"If you could trade it for a wolf pelt, that wouldn't be bad either," the woman continued with a smile.

Jiang Ai subtly pushed the pile of grass in front of her toward the woman.

Her birth mother tacitly approved of her little actions, casually saying to the woman who was daydreaming, "Is that little boy worth a wolf skin? A sheep skin will do."

Jiang Ai clapped her hands with a smile and said, "I'm done weaving. I'm going to go see if there are any bird eggs in the woods over there."

She chuckled as she dodged the two straw mats the woman threw at her and quickly ran into the woods.

The woman sighed, "Could she really have fallen for that little boy?"

She turned to look at Jiang Ai's birth mother.

The woman's expression gradually darkened. She asked, "Should we bury him under the Mother Goddess Stone?"

Jiang Ai's birth mother smiled calmly and said, "Ai is a child with her own ideas—look at her, she doesn't seem to like it at all." She said with a smile, "Even I was more familiar with that man than she was with that child."

The woman smiled knowingly.

She looked down at the pile of straw in front of her and gritted her teeth, cursing, "When she gets back, I'm going to throw this straw mat all over her face!"

Despite her complaints, she continued working.

She glanced at the sky, then at the quiet woods, and asked, "Are there any large wild beasts in this forest? Why hasn't she returned yet?"

The women all looked toward the woods.

Standing on the tree branch, Jiang Ai held her breath, looking down at the huge, dark figure that had stood up.

She encountered a bear.