Chapter 132: The Future of Sang Family Village

Seeing Tang Wei take the initiative to help, Wanwan quickly followed suit and put her back into it. Whenever they grew tired, the group would pause to rest. This stop-and-go pace consumed a significant amount of time, and they had no idea when they would finally make it home. And now, the group had stopped once again.

Tang Wei sat on a rock, wearing a mysterious, knowing smile. Wanwan, being a master herself, sensed it immediately. She walked over and asked with a puzzled look, "Tang Wei, why did the tails behind us leave?"

"The person truly pulling the strings behind the scenes must have realized something. Otherwise, they would have made their move by now," Tang Wei guessed.

"What a letdown. I actually thought I’d get to stretch my limbs. To retreat without a fight—how incredibly boring!" Wanwan pouted, flicking her hands in annoyance before sitting down beside Tang Wei. "If I’d known this would happen, we should have taken the initiative ourselves." It was a mystery how someone with such a chaotic, trouble-seeking personality had managed to survive this long.

"Forget it! Isn't it better that they withdrew on their own? I’m far too lazy to fight," Tang Wei replied. She was inherently lazy and loathed being entangled in trouble; naturally, she preferred this outcome. However, if the people following them had persisted, she would have had no choice but to clear out those tails before reaching Sang Family Village, if only for the sake of the villagers' safety.

"If you were too lazy to fight, you could have just said so sooner! If you weren't going to do it, I would have done it for you! Now I’m left without a chance to move around," Wanwan lamented, thoroughly bored.

Sang Ye, listening to their conversation from the side, felt completely bewildered. She couldn't help but ask, "Miss Tang Wei, what are you two talking about? What tails? What moves? I don't understand a single word."

"Little girl, it's better if you don't understand. This isn't something you need to know." Wanwan was indifferent toward others; she only respected the strong.

Sang Ye felt a bit slighted, but knowing she was no match for them, she kept quiet. What she truly thought, however, remained a mystery.

"Alright, alright! Let's stop talking and get moving, or we won't even make it back to the village by tomorrow morning," Tang Wei interjected to smooth things over and spare Sang Ye from further embarrassment.

With a shout, they pushed the carts forward. Without the tails, the previous conversation became nothing more than a minor interlude. The rest of the journey was peaceful, and by the time the moon hung high in the sky, the group returned safely to Sang Family Village.

In the village, families were waiting at the entrance, peering into the distance. Because the village elders had promised that Uncle Sang Xiong’s return meant an end to their hunger, the children had been waiting since early morning. Dreaming of golden, coarse-flour steamed buns, they drooled endlessly. They were too excited to care about fatigue, remaining there even as darkness fell.

When they spotted the dark silhouettes near the mountain pass in the distance, the little ones could no longer contain themselves. They swarmed toward the group, shouting at the top of their lungs, "Big Uncle is back! We’re going to have buns!" The older children were the fastest, charging ahead, while the toddlers, barely two or three years old, followed along, joining in the excitement. If they tripped, they didn't cry; they simply scrambled up and kept running. A few of the slightly more sensible children ran back to notify the elders, so they could share in the joy.

The children soon surrounded the carts. The older ones immediately helped push, while the younger ones trotted alongside, the atmosphere turning lively with their constant chattering. "Big Uncle, is this all grain?" "Wow, we can eat coarse-flour buns today!" "With this much grain, we won't have to go hungry anymore!"

The children chattered incessantly as they accompanied the carts. By the time the carts reached the village entrance, the elders were already waiting there, their faces etched with wrinkled smiles. They muttered, "They’re back! They’re back! Thank the Creator, we finally won't go hungry."

Supporting one another, the elders followed the carts to the village square. As soon as the carts stopped, Sang Xiong unloaded a sack of coarse flour and arranged for a few of the able-bodied elderly women to prepare a meal so everyone could get their fill.

For months, the villagers had survived on tree bark, roots, and leaves. Many were at their breaking point. While the forest was vast and provided enough to keep them from starving, the food was bitter and wretched. While they hadn't died of hunger, everyone in the village was sallow and gaunt, looking as if a strong breeze could knock them over. Now that they had grain, regardless of what the future held, the priority was to fill their stomachs.

