I thought I could finally get some rest after dinner, but to my surprise, Si Cheng pulled out a hammer from the side of his bag and started tapping the tea seeds.

Yunqi waited for him to finish tapping before easily peeling open the tea fruit inside and putting it in the bag.

"Alright, now we don't need to sleep anymore, everyone get moving!"

"Ah, my feet, my hands!" My feet were already covered in blisters. If I continued to knock down tea seeds all night, I could only imagine what my hands would look like tomorrow.

"After removing the shells, you can bring more back, but it will also be much heavier."

"You silly boy, which do you think is more cost-effective?" Even those who didn't bring hammers were banging stones around, chatting idly, trying to keep themselves alert.

"How are we going to turn these tea seeds into tea seed oil when we get back? We don't want to end up doing something useless."

Seeing these bewildered children, Yun Mingwei simply offered to answer their questions.

“When we were young, the village still had old-fashioned pressing tools. Back then, we pressed the wild tea seeds we picked from the mountains by hand. When we cleaned the ancestral hall, we found them and they are still piled up there. We couldn’t bear to take them apart. We thought that we might need them someday. And here they are.”

"With so many of us, how many trips would it take to get us back?"

"I don't know. We only found a corner of the tea garden today. We'll definitely have to make several trips to make it before anyone else comes looking for us. Otherwise, we might not know who it belongs to."

"If only I had Cheng-ge's strength, I could carry it twice and wouldn't have to run anymore."

"You're just dreaming. How many people have been born with superhuman strength throughout history? Look at those people, they all became great heroes. Maybe our village will produce one too."

"Now that you mention it, I'm even more determined to cling to Brother Cheng's coattails. What if one day I also rise to prominence along with him?"

"Brother Cheng, from now on you're my real brother."

"Brother Cheng, we're your brothers-in-law, so we're even closer."

"..."

Watching the group of people clown around, everyone laughed, and suddenly it seemed that cracking open the shell to get the kernel wasn't so hard after all.

Later, even when they were told to go to sleep, they were too afraid to. Camping in the open air, they felt like they could hear animal calls all around them, and sometimes they even saw bright spots flashing on the distant mountains. They knew those must be the eyes of some kind of animal.

"Brother Cheng, why don't we take some precautions? It looks a bit scary," someone suggested.

"Let's move our campsite to the side closer to the mountain. That way we can pile everyone's bags higher and find some firewood nearby. With so many of us, we should be fine as long as we don't run into any wolves."

"Brother Cheng, the more you talk, the scarier I get?"

"It's alright, there are so many of us, most intelligent animals won't dare to come near us."

Later, just as Sicheng had said, although there were always animals watching, none of them actually came close.

So everyone examined and peeled the tea seeds, and surprisingly, they finished picking all the tea seeds by midnight.

"If I had known I should have typed slower, I would have finished the job and now I'm just feeling sleepy."

"What should we do then? How about we pick some more while it's still dark?"

"I'm not going with your terrible idea. You can go by yourself."

Perhaps because there were so many people, they had a certain deterrent effect, as the animals only watched from a distance throughout the night, not daring to get too close. The two sides remained in this standoff for the entire night, until the animals finally went up at dawn.

"It's finally dawn. Let's hurry up and pack our things so we can get back to the cave we were in before and rest." Although Yun Mingwei had been into the mountains a few times before, those were just small-scale adventures. He had never experienced a night as thrilling as this before, and he felt like his heart couldn't take it.

His suggestion was agreed upon by everyone. They quickly packed their things, each carrying a bag of tea seeds and filling all the containers with water, and hurried back.

Si Cheng hoisted all the tea seeds onto his shoulder, refusing Yun Qi's offer to share the load. "Let's go. Why would you need to carry anything with me here?"

Every woman in the village envied Yunqi; if they couldn't find a husband like him, having a relative like him would be enough. However, along the way, many of them received disdainful looks from the women in their families. What did that blatant contempt mean?

The return journey was much faster than the way we came; we reached the original cave in less than half a day.

"I can't take it anymore, I want to sleep, don't bother me." As soon as Yun Tao entered the cave, he lay down on the ground. After working hard for two days and then staying up all night, even an iron man couldn't stand it. Many people saw him like this and followed suit.

Seeing that everyone was like this, Si Cheng told everyone to quickly take care of their physiological needs and then seal off the cave so that everyone could get some rest.

Upon hearing this, everyone ran outside as fast as they could, and when they returned, they even brought some firewood with them, seemingly indicating that they were not planning to go out again.

Once everyone had entered the cave, Si Cheng pushed a boulder over two meters high to block the entrance, leaving only enough space for one person to squeeze through. To put everyone at ease, he added some smaller stones to completely seal the cave. Fortunately, there was still a large gap at the top for air to pass through.

"This is a safe place. Before, I was always afraid something would suddenly appear behind me, and my scalp was tingling." Even Yun Xun, with his usually composed personality, couldn't help but pat his chest and let out a big sigh of relief.

In truth, Si Cheng was under immense pressure. He wasn't sure if the animals on the mountain would be tempted to attack them, and with so many people, he couldn't guarantee everyone's safety. What worried him most was the possibility of wolves in the vicinity, so although he remained outwardly calm throughout the night, he was constantly on edge.

How could Yun Qi, who was by his side, not notice these things? Si Cheng didn't know that his muscles would become especially hard whenever he was nervous, and Yun Qi had been using his consciousness to gather the spatial weapons all night.

Finally, they arrived at a relatively safe place. After eating something simple, everyone lay down on the ground and fell asleep. The cave was filled with the sound of snoring.

I slept straight through until midnight when everyone was woken up by a sound coming from the cave entrance, as if something was rummaging through the rocks at the entrance.

"I'm scared." Someone in the darkness said this, which immediately triggered crying.

Perhaps they heard a sound coming from inside the cave, because the sounds outside stopped.

Si Cheng arrived at the cave entrance and peered out through the crack in the rock. It was dark outside, but some green lights flashed in the air, and if you listened carefully, you could hear some low moaning sounds.

These animals, whose species we don't know, must have followed us by scent. Luckily, we hid in the cave early on, or it would have been really troublesome.