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Tang Yue was dumbfounded. What was she seeing? How could there be three children in the Qinling Mountains? And what were they wearing? They looked like beggars, though much cleaner than beggars, of course.
"Brother, let's find a way to get something hot to eat. I feel like I'm starving to death if we keep eating like this."
The boy, who was called "Big Brother," washed the vegetable leaves clean and stood up. "Well, Xiaoyu, Big Brother will figure something out. But until we can find a fire, we still need to fill our stomachs with this."
"Don't worry, you and Yan Yan, I already know where those rabbits often appear. We'll go dig a trap later, and we'll have meat to eat tomorrow."
"Really, brother? Brother, will we get meat to eat?"
The little girl had big eyes, but her face was so thin that her cheeks were sunken.
The three children were all pale and thin, looking malnourished. Tang Yue felt that they weren't much better off than when she had transmigrated.
"Honey, are you done washing up? Why aren't you home yet?"
Tang Shengkai squatted down next to Tang Yue and helped her tidy her hair.
Tang Yue turned her head to look at her father, her mind still replaying the interaction between the three children.
"Dad, do you think there might be children living in these deep mountains?"
Tang Shengkai paused, smoothing his hair. "Daughter, you saw the child? How is this possible? It's so dangerous in there. How could the child survive?"
Tang Yue followed the three children into a cave. She probed inside and found only some dry branches and crumpled grass leaves on the ground, which looked like their sleeping place.
There were several large rocks at the entrance of the cave, which they apparently used to block the entrance at night.
"Dad, there are three children upstream, they are starving."
Tang Shengkai stood up abruptly. "I need to report this to the battalion commander." He then hurried back to find someone.
Xu Hongchang and Chang Yin arrived quickly. "Little Yueyue, is someone upstream?"
"Yeah, a few vegetable leaves floated down from upstream when I was washing my face. They're wild vegetables from the mountains, so someone must have been washing them."
Xu Hongchang and Chang Yin immediately went on alert. "Let's ambush them and scout out the situation."
Fei Shuwen stayed behind to wait for Wang Ming and Sun Jinan to return, while the rest of the group went upstream to scout.
Tang Yue walked in front. Now no one underestimated Tang Yue; everyone knew her abilities, so they considered it natural for her to walk in front.
She moved quickly, and the children sat down on a stone slab outside the cave. "Come on, Xiaoyu, Yanyan, let's eat."
"Thank you, brother!"
"Thank you, brother!"
"Yan Yan, why aren't you eating?"
Little Yan Yan looked at the vegetable leaves in her hand, her big eyes filled with worry. "Second brother, I wonder how Grandma is. We've managed to hide in the mountains and we still have vegetable leaves to eat, but Grandma..."
After the little girl said that, the two brothers couldn't eat anymore. The three of them fell silent.
Tang Yue raised an eyebrow. These three children had hidden themselves in the mountains; their grandmother was still outside. Where were their parents? This family must have encountered some trouble.
The eldest brother was the first to pick up vegetable leaves and stuff them into his mouth, one after another. The second brother and the youngest sister watched their eldest brother silently stuffing vegetable leaves into his mouth, and they were so heartbroken that they almost cried.
Little Yan Yan was the first to lose her temper. "Waaah, big brother, I was wrong. I shouldn't have mentioned Grandma. Big brother, please stop eating! Waaah, big brother, you'll choke to death!"
Yan Yan stopped the older brother from stuffing more vegetable leaves into his mouth. He fiercely chewed the leaves and swallowed them, his eyes reddening. "Someday, someday..."
He gripped the vegetable leaves tightly, squeezing them into a pulp by the teenage boy.
"Big brother, don't be angry. Yan Yan just misses Grandma. We won't say it again from now on."
The older brother looked at his younger brother and sister-in-law, forcing back the tears in his eyes. "It's okay, you can miss her. I miss Grandma too. So, we must live on. Maybe Grandma is still waiting for us to come home."
"Waaaaah..."
Yan Yan couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into tears.
The two boys also secretly wiped away several tears.
When Xu Hongchang and his group arrived nearby, the children had already finished eating the vegetable leaves and were looking for suitable stones to dig in the surrounding area.
Chang Yin could sense the breathing of the three children from a great distance. They had not undergone any training and were breathing at the rhythm of ordinary people. Their movements were not quiet either, so he knew that there were three ordinary people in front of him.
But they were still shocked when they saw the three children.
The eldest brother was more alert. Just as Chang Yin and the others were about to reveal themselves, he suddenly sensed a change in the surrounding air. "Who's there?"
He immediately grabbed two fist-sized stones and held them in front of his younger brother and sister-in-law.
Xu Hongchang and Chang Yin exchanged a glance and stepped out of the bushes. Xu Hongchang was dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, while Chang Yin wore a green combat uniform. Everyone in China recognized those clothes.
Yan Yan peeked out from behind her older brother and gasped softly when she saw Chang Yin's clothes. She then tugged at his sleeve and whispered, "Brother, he's a soldier."
The child called Xiaoyu was clearly excited. They had been in the mountains for six or seven days, and the surroundings were eerily quiet with no one around. They didn't know how much longer they could hold on.
The older brother didn't dare to relax at all. He felt it couldn't be such a coincidence. They had only been in the mountains for seven or eight days when these people came looking for them, and they were even wearing military uniforms to deceive them.
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