As Ye Caiping spoke, she told her two daughters about her plan. Ye Jin'er and her sister's eyes lit up and they quickly agreed.

Ye Huan'er said, "We dug up over a hundred catties yesterday. Let's bring them over quickly and soak them all."

"Okay, let's go."

The mother and her two daughters quickly returned to the cassava grove, but the cassava that had been bundled up the day before was nowhere to be found.

Ye Jin'er frowned: "Strange, there were definitely three large bundles of them here yesterday! Where did they go?"

Ye Caiping said calmly, "It must have been an animal in the mountains that accidentally bumped into or kicked it, and it rolled down into the forest ravine. Oh well, there's so much of it anyway. We can dig it up again after we convince your grandfather and the others."

Although the Ye Jin'er sisters felt it was a pity, there was nothing they could do; they couldn't risk going down the mountain to search for it.

The mother and her two daughters then carried baskets on their backs and headed down the mountain.

"It's quite heavy, let me carry it down the mountain for you!" A steady voice came from not far away.

Ye Caiping paused, that sound…

Ye Caiping pushed aside the branches of the bushes that were blocking her view and saw a young boy and girl cutting pig feed.

The tall and handsome young man was none other than her eldest nephew, Ye Yong.

Ye Yong piled handfuls of cut pig feed into his large basket, a simple, honest smile on his dark face.

The girl was about sixteen or seventeen years old, dressed in faded coarse cloth clothes, with a cloth wrapped around her head. She wasn't very fair-skinned, but had delicate features and a slender figure.

"Thank you... You've already cut so much pig feed for me, I can't trouble you any more. You still have to carry firewood," the girl said.

“Let’s take turns carrying it!” Ye Yong took the lead and carried the large basket full of pig feed on his back. “We’ll switch back after we go down the mountain.”

His own basket didn't have much firewood, so it wasn't as heavy as the pig feed.

Seeing that he had already carried it on his back, the girl could only nod shyly and carry his half-basket of firewood on her back.

The two left one after the other.

From behind the bushes, Ye Jin'er said, "Mother, my eldest cousin and that girl..."

Ye Caiping said, "Let's pretend we didn't see anything, but don't tell anyone."

The Ye sisters exchanged a glance and nodded quickly.

They don't know about Ye Yong and that girl's situation yet, so they can't just tell anyone.

Although the separation of men and women in the village was not very strict, such things would still have a bad reputation if they got out, especially for girls.