Chapter 4: Going Up the Mountain

Following them out, this small backpack was still made by Zhou’s dad for the little girl Shuxin, who wanted to follow her older brothers and sisters when they went out to play.

This small, delicate backpack, carried by three-year-old Shuxin, had a charm that was hard to express; she looked adorable and utterly cute.

Holding Shulan’s sister’s hand, they walked down the mountain. Her brothers had already run far ahead. As her brothers said, it was because they didn’t want to play with the girls.

However, even though the brothers weren’t with her and her sister, they still had tasks to do. The children’s tasks in the village were all similar: collecting pig feed and gathering firewood for their families.

The Liulin Brigade is surrounded by mountains on all sides, with two mountains that are not far apart—one is tall, and the other is shorter, both of which are closely connected.

At the foot of these two mountains, two villages were established: one is Willow Village and the other is Lin Family Village.

When the Japanese army invaded, both villages lost a significant number of inhabitants. Later, after the establishment of the country, the town combined Willow Village and Lin Family Village into one crew, which is now known as the Liulin Brigade.

The Liulin Brigade has the greatest number of people with the surnames Liu and Lin, which are both popular surnames, and many members of the brigade are related. In addition to the two surnames, during the Japanese invasion, many refugees came here to settle down, so there are also a lot of other surnames.

The captain and the secretary are both from the Liu and Lin families, because, after all, the Liulin Brigade mostly consists of local people, and ordinary people from the area can hardly suppress the hundreds of members in the brigade.

Yesterday, while standing at the door, one could see the tall green mountains in the distance, but now that they are getting closer, they realize the mountains are even grander and deeper than what they had seen before.

Around the two mountains near the Liulin Brigade, there are many continuous peaks, rising and falling, marking the boundaries of other villages.

Shulan brought Shuxin to join her little friends, and they were joyfully chattering away.

Don’t be fooled by Shulan’s gentle and sisterly demeanor around Shuxin; she is quite lively when she’s with her friends. She grabbed Little Zhi, a village mate, and started jumping and chatting.

The other girls from the village had no objections to Shulan bringing Shuxin along; after all, Shuxin had accompanied them a few times and hadn’t cried or made a fuss, so the girls thought having her along was no trouble at all.

They may be noisy, but their legs didn’t stop moving as they walked at a steady pace toward the place that Little Zhi had scouted earlier.

This morning, Little Zhi and Shulan planned to gather pig feed and forage for wild vegetables, and in the afternoon, they would go to another location to collect firewood.

Shuxin listened and didn’t have any objections; after all, she was just a three-year-old child, and no one cared much about her opinions. Besides, she wasn’t just there to work.

Last night, she discovered her special abilities and newfound space. Today, she went out just to try out her powers and see if she could add some items to her space.

The inside of her space was quite empty, so she wanted to see if there were any small animals or water sources on the mountain to move into her space. After all, she couldn’t keep consuming resources from it without replenishing it.

Otherwise, one day, she would run out of supplies. Moreover, she was feeling peckish and thought about catching a rabbit or a wild chicken to improve their mealtime.

Once they arrived at their destination, Shulan and the others didn’t hesitate; they quickly decided to scatter and find their own spots, and once they found a suitable place, they started working.

Shulan reminded her, “Xinxin, I’m going to gather pig feed. You can play nearby but don’t wander too far!”

Shuxin picked a spot that was neither too far nor too close to Shulan and replied, “Okay!”

Seeing that Shuxin was in a place where she could easily be spotted, Shulan didn’t say anything more and began to cut some tender pig feed, occasionally glancing up to check if Shuxin was within her line of sight.

As Shulan focused on gathering grass, Shuxin turned her back to her and activated her abilities on a small wild plant in front of her, allowing a gentle, peculiar force to flow from her fingertips into the little plant.

To her amazement, the wild plant visibly grew before her eyes, sprouting, blooming, bearing fruit, and then withering.

Seeing that her abilities could indeed be utilized on the plants in this world reassured Shuxin. Although her wood abilities were currently at a low level and could only hasten the growth of a few wild plants, she wasn’t in a rush. Without the pressure of survival, she could take her time to upgrade.

Satisfied that her wood abilities were working fine, Shuxin took a moment to rest and closed her eyes to sense the sounds of the plants and trees around her, wondering if there were any wild rabbits or chickens nearby. She really wanted some meat; upgrading could wait for now.

Wood powers don’t just allow for growth acceleration; they can also feel the thoughts of wood-based plants and extract the essence of the plants.

Now that Shuxin had merged with the seeds of the Nine-Color Celestial Cloud Plant, her abilities had leveled up. Although her powers had weakened, her affinity with wood plants had increased significantly, allowing her to understand and communicate with them!

Of course, not every plant could be conversed with; only a few sentient plants could engage in dialogue, while others could only have their properties sensed.

In fact, this was probably for the best. Shuxin thought that if she were to eat sentient plants, she would feel guilty, after all, she was a vital part of the plant kingdom too.