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Chapter 34: Mountain Hiking (One)
The car stopped at the end of the road. A huge mountain range towered before the car. Without hesitation, Gu Yunlan carried a backpack and got out. She wore pure black protective clothing, black military boots on her feet, and her ponytail was tied up high, giving her a formidable look.
The door behind her also opened soon after. Xuanyuan Meng, dressed in completely red combat clothing, hopped out from the car. The cap on top of her head was also red. As soon as she left the car and saw Gu Yunlan, she rushed over while shouting, “Yunlan, I feel like you and I have a lot of affinity! Us together!”
“Pfft!” Gu Yunlan laughed out loud. She turned around to look towards the car, “You’re too kind! The lady is over-flattering me!”
Yangjin and An Jiaona had also followed them out of the car at their own pace. The two of them also wore entirely black clothing. On their feet were also the same boots prepared by the Marshal. Because they were blocked by Xuanyuan Ying at Gu City, they didn’t have many things. They just had one bag, inside were spare clothes and reserve goods.
“Boot-licker!” Xuanyuan Ying backed up the car, just in time to hear those words. He turned his head to say to Gu Yunlan, “I’ll go park the car. You wait here!”
Gu Yunlan nodded her head. She saw the car turn around, leaving the few people’s sight. Gu Yunlan took back her gaze and looked towards the other two, asking,” Little Sister, are you two going to be walking with us or…?””
“They’re walking by themselves?“ Xuanyuan Meng inched in closer, a shred of artificiality flashed across her face. “I have lived here for a long time. This place certainly isn’t as simple as it seems. Snakes and insects that are plentiful here are…”
What Xuanyuan Meng said made even Gu Yunlan shiver. She had better forget about the time she was tossed into the fire by rats.
“We…” An Jiaona glanced at Yangjin timidly, only to see that his handsome face was devoid of emotions.
“What is it? You haven’t decided?” Xuanyuan Ying strided over with big steps. His brows creased slightly. Is deciding whether or not to follow them really so hard?
“We will follow you into the mountains. We’ll part ways once we get to our destination!” Yangjin muttered uncertainly after a short pause.
“Then, let’s go!” Hearing what he said, Xuanyuan Ying led the way along the mountain path.
Gu Yunlan hurriedly followed along. The mountain path was really rough, unlike the one behind her home, which was made into a neat and tidy road.
Miao Territory was incredibly vast and included huge regions. The East overlooked Dongting, the West connected with Changui, and the South reached to Guangxi. There were a lot of mountain ranges with very few flat areas. The mountain features stretched out with rises and falls, and the greats were difficult to access. In addition, their destination was in the middle of the province, where a mysterious tribe exists.
An endless patch of green could be seen by standing at the base of the mountain and lifting ones head to look up. There was an infinite amount of rises and falls.
Rain more often occurred in the fall season. One little careless mistake could cause one to slip and fall. In the beginning, Xuanyuan Meng pulled Gu Yunlan along, but she later handed her over to Xuanyuan Ying while she led the way. Yangjin and An Jiaona walked in the middle, while Xuanyuan Ying and Gu Yunlan walked in the back. There was at least two meters of space between them.
Because of the chaos from war, the people of the region could not make a living. An area like Qianshan County had a lot of its edible fruits and wild vegetables dug out clean. Even rabbits and wild chickens were hard to spot.
This time, Xuanyuan Ying didn’t take the bag from Gu Yunlan’s hands. Everything in her bag was food. It was better to just have her carry it herself. He was already carrying a decorative purse.
The more they walked into deeper parts of the mountain, the wetter the path became. Bugs and snakes started to appear more often. The lonely little road started to have tongue-rattling snakes slither about.
Seeing that Gu Yunlan’s walk held a hint of a hop, he lowered his head and watched her go. The ground was crawling with insects, from time to time, a snake would slither past.
“What are you running back and forth for? Afraid of snakes?” Xuanyuan Ying asked in a puzzled low voice.
