Inside the camp, horses were already in place, along with clothing, armor, and equipment. The chief officer had already assembled the troops and handed over all matters within the camp. The imperial guards, in full formation, were waiting outside the main camp gate outside the city walls.
During the long march, Yuwen Ran's advance team did not bring siege equipment and heavy armor, but they were not all cavalry. They also brought pots and pans. The marching speed was not fast, so it was not difficult for Gu Yanyue to follow.
Yuwen Ran thought the carriage was too useless, so he simply abandoned it and rode his horse ahead.
The army marched for three days. It was the sweltering heat of August. The further north they went, the hotter the weather became. Many soldiers, unable to bear the heat and wearing thick armor, suffered from heatstroke, which slowed down the march a lot.
Seeing this scene, Gu Yanyue couldn't help but feel worried. Yuwen Ran was also extremely sensitive to the heat, and she wondered how he was doing. Although she and Yuwen Ran were in the same place, she was only a small cook during the march to avoid revealing her identity. After three days, she hadn't even seen Yuwen Ran. If they didn't find a way to cool down the soldiers, they would probably fall ill.
When Gu Yanyue saw mung beans among the prepared ingredients, she suddenly thought of a way to cool down. When she was still in modern times, she would make some mung bean soup to drink in the summer, which could quench her thirst and relieve the heat.
She first soaked the mung beans in water, scrubbed them clean, poured them into a pot and added appropriate amount of water. She boiled them over high heat for a while, then reduced the heat to low after boiling. When the mung beans were cooked until they bloomed, she added white sugar because the army did not have rock sugar. Then she turned off the heat, covered it and simmered it for a while before serving.
Gu Yanyue was not in a hurry to distribute it to the soldiers. She asked her elder brother, who was also a cook, to get her a basin of cold water. When the temperature of the mung bean soup cooled to a certain level, she distributed a bowl of mung bean soup to each soldier.
Not only that, Gu Yanyue also found some wild vegetables on the way. She did not stir-fry them, but washed them and put them aside, planning to make some cool and refreshing cold dishes.
She peeled and minced the garlic, then peeled and minced the ginger. She washed the scallions and cut them into sections, and then cut the chili peppers into sections. Next, she heated the oil in a pan and added Sichuan peppercorns, minced ginger, minced garlic, chili peppers, and chopped green onions. After a quick stir-fry, she scooped the ingredients out of the pan and placed them in a bowl. She also added a suitable amount of sesame seeds. Since she didn't have any oyster sauce, she used soy sauce instead. She also added a suitable amount of vinegar, salt, and a little warm water.
After stirring evenly, she waited for the sauce in the bowl to cool down, then added the washed wild vegetables placed aside, mixed them well, and served it out.
After the soldiers drank mung bean soup and cold dishes, their heatstroke symptoms were relieved a lot.
After hearing this, Yu Wenran in the king's tent just smiled faintly. He was not too surprised that Gu Yanyue appeared in the military camp. If Gu Yanyue really listened to him and stayed in the palace, it would be unlike her.
After he finished the mung bean soup and salad that Gu Yanyue had made, he sighed lightly and said softly, "Someone come here."
A man in black emerged like a shadow, bowing and waiting for him to speak. Yu Wenran looked at the official documents he had just approved on the desk, rubbed his eyes, and said, "The Queen is also in the military camp. You will protect her in secret during this time."
The man in black took the order and disappeared without a trace, as if he had never appeared there.
Gu Yanyue followed the army for a few more days. There was not much meat in the food during these days, and the soldiers did not have any big fish or meat. Yuwen Ran had no objection and he ate whatever the soldiers ate.
He could eat it, but Gu Yanyue couldn't bear to see it. She had worked so hard to keep Yu Wenran's body fair and tender in the palace. She couldn't let him come out to fight a war and become thinner under her nose.
At night, when the soldiers in the camp had gone to rest, Gu Yanyue planned to bypass the soldiers patrolling the camp and sneak into the back mountain to hunt some wild rabbits and pheasants for Yuwen Ran, so that he could prepare a special meal for him.
In order to better shoot those hares and pheasants, she spent an afternoon making a simple crossbow.
Gu Yanyue walked all the way to the back mountain by herself. She could vaguely see the torches held by the soldiers patrolling the military camp at the foot of the mountain.
The moment Gu Yanyue left his tent, Yuwen Ran followed her secretly. Ever since he knew that Gu Yanyue was also in the military camp, he would come outside every night and watch Gu Yanyue turn off the lights and lie down before returning to his own tent.
His wife was clearly in the military camp, but he had to avoid exposing the fact that Gu Yanyue had followed him secretly, so he could only wait outside every night to catch a glimpse of Gu Yanyue.
He didn't know where Gu Yanyue was going tonight, alone with a crossbow in the middle of the night, but he had a vague feeling that what Gu Yanyue was going to do was definitely not very safe, otherwise he wouldn't go out with a weapon.
But Gu Yanyue didn't expect that her luck would be so bad. Not long after she entered the mountain, she heard the howling of wolves. She clenched the crossbow in her hand, took a few deep breaths, and pumped herself a few times. Then she prayed silently in her heart that she would not encounter a wolf tonight.
Otherwise, with her weak fighting ability, she would definitely not be able to defeat the wolf. She also didn't know how to do light work, so she couldn't even run faster than it.
But the fact is that the more you fear something, the more likely it is to come.
Before Gu Yanyue could find any hares or pheasants, she encountered wolves. Looking at the wolves swarming around her, Gu Yanyue lamented that she had been so unlucky and had encountered dangerous things so frequently recently. It was really a double whammy.
Gu Yanyue counted the arrows he was going to use to catch rabbits and pheasants, then looked at the wolves that were gradually surrounding him. He thought that if he fought, there might be a chance of survival.
Gu Yanyue didn't wait any longer. She gripped the crossbow tightly in her hand, aimed at a wolf and prepared to shoot.
Suddenly, a ghostly shadow appeared from nowhere in the air and was in front of the leading wolf in the blink of an eye. The leader wolf, who had been so arrogant before, was beheaded, and Gu Yanyue was embraced by him. In another flash, he disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Yuwen Ran took Gu Yanyue back a few steps, and they stood back to back on either side. After saying "be careful", Yuwen Ran floated over like a ghost, and in a few strokes, he killed most of the remaining wolves, while the others were shot by Gu Yanyue's crossbow.
In a short while, the wolf pack was dealt with by Yu Wenran and Gu Yanyue.
Gu Yanyue wanted to go over and see if the wolves were completely dead, but she found Yu Wenran standing there staring at her.
Gu Yanyue looked down at herself, knowing that she was doomed to fail.
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