1699  Helping

Ning arrived back at the camp, only to find that most of the people had already gone to their beds early at tonight. Since they had to leave early the next morning, they needed to sleep early as well.

So, Ning talked to the ones who were on night watch and told them to wake him up early the next morning as he had something important to do. The next morning, the watchers woke him up before they went to sleep and called the others to wake up.

There were 2 more hours before dawn break, so many people were waking up, preparing breakfast to eat before they left. While most people did that, Ning went around, making requests.

He told everyone the situation with the other people, choosing the omit the fact that they were prisoners of war or were on the run. He only told them that they were people that needed help.

He didn’t ask them for help themselves. He only told them that he was going to give up his own pots and pans and requested that he be given some food for the last leg of the journey. Many tried to dissuade him from this idea, but Ning was adamant about helping these people. After a while, recognizing that their intervention was fruitless, they accepted his offer. They would let him eat from their cooking.

There were only 2 more meals left in the journey anyway, since on the 3rd day they would be at the city itself.

Ning happily thanked everyone and around that time a small group of men arrived as Ning had asked them to.

A lot of the people didn’t just yet believe that they were suddenly good people, but they also didn’t shoo them away when they were there.

The men respected their disdain and fear of them and chose to stay far enough away where they wouldn’t feel threatened by their purpose.

Ning rolled the cart toward them and stopped before bringing down a bunch of things for them to take.

The empty barrels that they no longer had a use for, the few barrels of water, and a few clothes he had managed to buy from the people in the caravan— he gave it all to the men.

The men took everything, quite shocked to see what they were receiving. “You are really going to give us all of this?” the leader asked.

“Of course,” Ning said. “I told you what I want. If you want the same, join me. I will help you.”

The leader looked at the barrels and shook his head. “I am sorry. I cannot make such an important decision by myself,” he said. “I must ask my people and come to a decision afterward.”

Ning nodded. “Take your time,” he said. “Take today to rest. Tomorrow morning, you will need to walk down this road as quickly as you can. The forest is so large that it normally takes the caravan a day to pass. You will be faster on foot by yourself, but you will also tire a lot, so it should end up taking about the same for you as well.”

The man nodded. “If walking is all we need to do, we can walk,” he said. “We have walked for days already.” S~eaʀᴄh the Nôvelƒire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Ning nodded. “Once you are on the other side, you will be 2 days away from the city. For the next 7 days after 3 days, have one of your men be on the lookout for me at the edge of the forest. I will come back during one of those times with more food and medication for you all.”

The leader sucked in a deep breath. “We cannot pay you for this. Are you truly doing this just to screw with the…” he gestured the rest of the sentence.

“Absolutely,” Ning said with a grin. “When I come back within the next 10 days, I will expect a definite yes or no. Depending on what you choose, I will have to change my future answer as well.”

“Alright,” the leader said. “10 days. We will have readied an answer by then.”

Ning nodded and gave a slight salute. “See you later, soldier.”

He whipped the horses’ reins and they pulled him away, back toward the caravan. He looked back at the man from time to time and saw them picking up the barrels before leaving the place to go back to where their camp was.

With that much water and barrels, they would have enough for everyone. They would have to collect rainwater and they could even store leftover food in there.

The barrels were going to be more important for them than what was inside of them at the moment.

Once Ning returned to the group, a few people asked him why he was doing all of this. Ning had no answer except for the fact that he pitied these men.

He told the people that these were the men that were attacked by the mountain lions first, which was how the lions got a taste and liking for human flesh, and many of the people started showing some level of sympathy toward their situation too.

“Alright, everyone. Finish up your task and clean up camp. We do not have long before we must leave. This will be a long journey with only short breaks so get ready for this.”

Everyone nodded and got back to work.

Ning fed the horses a bit while the others cleared camp. Then once they were all cleared up, he got back on the front and began swinging on the reins to control the horses again.

He felt tired after not getting much sleep the last night, so Shara chose to take the rein for him this time around. In the past 2 weeks, she had more or less come to understand how a cart was driven.

Especially in a caravan, where everything was slow by nature, she didn’t even need to do much except let the horses move on their own.

Since Shara handled the cart, Ning could finally give up thinking about everything else and fall asleep.

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