Rustle.

The leaves brushed against each other as the wind blew past, making a clattering sound.

An orange cat with glossy fur darted through the bushes, its paws leaving a trail of small prints in the mud.

He Miao followed closely behind Xixi, not daring to blink for even a second, fearing she would lose sight of it in an instant.

Xixi likely knew He Miao’s pace; coupled with the fact that the mountain path was overgrown with thorns, its movements were much slower than when they had first left Yunshui Temple.

Suddenly, Xixi seemed to hear something, and its ears twitched.

It leaped onto a tree branch, head held high and tail swaying, as it peered in a certain direction.

Standing beneath the tree, He Miao felt a gust of wind blow past, making her shiver despite it being summer.

It was truly cold in these mountains.

“Meow!”

Xixi’s pupils narrowed into slits as it cried out sharply toward a specific spot.

After a moment, He Miao heard a sound as well.

“…Meow, meow.”

It was the sound of a cat!

It didn’t sound far away, and it was getting closer to them.

“Xixi!”

As soon as she spoke, Xixi understood her meaning. It jumped down from the tree and led her toward the direction of the meowing.

Soon, He Miao crossed the path and saw a white cat walking toward them.

“Potato!”

He Miao recognized it at a glance; it was Potato, who had been missing for many days.

She stepped forward quickly and scooped Potato up in an excited embrace.

“Where did you go?! I was worried sick!”

“Meow…”

Cradled in He Miao’s arms, Potato struggled to lift its head and let out a meow.

By the time He Miao calmed down and released it, Potato was nearly breathless from her hug.

Xixi walked over to its companion, its little tongue licking Potato’s fur in a comforting gesture.

Potato stared with wide, round eyes, meowing a few times at Xixi before turning to meow toward a certain direction.

After it finished calling out, it looked back at He Miao, signaling for it to follow it.

“Miaomiao, cross the small hill in front of you. There’s a small wooden hut up ahead.”

Ji He paused and added, “Call 120 and have them come up the mountain. There’s a young boy inside the hut.”

“What?”

He Miao was stunned, finding it somewhat unbelievable.

There was actually a child on the mountain?

But she hadn’t heard anything about anyone going missing these past few days.

Pushing her doubts aside, He Miao called 120 while walking forward.

About a few minutes later, she indeed saw a small wooden hut.

The door was broken, and only half of the window was intact.

“Meow!”

“Meow meow.”

“Meow…”

Following Xixi’s cry, meows began to rise one after another from the surroundings.

A moment later, several cats emerged from the bushes.

“Bayue, Gui’an, Buxiang, Tian Tian, Jia Geng!”

Seeing those five cats, He Miao called out their names one by one.

Except for Scallion, all the missing cats were here.

“Meow~~~”

A cat’s cry drifted out from the small wooden hut.

A calico cat leaped out from the window with nimble steps and let out a cry toward He Miao.

“Scallion!”

Now, all the cats were accounted for.

He Miao’s heart finally settled, but she didn’t forget what Ji He had said and stepped quickly into the wooden hut.

Sure enough, she saw a seven or eight-year-old boy lying in the corner. His face was pale, yet his cheeks were a piercing red.

As He Miao approached him, she didn’t even need to reach out to feel the heat radiating from his body.

Heavens, how did Ji He calculate this so accurately?

She had even predicted the child’s illness and told her to dial 120 in advance.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

He Miao called out tentatively.

The little boy’s eyelids fluttered, but he couldn’t open his eyes no matter how hard he tried. He murmured softly, “Brother…”

He Miao had to lean in very close to hear the word “brother.”

Brother?

The bullet comments practically exploded.

Seeing the comments veer further and further off course, nearly becoming the fuse for a world war, help finally arrived.

Soon, the ambulance reached the scene.

The little boy was carried down from the mountain.

Quite a few nearby residents were gathered around the ambulance, all showing worried expressions when they saw the boy.

An older woman in a floral shirt sighed, “Oh dear, such a small child staying on the mountain for several days, how could he bear it?”

Beside her, another woman with permed, curly hair frowned and stepped forward a few paces, seemingly trying to get a closer look.

“Why does he look so familiar to me?”

The woman in the floral shirt squinted to see, then slapped her thigh and exclaimed, “Isn’t that the child who was always at your stall last month begging for food?”

“It really is him! Wasn’t he with his older brother? Why is he all alone now?”

The curly-haired woman recognized him now, and she was even more surprised.

The pair of brothers were street urchins who had suddenly appeared near Yunshui Temple last month. According to others, they had come all the way from another province, begging as they went.

The older brother was still a minor, so no one dared to hire him. Though people said they went around begging for food, the older brother would actually help out with chores whenever possible. Sometimes people would give them a few extra yuan in charity, and that was how the two brothers survived.

Most of the people living near Yunshui Temple were very kind-hearted. Seeing how pitiable yet sincere the two were, they were happy to offer help. Now, seeing the young boy’s condition, both the woman in the floral shirt and the woman with curly hair looked distressed.

Just then, they heard someone nearby say, “Haven’t you heard? That older street kid somehow provoked Zhang Qiang a couple of days ago. He was beaten so badly he ended up in the hospital, and he’s still unconscious.”

Zhang Qiang came from a relatively wealthy local family. They owned a large villa, and they even had many fruit trees planted in their yard.

He Miao passed by the women and overheard their entire conversation.

The viewers in the livestream room heard it clearly too.

Seeing everyone’s enthusiasm in the bullet comments, He Miao quickly said, “Everyone, don’t worry. Wait until I get to the hospital to check on the situation. That way, you can all feel more at ease.”

She got into the ambulance, and the camera happened to be pointed at the little boy lying on the stretcher.

He Miao couldn’t help but say, “I just heard someone say that when the older brother, Longlong, was living on the streets, he found his younger brother, who had been abandoned by the roadside at just a month old. He begged for money to buy milk at the supermarket and somehow managed to raise him until he was six. They’ve depended on each other ever since. To have this happen to them now… it’s so pitiful.”

Ji He sighed and said, “Longlong is a street child, but his brother isn’t. He has the brother who loves him most in the world.”