Yan Jing'an carried the tree on his back and walked for three hours straight. His throat felt metallic and his heart was pounding, but he still refused to stop.

He stopped and looked back when the sound behind him gradually faded away.

Du Ling had fallen far behind and was no longer visible. With a sigh, Yan Jing'an turned back.

Just a few minutes later, Du Ling, who had stopped, was seen panting heavily, leaning against a tree.

Seeing Yan Jing'an return, she gave him a look filled with resentment and pity.

Yan Jing'an scoffed, "Is that all the physical ability you have?"

Upon hearing his words, Du Ling's face paled: "Too fast... I can't keep up."

Yan Jing'an glanced around and took two steps closer: "Since I agreed to bring you into the forest, I'm definitely going to teach you properly. If you can't even keep up with this much physical strength, how will you learn the rest?"

"Why not tell Jiang Xi sooner rather than later, and go with her to the fields to raise rabbits and other animals? Why bother coming with me to the forest to suffer like this?"

He couldn't quite explain why, but he always felt a certain resistance towards this girl. Perhaps it was because of his previous injury, or perhaps it was because of the bell.

Whenever I see her full of life and smiling, I always feel a tightness in my chest.

Since it was his friend's dying wish, he could only do his best not to hurt her, and that was all.

After hearing what he said, Du Ling straightened up slightly: "I'll listen to Xiao Xi."

Yan Jing'an was amused by her words. Listening to Jiang Xi meant she was sticking with him.

His expression was icy: "Then what are you still doing standing there? Start running."

After saying that, he turned around and set off again, but this time, he was even faster than before.

Of course, it wasn't that they completely ignored it; they kept a pair of ears constantly listening to what was happening behind them.

After all, he was the one who brought the person out, and he had to bring him back safely.

Finally, as the sun began to set, the two made it back to the village.

Yan Jing'an returned to the courtyard first, where Jiang Xi was cutting sweet potatoes on the stone table.

The first step in making sugar is to grind all the beets into small pieces.

Seeing Yan Jing'an return, she greeted him, "You're back."

Yan Jing'an hummed in agreement and asked, "Where's my older brother?"

Jiang Xi pointed to the kitchen: "They should be lighting a fire there." Looking up, she saw the tree on Yan Jing'an's back, her eyes lit up, and she asked, "What kind of tree is that?"

Yan Jing'an unloaded his basket: "It's a kind of nut, somewhat like a pine tree nut."

"I'll go find my older brother and plant it." As he spoke, he took out the wild berries and mushrooms he had picked in the woods that day and headed towards the kitchen.

Jiang Xi kept chopping sweet potatoes, and there was a stone slab more than a meter long on the table.

After waiting for a while, she noticed that Du Ling was nowhere to be seen. Just as she was wondering what was going on and was about to ask Yan Jing'an, she heard a panting sound coming from the doorway.

Turning my head, I saw Du Ling coming in, leaning against the courtyard gate. Her face was flushed, and I could tell at a glance that she was exhausted.

Jiang Xi was surprised: "Why are you in such a hurry?"

Logically speaking, they returned early today and shouldn't be in such a rush.

Du Ling was so tired that she didn't know how to reply. She walked to the stone table and slumped down on the stone bench.

"Yan Jing'an... is very fast."

Jiang Xi agreed, saying, "He was indeed quite skilled in the woods."

Just then, Yan Jin'an and Yan Zheng came out. Yan Zheng asked Jiang Xi, "Where should we plant this nut?"

Yan Jing'an added, "When this tree grows up, the pine needles become frighteningly long and hard. If you accidentally touch a dry pine needle and get pricked, you'll suffer a bit."

Jiang Xi had originally planned to plant it outside the yard, but after hearing what he said, she felt it wasn't very safe.

Jiang Xi thought for a moment. Pine trees don't like water and prefer dry places with coarse sand. She suggested, "Why don't we move it to the hillside next to the village? It's not far away, and the water source there is not enough, so it's a more suitable environment for its growth."

Yan Zheng thought it made sense, so the two of them, one carrying a tree and the other with a shovel, went up the hillside.

Before leaving, Yan Zheng reminded Jiang Xi to watch over the fire.

Jiang Xi didn't turn around, but responded loudly.

Seeing Du Ling's exhausted state, she tentatively asked, "This is your first time entering the forest. Did Yan Jing'an bully you?"

After saying that, she looked at Du Ling and shook her head, then smiled with relief.

"He can be a bit annoying sometimes, but he'll probably teach you well. You should learn from him. And since you're a girl, you might be even more agile than him after you've learned."

Du Ling lowered her head and remained silent for a few seconds before nodding. Her lips tightened slightly. She was indeed quite good at teaching. It was only the first day, and she was already exhausted, her arms and legs almost breaking.

She encouraged herself, determined to persevere, knowing that one day she would outrun the bad guys.

Thinking about how Yan Jing'an would be unable to outrun her in the future, Du Ling felt motivated again.

After resting for a few minutes, she looked curiously at Jiang Xi's hands as she chopped vegetables.

That was something she had never seen before. How could someone use a knife so well? How could vegetables be chopped so finely?

Jiang Xi noticed that she kept staring at her hands and asked, "Why are you looking at my hands?"

Du Ling said shyly, "Xiao Xi is really amazing."

As she spoke, she pointed to the sweet potatoes in the bowl: "They're so small."

Jiang Xi thought for a while before she understood what she meant; she was saying that Jiang Xi had good knife skills.

Her eyes lit up, and she asked Du Ling, "Do you want to learn?"

Du Ling quickly opened her eyes wide and nodded solemnly several times.

So Jiang Xi made room for Du Ling to teach her how to cut vegetables: "You have to curl your index and middle fingers so you won't cut your hand."

"Yes, it feels like you're kneeling on the vegetables with two fingers, and as your right hand cuts the vegetables, your left hand has to keep moving backward."

As she spoke, she gestured, and Du Lingdu followed along and learned diligently. Before long, she had mastered the skill of chopping vegetables.

Seeing that she was already quite skilled, Jiang Xi had a lot of free hands to do other things.

She doesn't really understand the modern sugar industry, and her only memory of sugar is maltose and cane sugar.

When making maltose, rice is added to the malt to combine the sugars from the rice with those from the malt.

Making sugarcane sugar is much simpler. You just need to extract the juice from the sugarcane, boil it over a fire, and then put it into a container where the sugar will crystallize automatically.

She didn't know how to cook beetroot, so she decided to try cooking sugarcane using the same method.

First, place the chopped beets on a stone slab, then find another stone with a pointed top and a flat bottom, and grind the beets into a paste.

Yan Zheng had already boiled a pot of water in the kitchen, and Jiang Xi put the sweet vegetable puree into the pot to cook.

While she was cooking, she washed the water purifier again and placed the inner bag of her backpack on it to filter the water.

The fabric Jiang Xi made had too many gaps and couldn't be used for filtering, so they had to use this old one.

After simmering the sweet cabbage for a few minutes, Jiang Xi noticed that the color had changed, so she scooped the cabbage and broth into a bowl.

First, use a strainer to scoop out all the solids from the basin. After the remaining water has cooled, filter it through the inner bag of your backpack and pour it into a bucket.

The final step is to pour the filtered beet water back into the pot and boil it.

Jiang Xi refused to leave the kitchen for even a second, stirring the sweet vegetable broth in the pot with a spoon from time to time.

At first, the soup was a pale green color. When only a small portion of the water remained in the pot, the soup turned a brownish-golden color and gradually thickened.