SES Chapter 74 Part 1

Chapter 74

This question had been bothering Yan Hongsha for a long time.

The next morning, as soon as she woke up, she grabbed Mu Dai and asked, “Did you talk to me last night?”

Mu Dai, sounding absent-minded, replied, “I don’t know.”

Don’t know? Yan Hongsha was puzzled. Could it really have been a dream? But it had felt so real…

Still, she soon pushed the question out of her mind—because she saw the flowered bamboo hat Zha Ma had given them. She loved it so much that she put it on immediately and asked Mu Dai, “Do I look like a martial arts heroine?”

Leaning against the doorframe while eating dry bread, Mu Dai said quietly, “Yeah.”

The weather wasn’t great; fine rain drifted in the air, sometimes heavy, sometimes light. Zha Ma called her inside to eat, but she refused, finishing her bread outside alone.

Before they set off, Zha Ma brought over a bamboo backpack. Since both Mu Dai and Yan Hongsha were carrying their own packs, the bamboo basket was strapped onto the old man Yan’s back. Inside were a machete and a few torches wrapped in oilcloth.

Zha Ma warned Mu Dai, “The mountain paths aren’t easy. Sometimes the thorn bushes grow thick—you’ll have to cut your way through. If you’re traveling at night, you’ll need the torches for light. With fire, wild animals will avoid you.”

Mu Dai shivered. “Wild animals?”

“Of course,” Zha Ma said. “Black bears, wolves, pythons… Without wild animals, what would hunters hunt?”

Zha Ma escorted them partway. The mountain trail wound upward through sticky, waterlogged mud—every step was a slip. They quickly found tree branches to use as walking sticks and moved carefully. Yan Hongsha even stopped carrying her shovel on her shoulder, dragging it behind her instead, sighing with every step.

When Zha Ma stopped, he reminded Mu Dai again, “I’m telling you, my mom’s readings really aren’t accurate.”

His words made Mu Dai’s eyes sting. She found him annoying—just when she was trying to forget that, he brought it up again.

Gritting her teeth, she quickened her pace to catch up with the old man, leaving Zha Ma behind.

Zha Ma found it boring to stand there, watching them struggle up the mountain. All three wore their flowered bamboo hats, climbing higher until they looked like three little moving black dots.

Suddenly, Zha Ma jolted upright. Oh no! Why was he standing here? He still had something important to do—Mu Dai had paid him a hundred yuan!

Once they entered the forest, the rain seemed to grow heavier in bursts. Mu Dai realized sometimes it wasn’t rain at all—just water dripping endlessly from leaves above. Now and then, a large leaf would tilt, dumping a gush of water that nearly knocked her hat askew.

Carrying a heavy pack, Mu Dai supported the old man step by step. Yan Hongsha followed behind, dragging the shovel and complaining every few paces. At one point, she almost cried. “Oh my god… I never want to hunt for treasure again in my life…”

She lifted her foot to show Mu Dai—she was wearing low-cut hiking shoes, and the mud was so deep that dirty water had poured in over the tops, soaking her white socks completely.

The old man said coldly, “You think treasure hunting is easy? That you just sip a little wine in the breeze and the treasure falls into your lap along with a pile of money?”

See? Now the old man was annoyed. Mu Dai quickly signaled Yan Hongsha to stop talking.

Yan Hongsha drooped, then, after a moment, said, “Grandpa, let’s take a break.”

The mountain path was indeed rough, and the old man tired faster than they did. They stopped.

Whenever the old man rested, he would put on his eye mask, as if his eyes were some priceless treasure.

Mu Dai sat down, removed her shoes, wrung out her socks until muddy water dripped from them, then put the dirty pair in her bag and changed into clean ones. She wrapped her feet in plastic bags before putting her shoes back on.

The plastic made a rustling sound when she walked, but her feet were much more comfortable.

“Mu Dai, you’re really smart,” Yan Hongsha said.

Following her example, she wrapped her own feet in plastic bags. Meanwhile, Mu Dai picked up the machete, walked back a bit, and chose a thick tree. She scraped off some bark and carved a vertical mark into the trunk to represent “1.”

She touched the mark, blew away the shavings, and thought, Luo Ren must see this.

They set out again. Before long, they came across a path blocked by thorns. Mu Dai swung the machete left and right until she carved out a way through, her arms aching from the effort.

She thought they hadn’t prepared enough. If the old man had told her the conditions were this bad, she would have brought better gear. Then again, she thought, deal with what comes—no rain boots? Plastic bags work just fine.

She came up with another trick: every few steps, she’d slash a tree trunk—either leaving a cut or stripping some bark.

At first, Yan Hongsha protested. “Mu Dai, you just can’t keep your hands still, can you?”

But after a while, she stopped complaining. Looking back, the trail of fresh bark patches made a perfect set of natural markers.

This was easier and clearer than carving numbers.

They trudged on, stopping and starting, snacking on dry rations when hungry. They lost all sense of time, their legs feeling as heavy as if they weighed dozens of pounds each.

As the sky darkened, Mu Dai felt confused. “Is it nighttime already?” she asked.

Yan Hongsha checked her phone. “Yeah, almost.”

Just as she put her phone away, a dark shadow darted behind a tree not far away—probably a wolf.

Mu Dai’s scalp prickled. She quickly pulled a torch from the basket and lit it. The flame sputtered in the rain, making the darkness seem even deeper.

“How much farther, Grandpa?” Yan Hongsha asked, her voice trembling. She couldn’t tell if it was an echo or just fear.

The old man’s night vision wasn’t good. “Almost there. This path leads down the mountain. Look down—can you see a village?”

Mu Dai squinted into the dark—nothing but pitch black.

But it made sense. Even Qi Ju Village didn’t have electricity; this place surely wouldn’t either.

Still, the old man’s “almost there” filled her with hope. She told Yan Hongsha, “Hurry up. If there’s hot water tonight, we can have instant noodles.”

After a day of dry bread, the thought of instant noodles was heavenly. Yan Hongsha gripped the old man with one hand and dragged the shovel with the other, picking up her pace.

“Mu Dai, we can even put poached eggs in the noodles!”