The storm arrived

"Sure!" Everyone got busy loading the electric tricycle. Even Xiaobai helped push with all his might. Ye Huan laughed, nudged him toward the two little girls, then lifted him onto the tricycle and let his parents ride home first.

"Keep Jingjing and Little Tangyuan at home. Don't let them run around. Saihu, go home," Ye Huan told his mother.

"Got it."

"Sister-in-law, thanks for your hard work. Take this bamboo basket to the orchard behind the mountain." Ye Huan handed Bai Jie a bamboo basket.

"Mm, it's only right. I'll get going. Once I'm done, I'll come help you pick watermelons." Bai Jie took the basket and hurried off to the orchard behind the mountain.

Carrying the remaining two baskets, Ye Huan headed toward the watermelon patch. He had become quite good at choosing watermelons now, looking at this one and tapping that one. In no time, he had picked more than a dozen large watermelons.

He put a few into his space. With the coming downpour, this watermelon patch would probably be ruined, so he saved a few to eat himself later.

The remaining two bamboo baskets could not hold them all. Luckily, he saw his father coming back on the electric tricycle. The two loaded the watermelons and headed behind the mountain, where the sight of baskets full of peaches left Ye Huan at a loss. Far too many had ripened.

"Stop picking, Sister-in-law. There are too many." After loading a basket of peaches onto the tricycle, Lu Huan called out to Bai Jie. He had not expected these few peach trees to be so productive. He had barely watered them with spirit spring water, so how could they bear so much fruit?

Just as they were about to head back, an "Awoo!" stopped Ye Huan. "Dad, wait a moment. Xiaobai's dad is here."

"Oh." Ye Huan's father and Bai Jie had never seen Xiaobai's dad, although they knew Xiaobai was a wolf.

Before long, a large wild wolf emerged from the dense forest, dragging a wild deer. Ye Huan went to meet him and stroked his big head. "What brings you here?"

The wolf turned his head and howled. In the past, Ye Huan would have been completely baffled, but he had made great progress in beast taming lately, so he roughly understood what he meant.

"You mean there'll be torrential rain and flash floods?" Ye Huan asked with a frown.

He was not afraid of ordinary flash floods. Their ancestors had considered all those things when choosing to settle here. The area could drain floodwater very well, and the village was essentially out of reach of flooding. The large river in the village also had a flood channel specifically prepared for flash floods.

The wolf gave a howl.

"Oh, all right. Don't run around anymore, either. It's dangerous in the mountains. Come home with me. Xiaobai misses you, too." Ye Huan patted his head, then called to his father to toss the deer onto the tricycle and head home.

The wolf did not stand on ceremony and followed Ye Huan home step for step, giving Ye Huan's mother a fright. But when she saw him make his own way into a storage room in the courtyard and lie down, she relaxed.

Jingjing and Little Tangyuan still did not dare approach and simply watched Xiaobai playing there. Ye Huan watched closely, too. Although he felt quite reassured about Xiaobai's biological father now, it was still best not to let the children get too close.

His father went to deliver the vegetables, roughly two days' worth. There were a few more watermelons and peaches than usual. Ye Huan asked his father to tell Manager Du that, for the ten watermelons and one basket of peaches, fifteen thousand for the watermelons would be enough. The peaches were a gift.

There was no telling how long the rain would last. In case they spoiled, this would reduce the losses, too.

They had kept two watermelons at home, and he had three in his space. That was enough to eat.

After returning, Ye Huan had told the workers to pack up and go home. Otherwise, once the rain came, they would not be able to leave.

Most of the work at home was essentially finished now. The toilets and bathing rooms had been renovated, with one upstairs, one downstairs, and another in the backyard.

The kitchen in the courtyard was almost done, too. The earthen stove had already been there and only needed refurbishing. The storage rooms were also nearly finished, with just the whitewashing and finishing touches left.

The main job remaining was the pavilion in the courtyard. Because Ye Huan was using treated timber throughout, progress had been a little slow. In their small locality, many construction crews had little experience building all-wood pavilions like this.

Still, he was in no hurry. There was no point rushing this kind of work. He was no longer growing vegetables in the front courtyard. A small fishpond had been dug in a corner by the wall, not for decoration, but simply so he could keep live fish for a few days in the future without them dying.

A few meters away was the storage room where Xiaobai's father lay. A cobblestone path from the living room to the courtyard gate divided the courtyard in two. Across from it stood the pavilion, occupying a sizable area of its own.

The building farther off on the pavilion's side was the renovated kitchen. That was all the space the courtyard had, and Ye Huan had not expanded it. It was enough.

By the time Ye Huan's father returned from delivering the vegetables, dinner had begun. Sparse raindrops started falling from the sky, and the wind picked up, blowing with a howl. The leaves of the row of large trees outside the courtyard rustled loudly.

They quickly finished feeding Little Tangyuan and Jingjing. Lu Huan took Little Tangyuan home, while Bai Jie also said goodbye and left with Jingjing in her arms. Her home was not far from Ye Huan's and stood next to his grandfather's, so his grandfather went back with her.

When Ye Huan returned from taking Little Tangyuan home and saw that his grandfather had left, he said, "It'll probably be a torrential downpour. Grandpa should've stayed here."

"I told him, but he wouldn't. He has a lot of things at home and can't stop worrying about them," his mother said.

"All right, I'll go check on him." Ye Huan quickly ate a bowl of rice, then ran toward his grandfather's house with the wolf father and son. The raindrops were growing larger and falling faster.

"Grandpa, this rain won't be light. Come stay at my place," Ye Huan said as he entered the courtyard.

"These things won't be safe," his grandfather said. "Keep them at my place." Ye Huan wrapped the bundle his grandfather had packed in a tarpaulin, then wrapped another around it and tied it securely. Carrying it, he locked the door and headed home again with his grandfather and Saihu.

Although this was his own grandfather, Ye Huan still could not readily expose his space. It was not that he feared his grandfather, but that he did not want to burden the old man. Having roamed the mountains all his life, the old man put considerable faith in gods and ghosts, and Ye Huan was afraid he would let his imagination run wild.

"Put those things upstairs at your place," his grandfather said when he saw Ye Huan setting them in the downstairs room where he slept.

Ye Huan nodded and carried the large bundle upstairs, then tossed it straight into his space. There was nowhere safer.

After checking the house, Ye Huan sat chatting with his grandfather in the living room as rain poured down outside amid flashing lightning and rumbling thunder. Ye Huan reckoned the gale had reached force seven or eight.

"Here it comes," Ye Huan said, watching bean-sized raindrops pound the courtyard.

"This rain is serious." His grandfather narrowed his eyes. What had he not experienced in his lifetime? Otherwise, where did you think the old man's set of tiger bones and tiger penis had come from?

"Grandpa, in all your years roaming the mountains, have you ever encountered anything really unusual?" With nothing else to do just then, Ye Huan kept his grandfather company and chatted.

"Now that you mention it, I really have. Deep in the mountains behind us, there's a pool. That's where I encountered that tiger back then. But the strange thing wasn't the pool. After I finished off the tiger, in my daze, I seemed to see a long creature flash through the water. At the time, I thought I was just tired from killing the tiger and didn't pay it any mind. Later, the more I thought about it, the more something felt wrong. I went back there several times afterward, but never saw it again."