Zhao Wendong guessed they had reached the location of the hot spring. He walked a few dozen meters in the direction of the stream and, sure enough, saw the gorge with the hot spring. Water flowed continuously from its side, running down the rocky peak and into the ground with a muffled gurgle before disappearing from sight.
In his past life, Zhao Wendong had been here a few times, but that was after it had been developed. Now, it was still a completely primordial scene, nothing like what he remembered. Zhao Wendong quickly returned to the group.
"There’s a hot spring over there. The ground isn’t frozen solid. We’ll go there to dig a hole and bury them."
"What? A hot spring?"
The group stared at Zhao Wendong, their faces filled with disbelief.
"What’s a hot spring?"
Zhao Wenwu looked completely baffled. Zhao Wendong smiled.
"It’s a good thing. Come with me, Wenwu. You’ll see when we get there!"
Zhao Wenjun and Zhao Wendong dragged the two bodies, while Zhao Ergou followed behind with a shovel, carefully covering the bloodstains on the ground with snow.
Zhao Wenwu and Jin Xiuying supported each other, looking all chummy. Even Zhao Wenjun noticed something was off. He exchanged a look with Zhao Wendong, who raised his eyebrows in response. Zhao Wenjun’s mind immediately started turning.
’This woman is ruthless, but damn, she’s beautiful. Her background is a mystery, but she’s young. She’s a hidden danger, but my brother finding a wife at all seems like an even bigger problem. If she and Wenwu really end up together... whatever happens, I’ll put my life on the line as their big brother to deal with it. A wife this good... this might be Wenwu’s one and only chance in his lifetime.’
’Zhao Wendong, however, wasn’t as pessimistic as Zhao Wenjun. He figured that once their family’s situation improved, finding a wife for Zhao Wenwu wouldn’t be difficult. The difficult part would be finding someone who would treat him with genuine kindness. What normal woman would be willing to marry Zhao Wenwu? They’d surely only be in it for personal gain. That’s why his biggest worry had never been about his second brother getting married, but what would happen if he married a wife who treated him poorly.
Now that such a good candidate had appeared, Zhao Wendong was happy for Zhao Wenwu. ’Jin Xiuying’ was obviously a fake name, and he had already guessed her origins. It was definitely related to the sounds of gunfire from the neighboring country near the border city a couple of days ago. She was most likely a fish that slipped through the net when some family was "cleaned up." But what did any of that matter?
Seeing that only two people had chased her here, she probably wasn’t a particularly important figure. Besides, this was Dragon Country. In the future, that neighboring country would only grow more dependent on them; they certainly wouldn’t stir up trouble over a few people. And even if Jin Xiuying wasn’t in the picture, if an investigation were to happen, those of us who were involved wouldn’t be able to get away clean either. After all, I shot one of them myself.
Besides, I don’t have any grand ambitions. I just want to protect my family and let them live good lives—never cold, never hungry, and never overworked. That’s enough. I’ve been reborn. If I can’t even achieve these simple goals, if I can’t even handle this mess, I’d be a disgrace to all reborn people.
As his thoughts churned, he was already starting to make longer-term plans. The identities of both Jin Xiuying and Lin Zhiyin were potential time bombs. Then there was the more intense factional struggle that was fast approaching. I have to take advantage of the coming years of famine to win over as many people as possible and tie the entire Dragon King Pond firmly to my cause.
Even a hero needs helping hands. If something really happened, my family alone wouldn’t be enough to withstand it. The entire Dragon King Pond, with its seventy or eighty households and four or five hundred people, was a powerful force. Why was the problem of trafficking women so hard to solve even decades later in my past life? It was because when a whole village banded together, no one could do anything about it.
Zhao Wendong’s thoughts drifted further and further, and he was already planning who to win over first, who to approach later, and how to do it without making people feel like he was expecting them to repay a favor.’
"Brother San, Brother San! The ground’s good here. Should we dig here?"
Zhao Wenjun’s voice broke Zhao Wendong out of his reverie. He looked at the spot Zhao Wenjun had chosen, shook his head, and pointed to the side.
"Let’s bury them over there. This spot is the entrance to the small gorge. People will be walking back and forth here a lot. Burying them here would be unsettling."
