Having told Priest-daren about this matter, Wu Chen now had a supporting pillar and no longer felt so worried. He could also speak more naturally with Big-eyes and Sa.
“That fruit is delicious. Where did you pick it? Take me with you, we can pick more. ” Wu Chen said while squatting down beside them.
Sa was about to say something, but Big-eyes immediately hit him.
“You can’t tell me?” Wu Chen made an angry expression, got up and said angrily, “Then forget it.”
“Hey! Thick eyebrows!” Sa was a little flustered when he saw Wu Chen getting angry.
But Big-eyes said, “Why have to tell him everything? It’s not like he’s Priest-daren!”
“Then you tell Priest-daren.” Wu Chen’s head turned.
The Big-eyes had his words turned against him, he flicked his head away and stopped talking.
Sa looked at this side then that side, obviously this situation was a hard choice for him, “It’s not that we won’t tell you, but, but we promised…”
“Sa!” Big-eyes yelled all of a sudden.
Sa closed his mouth.
Big-eyes took Sa aside and the two little people whispered among themselves for a long time. After discussing, they ran back. Big-eyes sounded unwilling but he said to Wu Chen, “Look, we tell you tomorrow if you can come with us.”
“Then I will also only tell you how to make grass shoes tomorrow.” Wu Chen turned and walked away.
“Eh? You can weave it already? Thick eyebrows, wait!” Hearing his words, Big-eyes hurried to catch up.
The conversation became rougher and noisier for the three little things. Big-eyes begged and made a scene, he used all the methods he could use, but Wu Chen just refused to relax his condition. He also offered to exchange each other’s secrets. When Big-eyes takes him to pick fruits, then he’ll teach him how to weave the shoes.
No one could have expected that Big-eyes, who was so loud and brash, was a kid who kept his promise tightly. Multiple times, even when Sa couldn’t hold on and was about to tell Wu Chen, Big-eyes would always stop him with a shout. Finally, he only agreed that he would give Wu Chen an answer tomorrow.
Afterwards, Wu Chen told this to Yan Mo from word to word.
“Then, do you think it’s better to wait for the answer tomorrow or go follow them today?” Yan Mo asked with a smile.
Wu Chen hesitated and thought a bit. In the end he followed his feelings and answered: “Wait until tomorrow.”
Like Big-eyes, these kids didn’t know what ‘credibility’ was yet, but they already understood that if they always tell lies to their little friends and tell their friend’s secrets to other people, they will be hated and rejected by their companions.
Yan Mo nodded and stroked Wu Chen’s forehead with his palm, “Very good. Although it’s worrying that Big-eyes was hiding something, he was able to keep his promise and didn’t get coerced or bribed into betraying his friends, this is a good thing. And you, you didn’t act against your friends’ will just because you really want to know the truth, this is also very good. You are all good children. ”
Wu Chen laughed, his laugh made him look silly and naive.
“Since the two children could come back safely all this time, tonight is likely to be no different.” From listening to Wu Chen’s story, Yan Mo had considered that this would likely involve a third party, it wouldn’t be just about where sea-buckthorn fruit grew.
“You can rest without worry, and wait for Big-eyes’ answer tomorrow.”
Wu Chen nodded and left with peace of mind.
The little boy can let go of his worry, but Yan Mo can’t. Apart from wanting to know what the secret was, today Big-eyes and Sa would be asking that third party if they can bring other people to that place, it’d be more dangerous than before.
Just because it’s safe in the past, doesn’t mean it’s going to safe all the time. It’s not surprising if the third party tries to kill the two children in order to keep his secret.
Therefore, Yan Mo decided to follow them and see what’s going on. Of course, he didn’t want to face the danger by himself. He also took two warriors with him, they were the ones Yuan Zhan specially designated to protect him before he left. It’s fine when Yan Mo was just staying in the camp, but if he went out, these two must go out with him.
The two warriors had been warned to not let out a sound no matter what they saw, they’re even more prohibited from acting rashly. All actions must follow Yan Mo’s instructions.
The two warriors expressed that they understood. Their main responsibility was to protect the priest, so naturally whatever Priest-daren says, goes.
The wild little kids ran and chased each other, they’re not afraid of the cold. They threw snowballs at each other and laughed and squealed from time to time. They never thought that someone was watching, and didn’t deliberately hide their own tracks as they ran out.
The two warriors wondered why the priest was following the two little things, but they had been trained and didn’t ask many questions.
Yan Mo didn’t know anything about shadowing people, but the two warriors were used to hunting and tracking prey and had been taught by Meng who was more knowledgable and experienced in hunting. It was simply too easy to track the two children walking on the snow.
They didn’t follow very closely so that the two kids wouldn’t find out, but even so, they weren’t afraid they’d lose them.
The two wild kids ran to the edge of that huge lake.
Many places near the lake had sparse stretches of woods, the two children ran into one of such woods.
Yan Mo and the two warriors kept up. Their intuition told them they’d reached their goal, and so their footsteps became quieter.
When they passed through the grove, they could see many large and small rocks by the lake bank. The surroundings of the lake were frozen.
Big-eyes looked around in all directions like a thief and took out a salted fish about 30 cm long wrapped in a piece of animal pelt.
Big-eyes stepped on the rocks. He carefully moved his feet from one stone to another, until he reached a large rock connecting the ice layer and the water surface. When he got a stable standing, he lifted and shook the dangling salted fish toward the lake, he also shouted: “Laror, Laror.”
Daredevil Sa just directly walked on the ice. He only climbed onto a stone when he reached a spot where the ice was thinner. He put his hand into the icy lake and disturbed the water.
Yan Mo, hiding at the edge of the woods, saw that soon after the two children shouted “Laror”, a ripple suddenly appeared on the lake, as if some large fish-like thing was swimming towards the two children at a very fast speed.
