Freya's trial of the Summer Beastman will always follow Lan...
"Lan, snap out of it." 022 raised his hand and gently patted a certain orc who was hiding from Hati and Heitu and squatting in the corner of the clan square.
Jiang Yunlan felt the pressure on her forehead. Several seconds passed before she blinked and stopped pretending to write something on the paper. Because if she didn't, the orcs who saw her would definitely come looking for her.
"Have you recovered yet?" 022 floated into the air, landed opposite her, and asked, looking at her.
“I’ve adapted,” Jiang Yunlan nodded, but her expression quickly became hesitant, “Probably…”
She lowered her head to avoid 022's gaze, put the paper and pen that had accompanied her through the play into her handbag, and said calmly, "I have to get used to it, I'll go back to them in a bit."
“I told you before, one day you’ll have to get used to being the ‘protected one.’ You can guess that your people will definitely choose you,” 022 said, then suddenly noticed Jiang Yunlan’s reddened ears and immediately understood, “So you’re just embarrassed.”
"She's just shy." Sveta suppressed a laugh, but her voice still carried a hint of amusement.
Freya rarely saw Lan with such an expression, and for a moment she didn't know what to say to put Lan at ease. She had never encountered such a situation before and had no way of dealing with it.
Jiang Yunlan's ears turned even redder as they stared at her, and her voice slurred, "I guessed it, but seeing it in person still makes me feel...very moved."
That's why she was surprised by Heitu and Hati's actions at that time.
Upon hearing this, 022 didn't say anything more, considerately giving her time to calm down, feeling inexplicably moved. Lan was much more honest than when they first met; Lan had indeed been growing.
“I know I will be protected by them, I understand that,” Jiang Yunlan said.
She had spent several years with the beastmen, weathering beast tides together and venturing into many different regions, facing difficulties together. The awkwardness in her heart had long since disappeared. She had long accepted her identity as the "protected one."
She is the patriarch of the Xia clan, the orc who leads the orcs toward the future, the orc who protects them, and the orc they follow.
Jiang Yunlan regained her composure and calmly walked back to Heitu and the other beastmen, though her raised arms and legs were slightly stiff. When she stood before the beastmen, these unnatural reactions became even more difficult to discern.
Feng Hong, with a plate of food in her left hand and a plate of food in her right, happily turned to look at her, but couldn't see anything.
"Lan! This dish is delicious, you should try it!" Feng Hong had just finished the same snack she had been holding a few minutes earlier and happily recommended her favorite food.
"It tastes good," Jiang Yunlan said, expressing her impression after tasting the food, and then turned to thank Hui Mi for handing her chopsticks.
She followed the orcs around her, tasting a bite of food from the left and a bite of snacks from the right, until she was full before putting down her chopsticks. Hati, like Feng Hong, was an orc who loved to eat, and was still searching for food with Feng Hong.
Two tall orcs carried back fresh food from afar, and just as they returned, they heard Black Earth's voice.
"Is Lan asking why there are only the seeds Sveta gave me in my pot? Because a while ago, several sprouts suddenly appeared in the small pot. I was worried that they wouldn't grow well, so I wanted to move them to a different place. On the way to change the soil, I found some seeds that hadn't sprouted yet, so I sifted the soil through a bamboo mesh a few times and put the seeds back in the small pot separately."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Yunlan finally understood why there was only one plant in the pot she brought.
"Well done. You must have read some books about planting when you got the seeds, right? I remember you rarely handle planting matters in the past." Jiang Yunlan said, praising her a couple more times.
She was overjoyed, and a slight change appeared at the corners of her mouth, raising it by about two pixels.
Just then, Hati sat down and casually added to what Black Soil hadn't explained: "The seeds Sveta gave me are different from the other seeds. I knew it was a seed Sveta gave me when I saw it. Black Soil thought the same thing as me."
Jiang Yunlan turned to look at him when she heard his voice, her eyes filled with curiosity. "Are you also worried that the sprouts in the pot won't grow well, so you moved them to a different place?"
“Yes. I saw that they looked like the crops in our tribe, and there were quite a lot of them, so I pulled them out and planted them in the farmland. Otherwise, it would be such a waste if they all died if I tried to raise them all. Originally, I only planned to keep one plant, but I didn’t expect to find the seeds that I really wanted to plant.” He said with a sigh.
Sveta nodded secretly in satisfaction upon hearing this. This was the real challenge it had presented. In fact, there was another trap in its test. If any orc chose to kill the plant dug out of the pot, it would not allow that orc to pass the test.
Without a compassionate heart, one cannot become a guardian.
"You two have passed the test and are now able to use the power of wood. Don't forget to come see me and Lan these next few days. I'll bring Lan to teach you how to sense and utilize the power of nature," Sveta reminded the two orcs.
Heitu and Hati nodded and readily agreed.
And so, the two orcs, after a long absence, felt a sensation they hadn't experienced in a long time in the second training ground: the pain of being utterly humiliated as children.
The second training ground was specifically for practicing the power of nature. The two of them could only use the power of wood to fight back, and they suffered repeated defeats. However, both of them were orcs who liked to challenge themselves. Even though they knew that they could not possibly defeat Lan when they had just begun to sense the power of wood, they still insisted on adding actual combat to each training session.
After several real battles, Heitu and Hati seemed to grow at an accelerated pace, quickly overcoming their novice status.
Even during her spare time training with them, Jiang Yunlan never forgot about the wooden boat she longed for. Every two or three days, she would go to find Feng Er and the others to discuss the matter of making the wooden boat.
With the blueprints provided by Institute 022, the initial preparations for shipbuilding went smoothly. By the time the second-class orcs of the Wind Realm understood many things and began to figure out how to make the sail parts, the snow season had already been underway for quite some time, and the flower season was approaching.
It's the first day of the snow season, and light snow is falling from the sky.
As Grey Honey had guessed, Freya arranged the assessment during the snow season. The content of her assessment was even more perplexing to the orcs than Sveta's.
Its test is to catch whole snowflakes and deliver them all to Lan. The test ends on the day the first snowfall of the snow season ends.
Many orcs were puzzled and, completely bewildered, planned to catch snowflakes in their spare time.
When Feng Hong, Mianhua, Abai, and other orcs familiar with Lan heard about the content of the assessment, their eyes immediately lit up.
Snowflakes are something Arashi likes. Great! This snow season I can give Arashi lots and lots of snowflakes.
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Author's Note: I only managed two thousand words today. I'll try harder tomorrow and see if I can manage three thousand! (Setting a goal!)
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