherwise, why would you be climbing over the wall?"