Tang Yin stirred her congee in the heavy iron pot, and the sweet smell of gluttonous rice filled the surroundings.
Tang San spread the Grandmasters' insect repellant around as the others readied them. The children together in one, and the Grandmaster and the Guards in the others. A night shift was arranged, and Tang Yin smiled happily as she put her bowl on the ground and slowly wanted to fill it up.
"Wait, I hold this," Lize said, picking up the bowl, and Tang Yin filled the bowl.
Smiling, Lize put the bowl on the small makeshift Table, and Tang Yon slowly filled the bowls for everyone. Stopping, she looked at the last bowl; the others and she all had food. Looking back into the forest, she felt the strange compulsion to put up something in the woods for her illusionary companion she was not sure of.
Shrugging her shoulders, she filled the last bowl, picked it up to fill it, and walked towards the forest's edge. She put it on the ground and looked into the lush green. If anything, it would be gone by tomorrow.
"For you." she put it down and waited a while, nothing, leaving behind the bowl and walking away back to the others and picking up her own bowl, sitting down between her brother and Ning Feng.
"W-why?" Ning Feng pointed to where she had left the bowl.
"I have a feeling, I don't know.", she said, and Tang San looked at her with the same puzzlement as the others.
"This Congee is awful.", Yu Hua said after a few spoons.
"But it tastes like home, with more rice." Tang San said and continued eating.
From the far edges, a rustle was audible, and the bowl she had sat down was gone.
"See, I had a feeling we would have a guest.", she said, pointing at the now-empty space where the bowl had been. It seemed like she had not wholly imagined things.
"Loulou!" San Pao called out while eating his radish, and they all jumped up. Adrenaline pushed through their veins, back to back, ready for whatever attack was about to come.
An unconscious body dropped in front of them, and everyone stopped eating, staring slightly stumped at it.
"A deer, a very normal deer.", the Grandmaster said, "it seems someone was thanking you, Tang Yin."
"Yeah.", she looked at it, "just need to decide if I feel comfortable with it."
"D-dinner f-for tomorrow.", Ning Feng pointed out and then moved her gaze to Tang San, "t-that w-will be st-stored inside y-your b-belt, not m-my teddy."
Behind them, Lize started to laugh, and the other two held themselves back with effort.
"Y-you seriously are strange kids.", Lize said, "I don't think anyone, anyone but you would make a friend in the middle of Star Dou forest and be this calm about it; for all you know, it could be a century millennium spirit beast."
"If it were, we would die if its intentions were bad." So Tang San said and continued slurping his congee.
"Well, I will be doing the first shift.", The Grandmaster said, putting down his bowl, "hopefully, there will not be an attack tonight. We will need to sleep when we have the opportunity; the deeper we go into the forest, the more dangerous it will be, and tomorrow we make a little detour into lighting rabbit territory."