Chapter 51: Calling for a Ride
As dusk deepened, the farce finally ended. The hyena cub curled up in Wu Zhiyun's arms, its pink tongue gently licking the tips of its claws, as if the recent biting farce had nothing to do with it. Ye Jingchen slowly emerged from the shadows of the trees, his clothes stained with fine grass debris, his brows furrowed like a cloud that could not be dissolved.
"He, is he the one you like?" His Adam's apple rolled as he asked the question in a soft voice as if he was afraid of disturbing the dusk.
Wu Yuetang paused with her fingertips, the aroma of wheat from the bamboo basket mixed with the smell of fireworks lingering around her nose: "It's just a rotten old story. Back then, my eyes were covered with cataracts, and I mistook arsenic for honey." She took a big bite of the meat pie, and the grease slid down the corners of her mouth without being bothered to wipe it off, but she chewed up the past mess cleanly.
Ye Jingchen lowered his eyes and remained silent, his long eyelashes casting a butterfly-like shadow on his eyes. When Wu Yuetang crawled into the tent with the puppy in her arms, he remained standing there, his soles grinding the gravel into a discordant rhythm.
The dim light inside the tent flickered. Wu Yuetang dipped a hyena cub in the spiritual spring, watching it twitch its wet ears. Its adorable, ugly appearance was amusing. After counting the food in the space, she tapped the screen with her fingertips, and half the warehouse's unripe rice transformed into tiny golden dots, flowing into the points pool. Twelve thousand points flickered on the screen, like stars scattered across the night sky, yet less imminent than the impending rainstorm.
"It's time to talk to the village chief." She lifted the curtain and saw Ye Jingchen piling dead branches into a neat pile of firewood. The moonlight coated his thin back with a layer of cold silver.
The aroma of burnt wheat cakes wafted from the old village chief's tent. Through the swaying curtains, one could see his wife protecting the cakes with her sleeves, fearing that crumbs would fall; his little grandson's cheeks were puffed out, and grease stains covered half his face.
Wu Yuetang smiled brightly: "Grandpa Village Chief, if it's not enough, I have more. We can't go hungry on the road."
"Oh, isn't this Miss Wu? Come in and sit down!" The village chief hurriedly made room for a piece of felt, but saw the two people standing there.
"Grandpa Village Chief, I still want to talk about the rainstorm." Before Wu Yuetang finished speaking, the village chief waved his hand and sighed: "Girl, it's sunny every day. I told you it wouldn't rain. Why are you so stubborn? Look..."
He instinctively looked up at the sky, but the last half of his sentence stuck in his throat. The once clear sky had suddenly become swirling with leaden clouds, and a mountain breeze, carrying the smell of damp earth, blew towards him.
Ye Jingchen took a half step forward, and the crisp sound of his cloth shoes crushing dead branches startled the village chief: "Village chief, we must quickly find a place to shelter from the rain."
When the village chief saw Ye Jingchen, he immediately recognized him as the second son of the Ye family from Liuwan Village. He exuded a reassuring calmness and said, "If the rainstorm is accompanied by a mountain torrent, our team still has a low-lying area to camp..."
The village chief stared at his angular profile, suddenly remembering the skilled hunter from Liuwan Village. His throat throbbed, and he finally nodded firmly, "I'll do as you say! Pass the word down. We won't rest tonight. We'll search for high ground overnight!"
Wu Yuetang raised his hand to stop the village chief from getting up, exchanged glances with Ye Jingchen, and said, "The two of us have already cleaned up the natural cave on the top of the mountain. The cave is a hundred feet deep and has a dome-shaped roof. It is more than enough to accommodate two or three villagers."
She picked up a branch and drew a simple topographic map on the sandy ground. The candlelight in the tent flickered, casting flickering shadows on the ground. "There are hidden rivers and air vents in the cave. The rock walls are dry and water-proof."
Ye Jingchen pulled out the short knife he carried at his waist and drew two broken lines on the ground: "The cave on the mountainside is low-lying. According to the intensity of the rainstorm, it will cause backflow within three hours."
The tip of the knife finally stabbed hard into the "danger zone," startling the village chief so much that he took a half step back. "And the evacuation must be completed before noon tomorrow."
