After the family split up, my stepmother and scumbag father begged me to come home.

"Let's go! It's early, before the sun shines and it gets so hot."

Lin Qianqian talked as she walked, her pace neither too fast nor too slow, as if she were measuring the road beneath her feet.

The contents of the basket swayed gently with each step, making a rhythmic, soft rustling sound.

Once you leave the village, the road starts going uphill.

At first, it's a gentle slope with farmland visible on both sides. As you go higher, the farmland decreases, and weeds and shrubs increase.

After crossing the mountain, the rest of the way into the deep mountains, Lin Qianqian chose a path she had never taken before.

It's not really a road—it's just a relatively wide gap between two old trees. Looking inside, the light suddenly dims, as if you've plunged into another world.

"Stay close, don't get separated," Lin Qianqian said, and was the first to squeeze in.

Lin Yulong was in the middle, and Ding Xiaohu was at the back.

Once you get deep into the mountains, the road becomes even more difficult to walk.

The morning dew hadn't yet evaporated, and a layer of fine water droplets clung to the blades of grass. A sweep of the trouser leg quickly soaked halfway up.

What you're stepping on isn't soil, but years of accumulated decaying leaves, thick and soft. You sink right up to your ankle when you step on it, and when you pull it out, it smells damp and rotten.

Ding Xiaohu followed behind, stumbling along, but his eyes were always darting around.

"Sister Qianqian, there are wild fruits!" he suddenly shouted. His voice carried through the dense forest, but was muffled by the layers of leaves.

Lin Qianqian stopped and looked back.

She didn't even have a chance to shout.

Ding Xiaohu had already darted to a clump of low bushes, where a few small, bright red fruits, about the size of a fingernail, were hanging sparsely. They were round and plump, and looked quite tempting.

Ding Xiaohu reached out and picked one, eagerly popping it into his mouth—

"puff--"

His expression instantly twisted, his mouth clenched, and he spat out the thing, his tongue still sticking out as if he had been burned.

"This is too astringent! It's not tasty, ptooey!" He spat on the ground several times as he spoke, his eyebrows furrowed and his whole face full of disgust.

Lin Yulong, who had been standing to the side, couldn't help but burst out laughing when he saw Ding Xiaohu's expression—tongue sticking out and face scrunched up like a bitter gourd.

"Hahaha, Tiger Bro, look at that expression!"

Lin Yulong laughed so hard he bent over, his basket tilting to one side and almost spilling its contents.

He held the basket on his back with one hand and clutched his stomach with the other, his laughter bouncing through the woods and startling a few unidentified birds.

Lin Qianqian couldn't hold back any longer.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand, laughing with her shoulders bobbing, her eyes curving into two crescent moons. After a few laughs, she cleared her throat and said, feigning seriousness, "Okay, okay, stop laughing, let's go."

But the corners of her mouth were still curved.

Ding Xiaohu wasn't annoyed by the laughter, he just muttered, "Who knew it would taste so bad? It looked pretty good..."

As he spoke, he glanced back at the bushes again, as if he was a little unwilling, but in the end he didn't dare to pick any more and obediently followed.

We walked a little further in, and the woods became increasingly dense.

The tree canopy overhead almost completely blocked out the sky, with only a few scattered rays of light leaking through the gaps and falling on the decaying leaves like a few shiny copper coins.

The air was filled with the smell of damp wood, and a certain indescribable sweet and fishy odor.