Qiao Yu looked up at the sky, jumped up, and hid among the few remaining leaves on the tree.

She deliberately chose a color similar to the autumn leaves and hid it on top so that it would not be easily discovered.

There was a well-trodden path beside the tree, starting from the main gate of the God Tribe and leading deep into the forest. It was obvious that this was the place where the hunters of the God Tribe had to pass when returning to the tribe.

It was evening, and Qiao Yu had not been waiting for long when a group of hunters from the Divine Tribe returned.

Someone grumbled as they walked, "...I think we shouldn't have thought about attacking the Shanyin Tribe. We were living well before, so why did we want to annex them? Things are fine now, right? Dozens of people died in the last battle. Now it's snowing, and the Sun Tribe isn't holding a trade fair. We can't sell our dried meat, and we don't even have salt to eat."

"Isn't the chief trying to find salt? If the Fire Tribe can find salt, maybe we can too."

"Yeah, haven't you seen the chief's men driving sheep out every day to look for salt? The Fire Tribe used their sheep to find the salt mines. It doesn't make sense that they can find it but we can't."

When Qiao Yu heard this, an idea suddenly came to his mind.

Yes, sheep love salt. They lick salty rocks to replenish the salt they need in their bodies.

Within a hundred miles, the Sun Tribe, Sifang Tribe, and Jiangyuan Tribe all had salt, indicating that the salt deposits here were very rich. If she had the sheep in the tribe released, would the flocks help the Dragon Tribe find a salt mine as well?

Qiao Yu decided to look for it according to this idea first.

She wasn't a warmongerer. Despite the existence of various factions in the apocalypse, humans were willing to coexist peacefully. Life in a primitive environment was inherently difficult, and Qiao Yu hoped for a world where everyone remained undisturbed and continued to advance in the course of history.

Therefore, if he could find a salt mine himself, Qiao Yu would be willing to lead the people of the Dragon Tribe to focus on construction instead of getting into conflict with these tribes because of salt.

That night, she took a stroll into the God Tribe and found that the conditions in the God Tribe were worse than those in the Sun Tribe. The lives of most people in the tribe were similar to what the ordinary people in the Shanyin Tribe described.

After the Shen Tribe annexed the Shanyin Tribe, they didn't treat them as slaves, but instead designated a place for them to live. However, the Shanyin Tribe felt resentful after the annexation, feeling like they had become second-class citizens, and the conflict between the two camps became quite acute.

If the leader of the God Tribe cannot handle this problem, the internal strife in the tribe will be enough to make him suffer, not to mention that the Sun Tribe is eyeing them covetously.

Qiao Yu felt that these two tribes were behemoths to the original valley tribe; but to the Dragon Tribe, which already had more than 400 people and was equipped with iron spears and bows and arrows, they were not so scary.

She didn't stay any longer and quietly left the God Tribe.

She had originally planned to go to the Shanyin Tribe, but now that she knew the Shanyin people had been absorbed by the Shen Tribe, her investigation was over.

A few miles from the God Tribe, she found a tree to sleep under. At daybreak, she headed for the Dragon Tribe men's hiding place. The distance from the God Tribe to their hiding place was equidistant from the Sun Tribe, so she arrived there in the afternoon.

The men of the Dragon Tribe were getting anxious when they saw it snowing, and then they saw Qiao Yu coming back.

"How is it? Is the Sun Tribe holding a trade fair? What's the situation with the Shanyin Tribe and the God Tribe?" everyone asked hurriedly.

Especially the people from the original Shanyin tribe, their eyes were fixed on Qiao Yu, hoping to know the news of the Shanyin tribe.

"They're not planning on holding a trade fair," Qiao Yu said. "The Shanyin Tribe was annexed by the Shen Tribe, and Lei was killed by the Shen Tribe. Because of last year's chaotic battle, and the fact that the Shen Tribe has become a larger tribe rivaling the Sun Tribe, the Sun Tribe is extremely dissatisfied with them. However, the Sun Tribe leader doesn't want to see casualties from the conflict, so he plans to use salt to force the Shen Tribe to surrender. The two tribes haven't fought yet."

Seeing everyone's different expressions, she continued, "The God Tribe is short of salt. Either they surrender, or they will attack the Sun Tribe next year. I don't intend to interfere in this matter. After all, we still have salt for at least another six months. We'll see what to do next autumn."

Then she talked about using sheep to find salt mines. "This method was thought up by the God Tribe. I'm not sure if it's appropriate. I think it's worth a try. Instead of suffering heavy casualties in a war with the Sun Tribe and robbing their salt mine, why not find a salt mine ourselves?"

In addition to salt mines, Qiao Yu also hopes to find copper or iron mines.

Qiao Yu had originally given realgar ore to Wu Yu and had Shi send someone to search for it. It wasn't long before Shi found the ore. While the deposits were small, realgar itself wasn't particularly useful. Currently, it was only used as a snake repellent, which was sufficient.

After hearing Qiao Yu's words, everyone in the Dragon Tribe had no objection.

If the Dragon Tribe really wanted to fight another tribe, they would be the ones to charge in. Fighting meant casualties, which they didn't want to see.

If you can find a salt mine yourself without having to compete with others, that would naturally be a blessing.

"Are we going back like this?" someone asked.

Thinking about it, it was really hard to accept. After more than ten or twenty days of traveling back and forth, they didn't get anything. If they had stayed in the tribe, they would have hunted a lot of prey and done a lot of work during this time. Now it was all wasted.

Qiao Yu was also helpless: "That's nothing we can do. But the snow isn't heavy yet. Let's look for some hairy sweet potato vines and chestnut trees on the way back. If there are any, we can pick some hairy sweet potatoes and chestnuts. This time, we won't go around the Valley Tribe, but go directly in the direction of the Dragon Tribe. Let's see if we can find anything good along the way."

That's all we can do.

Everyone packed up their things and, led by Qiao Yu, headed towards the Dragon Tribe.

But this time, there was no rush. It was snowing already, so even if we went back to the tribe, we wouldn't be able to do much. It would be better to take advantage of the fact that the snow had just started to fall and hadn't completely covered the ground to find more food.

As for prey, this place is far from the Dragon Tribe, and it is not convenient to bring the prey back. So everyone decided to hunt near the Dragon Tribe.

But Qiao Yu was still thinking about the salt mine, so she searched for goats everywhere, hoping to find the salt mine by following their tracks. It had just snowed, so the goats would still be out and about, so she felt her plan was still feasible.

Everyone walked slowly towards the direction of the Dragon Tribe. Following Qiao Yu's instructions, like people from Northeast China going up the mountain to look for ginseng, everyone separated, each one meter apart, and combed through the hills they passed by like sifting through a sieve.