As the sound of the village chief's gong ripped through the night, twenty-three torches lit up one after another. The villagers, having heard the entire story, huddled outside their tents, gazing at the rolling dark clouds and whispering to each other.
Suddenly, Chen Chunhe's husband, Wang Tiezhu, shouted at the top of his voice, "Is Wu girl trying to trick us into doing hard labor? We all know what she was like before, and who knows what she's up to!"
"That's right!" A buzz erupted from the crowd. "It's better to just hide away halfway up the mountain than to climb for two hours!"
Wu Yuetang glanced at the troublemakers. The anxiety in his eyes visibly cooled when he saw Chen Chunhe and his family. His cold gaze vanished in an instant, and he turned to everyone and said, "This rain will last for sixty days, followed by a cold snap unlike anything seen in a century. The temperature will plummet, and once we leave this mountain, we'll enter the most dangerous area—the snowy Night Wolf Mountain ahead."
She turned and pointed toward the top of the mountain. "The caves on the top of the mountain are warm in winter and cool in summer. They're warm enough for all the villagers to take shelter in until the rainy season passes. And there are plenty of smaller caves left in the rock face."
Aunt Liu clutched her son Zhao Yi's hand and squeezed to the front row. The corners of her patched clothes were still stained with cake crumbs. "Let's believe Tang girl! Don't you remember the yam incident? What happened to those who believed Aunt Sun and Chen's mother-in-law?!"
Her words were like a drop of water thrown into a frying pan, and the crowd instantly boiled over. Aunt Sun snorted coldly, covering her mouth and nose with a handkerchief: "You're just playing tricks. If you really have the guts, why don't you share the food between our two families?"
Wu Yuetang lowered her eyes and chuckled softly, the coldness in her eyes like a poisoned arrow: "In that case, some are willing and some are unwilling. As for those who choose to stay on the mountainside, I will naturally not stop them. However, if the flood washes away your Dragon King Temple, do not come to me for help, and do not knock on the door of our cave."
When she turned to the village chief, her tone was as sharp as a frost blade. "Village chief, please inform the neighboring villages that those who are willing to go up the mountain must reach the top before noon tomorrow."
The night wind blew up the loose hair on her temples, and in a trance, it merged with the oppressive feeling of impending storm.
The sounds of messages spread like ripples in the night. The gongs from Liuwan Village, the bangzi from Xiaoyao Village, and the cowhide drum played by the old patriarch of Maiduo Village formed a dense network in the mountains.
The moonlight was still hidden in the rolling dark clouds, and the morning light was still sleeping, but the winding mountain road was already crowded with villagers carrying their belongings. They were like migrating ants, heading towards the top of the mountain along the mountain road.
The old chief of Maiduo Village was leaning on a jujube wood crutch, looking at the misty mountains in the distance and shaking his head: "You want us to walk twenty miles of mountain roads overnight? Unless God..." Before he finished speaking, a bean-sized raindrop hit his nose, and no more raindrops fell after that, but it still frightened the team to speed up their pace.
The pregnant woman from Huaishu Village was carried on her husband's back, with the baby wrapped in waterproof cloth taken out of the bag, and they walked forward with difficulty in the night.
Inside the space, Wu Yuetang watched the mall interface, her points rapidly decreasing. She had redeemed forty oil-paper umbrellas and ten black raincoats in one go. The umbrellas' ribs were forged from fine steel with a dark pattern, while the raincoats had a matte finish yet felt as light as a cicada's wing. This exchange had cost her over three hundred points, and Wu Yuetang felt a pang of pain at the deduction.
A sudden barking of dogs echoed at midnight. Wu Yuetang, wrapped in a wool blanket, woke with a start. She'd fallen asleep while feeding the puppy. In her arms, the hyena cub greedily sipped the goat milk from the spiritual spring, its amber eyes fixed on her. She chuckled softly, her fingertips tracing the puppy's wrinkled forehead. "Little beast, this one meal of yours could buy several bags of flour."
At dawn, the occasional rustling of footsteps echoed around the tent. Wu Yuetang opened the tent and saw Li Shi packing the remaining cooking utensils with a new waterproof sheet, while her eldest sister-in-law warmed up some leftover pancakes from yesterday. Smoke rose from the kitchen, mingling with mist. The flickering torches on the mountain path behind the group gradually formed a winding golden snake.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
