The next morning, he woke during his morning cultivation, and the hillock was already in chaos.
Eating, harnessing deer, fastening straps... bows were strung, forks shouldered. The border folk looked calm. To them, this was part of everyday life.
The chaos came from the old, weak, women, and children in the group. They needed to decide what to take and what to leave behind. It was a painful choice, because these belongings were already everything they had, the guarantee of survival they had relied on back in the Anhe Kingdom.
Amid tears and sobs, they climbed onto their respective deer sleighs with their small bundles. With the border folk's help, they were lashed tightly in place with ropes, then covered with a huge hide. This would keep human scent from escaping as much as possible, at least preventing the forest creatures from pinpointing their targets immediately.
All of this was experience the border folk had bought with blood over thousands of years, things even Hou Niao would not have thought of on the spot. Those twenty Spirit Stones had been well spent!
Once everything was ready, the deer sleigh convoy set off. Each sleigh was pulled by two sturdy male Forest Deer. They were forest creatures to begin with and well adapted to the environment here. Pulling several people over the hard ground was still somewhat taxing for them, but once they entered the forest, the going would be much easier.
Six deer sleighs formed a long, snaking line. The last was empty, to pick up anyone who fell off.
Hou Niao rode alongside the youth. They did not need to change mounts; simply circulating their cultivation methods would ease the burden on their horses. Besides, there were no spare Forest Deer for them to switch to. These creatures had