“It’s not that. Stepping on them to death feels really disgusting and dirties my shoes. I have mysophobia!” Gu Yunlan continued to run about. Kaza, a big beetle was stepped on by her and was crushed to death. She hurriedly picked up her foot, seeing the badly mangled insect. She immediately walked over to the grass and used her might to rub her boots.
Mysophobia… The space between Xuanyuan Ying’s brows jumped up. She had mysophobia yet still shared her food. It was as if she treated him like air. “Don’t move!”
Gu Yunlan froze, and stopped rubbing her boots. She looked at him in puzzlement. She didn’t know when it happened, but an additional bag had appeared in Xuanyuan Ying’s hands. He crouched next to Gu Yunlan’s boots and scattered some white powder on her clothing.
Gu Yunlan watched him stand up, then immediately pulled back her foot. When her foot landed on the ground, the bugs rapidly sped away. She looked at him in surprise, “Anti-bug powder?”
“I forgot to give it to you to use! Let’s go!” Xuanyuan Ying nodded his head towards her, and looked towards the direction of the other three walking further away.
Gu Yunlan nodded, then turned her head to walk on. Suddenly, she turned to look at him in astonishment, “Xuanyuan! You don’t have the powder, yet the bugs are still afraid of you!”
“What’s so surprising? Mengmeng can do the same too!” Xuanyuan Ying patted her head lightly. “Let’s go quickly! When our blood has entirely joined, you can do the same thing! Be careful with your steps!”
Xuanyuan Ying reached out his hand and grabbed onto Gu Yunlan, who was falling over from tripping on a stone, sighing, “You’d even fall from just walking. Aside from supplying me with blood, how else can you help me! I saved a troublesome spirit!”
“How do I not have a use? Let me tell you, once I’ve walked on this road, I’ll always remember how to walk on it again!” Gu Yunlan waved away his hand, blurting out discontentedly.
“En, you’re awesome! We’ll fall behind if we don’t go catch up!” Xuanyuan Ying reminded kindly.
“Then let’s hurry and catch up!” Gu Yunlan glanced at the three whose figures were about to disappear. She hurriedly grabbed onto his hand and started running.
Xuanyuan Ying was pulled by her, following behind her. His eyes landed on her feet. The two of their footsteps landed quickly. The bugs couldn’t get away in time and were trampled to death. He didn’t know if she would want to change her shoes the next time they stopped to rest or want to wash them.
“Ya!” Big Brother Yang!” An Jiaona’s low, surprised voice came through from time to time.
Gu Yunlan pulled Xuanyuan Ying along as she ran, her head lowered, until they were not far from them based off of listening to the voices.
Her face darkened when she lifted her head to look. An Jiaona’s finger pointed at the thick snake that slithered out in front of her. She was suddenly frightened into running to Yangjin’s side. Tche tche, this Miss, what was so scary about this plaything?
When she saw Xuanyuan Meng’s movements in front of her, she almost burst out laughing. No wonder, so Xuanyuan Meng was in front only to lead, not to kill the creatures. It could also be because the snakes fear the scent on her own body or because of the anti-bug powder, pretty much all the snakes slithered around her. Behind her, An Jiaona had no such luck. Bugs and snakes were all going towards that side!
Climbing up to walk, the road became more and more narrow. The ground also became more and more dry. Though it wasn’t as slippery as the base of the mountain, the tree thorns and grass almost grew along the entire path.
“Bro! There’s no path ahead!” Xuanyuan Meng’s voice called out from afar.
Xuanyuan Ying heard this and brought Gu Yunlan along as he sped up his steps to catch up. He passed by Yangjin’s group, directly walking towards Xuanyuan Meng.
Seeing the two of them holding onto each other’s hands tightly, Yangjin’s pupils narrowed and glanced over again.
“Chop the road clear by yourself, we must hurry to the mountaintop by the time the sky darkens. It’s too dangerous here!” Xuanyuan Ying glanced at the color of the sky. It was already past noon. One must not sleep outdoors in this mountain, there were too many bugs!
“Chop with what? We don’t have a blade!” Xuanyuan Meng looked at the few people helplessly.
