Chapter 25

Under the scorching sun, the sound of cursing could be heard from the fields from afar. The voice was so loud it seemed to carry for miles, truly awe-inspiring, with sharp and biting words. The person cursing back was equally imposing, shouting back loudly. Qingyun dismounted and realized it was Feng Sijing.

She went over to take a look and found Mu Helian standing opposite the man. It turned out that the two of them were having a passionate argument. Qingyun exclaimed "Oh!" and then asked, "Are you two about to fight?"

Mu Helian's cold expression softened. When she saw Qingyun, she was no longer in the mood to argue with this idiot. Qingyun knew what she wanted to say as soon as he saw her expression, and quickly said that he was much better and not to worry. He asked again and found out that the two of them had a disagreement on the division of labor.

At this moment, waves of heat rushed towards him. Qingyun looked at the messy battlefield and thought to himself that it had been two days and it still hadn't been cleaned up. He could indeed feel the problem of insufficient manpower. However, he noticed that Mu Helian was still dressed as before.

Qingyun was also very curious: Had Lin Wanjun struck it rich?

Lin Wanjun covered her face and chuckled as she explained the reason: the people who wove the straw net that night hadn't gone to help for nothing. Song Junwu had promised each of them one tael of silver, which was why there were so many spectacular scenes. Lin Wanjun naturally received a reward as well, and had several sets of clothes made for herself.

Qingyun nodded with satisfaction and patted Lin Wanjun on the shoulder in agreement, saying, "Girls should dress themselves up more often and make themselves happy."

As she spoke, she looked at Mu Helian beside her. Although she had been in this sun-scorched place for a long time and her skin had been tanned dark, you could tell from a closer look that she wasn't ugly. It was just that the scar on her face made her look scary.

Seeing that the three of them were catching up, but he was being treated like he was invisible, Feng Sijing immediately expressed his dissatisfaction, saying that Mu Helian was an impolite person.

Mu Helian just sneered when she heard this, "If you say another word, I'll beat you to death, believe it or not."

Feng Sijing was not afraid at all. Seeing that the two were about to start arguing again, Qingyun quickly said that she still had work to do and would not accompany them. She told them to choose a quiet place to continue talking. Before she could finish speaking, the two of them indeed moved aside and continued arguing.

Although she hadn't witnessed the storm's power firsthand, Qingyun could roughly guess what it must have looked like from the chaotic, ravaged sand. She first went to the field where seedlings were planted. Because she didn't want anyone to know about it, no protective measures were taken there, and the surrounding terrain was completely inadequate. As a result, the entire field was wiped out.

Fortunately, she could get countless saplings from the system. She chopped up the dead saplings with a cleaver and replanted them in the ground, then planted the new trees. By the time she finished all this, Qingyun was exhausted and very sleepy. The wind blowing around her carried a damp, fishy smell.

She sat to one side, fanning herself with her straw hat, and inadvertently recalled what she had just said. She suddenly realized that she seemed to have always been able to come and go as she pleased with the tree planting, able to come to the nursery whenever she wanted, without having to worry about the planting tasks in the sandy area.

As a modern person, Qingyun naturally didn't realize something was wrong, but recalling the past, she must have been treated like a slave. Furthermore, her meals were all supplied by Song Chaoyun, and the fact that she could go to the overseer's small kitchen to get food was exactly what Song Chaoyun had instructed her to do before.

"Actually, I'm quite lucky." Qingyun couldn't help but sigh to the system.

[Host, you are certainly lucky. Your life can continue in this body. How many people in the world are left?]

Hearing the system's words, Qingyun was utterly speechless. This AI idiot could still boast about its own company's business even at a time like this. [Of course, I'm not talking about that. You see, I'm like a protagonist in a novel. Although I'm in a terrible situation, I actually have all the buffs stacked up.]

Qingyun leaned against the stone wall, gazing at the patterns on the rocks above. "[Exiled to the frontier but still having old friends and acquaintances looking after him]" she wondered. She thought Song Chaoyun wasn't actually a bad person. "[And to have gained the appreciation of someone as important as Mu Helian?]"

And everything they do seems to be going smoothly right now, with someone backing them up. But what if it were someone else? Would they have a system? Would they receive help from these people from the start? Probably not. They would just be like the people of this era, oppressed their whole lives and dying silently.

Qingyun breathed a sigh of relief, thinking of this. "To be honest, these aren't my achievements; they're all thanks to you and them."

The system seemed unable to understand Qingyun's true intentions, and could only offer a few words, but it never quite resonated with him. Of course, Qingyun didn't expect an electronic device to understand the complex emotions of humans.

She got up, brushed the sand off her clothes, rolled up her sleeves, and continued working. She righted the fallen tree stumps, thinking she needed to find some more dry grass, but her newly recovered body made it too difficult to even lift them; she felt dizzy after just a little effort.

