"But I can't write." Fang Dayong looked at Zhang Xu with difficulty and said, "Brother Zhang, you can write, right? Can you write one for me?"
Zhang Xu tore a strip of cloth from his inner garment and asked, "Brother Fang, what should we write?"
Fang Dayong scratched the back of his head and said, "Just briefly explain our current situation."
Zhang Xu frowned and thought for a moment, then bit his finger and began to write on the strip of cloth.
Zhang Xu quickly finished writing and read the contents of the cloth strip aloud to everyone.
"Great!" Everyone was excited.
That night, Fang Dayong and the others didn't get much sleep, but perhaps because everyone was filled with hope, they were all in good spirits the next day.
I've been secretly watching to see if Big Black has come to the mine.
After waiting for the afternoon, everyone was overjoyed to finally see the familiar crows.
Fearing that their unusual behavior would be noticed, everyone quickly composed themselves.
There were many miners in the mine. Besides the large open-plan room where Fang Dayong lived, there were several other large rooms.
There were about seven or eight hundred workers in the entire mine. Everyone worked according to the instructions of the supervisor.
Some people were sent to mine in the mines, some to transport ore from the mines, and some to transport ore on the surface.
As for who is assigned what task, it is not based on the room, but on the mood of the person in charge.
Fortunately, Mr. Lai was assigned to transport ore outside today, so they didn't have to spend time going underground to replace him.
Even so, getting the crow to deliver the message was no easy task.
After all, the crow had never done a messenger job before. If you want the crow to deliver the message, you have to make sure that Old Lai explains it to him properly.
No one knew how Old Lai was going to communicate with a crow and get it to obey him and deliver the message. But they all tacitly helped Old Lai cover for him.
Some people took over the work that belonged to Lao Lai, while others helped keep watch to prevent him from being discovered by the mine's supervisors.
With everyone's efforts, Old Lai managed to get the cloth strip he needed to ask for help wrapped around the crow's leg without alerting any officials.
As the crows flew away, everyone was filled with hope.
The days that followed were filled with anxious and long waiting. Every day, everyone would look up at the sky with anticipation, hoping to catch a glimpse of crows.
Or perhaps they fantasize that Lu Shiyan, with a group of people, suddenly burst in from outside the mountains, arrest all the mine managers, and rescue them.
On the other side, Jiang Tangtang finally selected more than eighty strong men to go into the mountains together.
The families who were chosen were overjoyed. The families who weren't chosen were filled with envy.
With so many men following Jiang Tangtang into the deep mountains, besides cassava, they might also be able to hunt a lot of prey.
If we could hunt a few wild boars like last time, and each of us could get a few big pieces of meat, we wouldn't have to worry about getting through the winter this year.
At this time, Xia Meiying and her two children became the envy of many people.
Jiang Tangtang selected all four members of the Xiong family—father and his three sons—to go into the mountains. If they successfully hunted prey, the Xiong family would receive four portions.
This alone made many women in the village green with envy. Not to mention that Li Shi had previously taken great care of the mother and her children, giving them most of his share of grain.
While everyone envied the Xia family, the three sons of the Xiong family also became the most eligible bachelors in the valley.
Many families with daughters approached Xia to try and gauge her opinion.
Although Xia was Li Shi's first wife, she now lived with the Xiong family, and the Xiong sons all respected her, having seemingly accepted her as their stepmother. Furthermore, given Xiong Hongbiao's high regard for her, she clearly had the authority to make decisions regarding the Xiong sons' marriages.
Some of the families who wanted to marry their daughters into the Xiong family were trying to get a feel for the Xiong family's standards for choosing wives from Xia Shi.
Some revealed which son of the Xiong family they had their eye on, and asked what the other party thought. If they were interested, they hoped the other party would take the initiative to propose marriage.
Xia was always grateful to the Xiong family for saving her and wanted to repay them.
She felt that besides doing housework, there was nothing she could do to help. On the contrary, the father and his sons took good care of them.
The Xiong brothers never treated her children as outsiders. They especially doted on Li Mingxi, treating her even better than their own sister.
After much thought, she realized that she couldn't help with anything else, but she could do her part in the marriage of the three of them.
Before these families came to her door, she had been secretly keeping an eye out, wanting to choose a few girls who were talented, beautiful, and virtuous to be the wives of her stepsons.
Two of the families who took the initiative to contact her this time were families she had observed for a long time and were satisfied with.
However, worried that her good intentions might backfire, she didn't make a decision easily. Instead, she planned to discuss it with the father and sons slowly after they returned from the mountains.
However, Jiang Tangtang did not return to the valley on the same day she led everyone into the mountains.
Just as the villagers had suspected, Jiang Tangtang did indeed have the intention of hunting when she led everyone into the mountains.
The group was also quite lucky; not long after entering the mountains, Jiang Tangtang scanned a nest of wild boars through the system.
So he immediately ordered everyone to begin the hunt.
This time, she chose relatively young or strong men, which was good, but most of them were just ordinary people who didn't know kung fu or have much hunting experience. Catching a fierce wild boar was not easy for them.
Fortunately, there were many people, and everyone worked together. With their combined efforts, they finally caught the entire litter of wild boars.
Although everyone was exhausted and covered in sweat, and several men fell and suffered minor injuries while chasing wild boars, the harvest was still quite good.
The group caught a total of four large wild boars of similar size, as well as three smaller wild boar piglets.
Several large wild boars were killed during the chase, while the three piglets, being smaller, were not as frightened and only suffered minor injuries, but all survived.
Jiang Tangtang thought for a moment, then had someone tie up the wild boar piglets with rope and take them back to the valley to raise them. As for the wild boars that had been killed, they were carried away and continued deeper into the mountains.
It's harvest season now, and besides hunting, there's a wealth of mountain produce to be found.
Along the way, men who had nothing to do would voluntarily gather edible mountain produce and put it into their baskets.
And so, everyone followed Jiang Tangtang all the way to the hill where she had discovered the iron ore last time.
She wanted to carefully observe the surrounding terrain and learn about iron ore mining. So she found a cave nearby and decided that everyone would rest there for the night.
The wild boars and other prey caught this time were temporarily moved into the cave, with some people staying behind to guard them and prepare dinner for the evening.
The other group of people continued hunting and gathering mountain products with Jiang Tangtang.
When Jiang Tangtang came last time, she scanned a large patch of cassava nearby. However, because the timing wasn't right, she didn't dig up the cassava.
Bringing so many people into the mountains this time is quite appropriate.
Jiang Tangtang led the people to the cassava field.
Upon seeing the vast expanse of cassava, everyone showed expressions of surprise and delight.
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