Chapter 147: Upon the Mountain of Four Seasons

"It's not the stone stool?" Zhang Mingyang finally understood why Jin Yaowen had called him here before being arrested.

Bai Muqing shook her head. "I still don't understand." She couldn't see the connection.

Zhang Mingyang explained, "Jin Yaowen didn't ask me here last time to tell me something; he was pointing me to a specific place. Both the stone stool and the stone table were carved from boulders we hauled down from Four Seasons Mountain together when I was a child. He must have been telling me that the answer is on Four Seasons Mountain."

"Four Seasons Mountain?" Bai Muqing looked around. "There are mountains all around your village. Which one is it?"

"Come with me." Zhang Mingyang pulled her out of the courtyard, pointed to a high mountain in the north, and said, "That's Four Seasons Mountain. Although it's only a little over a thousand meters high, it's the tallest peak in all of Jiyang. I'm guessing the answer is up there."

"But...!" Bai Muqing looked at Four Seasons Mountain with hesitation. "Mingyang, how are we supposed to search a mountain this big? Do you even know what Jin Yaowen left behind? What does it look like?"

Zhang Mingyang shook his head. "I don't know."

"Then how are you going to find it?" Upon hearing that he didn't even know what they were looking for, Bai Muqing instantly got a headache. "You and I can't possibly walk the entire mountain, can we?"

"Then we have no choice." Zhang Mingyang spread his hands. Since Jin Yaowen hadn't left him any further clues, they would just have to put in some effort and search everywhere.

"Alright then!" Since she had come along with him, she had no choice but to help him look. "When do we set off?"

Zhang Mingyang checked the time. It was almost eleven o'clock in the morning. "Let's eat first, and we'll head over this afternoon."

"Okay."

Zhang Mingyang led Bai Muqing back to his old home. Fortunately, he had brought his keys and didn't need to break the door down.

Pushing the door open, the two of them walked in.

"Wow! Is this where you lived when you were a child?" Bai Muqing looked around at the two single-story brick houses with great curiosity. She had never lived in a place like this before.

"Come on in." Zhang Mingyang opened the main room's door for her to enter.

Walking into the main room, Bai Muqing inspected the furnishings around the house. "Mingyang, where do you sleep?"

Zhang Mingyang pointed to the west room. "I lived in that room."

Bai Muqing looked in the direction he pointed. "Can you open the door and let me take a look?"

"There's no reason I can't." Zhang Mingyang selected a key and unlocked the west room. "Look around while I go check if there's any food left to make lunch."

"Okay."

Zhang Mingyang returned to the main room to search for food, while Bai Muqing wandered around the west room. The entire space was small, containing only a bed, a wardrobe, and a study desk.

Bai Muqing looked at the photographs placed on top of the wardrobe, spotting a picture of Zhang Mingyang's parents together. "These must be Zhang Mingyang's parents, right?"

She had inquired about Zhang Mingyang's background at the base. She knew that he had been orphaned at a young age; his father had died in the line of duty, and his mother had passed away while giving birth to him.

Looking at her parents' appearance in the photo, she felt they must have been very kind people. Putting down her parents' photo, she picked up another picture of Zhang Mingyang as a child. "Huh? Why was he so ugly when he was little?"

"Ha ha...!" She laughed as she looked at Zhang Mingyang's childhood photo. "So ugly as a kid, how did he suddenly turn out so cute when he grew up?"

"I've clearly always been cute, okay?!"

"Ah!"

Zhang Mingyang standing suddenly at the doorway and speaking startled Bai Muqing.

"When did you get here?" Bai Muqing looked at Zhang Mingyang by the door and patted her chest. "You scared me."

"You're the one who scared me." Zhang Mingyang walked over, snatched the photo back, and put it in its original place. "Let's go, lunch is ready."

"So fast?" She followed Zhang Mingyang back to the main room.

"This is lunch." Zhang Mingyang pointed to the instant noodles on the table.

"Huh? We're just eating this?" Bai Muqing looked at the instant noodles with utter disgust. "Can't you find some local rural specialties?"

"Specialties?" Zhang Mingyang sat down and picked up his bowl of instant noodles. "There's no one left in the village, where am I supposed to find you specialties? Alright, just make do with this for now. When we get back, I'll take you out for something good." Zhang Mingyang coaxed Bai Muqing like a child.

"Fine then." Bai Muqing pouted and sat down. "Don't forget to take me for good food when we get back."

"I won't forget!"

...

Two bowls of instant noodles were finished by the two of them in just a few minutes. Zhang Mingyang took the noodle bowls and threw them into the trash can outside.

"It looks like it's going to rain!" He looked at the dark clouds in the sky and called Bai Muqing over. "Let's hurry and set off, or it's going to start raining in a moment."

Bai Muqing looked at the dark clouds in the sky and replied, "Should we wait? If it starts raining once we get up the mountain, there won't even be a place to hide from the rain."

Zhang Mingyang thought for a moment but still insisted on going. "Forget it, let's hurry up and search so we can catch a ride straight back afterwards. If this rain gets heavy, we'll definitely be trapped in the village. Surely you don't want to sleep here tonight?"

"Sleep here?" Imagining how quiet and desolate the surroundings would be at night, Bai Muqing shuddered with fear. "Then let's hurry and set off."

Zhang Mingyang closed the courtyard gate and led her toward Four Seasons Mountain.

The two of them walked along a small path and reached the foot of Four Seasons Mountain an hour later. Looking up at the towering peak, Bai Muqing suddenly had second thoughts. "Zhang Mingyang, this is way too high. How long are we going to be searching? It didn't look this high from a distance just now."

Zhang Mingyang smiled and replied, "You must have never heard that old saying: 'Running your horse to death chasing a distant mountain.' Sometimes what you see isn't the whole picture."

With that, he took his first step and began to climb upward. Bai Muqing shook her head at him and followed.

The path up the mountain was extremely difficult to walk on, littered everywhere with rocks and weeds taller than a person. Zhang Mingyang supported Bai Muqing as they hiked laboriously for over an hour.

"Mingyang, do you have a direction? Are we seriously just going to wander around looking like this?"

Hearing her words, Zhang Mingyang thought back to the place where he and Jin Yaowen used to haul stones together when he was little. "I remember it should be somewhere halfway up the mountain, but I really can't recall the exact spot. It's been too long."

Looking at the ever-changing rocks and terrain of the mountain, Zhang Mingyang truly couldn't remember where it was. "Let's walk a bit further up and take another look."

"We're still walking?" Bai Muqing looked at the increasingly heavy dark clouds in the sky and felt she couldn't walk another step. "Let's take a rest first." She stopped, found a large rock to sit on, and began to massage her aching legs.

"Alright then." Zhang Mingyang wiped the sweat from his brow; he was reaching his limit too.

As the dark clouds in the sky grew heavier, the wind on the mountain also picked up. The previously muggy weather instantly turned chilly. Zhang Mingyang looked at Bai Muqing, who was wearing a dress, and asked, "Um... are you cold?"

Bai Muqing had worked up a sweat earlier, and now, blasted by the strong wind, her body had long since grown cold.

"Cold..."