Luck was luck, but the plan still had to proceed. Since my elder sister was at Quiet Mountain, a trip to Quiet Village was unavoidable.

We took out the Spam, sausages, and bread we brought and shared them with the children who gathered outside the small shack after their lessons ended. These items were unremarkable in the city, but here, they were rare delicacies.

Old Qin watched the children eat with great delight, and he chuckled happily himself. Wang Jue handed him a can of Spam. He smiled, divided the Spam among the few children who had gathered close, and didn't eat a single bite himself. It was clear his affection for these children was absolute.

While a few children were eagerly eating, I pulled Wang Jue aside and whispered, "How about we stay here until evening, and have Old Qin take us to Quiet Village?" Wang Jue nodded in agreement.

Old Qin saw us whispering to the side and assumed he hadn't been attentive enough in his hospitality. He pulled a knife from under a wooden board, turned, and walked out the door.

I was dumbfounded, wondering what sort of scene this was meant to be.

It was Wang Jue, ever the experienced one, who surmised that Old Qin had most likely gone to slaughter a chicken. We quickly stood up and chased after him.

Sure enough, behind the small shack, there was a chicken coop housing exactly two old hens, presumably for laying eggs.

Old Qin insisted on slaughtering a chicken to thank us, seeing that we had donated money and shared food with the children.

Wang Jue couldn't bear for him to make such a sacrifice. She snatched the knife from his hand and said, "Old Qin, there's no need to spend so lavishly. We simply don't eat chicken!"

Hearing that we both had dietary restrictions, Old Qin looked half-convinced and returned the chicken to the coop, joining us back at the shack.

I managed a polite smile from the side and said, "We appreciate your kindness, and we actually have a small favor we'd like to ask of you."

"Please speak, please speak!"

Seeing his positive attitude, I got straight to the point: "Tonight, could you possibly take the two of us to Quiet Village?"

This was an unreasonable request, as Old Qin had already stated he couldn't take us to Quiet Village earlier, but clearly, he was the only person who could guide us.

Old Qin fell silent for two minutes, seemingly contemplating some complex issue. After a long pause, he finally spoke: "I will take you to the edge of the village, and then you can go handle your own affairs. I won't follow inside. How about that?"

Seeing that he had agreed to almost all of it, we couldn't press him to accompany us the entire way. Simply finding the village would be a massive help, and Wang Jue and I offered our deepest thanks repeatedly.

Afterward, we stayed in Old Qin's small shack until nightfall. When the moon hung high in the night sky, the three of us, using flashlights, walked down a main path deep into the mountain hollow.

When we reached a three-way fork, a narrow, winding path appeared. We changed direction and followed the sheep-gut trail all the way. At intervals, a strip of red cloth was tied to the branches along the roadside—markers, according to Old Qin. However, these markers could only be seen at night; they were invisible during the day.

We walked along the red strips for about twenty minutes before a village faintly materialized in the distance beyond the thicket.

Old Qin pointed toward the village and said, "This is it. I can only bring you this far. I cannot let them know I brought you."

Wang Jue nodded. Old Qin turned, using his flashlight to retrace his steps, leaving Wang Jue and me standing behind the brush.

Gazing at the village entrance, Wang Jue poked my waist and asked mysteriously, "Don't you think this place looks a bit similar to Miao Village?"

I lifted my gaze to look further and realized Wang Jue was absolutely right. Wasn't this the very entrance to the village where those little brats had tried to put us in our place that other day?