“Wake up, wake up.”
Lu Shiyu was shaken awake. When she struggled to open her eyelids, the first thing she saw was Yan Hong’s face.
“Mmm? Is it morning already…?”
Seeing that Lu Shiyu was awake, Yan Hong stood up and began packing her gear with the other squad members. Lu Shiyu crawled out of her sleeping bag, rubbing her bleary eyes, only to find that everyone else had been up for a while; she was the last one.
Lu Shiyu looked up at the sky. It was that moment just before dawn, and the surroundings were still dim. According to the daily routine back at the base, it was far too early to be up—even shopkeepers didn’t wake at this hour. However, the members of the Sky Eagle Squad seemed long accustomed to rising at this time; not one of them looked out of place.
Lu Shiyu quickly put on her jacket and helped pack the sleeping bags and tents. By the time they finished, there was enough light to see their surroundings clearly.
“Is everything packed? Check if anything was left behind. If not, let’s continue our journey,” Tang Zeyu said. He shouldered his pack and was about to set off when he suddenly heard Lu Shiyu speak from behind:
“Please wait a moment.”
The group, having already walked a short distance, turned back to look. Lu Shiyu was crouching by the long-extinguished campfire, poking through the ashes with a piece of leftover firewood.
“What is she doing? Playing with the ashes?” Shao Xingyang couldn’t understand what Lu Shiyu was up to.
After poking around for a bit, Lu Shiyu finally found what she was looking for. She used the stick to pick the items out one by one, shook off the layer of ash, and walked toward the group holding them.
“Here. Exactly one for each of us.”
Yan Hong instinctively caught the object Lu Shiyu handed her. Once it was in her hand, she saw what it was, yet she still didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“Charcoal?”
Chen Yunliang put on his glasses, and his vision finally became clear. In his hand was a long, rod-shaped object covered in a layer of plant ash. However, it was neither charcoal nor unburnt wood.
“These are… the scorpion tails we didn’t eat yesterday,” he realized.
Tang Zeyu remembered the scorpion tails Lu Shiyu had tossed into the ash pit the night before. After an entire night, they had turned into this.
“Mhm. These can serve as breakfast for today. Although it’s not a lot, it’ll help settle our stomachs.”
The others looked at one another. For people who were long used to having one meal a day and going hungry the rest of the time, the concept of eating breakfast was actually somewhat foreign.
“Thank you.”
Tang Zeyu expressed his thanks and peeled open the shell. Because they had been buried in the ash all night, the shells had become very brittle; a light squeeze caused them to shatter, revealing the white, tender meat inside.
Yan Hong looked at the meat, which was emitting a faint bit of steam, and felt surprised. “It’s actually still hot.”
“It’s because they were buried in the ashes all night,” Shao Xingyang said, taking a bite. “This tastes pretty good.”
The group walked while eating the meat, enjoying a rare morning without intense hunger.
From today onward, the group officially entered the woods. After walking for an unknown amount of time, Lu Shiyu looked back; she could no longer see the silhouette of the base as she had yesterday. It was completely obscured by the trees.
Perhaps because she had walked so much the day before and usually lacked exercise, Lu Shiyu felt her legs trembling as she walked. With even a little bit of force, her legs felt weak and sore. Her speed was slower than the day before, and she fell further and further behind the squad.
“Hah… hah… wait…”
Lu Shiyu truly couldn’t keep going. She bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for air, with beads of sweat already hanging from her forehead.
The group stopped and looked at Lu Shiyu at the end of the line, who was huffing like a bull. Unsure of how to handle it, they looked to Tang Zeyu to make a decision.
“Let’s take a rest.”
Only after hearing Tang Zeyu’s clear answer did Lu Shiyu plop down on the ground. She unbuckled her backpack, rolled up her pant legs, and began pounding her calf muscles.
This really is hard work, Lu Shiyu muttered to herself as she massaged her legs. She hadn’t expected that the most troublesome part of this journey wouldn’t be the cooking or the mutated creatures, but simply traveling. At times, she even felt like the muscles in her legs were melting.
“Here, replenish your salts.”
Tang Zeyu handed over a cup of warm water. While cooking the night before, he had also boiled the water in his canteen, so it was still slightly warm.
Lu Shiyu instinctively took the cup. “Ah, thank you.”
After taking a sip, she noticed it was salty—likely because salt had been added—and it also seemed a bit sweet. Lu Shiyu licked her lips.
A butterfly happened to flutter by at that moment, landing on the rim of the water cup.
“Wow, a butterfly…” Midway through her sentence, Lu Shiyu suddenly froze. “What on earth is this?”
At first glance, seeing the wings, she had instinctively thought it was a butterfly. But upon closer inspection, she saw that the insect’s limbs were incredibly long—completely exceeding the length of a normal butterfly’s legs. Not only were they long, but they also had branch-like bifurcations. The wings were also different from a normal butterfly’s, looking more like several feathers patched together.
It looks like a giant mosquito, Lu Shiyu grumbled internally, waving her hand to shoo away the strange-looking “butterfly.”
The butterfly flew unevenly over to Shao Xingyang. He glanced at it and moved in the opposite direction. The butterfly flew closer, so he moved further away.
For some unknown reason, the butterfly seemed to have fixed its sights on Shao Xingyang, chasing him relentlessly. Eventually, he was practically running away to avoid it.
“Dammit! So disgusting, stay away!”
Because the butterfly’s flight path was hard to predict, Shao Xingyang had to twist his body into various poses to dodge it, while the others rested peacefully where they were.
