The rain was still pouring down relentlessly, and the snow-white coat draped over her shoulders was already filthy and blackened.
The mountain path, which had originally looked winding and rugged, became increasingly difficult to navigate under the pounding of the downpour.
The muddy ground felt like a swamp. With every step she took, Yuxuan had to be extremely careful; a moment of carelessness would send her sprawling to the ground.
She stepped on a small stone yet again—this was already the fifth time!
Yuxuan raised her mud-covered little bare foot. Compared to the clean and fair feet she had yesterday, it was practically like a totally different pair.
It hurt so much... Why was her life in another world so difficult and painful? How much longer did she have to walk?
Yuxuan looked up at the tree branches, thinking she might be able to use those Black Hand to grab onto a branch and climb up. Through daily, continuous practice, this sort of thing should not be a problem for her.
So, Yuxuan extended the Black Hand from behind her back, letting them wrap tightly around a branch.
Then, she gave a firm pull to test the tension, feeling that it seemed quite sturdy and reliable.
It looked pretty good.
Yuxuan cleverly used the momentum to swing herself across through the tree branches like a monkey on a swing.
That Black Hand was exceptionally sturdy, showing no signs of snapping at all; after all, a person always had to trust themselves.
"Yahoo!"
Yuxuan happily swung back and forth on the branches in the rain, as carefree as Tarzan from next door!
At her current rate, it would not take long before she reached the midpoint of the mountain.
As she drifted among the treetops, the path beneath her was no longer that muddy little trail.
Instead, it was a road paved with stones of just the right size, their surfaces covered with moss, revealing the weathered traces of time.
Good thing she had chosen to swing. This path looked extremely slick; if she accidentally slipped, she would definitely slide away in a flash, just like on a playground slide.
As Yuxuan used that Black Hand to hook onto a distant branch once more, preparing to swing across, a faint "crack" suddenly echoed by her ear.
Thump, thump, boom!
The branch hooked by the Black Hand actually snapped!
Her body instantly lost its support, pitching forward uncontrollably.
Yuxuan quickly estimated the distance to the ground—about three or four meters, perhaps.
Falling from this height should be fine; she could endure it, and it would hurt at most.
However, the real problem was... she was falling face-first! And worse yet, that mysterious Amulet was still stuck right against her chest.
The next second, accompanied by a loud "Bang!", Yuxuan crashed heavily onto the ground, splashing up a puddle of water.
"Umph..."
Yuxuan let out a muffled groan of pain, curling her body up.
"Oh boy, Ina, hurry up and walk already! I told you today wasn't a good day to go down the mountain to pick fruit. Grandpa gave me stern instructions that because of the dry crops, the villagers all gathered together to pray, saying it's definitely going to rain heavily these past few days. But you just wouldn't listen, and now look at you! Not only did we barely pick any fruit, but we're also drenched like drowned rats!"
"Hmph, is that my fault, Oleg? It's all because you wanted to make a little extra money; otherwise, who would run up the mountain in the middle of the night to pick fruit? How was I supposed to know it would rain this hard in the middle of the night? I thought those villagers were just playing around with their rain prayers. Who would've thought it actually worked?"
"Oh please, Ina, you still have the nerve to lecture me? If you weren't always dragging your feet with your work, insisting on making clothes until the very last day and failing to prepare the materials, we wouldn't have had to brave the heavy rain in the middle of the night to look for plants either!"
"Fine, fine, fine! It's all my fault, okay? How about this: tomorrow I'll cover the cost of all your pastries, how does that sound? It's basically like giving you a day off, aren't you happy?"
"Wow, Boss, you're so generous! Quick, quick, let me hold the umbrella for you!"
"Hey, why didn't you take the umbrella out sooner, you guy? You purposely wanted to make a fool of me, right?"
"How was I doing it on purpose? The umbrella is so small. I even specially chose not to hold mine so I could get rained on with you! Hey, hey, hey, don't hog it all, let me share it!"
The two of them squeezed together under the umbrella in a miserable state. The mountain path was already hard to walk on, and with the heavy rain now, they spent the whole way complaining about each other.
"I'm exhausted, we can finally see the stone road. Walk slower, Ina, this ground is slick in the rain. Huh? Why aren't you moving? Don't stop to rest here, let's go to my house first! I'm dead tired too."
"Oleg, did you hear crying?" Ina asked with a puzzled look.
"Crying? What crying? Aside from the sound of the rain and that huge noise earlier that scared us off, I don't hear anything. Let's go, let's go!" Oleg replied impatiently, taking a brisk step forward.
However, just as he took a few steps, Oleg suddenly tripped over something.
"Who is this! Leaving a big boulder right in the middle of the road and not even bothering to move it!" he cursed angrily.
Oleg was in a terrible mood right now. Going out to pick fruit in the rain in the middle of the night was already bad enough, and on top of that, they had been scared out of their wits by a loud explosion. Now he had tripped over a stumbling block and was covered in mud.
The more Oleg thought about it, the angrier he got. Just as he was about to raise his foot to kick the obstacle to vent his frustration, Ina stopped him in a hurry.
"What are you doing? This is a person! Are you trying to commit murder in the rain or something?" Ina shouted anxiously.
"A person?"
Oleg froze in place. He looked closely and realized that the thing he had just tripped over was indeed a person!
Oleg pulled his foot back and heard the sounds of sobbing: "Wuwuwu..."
"Th-this isn't a female ghost, is it?"
Oleg widened his eyes in terror, his voice trembling.
"Get lost! All I know is that if we don't do something about her, she's probably going to die right here. Help me get these branches off her!"
Hearing this, Oleg snapped back to reality, quickly bending down to pick up the branches pressing down on the little girl and moving them aside.
Ina immediately squatted down, carefully pulling back the hood of the coat. Beneath the hood was a little face covered entirely in mud. The girl's eyes were tightly closed, her mouth slightly parted, and she whimpered weakly from time to time.
"What a pitiful child. She probably slipped in the rain and got hit by a branch, didn't she?" Ina frowned, muttering to herself with a pang of heartache.
"Hurry up and carry her on your back. We'll take her home first; we can't leave her alone by the roadside."
"Got it!"
Oleg no longer cared about the fruit scattered on the ground. He squatted down so Ina could help position her onto his back.
The girl was so light that Oleg didn't even feel like she had been placed on his back.
What a hard-luck child.