When it was almost dark, Wei Zhao found a place to shelter them from the wind, first settled Yi Yin down, then hunted a hare and roasted it for dinner.

Yi Yin had been chewing on the dried steamed buns for a day, and was happy to see the roasted hare. Even though Wei Zhao didn’t add any seasoning, it still felt delicious.

“Daddy, you eat too!” Yi Yin finished one rabbit leg and picked up another one. Seeing that Wei Zhao only watched him eat, but didn’t move, he handed the rabbit leg in his hand to him.

Wei Zhao had no appetite at the moment, but he knew very well that this would definitely not work, so he took the rabbit leg handed over by Yi Yin and forced himself to eat it.

Yi Yin smiled happily and went to pull another rabbit leg. With the cooperation of father and son, the roasted hare was wiped out cleanly, but Yi Yin always felt that he seemed to eat more than Wei Zhao.

After eating and drinking, Wei Zhao carried Yi Yin to wash his feet in a stream in the forest, then used a needle to pierce the unbroken blood blisters, gently applied the medicine, and then tore off a piece of cloth from his underwear to carefully wrap his feet.

The temperature difference between day and night in the north was great, and even in the height of summer, the nights were cool, while on Tianmen Ridge, it was downright chilly.

Wei Zhao lit a fire and wrapped Yi Yin in a cloak. The father and son hugged each other and slept together until dawn.

In the next few days, Yi Yin’s feet were tightly wrapped, and he couldn’t even put on his shoes. Naturally, he couldn’t walk anymore, so he could only let Wei Zhao carry him on his back.

Wei Zhao’s condition was obviously not good. He couldn’t eat but vomited fiercely. He was quickly losing weight and his face was frighteningly white.

Yi Yin was worried about Wei Zhao’s health, and when his foot injuries improved slightly, he got off to the ground. Wei Zhao could barely hold on, so sometimes he had to let him go down for a while. Fortunately, after the blood blisters scarred, a thin layer of calluses was formed on the soles of Yi Yin’s feet and he was never blistered again.

In this way, Wei Zhao carried Yi Yin on his back for a while, and then let him walk for a while by himself. The father and son supported each other and trudged through Tianmen Ridge. The only good thing was that they had been walking for several days, and there were no chasing soldiers behind them.

The farther they went into the mountains, the deeper the woods were. Even at noon, it was difficult for sunlight to shine in through the dense shade of the trees that covered the sky. Wei Zhao tragically lost his way.

“Daddy, we seem to have been here before. Look at the big stone under the tree, I even marked it.” Seeing that smooth and rounded black boulder again, Yi Yin was about to collapse. It meant that after walking for a long time, they returned to where they had come from.

Wei Zhao was also a little frustrated. He took Yi Yin and sat down under the tree. He didn’t speak for a long time, as if he was thinking about something.

Yi Yin didn’t dare to disturb him, so he looked around and observed the surrounding scenery. Suddenly, he saw two mountain peaks in the clouds that looked like an eagle spreading its wings.

Were those the Flying Wings Peaks? Yi Yin suddenly felt his eyes brighten. Many years ago, he followed the great general Huo Dongjun on the expedition to Fuyu. On the way, he heard him mention that the highest peaks of Tianmen Ridge were the Flying Wings Peaks. The mountain had two peaks, east and west, resembling the eagle wings, hence the name.

The two peaks were not equal in height. From south to north, the east peak was high and the west peak was low. From north to south, it was naturally the other way round.

From Yi Yin’s current position, the west peak of the Flying Wings Peaks was high and the east peak was low, indicating that they were still to the north of the peaks, and they were walking in the direction of the Flying Wings Peaks, which was the right way to go.

Thinking of this, Yi Yin raised his hand and pointed excitedly: “Daddy, let’s go that way.” He was pointing in the direction of the Flying Wing Peaks.

Wei Zhao hadn’t sorted out his clues yet. Seeing his son’s certainty, he smiled and asked, “Why that way? What did Ah Yin think of?”

Yi Yin was stunned and speechless for an instant. He really didn’t know where to begin.

Fortunately, Wei Zhao didn’t ask too much, and then said, “Since Ah Yin likes it, let’s go that way.”

Yi Yin’s jaw dropped. Just like that? Was Wei Zhao not afraid of being led to the ditch by him?

Rubbing Yi Yin’s messy hair, Wei Zhao smiled and said, “To tell you the truth, Daddy doesn’t know which way to go. Let’s try it. We can’t keep spinning in place.”

As the saying goes, a horse can be run to death by looking up the mountain. A horse can be run to death, and you can imagine how miserable it would be if it were a human being. 

Wei Zhao took Yi Yin to walk in the direction of the Flying Wings Peaks for three days. Except for getting rid of the problem of “hitting the ghost wall”⁽¹⁾, Yi Yin didn’t feel that the distance between them and the Flying Wings Peaks had decreased at all.

But it could be judged from the orientation of sunrise and sunset that they were heading south in the correct direction.

What worried Yi Yin more than the unreachable Flying Wing Peaks was Wei Zhao’s deteriorating health.

In the past few days, Wei Zhao’s vomiting had become more and more severe, not to mention that his appetite was extremely poor. What he barely could make himself eat was often vomited, and he was extremely weak. He almost never carried Yi Yin anymore but led him, holding his hand. 

After all, Yi Yin was not really a child, and Wei Zhao’s all-too-obvious behaviour made him vaguely think of a possibility, a possibility he least wanted to happen.

First of all, not to mention whether Wei Zhao could accept having another child besides him, a child of that bastard Helian Zhuo, this child was not coming at the right time, and it might cost Wei Zhao his life.

In the evening, Wei Zhao and Yi Yin found a cave to spend the night. Compared with the previous few days of sleeping in the woods, the conditions were very good.

