Gu Youyou couldn’t stand by any longer, so she said to her, "If it really doesn’t work out, why don’t you just wait for us at the base of the mountain?"
Searcy snorted, "If you can climb it, I can’t believe I can’t. I refuse to be outdone by a sickly person like you."
"I’m not your average sickly person; I grew up in the mountains, a mountain person. Why do you, who grew up in a large sheltered household, have to compete with me?"
Searcy snorted again, ignoring Gu Youyou.
Fortunately, she was quick to learn; she soon picked up the essentials of mountain climbing. Though she was slower, she wasn’t much slower than Gu Youyou.
Jin Ziyuan looked at Gu Youyou with surprise in his eyes; he was finding her more and more incomprehensible.
Before, she had said she had been out to sea, and now she was able to climb mountains. Fusang Mountain wasn’t like the kind of mountain you find on flat land; it was a steep rise straight from the ground. And her hand movements, as well as the footholds she found each time, were all just right. If it weren’t for his own decent skills, he really couldn’t have climbed better than her.
Her movements were like those of someone professionally trained in mountain climbing.
But wasn’t she a medicine person? A medicine person who had been locked up in the Gu Family’s courtyard for ten years, how could she know all this?
"Hey, what are you thinking about? Focus a little, don’t end up falling while we are fine," Gu Youyou said to Jin Ziyuan, seeing him distracted.
Jin Ziyuan then came back to his senses and climbed up seriously.
Halfway up the mountain, the three of them found a somewhat flat spot and stopped.
Jin Ziyuan took out some dry food and water and gave it to Gu Youyou and Searcy, saying, "Eat something, we still have half the journey to go."
Gu Youyou nodded, saying, "Okay, let’s replenish our strength first. At this rate, it’ll take another hour to climb."
Searcy asked in surprise, "We’ve been climbing for an hour already?"
"That long? It doesn’t seem that high to me."
Gu Youyou smiled and said, "There’s a saying ’A watched pot never boils,’ and it’s the same principle when climbing from the bottom of a mountain to the top."
After eating some high-calorie beef jerky, Gu Youyou also drank some water and chewed a slice of ginseng.
The food she prepared was all intended to quickly replenish energy, not to be eaten all at once to feel full.
At the time, Searcy had complained about not preparing a few big flatbreads, as she thought they would stave off hunger better.
But after they resumed climbing, she understood Gu Youyou’s thoughtful intentions.
A few pieces of beef jerky and slices of ginseng, though not feeling very full, certainly felt as satisfying as those filling flatbreads.
In the woods above, something was stirring. On the silent island, Gu Youyou easily heard it.
She stopped and also called out to Jin Ziyuan who was scouting ahead.
Jin Ziyuan’s hearing was no worse than Gu Youyou’s; he heard it too.
His eyes darkened, "There must be some wild animal. Be careful, and hold on to the trees next to you."
While talking, he had already untied the rope bound around himself and took out a short sword.
Gu Youyou nodded at him, quickly tied the other end of her rope around a nearby tree, and hugged the tree like an octopus.
Seeing this, Searcy hurriedly did the same.
Facing the unknown, she seemed excited.
"What is it? You both heard it?" Searcy asked quietly.
Gu Youyou also whispered back, "Jin Ziyuan and I ate something that sharpens the hearing and sight, our hearing is a little more sensitive than others. From the noise, it’s probably monkeys."
"Monkeys?" Searcy’s eyes lit up, she had only seen monkeys in books; she had never seen one in real life.