“Then we’ll tunnel in!” Xuanyuan Ying said calmly, his brows not even wrinkling.
“This, how would we tunnel through?” An Jiaona looked distastefully at the little road overflowing with tree thorns.
“You follow behind me!” Xuanyuan Ying didn’t pay attention to the the other two and lowered his head while looking at Gu Yunlan.
“Bro! Then what about me?” Xuanyuan Meng looked at her own blood brother expectantly.
“Didn’t you want to lead the way? Why have you hurried to do so?” Xuanyuan Ying threw out the few words coldly. He turned around, pulling Gu Yunlan towards the canopy of tree thorns.
“Bro! You’re too inhumane!” Xuanyuan Meng accused grievously. Is this still her Big Brother? So heartless…
“Go now! Big Brother Xuanyuan was just playing a joke!” Gu Yunlan covered her mouth as she giggled into her sleeve. When she was dragged away by Xuanyuan Ying, she pulled onto the heart-broken Xuanyuan Meng, dragging her along.
“Big Brother Xuanyuan? Such an intimate way of address!” Xuanyuan Meng followed behind her, immediately forgetting about the conflict just now as she asked inquisitively.
“If I don’t call him Big Brother then would I call him Little Brother? Your Big Brother is older than me!” Gu Yunlan let go of her hands cheerfully. It really was hard for three people to walk while holding hands!
In front of them, the space between Xuanyuan Ying’s brows raised again. These two girls really shouldn’t stay with each other. They could always find something to talk about, so annoying!
Seeing the three people walking far away, Yangjin pulled An Jiaona expressionlessly to follow him in. They dug once, then dug again. It really was much easier to walk. The two people listened silently to Gu Yunlan and Xuanyuan Meng’s mindless chattering.
In the front, Xuanyuan Ying who led the way wasn’t idle as Gu Yunlan tried out the surrounding tree thorns. When it became possible for him to open up the road, Xuanyuan Ying started to take the lead. The other people didn’t question what he was doing.
They were only able to tunnel out of the canopy of tree thorns once they reached the mountaintop. The sun was already about to set,. Xuanyuan Ying walked over from afar, in his hand held some rabbits and wild chickens.
“Mengmeng! You’ll be in charge of scouting the terrain, we’ll look for a place to set camp. If what happened last night happens again, it’ll be your fault!” The last words from Xuanyuan Ying were said in her mind.
Xuanyuan Meng hurriedly nodded her head. She waited for an opportunity before pulling Gu Yunlan along to slip to one side and started to size up the terrain.
“We’ll look for firewood!” Yangjin responsibly took An Jiaona along to look for dry firewood.
The terrain wasn’t big, two hundred square miles in size. There were also rocks on the the top and wood from trees. There weren’t many areas that were flat, so she wasn’t needed for picking out a site. Gu Yunlan started to stand on top of a rock to look down towards the bottom of the mountain. There were mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. Because it was autumn, a lot of places had patches of red and yellow.
“Come here and give me a hand!” Xuanyuan Ying’s voice called out from behind her,
Gu Yunlan hurriedly turned around to walk towards him. Three tents were placed next to him. Xuanyuan Meng dragged over a rock for blocking wind.
She has seen this thing before. She heard that the Zi Family made a lot of odd things, this was one of them. It was called a camping tent.
“I’ll help you!” Gu Yunlan walked to Xuanyuan Meng’s side and crouched down, looking at him smilingly.
“Sure, but you aren’t allowed to be in the same tent as me! I have bad habits when I sleep!” Xuanyuan Meng’s words made her stare blankly.
“Then where will I sleep?” Gu Yunlan reached out her hand to help her into the strap.
“There are still two over there. You can be in the same tent as my bro or in the same tent as your little sister! Though my bro probably wouldn’t stay in the same place as that man…” Xuanyuan Meng smiled slyly. She pulled open all straps and said to Gu Yunlan, “Come! Let’s pull on it!”
Gu Yunlan hurriedly stood up. Pulling on one corner, the two people worked together to pull it up. A square meter large tent appeared on the flat ground.
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