As they went to bed that night, Fu Ya talked about Rong Zhigao and Rong Zhiyuan's trip to town that day, and when they mentioned their daughter, they started missing her again.

Qing Xuanzi was unaware of what had happened in town. He had prepared yesterday by drawing portraits of Rong Lianhu's family, and today he was going to teach Rong Jiaojiao the habit of not showing things in front of others.

Even without snow, it's quite cold in Northeast China in October, but the temperature in the courtyard in the valley is still warm.

Because the courtyard was shrouded in an array by Qing Xuanzi, it was isolated from the cold air from the outside world, making the courtyard feel like spring all year round.

Growing up in such an environment, Rong Jiaojiao became increasingly healthy, and she can now walk around while holding onto things.

Early in the morning, Qing Xuanzi sat with Rong Jiaojiao in the wooden pavilion in the courtyard. He took out several portraits of Rong Lianhu's family and spread them on the stone table, asking, "Jiaojiao, do you recognize who they are?"

Rong Jiaojiao stood holding onto the stone table. Seeing the portrait, she clapped her little hands on it, saying, "Ba ba, mu ma, de de, de de..."

He patted the portrait and shouted it out once, and he still remembered it.

Qing Xuanzi was delighted; this little girl had an extraordinary memory.

He took all the other portraits except for Rong Lianhu's, then reached out: "Jiaojiao, give your master a tomato."

Rong Jiaojiao gave him what he wanted, and then he asked for other things, which Rong Jiaojiao also gave him.

She now knows the names of things, and can accurately retrieve them whenever Qing Xuanzi asks her for them.

Qing Xuanzi replaced the portrait with Fu Ya's, and then reached out to ask for cucumbers, tomatoes, and other things.

They changed the portraits to those of Rong Zhigao and Rong Zhiyuan, and then repeatedly said they wouldn't take them.

Then put the four portraits together, and say you won't take them. Then replace them with portraits of Rong Lianhu and Fu Ya, and ask her for the items again.

I don't know if she understands or not, but she keeps teaching me patiently like this.

The days passed with Qing Xuanzi's patient guidance. As the New Year approached, Qing Xuanzi patted Rong Jiaojiao with a talisman to ward off the cold and took her hunting.

This place is deep in the mountains, so it is rarely visited by people and there is plenty of prey. Qing Xuanzi led Rong Jiaojiao through the forest, occasionally using magic to catch small animals such as rabbits and pheasants.

He killed the prey and stored them in his sleeve, intending to bring them back to town for Rong Lianhu's family during the New Year.

"Father~~, Rabbit."

Rong Jiaojiao pointed at a rabbit that Qing Xuanzi had captured with magic and shouted, patting Qing Xuanzi's arm repeatedly to urge him on.

She is almost one year old now, and she can say more and more words, which are becoming clearer and clearer.

Qing Xuanzi smiled and nodded: "Yes, it's a rabbit. We'll take it back and stew it for you tonight."

Rong Jiaojiao waved her arms and shouted excitedly, "Youyou, Youyou!"

Speaking of eating meat, Rong Jiaojiao is a meat lover. Every time you call her to eat, all she says is meat.

The two wandered in the mountains for two days and hunted two large wild boars, twelve gazelles, three roe deer, and he didn't remember how many pheasants and rabbits there were, but there were probably a hundred or so.

He had enough fresh meat; he also had a lot of prey from his previous hunts, which he had dried and stored away.

On the third day, Qing Xuanzi stopped going out to hunt. Instead, he stayed home, skinned the sheep and roe deer, and although he didn't like eating their internal organs, he didn't throw them away. He used several cleaning spells to clean them and brought them back to Rong Lianhu to eat.

He won't bother with the wild boar; there's plenty of skin from a single boar, which can be cleaned and eaten later.

On the 20th of the twelfth lunar month, after a winter without snow, it finally began to snow heavily.

However, the heavy snow only lasted for a while, then turned into light snow. By the next day, the snow was getting lighter and lighter, and by the evening of the 21st, it stopped completely, and the warm sunshine shone down again.

Although it was still cold, the snow was slowly melting.

In the military region's conference room, Wei Guodong issued an order to all regiments: all recent training exercises should be replaced with sending snow from around the reservoir into the reservoir.

The soldiers received orders and understood that this was due to concerns about a continued drought the following year. They also knew how important water was, and the days that followed were spent competing with the sun for snow.

On the 28th, Qing Xuanzi packed everything up and set off back to town with Rong Jiaojiao.

To avoid spending the night on the mountain, he affixed lightness talismans to his feet, then channeled his spiritual power to enhance them, and carried Rong Jiaojiao as they ran at breakneck speed through the forest.

Rong Jiaojiao was held in his arms, and with Qing Xuanzi's spiritual power protecting her from the cold wind, she wasn't cold at all.

As the surrounding scenery rushed past, Rong Jiaojiao's eyes sparkled with excitement, and her little face flushed with elation.

He kept patting Qing Xuanzi's arm, calling out, "Hurry, Father, hurry!"

Just as they were passing through a dense forest, they suddenly heard the cry of a deer ahead.

Qing Xuanzi paused, his divine sense sweeping towards the direction from which the sound came.

A herd of sika deer were leisurely foraging in the forest, led by a robust male deer with its antlers standing tall and majestic.

Qing Xuanzi was delighted; this was like meat being delivered to him.

He was about to approach and use magic to capture them when he noticed that the herd of sika deer suddenly became alert.

The leader let out a neigh and started running, in the opposite direction from them.

Qing Xuanzi was puzzled. He was still so far away, he shouldn't have been discovered, so why did he suddenly run away?

Their divine senses spread outwards, and they discovered that a tiger was rapidly chasing after the fleeing deer herd to their left front.

Intrigued, Qing Xuanzi increased his speed and also chased after the direction the deer herd was running.

Qing Xuanzi led Rong Jiaojiao to speed up their approach to the deer herd. He used his divine sense to pinpoint the herd's location and discovered that the sika deer had already run quite far away.

However, the tiger seemed to have noticed Qing Xuanzi's presence. After hesitating for a moment, it finally decided to give up chasing the deer herd and instead ran towards Qing Xuanzi.

Rong Jiaojiao saw it too. She had never known fear before. She reached out her hand towards the tiger, calling out, "Kitty, kitty!"

Qing Xuanzi was speechless. The picture book he gave her clearly contained both cats and tigers, so why did she only remember the cat?

Qing Xuanzi patted her belly and added another layer of spiritual energy barrier to his body, instantly forming a protective barrier around him and Rong Jiaojiao.

The tiger rushed in front of them, leaped forward, and pounced on Qing Xuanzi, but was slapped away several meters by Qing Xuanzi with a palm strike, letting out an angry roar.

When the tiger jumped up to pounce on them, Rong Jiaojiao was scared, but now she laughed when she saw the tiger being swatted away.

Qing Xuanzi was amused by her and even thought about hunting the tiger, skinning it, and using it as a cushion for Rong Jiaojiao. However, the tiger seemed to realize that Qing Xuanzi was not someone to be trifled with, so it got up, turned around, and ran into the depths of the forest.

Qing Xuanzi said with some regret, "Alright, good luck." Then he looked down at Rong Jiaojiao and said, "Let's continue chasing the deer herd."