A Jiu glanced at the peach pit in her hand.
Could it be the spiritual fruit's effect?
Her once withered body was still emaciated, but a new light had appeared in her eyes.
"We're going to Lingnan with Doctor Meng. Everyone, perk up."
Guang Wenqiang, like a peddler selling fake medicine, had everyone invigorated and spirited.
"Alright, we'll follow Miss Jiu."
"Follow?" Cai Lihua whispered to her husband.
"Let's follow them. Even though they look a bit rough, they'll get better eventually. More people means more help."
Meng Shaode was a man who repaid kindness. Without these patients, their family wouldn't have survived.
Cai Lihua, not wanting to refuse, shouldered her tools and led the way.
A Jiu's family of three walked at the very front, followed by a vast procession of bone-thin individuals.
A person ran out from behind them.
"Jiu'er, why are you bringing so many people? Isn't this being nosy?" Madam Wang grumbled.
"Are you afraid they'll take your ginseng? Here, take this!" A Jiu pulled out a pit from her embrace and gave it to her grandmother to taste the sweetness first.
"Who said that? How could I be so stingy?" Madam Wang said, cherishing the ginseng as she tucked it into her bosom.
A Jiu suppressed a smile and said, "When you were running, they were all protecting our family. Eight or nine people died."
At these words, Madam Wang pretended to look away, as if she hadn't heard.
But she couldn't shake off her guilt: "What do you know? I need to keep this life for important matters in the future. It would be a terrible shame to die. You common folk wouldn't understand. Besides... besides, I'm not a coward. I just don't have the ability to protect this mortal body. If I die, you'll all be finished."
"..." A Jiu knew her grandmother always had a hundred excuses.
They didn't walk far before crossing the dry riverbed to the foot of the opposite mountain. "Dad, will we be out of the mountains after we cross this one?"
"That's right!" As soon as Meng Shaode said this, A Jiu became confused. She looked up at the mountain peak that pierced the clouds. Unless one could become a bird, how could they cross?
"How do we cross?"
The eighty or ninety people behind them squinted, raising their hands to shield their eyes from the midday sun, looking up at the summit.
"Old Meng, are you joking? How are we supposed to cross this?" Cai Lihua said, her face etched with worry as she lowered her arm from her eyes.
"Huh?" Meng Shaode was utterly shocked.
"I didn't say we were going to *cross* it. There's a mountain path down below. Crossing a mountain doesn't mean climbing to the top and then jumping off."
"Sigh..."
Everyone sighed in relief. If he had said so earlier, they wouldn't have thought they had to "cross" it.
"Dad, you lead the way then," A Jiu said plainly.
"Alright!" Meng Shaode agreed readily. As he entered the mountain forest, he spotted a small path they had just emerged from. However, it wound upwards, steep and difficult.
Guang Wenqiang came up with an idea: "Everyone find a stick. We can climb with those."
At his words, everyone scattered and returned, each with a stick of varying length and thickness.
A Jiu didn't stand idle either. She found a grip-able stick and used it to help herself climb, her back hunched. A dark mass of people followed behind, occasionally pulling each other up, and finally reached the mountainside.
A Jiu stopped to wipe her sweat when suddenly someone in the crowd shrieked.
"Meat! Poisonous meat."
These people had all suffered from poisonous meat before. It had nearly cost them their lives, so they recognized it instantly.
At this exclamation, A Jiu, Meng Shaode, and Guang Wenqiang whipped their heads around.
They quickly pushed through the crowd and slid down. Beside the steep, winding path, there was a piece of meat.
A Jiu, her heart pounding, peered through the trees. It was more of that fresh meat. It was cut into neat squares, exactly like the ones they had encountered before.
The onlookers clearly felt a sense of dread and instinctively took a few steps back, as if the very air could transmit the illness.
Meng Shaode, bolder, drew an arrow from his quiver and poked the piece of meat with its rhombus-shaped tungsten steel arrowhead.
As expected...