Free Web NovelChapter 236: Chapter 238: Putting Out the Fire
Jiang Xia subconsciously touched his face, and the moment he did, he knew something was wrong.
"Are you calling me thick-skinned?"
"I did not. Don’t slander me."
An Ning turned away with a huff, but a smile played on her lips. Her mood was light and cheerful.
Jiang Xia shook his head slightly, an unseen look of fond exasperation in his eyes.
One in front of the other, they began to climb the mountain.
The mountain range behind their home was vast.
The mountain An Ning had leased was just a small peak, belonging exclusively to their village of Shili Gou.
But the area they were in now was already outside of Shili Gou, falling under the town’s jurisdiction.
The deeper they went, the taller the trees became.
Once the Beginning of Spring had passed, the branches were just as Jiang Xia had said: no longer dry and brittle, but full of resilience.
An Ning tried to snap off the tip of a branch and said admiringly, "The wisdom of our ancestors is truly unrivaled."
"These solar terms are truly incredible."
Holding the small twig in her hand, An Ning said, "I remember that once the Beginning of Autumn passes, the wind immediately changes direction. The sky seems higher and bluer, and it’s even chilly in the mornings and evenings."
"But the day right before the Beginning of Autumn, it’s always so muggy you can barely breathe."
"How do you think they figured all this out about the solar terms?"
It was the first time Jiang Xia had ever seen An Ning admire something.
He truly wanted to one-up her and explain the reason why, but alas, he was in the same boat, full of admiration himself.
"Who knows? A culture that’s thousands of years old is bound to have its outstanding achievements."
An Ning agreed, and they continued on.
Along the way, they also picked a number of things.
Many kinds of mushrooms and some rare early-spring wild vegetables were already starting to emerge.
Jiang Xia taught An Ning how to identify everything. As she dug, she asked, "How do you know so much?"
"Why wouldn’t I know? I’ve lived in the village for many years, after all."
An Ning had always known this. She genuinely admired Jiang Xia; he was the type of person who could always carve out his own path, regardless of his circumstances.
"This is called a ’brain melon.’ It’s actually a type of wild garlic. The flavor is excellent. It’s great fried with eggs or pickled."
An Ning filed the information away but didn’t rush to dig up the greens.
They had to get down the mountain before dark. Even for two highly capable people, staying on the mountain at night was not an option.
An Ning followed Jiang Xia for an unknown distance until they finally reached the fine tree he had spoken of.
"It’s so straight!"
An Ning didn’t know what made a tree good or bad, so she could only praise its appearance.
"Heh, you’re right. It’s certainly straight enough."
"Let me tell you, this tree’s wood isn’t splintery. It’s fine-grained, sturdy, and durable. You could use it for hundreds of years, and it wouldn’t fall apart."
"That amazing? What kind of tree is it?"
"Zitan." freewebnσvel.cøm
An Ning nodded, not yet grasping the value behind the word "Zitan."
Even Jiang Xia hadn’t anticipated that the price of zitan would be driven to such heights.
"It’s not illegal for us to cut this tree down, is it?"
"Not now. Who knows what will happen in the future."
"As long as it’s not illegal now, it’s fine," An Ning said, unconcerned.
"Stand back!"
An Ning shooed Jiang Xia away. She gripped an axe, swung it high into the air, and brought it down hard.
THWACK!
A deep gash appeared in the tree trunk.
Jiang Xia then witnessed a display of what could only be described as brutal, beautiful precision.
The axe in An Ning’s hands never deviated in the slightest, from beginning to end. She truly hit exactly where she aimed.
At that moment, Jiang Xia still had time to joke to himself: ’If An Ning and I ever become family, I’ll definitely be on my best behavior.’
Without any help, An Ning chopped at the tree for nearly an hour before finally cutting through.
She and Jiang Xia stood clear of the fall path. An Ning delivered a final flying kick, and the tree crashed down in the opposite direction.
Next, they had to break off the tangled branches, keeping the main trunk. They used a hemp rope to rig up a harness. The weight of a single log was something the two of them could manage to get down the mountain.
Jiang Xia was in the front, An Ning in the back.
They worked together in perfect sync, trusting each other as they maneuvered the log down the mountain.
"Jiang Xia!"
An Ning put her weight into it, pulling the rope taut. Jiang Xia braced himself and looked up the slope toward her.
"Do you smell that?"
Without questioning her, Jiang Xia twitched his nose and sniffed the air.
"It smells like fire..."
Their eyes met.
"Let’s move this sideways. I think it’s over there."
An Ning had already spread her spiritual power, searching for the source of the smell.
They put their strength together and wedged the log between a few trees to secure it. Then they broke into a sprint, heading toward the source of the smoke.
"An Ning, if you can’t help, just run, you hear me?"
"Don’t worry! I’m not an idiot."
They ran for a dozen meters and saw white smoke rising from a particular spot.
It was a dugout pit, but they couldn’t see the situation inside yet.
Before they could even get there, two boys scrambled out of the dugout. One held a stick and the other a rock, their eyes full of wariness as they stared at Jiang Xia and An Ning.
"Hey, don’t be nervous," An Ning said, trying to sound friendly. "We’re from a nearby village. We saw someone had a fire going on the mountain and just came to take a look." ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
An Ning gestured for Jiang Xia to stay put as she slowly moved forward.
Seeing that An Ning was a girl and hearing her words, the two boys instantly lowered the stick and stone. Tears streamed down their soot-stained faces, carving clean tracks through the grime.
"Waaaaah—"
"We... we didn’t mean to."
The two children sobbed out an apology. They hadn’t wanted to light a fire, but they were so cold and hungry.
An Ning took a few steps closer, jumped down into the dugout, and first extinguished the fire.
"You’ve already done a great job. You knew to surround the fire with rocks, and you found a place sheltered from the wind."
Only after confirming the fire hazard was eliminated did An Ning begin to question the two boys.
Upon asking, she learned that the boys had been playing, ran farther and farther up the mountain, and gotten lost.
And today was the second day they had been lost.
It was both a misfortune and a stroke of good luck that the two children had survived a night on the mountain unscathed.
An Ning and Jiang Xia asked for their addresses. It turned out they were also from Sanhe Town, just a bit far from Shili Gou—almost on the other side of the mountain.
"How about this? You come down the mountain with us. We live in Shili Gou. Once we get there, we’ll call your village office and then take you home, okay?"
The two children nodded obediently.
An Ning took a few pieces of candy from her pocket and also offered them her water canteen.
"Have this for now. There’s water here, too."
The two children accepted them, said their thanks, and followed An Ning and Jiang Xia down the mountain.
Of course, they didn’t forget the log.
As they neared the foot of the mountain, An Ning took the two children to the village office, explaining what had happened along the way. The adults all sighed with a mixture of pity and relief, then immediately turned to give their own children a stern lecture.
This was a real-life cautionary tale. If they didn’t take advantage of it, this pack of little hellions would never learn what it meant to be afraid.
