"You go to sleep first, I'll keep watch for you, I'll wake you up in the middle of the night." Keeping watch was secondary, the main reason was that she was a little afraid to be alone with him in the same room. The tent was cramped, and it would be difficult for the two of them to turn over in it. She planned to wait until he fell asleep before going in.

Yan Zheng glanced at her, seemingly seeing through her plan: "No need, I'm a light sleeper, you should take care of your energy first." His answer was brief, and he was unwilling to argue with her on this issue.

As he spoke, he pulled a piece of charcoal from the fire, which had already cooled down, and handed it to Jiang Xi: "For now, we can only use charcoal to clean our teeth. Crush it and grind it on the surface of your teeth."

Jiang Xi took it and nodded, saying that there was no need to be so particular about such things outdoors.

Then Yan Zheng went to the river to tidy himself up and washed his face.

He then quickly put on his knitted sweater, casually tossing Jiang Xi's to her as well. He placed the sword in the tent next to himself, and put the other axe on Jiang Xi's side for self-defense. He then went into the tent first.

Jiang Xi knew that if he really wanted to do something, she couldn't escape. Was she supposed to keep hiding from him like this from now on? Besides, judging from his current state, she should be safe tonight.

Jiang Xi put on a sweater, tidied up the fire, added some firewood, washed up, and then went into the small shed. The tent was about a meter wide, not spacious enough for two people to sleep in.

Yan Zheng was already lying on one side. He was tall and took up more than half the space in the tent, leaving some cramped room. Jiang Xi saw her white down jacket next to him, turned around and carefully closed the straw mat door, and the tent instantly went dark.

She crouched down gently and groped her way to her spot, trying her best not to bump into him.

When Jiang Xi lay down and covered herself with her down jacket, the temperature was around ten degrees Celsius, and she was sweating profusely.

Feeling uneasy and unsure how to handle the awkward situation, she could only carefully turn her back to him. After the sweat had dried and the person next to her turned over, and after a while, she heard regular breathing beside her, Jiang Xi finally relaxed and drifted off to sleep.

Both of them were exhausted after a long day of travel, and slept soundly through the night.

Jiang Xi was awakened by the chirping of birds in the tree in the morning. It was probably because many birds had built nests in this tree, and the chirping of many chicks could be heard in the early morning.

When he got up, Yan Zheng was no longer there.

Stepping out of the tent, the air was filled with the scent of grass, the sky turned a pale blue, and the meadows and rivers covered with wildflowers were shrouded in a thin mist. A cool breeze, carrying the damp, smoky fog, stirred everything in the mountains and forests.

The air in Bei'an City is always dry, unlike the warm and comfortable atmosphere here. Jiang Xi took a few deep, greedy breaths.

Looking around but not seeing Yan Zheng, just as he was about to call out to him, a man carrying a sword emerged from the woods.

Upon seeing that Jiang Xi was awake, he took something out of his pocket and handed it to her, saying, "Here, an extra meal." His words remained concise.

Jiang Xi took the eggs and saw that they were bird eggs. The smaller ones were the size of quail eggs, and the larger ones were the size of chicken eggs. Her eyes lit up as she looked at Yan Zheng. "You climbed a tree?"

He didn't say anything, just nodded.

Yan Zheng was woken up by birdsong in the morning. He climbed up a tree and searched several nests before finding eight bird eggs.

Jiang Xi carefully placed the bird eggs on the grass. Yan Zheng was starting a fire and setting up a pot. She went to the riverbank and picked some water celery, washed it clean in the river water, and found a large leaf that looked like a banana leaf to use as a container for the vegetables.

First, blanch the water celery, then take it out and place it on the large leaves. Sprinkle some instant noodle seasoning on it and mix well. Then, put the quail eggs in and cook them.

As usual, each of them ate half a compressed biscuit. Although there wasn't much seasoning, the water celery was still fresh and crisp. Bird eggs tasted more fragrant and tender than chicken eggs. They didn't eat two eggs that had already started to hatch, but finished the rest.

If eggs count as meat, then she was living a comfortable life in the jungle this morning, Jiang Xi comforted herself and cheered herself up.

Good, keep it up!

