Duan Pengyue stared at her with a cold expression, his tone firm, as if he had long anticipated that Li Qinkuai would act this way.
Li Qinkuai panicked and quickly waved her hands to explain, “No, I wasn’t here to follow you. I came to cut bamboo.”
She couldn’t let Duan Pengyue misunderstand any further, nor could she afford to have any more entanglement with him.
“Oh? Then where’s the bamboo?”
Duan Pengyue sneered, his tone dripping with disdain as his gaze grew colder.
“It’s right…”
Li Qinkuai trailed off mid-sentence. All the bamboo had been moved into her space.
She awkwardly scratched her head, unable to think of a suitable excuse. She could only say, “I really wasn’t following you. This was just a coincidence. I’ll leave right now and stay out of your sight!”
After saying this, Li Qinkuai hurriedly ran off. One more second and she wouldn’t be able to explain herself.
After all, she had indeed followed Duan Pengyue before—an undeniable fact.
Duan Pengyue watched Li Qinkuai’s retreating figure and snorted coldly. In his eyes, she was simply fleeing after being exposed.
Did she think he didn’t know she was deliberately playing these little games of playing hard to get?
“I think Li Qinkuai might not have been following you this time. There really were cut bamboo leaves on the way here earlier.”
Lin Sheng, seeing Duan Pengyue’s unpleasant expression, couldn’t help but speak up for Li Qinkuai.
Duan Pengyue’s face darkened instantly. He turned and snapped angrily, “Are you close with her?”
“Not at all,” Lin Sheng replied sheepishly. He shouldn’t have spoken up.
Duan Pengyue shot him a warning look. “Don’t think about things you shouldn’t!”
Then he strode away.
Lin Sheng lowered his eyes, paused for a few seconds, and followed.
Li Qinkuai ran down the mountain and only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that Duan Pengyue wouldn’t see her again.
Thank goodness she ran fast, or it would have been even harder to explain.
“Qinkuai? What are you doing here?”
Li Qinkuai turned around. It was Qin An.
Her childhood friend, a sturdy and strong man with great physical strength. He was a hunter who often went up the mountain to hunt.
When Li Qinkuai was bullied by boys as a child, Qin An was always there to help her. He was her best friend.
However, she had been so busy trying to seduce Duan Pengyue lately that she hadn’t seen Qin An in a long time.
“I came here to cut bamboo. Are you heading up the mountain at this time?” Li Qinkuai asked curiously.
Qin An was familiar with the mountain. If she followed him, she was sure to find plenty of wild game to exchange for things in her space.
Just thinking about it excited Li Qinkuai.
“Yeah, I’m going up to check if any prey has been caught in the traps. I plan to go to town tomorrow to exchange for some things.”
Qin An was always straightforward with Li Qinkuai.
Li Qinkuai also knew that his so-called “exchanging for things” meant selling the hunted game on the black market for money.
Although the mountain’s resources were publicly owned, as long as it wasn’t large game and no one made a fuss, the villagers usually turned a blind eye.
“Then I’ll go up the mountain with you. I’d like to learn how to set traps from you. If we manage to catch something, I’ll go to town with you tomorrow!”
“Alright, let’s go. While the villagers are resting, we should hurry up the mountain.”
Qin An agreed immediately and led Li Qinkuai up the mountain in another direction.
“Who is this man in front of Li Qinkuai?”
Lin Sheng descended the mountain, holding the pheasant in his hand, and immediately spotted Li Qinkuai at the foot of the hill along with the man standing before her.
Duan Pengyue looked down and saw the two of them engaged in conversation, seemingly chatting happily. Li Qinkuai even linked arms with the man as they began climbing another hill together.
His expression darkened, and he quickened his pace, overtaking Lin Sheng as he hurried down the slope.
By the time he reached the bottom, Li Qinkuai and the man had already ascended another hill and vanished from sight.
Lin Sheng caught up with him at that moment.
“Why did you suddenly rush off like that? Li Qinkuai isn’t even here anymore. Looks like she came to meet that man, not you.”
