Logan Whitman gave a flick of her hand, and a crooked carrot appeared in her palm.

The little girl’s big eyes sparkled with excitement as she nodded vigorously, remembering Logan Whitman’s words: “Grandpa calls me Girl, so I’ll just be called Girl.”

Suddenly, Fourth Grandpa Whitman’s voice came from inside the wooden house: “When you’re handling poisons in the future, keep away from Girl—she’s never practiced the Wen family’s skills! She has a name, it’s... Eli, Eli Whitman!”

Logan Whitman secretly curled her lips. That was obviously a name made up on the spot, but it was still decent enough. The older generation really was better at this—much better than his own father.

“Eli Whitman...” The little girl carefully repeated her name a few times, her face full of excitement, then tugged at Logan Whitman: “Logan Whitman, let’s go eat!”

A few plates of green and red vegetables, a dish of cured meat, and a bowl of thin porridge—Logan Whitman couldn’t stop praising the meal, and Eli Whitman’s cheeks turned rosy from his compliments, as she kept refilling his porridge.

After the meal, Eli pulled Logan Whitman along to show him around. There were only a few rows of houses: the Life House in the east, the Old House in the south, the Sick House in the west, and the Death House in the north—nothing much to see. In the entire Life-Old-Sick-Death Quarter, besides Logan Whitman, it seemed only three people had any vitality: Eli Whitman, Wolf Boy, and Abe Jr.. Everyone else, including Mr. Whitman, looked like the living dead.

According to Eli, Mr. Whitman had never taught those two strange children any skills; he only treated them with medicine, erasing some of the animal nature they’d accumulated since childhood. Logan Whitman was secretly amazed—he knew his own constitution, and in terms of strength, even a dozen strong men were no match for him, yet those two beast children, who’d never received any training, were evenly matched with him.

Logan Whitman was following Eli between the wooden houses when suddenly a squeaking sound came from his backpack. He was all too familiar with this sound by now—every time the Buddha Lamp Bug woke up, it would call for him. He quickly told Eli to stay far away, took out the incense burner, reached in, and played with the little creature for a while.

Eli obediently hid behind a big tree at a distance, but she couldn’t help standing on tiptoe and craning her neck to peer into the censer. Blinking her big eyes, she pondered for a moment, then smiled and said, “Logan Whitman, is the thing inside the incense burner a Buddha Lamp Bug?”

Logan Whitman was surprised. The little girl had grown up with Old Rascal Whitman, so it wasn’t strange for her to recognize the black jade incense burner, but from her current angle, there was no way she could see the Buddha Lamp Bug rolling around and acting spoiled in his palm.

After seeing Logan Whitman’s expression, Eli explained even more proudly, “The only thing that refuses to come out of the black jade incense burner and insists on someone playing with it is the Buddha Lamp Bug. Logan Whitman, am I right?”

Logan Whitman grinned and nodded. “Fourth Grandpa has taught you a lot. When I’m in the quarter, you’ll have to help teach me.”

But Eli shook her head. “Grandpa won’t teach us. I grew up in the woods, and every day, besides taking care of Grandpa and Abe and Old Wolf, I just read books in these houses. The black jade incense burner and the Buddha Lamp Bug—I learned about them from books!”

The little girl had been brought to Red Leaf Forest by Mr. Whitman as an infant, raised on the milk of wild beasts, clever and bright as snow. She started learning characters at three, and by four could read fluently. Mr. Whitman strictly followed the family rules and refused to teach her any skills, but the books in the Life House were left for her to read as she pleased.

Mr. Whitman had never married or had children, guarding the Life-Old-Sick-Death Quarter alone for decades. Eccentric and reclusive, he nevertheless truly loved this little girl. When she read, he would deliberately place the introductory classics where she could easily reach them. Under Fourth Elder’s careful arrangement, Eli Whitman progressed from the basics to deeper knowledge, most of it about poisons and pharmacology. By the age of thirteen, she had read quite a few books in the quarter.

As for the outside world, Eli Whitman knew nothing. In her small heart, apart from caring for Grandpa, all she did was read. With no distractions, she read quickly. She couldn’t claim to have a photographic memory, but after finishing a book, she could remember the gist of it. And like any child, she picked and chose what to read—she only glanced at the introductions of truly profound and complex techniques before putting them back, but she would pore over all sorts of records about insects, herbs, and interesting folk remedies as if they were stories.

At first, Logan Whitman didn’t believe it, but after two or three days, he realized he’d met a little fairy. Of the dozens of large rooms filled with books, Eli Whitman knew every single one by heart—where each book was, and roughly what it contained, she knew it all. As for the Wen family juniors who usually organized the books in the Life House, they were all wooden-faced, barely uttering a word even if you hit them with a stick. Every day, they just aired out the books or copied damaged volumes, paying no attention to Logan Whitman at all.

The books in the Life House were mainly divided into four major categories.

First: the five-element properties and medicinal characteristics of all things under heaven—basically, material science.

Second: the principles of how various medicines interact, counteract, or enhance each other, and methods of refining them—essentially, biochemistry.

Third: the classics of other sects, from cultivation to dark arts, and the Wen ancestors’ summaries of them.

Fourth: all sorts of folk techniques and remedies, many of which even the Wen ancestors couldn’t explain, but which were undeniably effective.

The first two categories were the main subjects Logan Whitman needed to study, and just those alone filled well over a thousand volumes.