After a hearty meal, they filled two water bottles, cleaned up all the tableware and tools, extinguished the fire with dirt, and continued their journey.

They discussed the plan again at breakfast, as the temperature here was low and food resources were scarce.

They need to reach the mountaintop as quickly as possible to leave a distress signal and find as much food as possible. Today, they will follow the water source upwards; the deeper they go, the denser the jungle becomes, and the more miasma there will be in the air. They must try to go as high as possible.

The higher they went, the more difficult the mountain path became. The two walked along the stream for about five or six hours. The stream was a little wider, about a meter wide, and the temperature was noticeably higher than at the bend in the mountain where they had rested the day before.

The wild grass and vegetation here are also more abundant. By now, the fog has long since dissipated. Above us are lush, verdant trees that resemble green umbrellas, and under our feet are wildflowers covered with dewdrops, blooming in clusters of yellow and white. Near the water, we can also occasionally see calamus and purple wild orchids.

While traveling, Jiang Xi saw squirrels and rabbits eating a kind of red wild raspberry, so she picked a lot to keep for lunch.

By the afternoon, exhaustion and depletion caused their mental state to deteriorate, and the atmosphere became increasingly silent.

Yan Zheng was still walking at the front. Jiang Xi felt that every breath she took required a lot of effort, but it was still not enough. She felt that her face must be pale at this moment. Her frostbite was painful and itchy, and her hands and ankles were red and swollen from mosquito bites.

She suddenly missed the rice paddy fish at her grandmother's house, where the river water was just as clear, and almost every household raised rice paddy fish in the water.

When Da Hu goes home for holidays, he catches fish and grills them. He always gets the tenderest piece under the fish head. But in the same clear river, there's nothing but tiny fish fry that are only a centimeter or two long.

Then she started thinking about the big white steamed buns her father used to make, and she couldn't help but question herself: why did she insist on coming to Bei'an City in the first place?

If she hadn't accepted the professor's invitation, if she had given up on joining the archaeological institute, she might still be with her parents, being taken to the resettlement center, instead of coming here, and certainly not encountering snakes and mosquitoes.

She really wanted to cry her heart out to pay for her past choices, but she found that she didn't even have the strength to cry.

After climbing over a broken stone staircase more than a meter high, Jiang Xi used her hands and feet to climb down the boulder. Finally, some light appeared in her eyes, and not far away was a pool of water more than ten meters deep.

The pool was crystal clear, surrounded by scattered rocks and a few trees and dense grass. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and dappled the water's surface.

What's most exciting is that there's a wild fruit tree on the other side of the stream, covered with red wild fruits that look about the size of hawthorns.

After walking for half a day, the little food they had eaten that morning had long been digested. The raspberries along the way were small and not very filling. Seeing the wild fruit made Jiang Xi's mouth water. Yan Zheng took her arm, and the two carefully crossed the stream and walked straight to the tree.

The fruit looked like hawthorn. Yan Zheng stopped Jiang Xi from picking the fruit. He carefully looked at the tree and the ground, and only after seeing some bird peck marks did he feel relieved enough to pick a few red ones. Not sure, he tasted them himself first, and they really were hawthorn. They were so sour that he frowned.

Their picnic plans were completely ruined. They were covered in sweat from walking all the way. Yan Zheng had been leading the way and would occasionally turn back to help Jiang Xi. He was exhausted, hungry and drained.

Neither of them mentioned the bag of flour and one and a half pieces of compressed rations left in their bag. These were the last bit of food the two of them had saved up. If they ran out of food, they would really have to rely on the weather for their next meal.

"What should we do? We're running out of rations." Jiang Xi lay exhausted on the stone slab with her eyes closed, her voice weak and powerless as she struggled to suppress her urge to break down.

Yan Zheng also lay on the other side of the stone slab, the two of them head to head. Yan Zheng did not open his eyes, but turned his head slightly towards Jiang Xi. "Eat. If we don't eat, we won't have the energy to travel. It's not worth it if we starve."

Only then did Jiang Xi begin to feel a pang of regret.

I should have saved the snake meat from yesterday.

Although the snake was very thin, it was still a source of protein.