Hearing that food would be ready soon, the children cheered and scampered around the adults, creating a noisy, chaotic scene. Tang Wei quickly told Sang Ye to distribute the snacks she had prepared to the children. With them running around wildly behind the adults, someone was bound to get hurt, and giving them something to eat would hopefully calm them down.

When Wanwan first saw the small mountain village, she had frowned, but her expression had remained blank ever since—neither smiling nor showing disdain, nor saying much of anything. She was either accustomed to such places or so calculating and experienced that nothing could affect her mood. Tang Wei naturally hoped it was the former; otherwise, being followed by such a shrewd person, someone as oblivious as herself would eventually suffer for it.

Sang Ye called out to the children, promising treats and candy to those who lined up quietly. Upon hearing they would get food immediately, the children became obedient. Although they had never tasted such things, they knew these were treats for the wealthy, so they must be delicious. Salivating, the older children pulled the younger ones into rows in the square. Though the lines were messy, the scene finally quieted down. The children didn't dare speak another word, fearing they might lose their share.

There were about twenty children in the village. Each received five candies and two pieces of pastry. There were some left over, so each elder was given a piece, though the young adults went without. Naturally, Sang Xiong and his group wouldn't think of snatching food from the elderly and children. They had worked all day, hadn't dared to spend money on food in town, and had only eaten a few snacks on the road. Dragging the grain had exhausted them, and they were lightheaded with hunger. Seeing the others eating, they could only swallow their own saliva and keep working to distract themselves.

Tang Wei lost interest in the subsequent proceedings. She had no desire to taste the coarse-flour buns; they might suffice to fill a stomach, but one had to go to a big city for true delicacies. She asked Sang Ye to show her to her quarters, needing peace and quiet to contemplate her next steps.

Sang Ye led Tang Wei and Wanwan to a small thatched hut. It looked dilapidated on the outside, but the interior was clean—at least, it didn't give Tang Wei any reason to be displeased. It seemed the elders hadn't been idle while they were in town and had prepared a decent room for her. However, with the addition of Wanwan, she wondered if they had prepared another room. Wanwan was staying right next door, and Tang Wei decided she would go check on her later.

Tang Wei sat on a wooden chair, resting her chin on her hand, wondering what to do next. She couldn't stay here forever. She still wanted to return to Huaxia, and at the very least, she had to find others like her. This place must be like Earth, possessing teleportation arrays to the cultivation world; otherwise, the Sang family wouldn't have known about the existence of immortals. Those arrays were surely held by powerful families and kingdoms. Her current priority was to leave this place and find the most prosperous metropolis.

She also felt obligated to help the villagers of Sang Family Village. If she hadn't encountered them, she could have claimed ignorance, but having seen their plight with her own eyes, she couldn't bear to leave them in such misery.

During the journey, Tang Wei had observed that the village lacked decent farmland, which explained the chronic food shortages. She had secretly asked Sang Xiong and learned that they lacked crops like sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn, and even rice was only for the wealthy. Their "coarse flour" was essentially wheat, but it was ground unrefined, husks and all, making it taste terrible. Only the wheat without husks was called "fine flour" here.

"Sigh! If only I could open my spatial dimension. It has everything. With so much mountain land here, if I could just plant some sweet potatoes, potatoes, or corn, they wouldn't have to starve, and I wouldn't be trapped here! Sigh!" Tang Wei sighed to herself. She slightly regretted acting so impulsively. If Zixuan were here, he would surely have found a brilliant solution. But this thought was just a fleeting notion; she didn't truly regret it.

"I'll go to the mountains tomorrow and look around. Maybe I'll discover some other food sources they haven't found yet!" Huaxia's technology was far more advanced, and Tang Wei pinned her hopes on finding different species. To her, this world was like ancient Huaxia, where people hadn't yet realized that sweet potatoes were edible.

In the days that followed, Tang Wei would occasionally teach the children a few martial arts moves, though she spent most of her time wandering the mountains and forests. Wanwan, the young girl, seemed to have latched onto her, becoming her constant shadow. Wherever Tang Wei went, Wanwan followed. As for Sang Ye and her siblings, they practiced the moves Tang Wei taught them with fierce determination, hoping to become martial artists and bring hope to the village.

Tang Wei’s days were leisurely and carefree, while Zixuan was currently being hunted, living a miserable life in the shadows. How could the fates of two people be so drastically different?