Chapter 6

Close to one in the afternoon, I followed the slope up from where we’d rested last night and found a cave.

But someone was already inside.

It was the three of them: Li Qing and the others.

Yu Wei was curled up in a corner, while Li Qing and Fang Cheng’an were trying to start a fire by rubbing sticks together.

Watching how they were doing it made me want to laugh, but I didn’t say anything. I turned around to leave.

Fang Cheng’an saw the wild fruit bulging in my pocket and spoke up first: “This cave is big enough. You should stay here too.”

By now, they hadn’t eaten for a full day and night.

They probably had no idea what was safe to eat.

They were just forcing themselves to hold on.

I thought it over. With no better option, I agreed to stay.

I handed the fruit I’d picked to Fang Cheng’an. Li Qing came over as well, reaching out to grab some, and I kicked his hand away.

“You’ve got your eye on this crappy fruit too? Big Star Li has only ever handled better fruit than this, right?”

“You…”

Li Qing’s face went dark. He looked up and met Lu Mingshen’s gaze, and swallowed his anger by sheer force.

Yu Wei hadn’t come over from the start.

Her face was full of disdain. “Even dogs wouldn’t eat this stuff. Someone will definitely come looking for us soon. You people really have no spine.”

I glanced at her, faintly amused.

Spine?

How naive.

Out in the wilderness, anything can happen. When you’re starving and freezing, what does “spine” even count for?

I figured Yu Wei would find out soon enough.

That night, after Li Qing had been drilling wood for an hour and his hands were covered in blisters,

Lu Mingshen unhurriedly took out a lighter.

Li Qing exploded. “You fucking had that and didn’t say so earlier?”

Lu Mingshen shot him a cool glance. “You didn’t ask.”

Then he added, “And even if you had, I wouldn’t have told you.”

…

I couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing behind them.