He Zhuoming had heatstroke.
Lin Qingyun could swear to himself that He Zhuoming had been digging in the ground for less than an hour, and the hole she had dug was so shallow it would be difficult to even bury a dog. In stark contrast, Lin Qingyun’s own labor had already resulted in three corpses being interred.
As he was digging, he saw He Zhuoming topple over stiffly.
The ground was so hard that Xiao He might die just from the fall. To prevent her from dying, Lin Qingyun caught her before she hit the ground and moved her to the shade of a nearby tree to lie down.
He Zhuoming was resting, but Lin Qingyun still had work to do. He glanced at the corpses still waiting for burial, sighed, and resigned himself to picking up the shovel to continue digging.
When He Zhuoming woke up again, the sky had turned into a bright, moonlit night.
The prime geomantic spot selected by Lin Qingyun, which had been a barren patch of land during the day, was now filled with mounds, complete with nameless tablets and white cloth spirit banners—there were even paper coins scattered on the ground.
A bonfire burned in the middle of the mounds, emitting the aroma of food; it was Lin Qingyun roasting meat amidst the freshly minted graveyard.
He Zhuoming wandered over with unsteady feet, sat down beside Lin Qingyun, and opened her mouth to ask what this was. As soon as her mouth opened, saliva flowed out before any words.
Feeling embarrassed, she frantically rolled up her hem to wipe her chin, awkwardly swallowing the words that hadn’t been spoken.
She wondered if the male protagonist had seen—He Zhuoming had no confidence in her heart, and she cast a glance toward Lin Qingyun with a gaze she believed was very careful and subtle.
She was met with Lin Qingyun’s face, which was smilingly looking at her.
He Zhuoming remained silent for a moment, turned her face away, and hatefully gave her own mouth a light tap: *If I had known, I would have eaten a few more steamed buns last night; then I wouldn’t have been this hungry.*
Lin Qingyun asked: “Roasted wild bird, want some?”
He Zhuoming turned her face back, facing the bonfire, and sat up straight: “Eat.”
Lin Qingyun smiled and handed the wooden branch skewered with the wild bird to He Zhuoming, reminding her: “It’s freshly roasted, be careful, it’s hot.”
He Zhuoming held the roasted bird and tentatively tried to pull off a wing, only to be burned immediately, causing her to shake her hands repeatedly and grimace.
She held her burned, reddened fingertips in her mouth and sucked in a small breath, her eyes still glued to the roasted bird, unwilling to move away. However, He Zhuoming couldn’t think of any way to rapidly cool down the bird, so she could only stare with wide eyes and wait, silently worrying to herself.
While He Zhuoming hungrily waited for the bird to cool, Lin Qingyun took out another cleaned branch from somewhere and skewered a second wild bird that had been processed of its fur.
Lin Qingyun: “Is there anywhere else you’re feeling unwell?”
He Zhuoming: “I’m so hungry… does being hungry count as being unwell?”
Lin Qingyun thought for a moment and said with a smile: “That counts, too. Aside from being hungry? Is your head dizzy, or do you feel like vomiting?”
He Zhuoming answered earnestly: “My head doesn’t hurt, but I’m so hungry I feel a bit like vomiting—I’m sorry; I had meant to help you, but I ended up falling asleep.”
Lin Qingyun: “…Xiao He, have you ever considered that you didn’t just fall asleep, but rather passed out from the heat? You have heatstroke.”
He Zhuoming was startled, so shocked that her gaze briefly drifted away from the roasted bird to look at Lin Qingyun: “Is that heatstroke? I just felt sleepy, and I thought I was just having my afternoon nap!”
He Zhuoming had never had heatstroke before; in her concept of the world, she was the type of person who wouldn’t get heatstroke.
Modern developed technology pampered children so thoroughly that they could rely on industrial products to adjust their surroundings to the most comfortable temperature all year round. The most serious illness He Zhuoming had ever had since she was a child was a seasonal cold.
Lin Qingyun was shocked by her shock and lamented: “Xiao He, it really hasn’t been easy for you to survive this long.”
He Zhuoming touched her face and muttered: “It’s not hot…”
Lin Qingyun: “Because I already applied a wet handkerchief to your forehead.”
He Zhuoming’s gaze shifted back to the roasted bird. “Ah, is that so… thanks for the roasted bird… no! That… thank you, Qingyun—Qingyun, you really are a good person… I will always remember your kindness…”
The roasted bird had become less hot, and He Zhuoming was busy eating, temporarily unable to spare her mouth to express her gratitude to the male protagonist.
Lin Qingyun lazily rotated the wooden branch to continue roasting the bird. Ignoring the fact that He Zhuoming’s mouth had no time to speak, he asked for himself: “Didn’t you say before that you were tricked into coming here by—’Tang Shuyu’… and your parents must be anxious searching everywhere for you right now.”
He Zhuoming gave two ‘mm-hmm’s as an answer.
Lin Qingyun: “Then why bother going to find some relative? Wouldn’t it be better to just go straight home and find your parents?”
This question hit exactly where He Zhuoming felt the most heartbroken. Suddenly, the roasted meat in her mouth no longer tasted good. She held the wooden stick, dazed for a few seconds, as tears flowed out one after another.