Duan Pengyue’s face was as dark as ink, his voice icy. “Go back first!”
With those words, he was already heading up the hill in the direction Li Qinkuai and the man had taken.
Lin Sheng watched Duan Pengyue’s retreating figure and muttered, “Always putting on an act in front of others. Now that she’s gone off with someone else, look how frantic he is! Serves him right!”
Qin An and Li Qinkuai quickly made their way halfway up the mountain. The traps she had set a couple of days earlier had caught three pheasants and two rabbits. After that, she began teaching Li Qinkuai how to set traps.
The traps were simple, and Li Qinkuai grasped the method after just one glance. Qin An also taught her how to identify signs of animal activity.
Li Qinkuai absorbed everything, thinking to herself that if she mastered trap-making, she could use hunting as an excuse to bring out meat from her space in the future without raising suspicion.
She pretended to set a few traps and then turned to see several white mushrooms growing beneath a nearby tree.
Qin An was busy setting traps not far away and hadn’t noticed her. Li Qinkuai hurried over to pick the mushrooms. The moment she plucked them, a mechanical voice echoed in her mind once again.
“Ding!! Wild mushrooms discovered. Reward: one hundred catties of rice!”
The mushrooms in her hand vanished, replaced by five bags of rice in her space, each weighing twenty catties.
Li Qinkuai hadn’t expected these few mushrooms to exchange for so much rice. This was a windfall—now she wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry!
“Li Qinkuai, don’t move!”
Qin An’s tense voice suddenly rang out. Li Qinkuai froze in place.
Whoosh—!!
A machete flew past Li Qinkuai’s face, striking the ground beside her with pinpoint accuracy.
Turning her head, she saw a snake—a venomous one—now dead, sliced by the blade.
Her legs went weak with fright, and she collapsed to the ground, unable to stand up.
Snakes, those legless creatures, were Li Qinkuai’s greatest fear. Cold sweat broke out all over her body, and her hands trembled uncontrollably.
Qin An immediately strode over, reaching out to help her up. Their shoulders pressed together, making them look almost as if they were embracing.
“Thank goodness you were here, or I’d have been done for,” Li Qinkuai said, her voice still shaking.
“Never mind that. Let’s get down the mountain quickly.”
Qin An was also shaken by the close call. If she had arrived a minute later, Li Qinkuai might have been…
She couldn’t bear to think about it; even the thought made her heart race.
Li Qinkuai nodded hurriedly. “Right, let’s go back. We need to get back now!”
Her legs were still weak.
Having grown up together, Qin An knew all too well about Li Qinkuai’s fear of snakes. Without wasting words, she supported Li Qinkuai with one hand on her arm and the other resting on her shoulder for balance.
Just as they turned around, they found a man standing right before them.
It was Duan Pengyue.
His gaze was sharp as a blade, fixed intently on Li Qinkuai and Qin An.
Li Qinkuai instinctively took a step back, and Qin An tightened his grip on her shoulder.
Duan Pengyue’s already tense face grew even more unpleasant, his voice seeming to squeeze through gritted teeth: “Come here!”
Li Qinkuai felt her scalp tingle, unable to figure out what was going on with him. She turned to Qin An and said, “Let’s go quickly. He seems to be having some kind of episode.”
Qin An was taken aback but quickly nodded: “Alright.”
In his heart, however, he was curious. Wasn’t this man the one Qinkuai had been pursuing lately?
Why did Qinkuai seem so afraid of him?
Could it be that he had bullied Qinkuai?
Considering this possibility, Qin An immediately asked, “Qinkuai, did he bully you?”
Before Li Qinkuai could answer, her arm was suddenly yanked, and she uncontrollably stumbled backward. By the time she regained her balance, she was already standing beside Duan Pengyue.
“Her affairs are none of your concern!”
Duan Pengyue coldly tossed out these words, then dragged Li Qinkuai by the hand and strode down the mountain.
Li Qinkuai was stunned.
What was going on?