The small gorge wasn’t very deep. The brown-black rock of the walls on both sides was mostly covered in snow. Inside were several hot springs, with vast white mist drifting above them.
After digging the hole and burying the bodies, the group entered the gorge. In a hollow sheltered from the wind, water gurgled out from crevices in the rock. The spring itself wasn’t large, bubbling with fine foam. The white steam carried a faint smell of sulfur, and the meeting of cold and hot air formed a white fog that drifted through the gorge.
The runoff from the hot spring pooled into a lukewarm pond about half a person deep. The water was clear enough to see the pebbles at the bottom and the moss in the cracks of the rocks. Outside, the world was a vast expanse of white snow, but here, it was as if they had suddenly stepped into spring.
The surrounding snow and the ground near the water were covered in a mess of hoofprints. Clearly, this was a place frequently visited by animals. But from this day forward, it would no longer be their paradise.
"Oh my god! It’s really a hot spring! HAHAHA!"
"It’s so warm here!"
"This feels great, so great!"
"It’s so beautiful!"
The group exclaimed in unison. Zhao Wenwu was especially excited. Seeing the clear spring water, he immediately bent down to taste it, only to be pulled back by an exasperated Jin Xiuying.
"What are you doing?"
"I’m trying to drink some hot water! Why are you stopping me?!"
"Haha, you dummy. You can’t drink this water."
Jin Xiuying couldn’t stop laughing at him. Zhao Wenwu scratched his head and looked at Zhao Wendong. Only after Zhao Wendong nodded did he get up, looking a little dejected.
"You can’t drink it, but you can bathe in it!"
As soon as Zhao Wendong said this, everyone’s eyes lit up.
In the summer, everyone often went into the sea or the river, so bathing wasn’t a problem. But in the winter, they could only endure it, wiping themselves down with a cloth when they couldn’t stand it anymore. Even decades later in the rural Northeast, many places hadn’t developed the habit of regular bathing, simply because the conditions didn’t allow for it.
Jin Xiuying was the first to be tempted. She came from a prominent, wealthy family and was used to bathing every day. After being on the run for so many days, she already felt unbearably grimy. She spoke up, a little embarrassed.
"Could I... wash up first?"
Zhao Wendong and the others exchanged a glance, nodded, and started walking out of the gorge. A beautiful young woman was going to bathe; of course they had to give her some privacy.
"Zhao Wenwu!"
Jin Xiuying suddenly called out to stop Zhao Wenwu. Confused, Zhao Wenwu scratched his head and turned to look at her.
A blush appeared on Jin Xiuying’s beautiful, spirited face. She bit her lip and said.
"Can you... stand guard for me?"
"Oh, sure!"
Zhao Wenwu sat on a nearby rock, his back to Jin Xiuying and the hot spring pool.
"Is this okay?"
"Mhm, yes, that’s fine!"
Once the three of them were outside, Zhao Ergou sidled up to Zhao Wendong and whispered.
"Brother San, how come it looks like that woman likes your brother?"
"Get outta here. What does a little brat like you know about ’like’?"
Zhao Wendong shooed him aside and exchanged a meaningful look with Zhao Wenjun. She’d asked his brother to stand guard while she bathed. Whether it was ’like’ or not, it felt like Zhao Wenwu’s spring had definitely arrived.
"Big Brother, Er Gouzi, search the area. With a hot spring here, there might be some valuable things around."
Zhao Wendong couldn’t just come out and say there was wild ginseng here, so he could only be vague. Fortunately, the two of them followed his words to the letter and began searching the vicinity. In his past life, Zhao Wendong had only heard that when this hot spring was being developed, workers had dug up two or three stalks of wild ginseng nearby, the oldest of which was two hundred years old. But he didn’t know the exact location.
The three dogs didn’t know what their masters were looking for and just followed them around, sniffing everything. Xiaobai was also running back and forth nearby. Zhao Wendong was starting to find the black-bellied little guy much more agreeable now. When his second brother had been in danger earlier, that little guy had really stepped up. ’For that alone, once we start raising chickens, I’ll let him bite his fill.’
Zhao Wendong searched for a long time without finding anything and was starting to feel discouraged. Just as he was about to give up, he heard Zhao Wenjun’s unusually excited shout from a distance.
"Brother San, get over here!"