He Zhuoming sobbed twice and whimpered: “I, I miss my mom and dad too, wooo… I really want to go home… woooo… I don’t know how to go back, I, I don’t even know how—wooooo—I got here in the first place—”
She cried louder and louder. Since they were surrounded by mounds, her intermittent sobbing added a certain atmosphere to the graveyard.
Lin Qingyun pulled out his sleeve and wiped it across her face.
But He Zhuoming cried endlessly; she had soaked his sleeve through, yet her tears showed no sign of decreasing.
Lin Qingyun looked at his soaked cuff, changed to the other sleeve, and continued to wipe her face.
Of course, he had many ways to dry his sleeves. Because no matter how much He Zhuoming could cry, she was only one person with only two eyes, so her tears were extremely limited. Lin Qingyun could have easily stripped that moisture from his clothes and sprinkled it on any of the mounds.
But he didn’t do that.
The soaked fabric pressed against Lin Qingyun’s wrist; he felt as though He Zhuoming’s tears had more temperature than his own skin.
Lin Qingyun comforted her softly: “It’s okay, don’t you have me now? Tell me the whole story, and perhaps I can help you think of a solution.”
*That way, I can figure out exactly where Xiao He grew up to develop such a dim-witted brain.*
He Zhuoming grabbed Lin Qingyun’s arm and rubbed her face hard against his sleeve, which was still relatively clean, to wipe away the remaining tears.
She rubbed so hard that her whole face went from his wrist to his palm.
Lin Qingyun’s fingers twitched unnaturally, and the meridian connecting his palm to his fingers suddenly tightened—his palm was scalded by another person’s temperature, and he felt a moment of confusion.
He could not understand that sharp, numbing sensation in that instant, as if his palm had been slapped by an enemy with a Lightning Spirit Root.
He Zhuoming had used Lin Qingyun’s sleeve to wipe her face clean. Not noticing the slight twitch in his fingertips, she said: “My home is very, very far away… I don’t know exactly how far for the moment, but in short, it’s a very distant place.”
“Ever since I came here, there has been a problem with my memory. I can’t remember many things from the past clearly, and I don’t remember how I came to this place either. As soon as I arrived, I met that vicious villain… that Tang Shuyu! He tricked me into being sold here. After that, I met you.”
He Zhuoming didn’t tell Lin Qingyun that she had transmigrated—she had an intuition that the transmigration was her biggest secret. Even when she had first arrived and was being led around in circles by the teenage version of the vicious villain, He Zhuoming had guarded this secret tightly and never revealed it.
Mentioning the vicious villain, an nameless anger in He Zhuoming’s heart burned brighter and brighter. With a pair of rabbit-red eyes from crying, she slapped Lin Qingyun’s thigh and gritted her teeth: “That little rascal! Smelly pig! He even stole my school bag!”
Lin Qingyun’s thigh was slapped with a *smack*. As if he didn’t feel it, he followed up with a question: “Do you remember where you met that Tang Shuyu?”
He Zhuoming remembered every single thing that had happened since her transmigration clearly, and she answered affirmatively: “I remember! It was in a place called Wen County—I saw the carved stone monument at the entrance!”
Lin Qingyun was surprised: “You are literate?”
Because Xiao He’s speech was often incoherent, he had assumed she might be half-mentally disabled.
He Zhuoming lifted her head and puffed out her chest with great pride: “I was even an advanced Young Pioneer!”
Lin Qingyun didn’t understand, but he smiled and praised her: “That’s truly amazing—”
He Zhuoming: “I also know three foreign languages!”
Lin Qingyun: “Bird language, dragon language, insect language?”
He Zhuoming: “No, English, French, and Japanese.”
Lin Qingyun didn’t understand, but he still played along: “Xiao He, I really couldn’t tell; you are actually so clever.”
He Zhuoming felt light-headed from the praise. Even with tear stains still wet on her face, she couldn’t help but reveal a smile, her eyes curving into crescents.
Because she was smiling, Lin Qingyun stared at her face in a daze for a while.
But Lin Qingyun soon collected himself and said: “I know of this place called Wen County. I passed through there when I entered the mountains—after we leave the mountains, we can go there and look around. Perhaps we can find the reason why you appeared there, and…”
His smile suddenly became even more brilliant, and his voice was light and pleasant: “Catch that ‘Tang Shuyu’ who tricked you and give him a little lesson.”
He Zhuoming really wanted to beat that rascal up, but thinking back to her blurry memories of the original novel, Tang Shuyu seemed to be a villain with a very heavy role—in the early stages, the male protagonist didn’t even have the qualifications to cross paths with him, and only learned his name in the middle stages.
Because that’s what a vicious villain is like! Insidious and cunning! Sly as a fox! Good at hiding! Full of lies!
He Zhuoming said worriedly: “Can you beat him? He seems… he seems quite powerful; he is a cultivator whose cultivation level is not low.”
The villains she had met were still in their youth; if so, wouldn’t the current male protagonist be even weaker? But—
He Zhuoming looked at Lin Qingyun, who was roasting the bird beside her, and felt he looked quite strong no matter how she looked at him. As for the teenage villain who had to use trickery to sell her, he didn’t seem as strong as the book had written.
This strange contrast confused He Zhuoming.
Lin Qingyun handed the newly roasted wild bird to her and smiled amiably: “What does it matter? Let’s secretly observe the situation first. If we can beat him, we’ll fight; if we can’t, we’ll sneak away. I have many little tricks for escaping, and if there’s an opportunity in the future, I’ll teach them to you.”