But Wei Zhao’s situation was abysmal. He was holding his lower abdomen tightly along the way, and it seemed that the pain was unbearable. After entering the cave, he barely managed to get Yi Yin something to eat and lay down without undressing.

Wei Zhao was sick, and Yi Yin couldn’t do anything. After eating something indiscriminately to fill his stomach, he curled up, lay down beside Wei Zhao and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Yi Yin was awakened by a suppressed groan. It was Wei Zhao’s voice. He hurriedly looked over, and by the faint light of the fire, he saw that Wei Zhao’s face was covered in cold sweat, his lower lip was bitten bloody and he was obviously in severe pain.

Yi Yin was quite scared and hurriedly asked, “Daddy, what’s wrong with you? Does something hurt?”

Wei Zhao didn’t speak, just pressed his hands to his stomach and kept shaking his head. The expression on his face was not only painful, but also mixed with something that Yi Yin seemed to understand.

Yi Yin didn’t know what he could do, so he hugged Wei Zhao’s shoulders and let his head rest on his lap. He guessed that his yet-unformed younger sibling might not be able to stay.

Yi Yin had never had any concept of younger brothers and sisters, and he was not sad to lose one. He was just worried about Wei Zhao’s health. It was easy to get sick if he miscarried in a deserted place without doctors and medicine.

“Ugh…” Wei Zhao’s pain became more and more intense, and his consciousness gradually began to blur. Otherwise, in front of Yi Yin, he would never express his pain and helplessness so obviously.

Yi Yin hugged Wei Zhao and kept wiping his sweat with a handkerchief, but he couldn’t wipe it clean. Wei Zhao was wet all over, and his whole body seemed to be drenched in water. The fear in Yi Yin’s heart became deeper and deeper.

In his previous life, did Wei Zhao encounter the same trouble? This child that shouldn’t have come ruined the escape opportunity he had finally waited for.

If so, wouldn’t Fuyu chasers already be very close to them? Yi Yin was in a cold sweat at his own thoughts.

No, it wasn’t like this…

Yi Yin knocked on his head and forced himself to calm down.

The original him was no match for Pei Di. He could only be beaten and had no power to fight back. The whipping of Wei Zhao by the Great Yan-zhi might not have happened.

Farida’s miscarriage and Wei Zhao being framed should have happened, which was why they had moved to the village outside the city.

But when Wei Zhao escaped in the previous life, he shouldn’t have taken Yi Yin with him. Their relationship at that time was really not close.

Even if he brought him along, Yi Yin, who was really a little child then, would not have pointed out the right direction when Wei Zhao was lost.

So the path they were walking now was definitely a different path from before, and he couldn’t scare himself.

Suddenly, Wei Zhao jerked upwards and let out a painful cry: “Uhh…” Then his body went limp and he passed out.

Yi Yin was shocked and hurriedly stretched out his hand to check Wei Zhao’s breath. Fortunately, he breathed steadily. Yi Yin sighed out in relief and gently wiped the sweat on Wei Zhao’s face.

When he was done, Yi Yin couldn’t hold on any longer. His eyes closed and he fell asleep on top of Wei Zhao.

When he woke up again, Yi Yin smelled the smell of grilled fish, and needless to say, it was Wei Zhao’s doing. Yi Yin was very worried about Wei Zhao’s health; what he needed most at the moment was rest.

Yi Yin wanted to persuade Wei Zhao to rest before leaving but how could Wei Zhao be willing to delay? He stared at Yi Yin eating grilled fish, then picked him up and carried away.

Yi Yin could see that Wei Zhao’s footsteps were very unsteady, as if every one of his steps could be a stumble. But his persuasion was ineffective, and he could only try to keep up with Wei Zhao’s steps. He had no idea if they could get out of Tianmen Ridge alive.

Due to Wei Zhao’s poor health, they couldn’t go far that day. Not long into the afternoon, Wei Zhao suddenly fainted. Yi Yin called him desperately but couldn’t wake him up.

Yi Yin had no choice but to give up his useless efforts. It took him a great deal of exertion to drag Wei Zhao to a tree with its trunk half empty.

Seeing that Wei Zhao’s lips were dry and cracked, Yi Yin tried to find some water to feed him, but he didn’t know where the water sac had fallen, so he had to lie down by the stream and take a large mouthful of water, intending to feed Wei Zhao water just like he had fed medicine.

The first time it went well, Yi Yin fed all the water in. The second time he encountered a little trouble. As soon as he was halfway through feeding, Wei Zhao woke up and looked at him dumbly.

After all, the last time Yi Yin fed Wei Zhao medicine, Wei Zhao was unconscious and didn’t know anything about it, and no one told him about it when he woke up.

After a long time, Wei Zhao sighed: “Silly boy, why are you following me?”

Staying in Fuyu, Yi Yin was also Helian Zhuo’s son even if he was not valued. He might not be taken seriously, but it was no problem to have no worries about food and clothing. If Wei Zhao died earlier, maybe Helian Zhuo would treat Yi Yin better, and anyway, it would be better than dying in the mountains now.

“I just love Daddy!” Yi Yin couldn’t say why, but he felt it was worth it. Wei Zhao in his previous life hated him more than he loved him, but in this life, he really loved him as his son.

“Heh!” Wei Zhao laughed suddenly, holding Yi Yin tightly in his arms. At this moment, there was a slight sound of footsteps coming from not far away.

Wei Zhao and Yi Yin’s faces changed at the same time. They could hear that the visitor was not an ordinary person, but someone with outstanding skills. With one hand on the tree trunk and the other on Yi Yin’s shoulder, Wei Zhao stood up with difficulty and shielded Yi Yin behind him.

1. Getting lost and spinning round and round in the same place

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