What could it be? Yan Mo felt dread.
But when the two children saw the ripples on the water, they didn’t get scared, instead, they got happy and shouted even louder, “Laror!”
Splash! The thing in the lake swam to the shore where the ice and water met, its head came out from the water.
Yan Mo’s eyes stared wide. His current eyesight was good enough that he can clearly see the head’s appearance.
That’s… the head of a child? But what’s that on both sides of the child’s head? Fins?
Shortly after, the child had supported himself on the ice with his hands and his entire upper body was revealed.
Yan Mo felt really weird now. So were the two warriors around him.
They’re now looking at someone, not wearing anything in the deep winter lake, he had curly chestnut hair, big black watery eyes, white skin, ears like fins. All that, but on a plump and tender little kid?
What about the dangerous enemy?
Is this little boy even five years old yet?
Although he looked a little strange, such as his ears, hair and his exposed hands. But on the whole, this is a little child who’s not much different from a human child.
The only thing that seemed like it could be dangerous was probably the child’s hands. They not only had webbings between their fingers, but also longer fingers than ordinary human’s and the tips of those fingers were sharp. Their claws were not like nails, but more like sharp bones.
“Why did you only come now?” Yan Mo heard the child’s voice, “I’ve been waiting for a long time.”
Although he looked young, he could express himself clearly. Wait, the child’s language was the same as theirs! No wonder Big-eyes and Sa could communicate with him.
“The priest showed us witchcraft today. He also taught us. It’s really fun, that’s why we were late.”
Big-eyes and Sa work together to guess, either wildly or knowingly, and managed to understand most of the child’s words. They had been communicating with each other like this, stammeringly, over these past few days.
“Witchcraft? What witchcraft? ” The young boy tilted his head and asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” Big-eyes squatted on the big rock and handed the salted fish he had been holding to the small boy who’s probably called ‘Laror’.
As soon as young boy saw the fish, he excitedly cheered, and the threw that witchcraft to the back of his mind, “Fishie! Fish with salt! Wait for me!”
The small boy put the salted fish on the ice. His body turned and directly disappeared into the lake. After a while, the little boy came out of the water with his hands full of sea-buckthorn fruits, “Today I picked a lot from the island. I thought you wouldn’t come today.”
Big-eyes and Sa were also really happy seeing the sea-buckthorn fruits. The three children exchanged gifts. Two of them ate while sitting on a rock and one ate while leaning on the ice.
Big-eyes and Sa didn’t care if the little boy could understand their Jiuyuan language. They rushed to be the first to tell the young boy about the ice fire-making method Yan Mo taught today, like they were telling some magical story.
The youngest boy obviously didn’t really get it. When he saw them smashing ice, he thought they wanted the ice. He dragged his claw lightly on the ice and soon had cut out several pieces of ice for them.
Big-eyes and Sa became excited right away. They gestured to him so that he could cut out a round ice piece. Once they got the ice piece. The two children couldn’t sit still on the rocks anymore, “Laror, come on up, we’ll show you something fun!”
The little toddler watched the two children run to the bank and looking back and calling him. It might not be the first time the small boy come up the shore. He didn’t hesitate and climbed up the ice while holding the salted fish in his mouth.
The three adults hiding in the woods then saw the young boy’s full appearance.
Yan Mo rubbed his face that’s stiff from cold. Alright. There had been human faced-bird, and small monsters that look like dwarfs, looks like it’s just normal if there were also mer-people. In some ancient records of his original world, it was said that a long time ago, there were all kinds of strange races living on the land. At that time, ordinary humans, giants, dwarves, mermaids and all kinds of creatures with human-headed [fill in the blank]-bodied or [fill in the blank]-headed human-bodied all lived in the same time and space, on the same planet.
The lower half of toddler was a fish tail, very plump in the middle and very long at the lower end. The fish tail was very beautiful, it had a silvery glow under the sun.
The two warriors inhaled sharply, they seemed a little shocked. Yan Mo was afraid that they would rush out, so he quickly turned his head and made a ‘stay low’ gesture to them.
The two warriors nodded. With Priest-daren here, they weren’t scared, but were surprised.
Yan Mo thought the little boy could only slide on the ice. He didn’t expect him to be able to slide-walk with the end of his fishtail. He didn’t seem to have any problem even after coming ashore.
Big-eyes and Sa also didn’t go too deep into the woods. They stayed on the edge of it and called the boy over to see how they’ll make fire with ice.
Yan Mo stared at the little merboy, thinking of how to approach him without frightening him. If there are children, there must be adults. This huge lake was as big as an inland sea, just how many merpeople are living in it?
If they can walk on the shore, are they the dangerous beasts Yuan Zhan found traces of?
However, a huge problem were done away with since they have a language link. Because of it, they now have the possibility of interacting with each other. Even if the merpeople were powerful, it’s not impossible to peacefully coexist. It seems like they don’t have salt?
Yan Mo touched his chin and smiled cunningly.
When the little merboy saw the leaves lit up, he was so frightened that he ran to get far away from it. He didn’t seem to have ever seen a fire, but was instinctively afraid.
Big-eyes and Sa didn’t know what was wrong for the little merboy, so they quickly called out to him.
The frightened little merboy brandished his claws and bared his teeth at the two boys.
The two warriors immediately became tense. One of them couldn’t help rushing forward.
Swoosh. His movements made the snow accumulated on the bush to fall.
The merboy’s head whipped around towards the place they’re hiding in!
Tn note: from this chapter on, Shaman is changed to Witch because I just found out it’s gender neutral. I have no stock whatsoever now, sad.
Also here, a longtailed I edited, I couldn’t make him a child or have silver tail tho
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