Mai Zi hurried home and saw Lin Xiaocao pouring chicken blood into the house. The wooden planks had been overturned, and the room was completely empty.
Lin Xiaocao was somewhat surprised to see Mai Ya return.
She didn’t ask where all the things in the room had gone.
Just like last time with the wild vegetables—her mother had searched the entire house but couldn’t find them, yet Mai Ya had effortlessly brought them back from behind the house.
She had often slept in this room with Mai Ya since childhood and knew everything about it. For things to suddenly vanish into thin air proved Mai Zi’s trust in her, and she absolutely must not let Mai Zi down.
Lin Xiaocao sighed softly. Mai Ya was such a scatterbrain—she’d have to cover for her from now on, which was sure to be exhausting.
“So clever, Xiaocao! I never thought your mind worked so fast! We’re in for a treat!” Mai Zi was already swallowing hard, having gone too long without meat. She had almost thought she’d never eat it again in this lifetime!
Originally, Lin Xiaocao had planned to trade the chicken for grain, but seeing Mai Ya staring intently at the chicken, she sighed helplessly.
Well then, she’d make sure to nourish Mai Ya properly. She herself had never eaten chicken either.
The only time a chicken had been slaughtered at home, she had just taken a sip of the broth when Lin Hu glared at her fiercely and placed the bowl of chicken meat heavily out of her reach.
The taste of that broth was something she would never forget. The saliva in Lin Xiaocao’s mouth was no less abundant than in Mai Zi’s.
Lin Xiaocao quickly splattered chicken blood all over the floor, rolled the remaining dry grass into a bundle, wrapped the chicken in it, stuffed it into a cloth bundle, and handed it to Mai Ya. “You carry it—it’s less likely to get lost!”
Seeing that Xiaocao showed no intention of asking questions, Mai Zi breathed a sigh of relief. This was a challenge for both her and Xiaocao. But looking at Lin Xiaocao, Mai Zi’s intuition told her she could trust Xiaocao.
Mai Zi took the bundle and opened it to find broken silver and copper coins inside. The chicken’s bloody smell was too strong, and since silver and copper coins were valuable items, she stuffed them all into her Space.
The Space was about one-quarter full, mainly because the three large water vats took up most of the room.
They couldn’t carry an empty bundle, so Mai Zi took two pairs of cloth shoes from the Space and stuffed them into the bundle, along with the iron blade she had sharpened. She gave them to Lin Xiaocao—one pair of shoes belonged to her mother, and the other had been taken from the Village Head’s house.
“When we get to the county town, I’ll buy some needles and thread to alter these shoes. In at most five days, we’ll both be able to wear them for the journey.” Lin Xiaocao lovingly stroked the cloth shoes.
It was a shame to waste the remaining shoe linings and fabric, but Mai Ya’s clever idea meant their feet wouldn’t suffer on the road. Lin Xiaocao forgot that she had just inwardly criticized Mai Ya as a scatterbrain.
It was also thanks to Lin Xiaocao’s lifelong experience mending and sewing clothes for the family—she was practically a jack-of-all-trades.
If it were left to Mai Zi, the result would likely be a mismatched mess, at best stuffing a few cloth strips inside to make do.
“There are also two sets of cotton-padded clothes, Xiaocao. You have a heavy responsibility ahead!” Mai Zi patted Lin Xiaocao’s shoulder, sighed with her hand on her chin, and exhaled deeply.
Lin Xiaocao didn’t understand what was heavy or what lay ahead, but she grasped the part about the two sets of cotton-padded clothes. The unease in her heart gradually settled.
Perhaps Heaven was on their side—the cool breeze that night gently brushed away the heat of their journey.
Under the bright moonlight, the two figures gradually drifted further away from the well village where they had grown up, fading into the endless night.