142: Chapter 142 What is Wang Lan planning to do?

Song Ya reached into her pants pocket and pulled out those few crumpled, wrinkled leaves.

"Director Su, wait a moment, I'll apply it for you."

Su Qingxue lowered her head and glanced at the thing in her hand.

The leaves were thick with a layer of fine fuzz on the surface, and the edges hadn't even unfolded yet. They were mashed to pieces, and the green juice had seeped over half her hand.

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"What kind of grass is this?"

"It promotes blood circulation and removes blood stasis." Song Ya squatted down and flattened the leaves in her palm. "Wang Lan just taught me how to recognize it, saying that people in the village used to use this whenever they bumped or bruised themselves, and it works."

Song Ya rolled up her trouser leg a bit, revealing her swollen, shiny kneecap.

Su Qingxue thought for a moment, then gritted her teeth and said, "Be gentle."

Song Ya nodded, crushed the leaves with both hands, and was about to apply them.

"Wait a minute!"

Wang Lan's voice came from behind.

Song Ya's hand hung suspended in mid-air, and she turned around to look at her.

Wang Lan walked over quickly, bent down to look closely at the leaves in Song Ya's hand, and frowned.

"Song Ya, you took the wrong ones."

Song Ya was stunned.

"The kind I told you about just now has opposite leaf veins. Look at the ones in your hand; the veins are alternate."

Wang Lan took a few other pieces out of her own pants pocket, pinched them, and handed them in front of the two of them. "Look, opposite, paired left and right—this is the kind. The ones in your hand have veins that grow staggered; they aren't the same thing."

Song Ya lowered her head and put the two kinds of leaves together to compare them.

They really were different.

The veins of the leaves in her hand were arranged alternately, front and back, while the ones in Wang Lan's hand were neat and strictly paired.

Without looking closely, it was impossible to tell them apart.

Song Ya's face turned fiery red instantly. She pulled her hand back, clutching the wrongly picked leaves, not knowing where to put them.

"I'm sorry, Director Su, I... I didn't recognize them carefully..."

Su Qingxue didn't speak.

Her gaze shifted away from the leaves in Song Ya's hand and fell onto Wang Lan's face.

Wang Lan lowered her head, pulled out all the leaves from her pocket, held them in both hands, and respectfully handed them to Su Qingxue.

"Director Su, use mine. I've been running around the mountains with my dad since I was a kid, and I've recognized this stuff for over twenty years; I won't get it wrong."

Su Qingxue looked at the handful of leaves in her palm.

Su Qingxue reached out and took them.

But she didn't apply them.

She gathered the leaves in her palm and shoved them into her pants pocket.

Wang Lan's hand was still raised; she kept it that way for two seconds before putting it down.

There was no superfluous expression on her face, as if she had anticipated this result long ago.

"Director Su."

Wang Lan spoke, her voice very even, without flattery or aggressiveness.

"I don't mean anything else."

Su Qingxue leaned against the tree trunk with her right leg straight, not taking up the conversation.

"Back on the beach down below, I did scheme against you."

Wang Lan squatted on the ground, resting both hands on her knees, looking at the rotten leaves under her feet. "At that time, I thought rescue would arrive in two or three days, and I still had to work at Shengtang after going back. If we didn't negotiate our interests clearly, it would be like suffering this ordeal for nothing."

She paused for a moment.

"But now it's already the fifty-seventh day."

Su Qingxue didn't make a sound.

"We can't go back, so all those past grievances truly have no meaning anymore."

Wang Lan slowed her speech down. "We are all women. In a place like this, being able to lend each other a hand is always better than tripping each other up."

Su Qingxue glanced at her.

Wang Lan's expression was very earnest, sincere to the point where no fault could be found.

Su Qingxue had seen too many kinds of sincerity in the business world.

Some people were born with a sincere exterior, shaking your hand with a smile while hiding a knife under their sleeves.

She neither nodded nor shook her head.

"Got it."

Three words. No belief, no refutation, no following up.

Wang Lan didn't continue talking either. The timing was just right; one more word would be too much.

She stood up, patted the mud off her pants, and took two steps to the side.

Song Ya was still squatting in front of Su Qingxue, clutching the wrongly picked leaves in both hands. She pursed her lips for a long time, her voice as small as a mosquito's hum: "Director Su, I really didn't mean it, I just didn't recognize them carefully..."

"Alright." Su Qingxue interrupted her. "You're not a botanist; it's normal to make a mistake."

A circle of wetness welled up in Song Ya's eyes, and she blinked hard twice to force the moisture back down.

"Next time, don't be in such a hurry to use your hands." Su Qingxue added.

Her tone wasn't heavy, but Song Ya understood and nodded quickly.

Wang Lan had already walked to a dwarf tree a dozen paces away, raising her hand to point at a few green-blue fruits hanging on the crown of the tree.

"There are wild fruits over here. They aren't big, but they're edible." She turned her head to look at the others. "While Zhang Tao and the others aren't back yet, let's pick a bit more so we can consider it fulfilling our task."

Song Ya wiped the corner of her eye, stood up, and walked over there.

Liu Feifei thought of what Lin Fan looked like when he lost his temper.

Just a moment ago, Zhang Tao merely spoke out of turn, and that dagger almost stabbed straight into his thigh.

If she, Liu Feifei, turned in a blank slate...

"I'll pick some too."

Su Qingxue didn't follow them over.

She leaned against the tree trunk, took out the leaves from her pants pocket, and pinched them between her fingers, examining them back and forth.

She smelled them, and the pungent scent made her nasal cavity sting.

Su Qingxue stuffed the leaves back into her pocket.

Her knee was still hurting. But compared to the pain, she cared more about another matter.

Wang Lan's shout of "Wait a minute" just now was far too timely.

...

Two hours later.

Movement came from deep within the woods.

The sound of snapping branches, footsteps, and Zhang Tao's howling cries.

"Brother Fan, this thing's legs are still kicking! Is it not completely dead yet?"

"Choke its neck tighter." Lin Fan's voice drifted out from the front.

"I am choking it!"

Three men crawled out of the bushes.

Zhou Kai was carrying a prey on his shoulder.

Zhang Tao held something about the size of a badger in his arms; its four legs were still kicking and its teeth were bared. There were two bloody cuts on Zhang Tao's forearm.

"What the hell is this thing anyway?!" Zhang Tao grimaced.

"Whatever it is, as long as it's edible," Zhou Kai said!

Song Ya and Wang Lan were standing there holding a pile of wild fruits and wild arrowroot.

Liu Feifei was holding two strings of berries of an unknown variety in her hand, red and green, looking like a string of cheap necklaces.

Su Qingxue leaned against the tree trunk, one hand holding the medicine given to her by Song Ya, and the other holding the one given by Wang Lan...