“Is he afraid of bugs?” Lu Shiyu took another sip of the salt water.
Tang Zeyu looked back and said, “The first time he went on an external mission, he accidentally fell into a pit.”
“And then?”
“A tree grew at the mouth of the pit. The vibration from his fall shook the bugs off the tree. He happened to look up at that moment, and the bugs fell all over his face. Some even fell down his collar.”
Lu Shiyu looked at Shao Xingyang, who was being “hunted” by the terrifying flying insect, with a hint of pity. “How tragic.”
After a while, the butterfly ran out of energy to keep chasing him and landed on the grass to rest. Only then did Shao Xingyang escape his ordeal.
After a short rest, they continued their journey until the sun began to set, at which point they stopped to determine a place to stay for the night.
Shao Xingyang sprawled out lazily on the grass. Beside him, Chen Yunliang silently moved a bit further away to avoid the smell of sweat coming off him. Just as Shao Xingyang was relaxing, a butterfly landed on his cheek.
“Not again!”
Shao Xingyang instantly bounded off the ground. No sooner had he ducked behind a tree than he encountered another butterfly.
“Aren’t there a lot of butterflies around here?”
Tang Zeyu answered while setting up a tent, “Perhaps there’s a type of flower growing nearby that attracts them.”
Lu Shiyu set down her backpack and looked around. She happened to see a butterfly fly out from a certain direction. She followed the path of the butterfly’s flight and, before long, discovered several giant flowers.
A few purple flowers with long, twisted, thin petals grew there. The petals were covered in dense small spots, making them look somewhat like octopus tentacles. Several strange-looking butterflies were perched on them, sucking something. Lu Shiyu leaned in to observe and accidentally startled one of them. But just as the butterfly was about to take flight, it was stuck to the petal. The very thing it had been feeding on a moment ago had turned into a cage to trap it.
The butterfly flapped its wings incessantly, trying to break free, but the tentacle-like petals began to gradually contract, curling up like actual octopus tentacles and firmly grasping the greedy butterfly.
“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to leave the squad without permission?”
Lu Shiyu was watching with intense focus, so Yan Hong’s sudden appearance gave her a real fright, and the other butterflies on the petals were startled away.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to find some ingredients.”
Yan Hong shook her head. “You have no abilities, no weapons, and no way to protect yourself. Being out here with us already puts you in constant danger. If no one notices you’ve wandered off in time, there won’t even be a whole corpse left of you.”
“I understand,” Lu Shiyu lowered her head in shame.
Yan Hong glanced at her. “Next time you want to move, remember to call someone to go with you. Let’s go.”
Yan Hong turned to push through the thicket but noticed Lu Shiyu hadn’t followed. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she turned around with some impatience. “What are you still doing here…?”
Lu Shiyu looked up; her hands were already full of the purple flowers, and she was currently reaching out to pluck another one.
“Why are you picking those flowers?”
“To make dinner.”
Yan Hong suppressed her annoyance and told her to hurry up.
By the time the two returned to the group, the tents had been pitched and Tang Zeyu had built a campfire.
Shao Xingyang looked at the two of them and asked, “What were you guys doing?”
Yan Hong casually pushed his head away. “None of your business.”
The rebuffed Shao Xingyang changed his sitting position and looked at Lu Shiyu, who was following behind. “Lu Shiyu, what are we eating tonight? Hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry.”
Noticing the flowers in Lu Shiyu’s hands, Shao Xingyang raised an eyebrow. “So you went to pick flowers. I can’t believe you’re in the mood for that.”
Lu Shiyu gestured with the flowers in her hands. “I plan to use these for dinner.”
“This stuff is edible?” Shao Xingyang propped himself up, swiped a flower, and sat back down. “I’ve never eaten a flower before.”
Shao Xingyang tucked the flower behind his ear and turned to ask Yan Hong if it looked good. Yan Hong saw something and suddenly burst out laughing.
“It looks great. It suits you perfectly. Why don’t you just keep it on?”
“For real?” Shao Xingyang felt a bit embarrassed at being suddenly praised by Yan Hong. “I knew my charm was boundless.”
Hearing the conversation, Chen Yunliang looked over. His mouth twitched twice, but he said nothing and went back to his own business.
Lu Shiyu placed the flowers on the ground. Though they had been picked only a short while ago, the petals were still twitching, dancing like bonito flakes on hot food.
Tang Zeyu asked, “We’re eating these tonight?”
Lu Shiyu estimated the amount and shook her head. “These alone probably won’t be enough. I’ll see if there are any wild vegetables nearby.”
This time, Lu Shiyu took Shao Xingyang and Chen Yunliang with her to dig for wild vegetables. She found a type of green growing close to the ground nearby. She plucked a leaf and tasted it; once she confirmed it was edible, she called the other two over to start digging. They successfully filled a small basket. During the search, they also found several radishes that looked like crystal, though they weren’t large—only about the size of a finger.
As Shao Xingyang bent over to dig for greens and small radishes, he kept adjusting the flower behind his ear. His digging efficiency plummeted until finally, Chen Yunliang, who couldn’t stand it anymore, gave him a kick.
“Stop being so vain. If you keep playing around, it’ll be dark.”
Shao Xingyang muttered a few words but then began to fully commit himself to the great task of digging for vegetables.
After their hard work, the three finally returned to camp with a basket of vegetables. Yan Hong and Tang Zeyu helped remove the roots and wash the mud off the greens. With the preparation work ready, the making of dinner began!