Seeing this, Qingyun sat down again and tapped the system, [How many points do I have left?]

System: 【One hundred and fifty, darling~】

Damn it, she didn't even have enough points to buy antibiotics. Qingyun was really miserable. She covered her face with her straw hat and rested under the scorching sun for a while before she felt a little better. But when she picked herself up from the wooden stake again, she stumbled, her vision went black, and she fell straight to the ground.

In her last moments before losing consciousness, she didn't forget to push the wooden stake aside, because if it were to fall on her, her sternum would shatter into pieces.

A few clouds drifted across the sky, but the temperature remained exceptionally high. Qingyun felt incredibly hot, as if she were being roasted over a fire. Her neck felt sticky and uncomfortable. She slowly opened her eyes and saw the blinding sunlight shining directly at her.

Qingyun covered her face with the back of her hand, still dazed and confused. She hadn't yet realized why she had fainted at the foot of the stone wall, but was now in an endless desert. It wasn't until the discomfort of the sand rubbing against her back and the suffocating feeling of a python coiling around her neck that she realized something was wrong.

She seemed to be being dragged along by something. When she looked up, she saw a large, round eye staring at her. It looked like a dog, and she could smell the animal's scent. But then she noticed a mouthful of fangs gripping her collar tightly.

After a long while, Qingyun suddenly realized that this was not a dog at all, but a wolf! She reached behind her head to pull down her collar, but then she thought that if she angered the other party, in her current position, not only would her hands be in danger, but she might also have a bloody hole in her neck.

Qingyun's heart pounded wildly, fear and tension welling up inside her, tears welling in her eyes. She desperately tried to suppress the urge to struggle, frantically asking the system what weapons she could exchange for. However, her earlier actions seemed to have attracted the wolf's attention.

The next second, the wolf actually released her collar and limped a few meters away from Qingyun, leaving her standing there bewildered. What was going on? Regardless, she remained cautious and didn't run, retreating step by step.

The wolf stared intently at her, and Qingyun naturally dared not look directly at it. She kept an eye on the wolf's claws, watching to see if it would suddenly pounce. Although she was confused, Qingyun took every step cautiously. However, she felt that the wolf in front of her looked familiar.

Mustering her courage, she looked closely and realized that this was the wolf she had encountered when she was looking for the well that day. The two of them were locked in a stalemate. Qingyun retreated more than ten meters away when suddenly her palm felt wet. She quickly turned her head and saw that it was actually a small pond.

An idea popped into Qingyun's mind, and she quickly tapped the system to ask if it was possible to detect the hunger status of animals.

【Honey, we're not an animal system, so that won't work.】

Qingyun chuckled a few times upon hearing this, but she suspected that the wolf might have dragged her so far just for this small pond. Could it be that the wolf was kind? Can animals be so understanding?

[Could it be that seeing me collapsed on the ground, you think that drinking water will wake me up?]

The system immediately looked up information for her and said that domesticated wolves might behave this way, but wild wolves would definitely treat you as food.

Qingyun knew this principle, of course, but she noticed that there were no wolves around, and every time she saw it, it was alone. Isn't it said that wolves can hardly survive without their pack? Could it be that this is actually a pet?

However, no matter how she guessed, it was uncertain. She decided to slowly withdraw from the wolf's sight first. Suddenly, Qingyun seemed to hear something—the sound of horses' hooves? The wolf's attention was also drawn to it. It suddenly turned around and limped towards the source of the sound.

Qingyun knew something was wrong. If the wolf didn't hurt her, it might bite the man on horseback. She quickly stood up and shouted, "Run! There's a wolf!" But she completely forgot that she could rely on this man to escape her predicament.

The consequence of shouting like that was that she felt even worse. She felt like she had suffered from heatstroke from being in the sun for too long, and her stomach acid was nauseating. The rider, seeing the wolf approaching, wasn't afraid at all; instead of turning back, he kept coming this way.

When they saw the person who had arrived, Qingyun's guess was confirmed. When Song Junwu dismounted, the wolf was like a large dog, running around him like crazy.

Qingyun: "..."

Qingyun narrowed her eyes and glanced at the man. She suddenly recalled that time at the camp when Song Junwu asked her how she managed to escape from the wolf's mouth. He must have known at the time that she had encountered the wolf he raised, but he deliberately didn't say anything. This guy is really wicked.

Song Junwu's hearty laughter rang out. He walked up to Qingyun with his riding whip, and stroked the wolf. "Did I scare you?"

Qingyun chuckled, "If you hadn't come, I would have killed your beloved pet."

Upon hearing this, Song Junwu's eyebrows twitched. It wasn't that he thought the other party's words were arrogant; after all, it was unknown what Qingyun was capable of. "He ran away a few days ago, and I only just found him now."

Qingyun looked at the wolf, then her gaze shifted to the man who was squatting down. She recalled the awkwardness of today and felt uncomfortable all over.