Over the next few days, the group continued their journey deeper into the mountains. Little Snowball was always by Xingxing's side. She wove a small wicker basket, put Little Snowball inside, and carried it on her back.
When the road is flat, Xingxing walks by herself. When the road is steep, Zhu Lin will carry her on his back. Sometimes Zhou Erfu will also volunteer to carry her.
If the road was too difficult to walk, or if she was too tired, Xingxing would ask Zhou Erfu to carry her on his back, otherwise she would walk on her own. Zhu Lin held her hand the whole way, but sometimes when a pack of wolves suddenly appeared, or when they encountered other wild beasts, he would hand Xingxing over to his brothers Fu, and then go with his senior brothers and sisters to deal with the wild beasts.
Zhu Chumo had a great harvest, digging up many rare herbs. Zhou Wufu, who was by his side, also got to know many precious herbs that he had only seen in medical books but could not buy in pharmacies.
To this day, they have been deep in the mountains for more than half a month. Along the way, they encountered three wolf packs. Two of the wolf packs were wiped out, and the alpha wolf of the third pack was a wise wolf king who actually realized that he could not defeat these humans. After losing two wolves, he led the pack away.
It is said that wolves hold grudges and are particularly petty. Zhu Qiuyu and the others always thought that the escaped wolf pack would seek revenge. However, five days have passed since the conflict with the wolf pack, and they have not seen the wolf pack return.
“Let’s go five more days ahead and then head back. We’ve found everything we needed to find,” Zhu Chumo said.
"Have you found the herbs Zhou Dafa needs?" Zhu Qiuyu asked.
"We've only been here a few days and we've already found more than a dozen plants. Zhou Dafa only needs one as a medicinal ingredient. There are many precious herbs in these mountains. We've picked all the ones we could find. We've also dug up a lot of wild ginseng and lingzhi. Our baskets are almost full. I did a divination, and it says there will be a rainstorm in ten days. We'd better leave before the rainstorm."
Everyone agreed with Zhu Chumo's suggestion. They had come with him to gather herbs, and now they had dug up quite a few medicinal herbs and fruit trees.
The people from Xianwu Island had their baskets filled with herbs, while the other four boys from the Zhou family, except for Zhou Wufu, had their baskets filled with fruit trees. Xingxing had led them to a forest where they had spent two days digging up fruit trees, all of which were saplings; the larger saplings couldn't be dug up.
Zhu Lin also carried a basket on his back, which was full of fruit. Of course, on the surface there was only one basket, but secretly the boy picked a lot and hid it in his mustard seed space. He picked a lot of the fruits that Xingxing liked to eat, enough to last for two years.
Not only did they pick a lot of the fruits that Xingxing loves to eat, but they also picked quite a few of the fruits that Yuanyuan wants to eat. That's right, after spending several days together, everyone discovered that Xueyuan Monkey is indeed a monkey, especially fond of eating fruit, and will eat any kind of fruit.
Because Xingxing wanted to raise the little round monkey, Zhu Lin had to pick more other fruits so that Xingxing wouldn't have to search for fruits for the little monkey to eat after leaving the forest.
At this time, everyone sat under the tree to rest, took out a clay pot to stew meat soup. The cooking was basically done by Zhu Changge and Zhu Qingruo with the help of the five brothers Fu. The others were on guard. Being deep in the mountains, they could not let their guard down at any time, and someone had to keep watch.
"Hurry up and climb! This tree is so short. Don't be afraid. You're a monkey, how can you not know how to climb trees?" Xingxing held the snow monkey on a low shrub, trying to train it to climb trees.
But the little monkey wouldn't climb; it just stood motionless on the tree branch. As soon as Xingxing reached out, it hugged her tightly.
"Although it belongs to the monkey family, it doesn't look like a cat or a pig, so it's probably quite stupid. Besides being cute, it can't do anything else." Zhou Erfu said, occasionally interjecting as he started a fire with a tinderbox while keeping an eye on the stars.
These past two days, Xingxing has been trying to get Yuanyuan to climb the tree, but it just won't. Maybe it really can't. Xingxing sighed. Oh well, so be it if it's a little slow. Considering that it once saved her and her brothers' lives, she will still take good care of it in the future.
And it's so cute, it's hard not to like it; Xingxing really likes it.
Ten days passed in a flash. In Yegou Village, Zhao Guihua sat in the courtyard, sighing deeply. The children had been gone for a month and hadn't returned yet. The weather was changing rapidly; a large, dark cloud was gathering, and it looked like a heavy rain was about to fall. If they didn't come back soon, they would be in trouble if they encountered a downpour on the mountain.
It rained a few days after the last group went into the mountains, and she was worried then. The longer time went by, the more uneasy she became.
“Wife, don’t just sit there waiting. Go water the vegetable garden, and tomorrow go dig sweet potatoes in the field. Zheng Qingshu is gone, and a new magistrate has been transferred here. New officials always make a big show of things, and he’s already urging the officials to come and collect taxes. He’s also thinking about the sweet potato harvest. We should start digging up the sweet potatoes in the wasteland soon, so we can pay the taxes.” Old Master Zhou’s voice came out loudly from inside the house.
"Why are you watering the vegetables when it's about to rain? Are you just bored?" Zhao Guihua retorted irritably.
"Chop chop chop." Tangguo and Jingjing were chopping sweet potato vines with kitchen knives. The Zhou family had harvested all their sweet potatoes, and they chopped up the extra vines to feed the pigs.
Zhou Laoda went to town to buy piglets some time ago. This time he bought three piglets to raise. Tangguo, Jingjing, and Xiaoxiao go to cut pig feed every day.
Right now, Xiaoxiao is washing sweet potatoes by the well. The family has dug up over a thousand kilograms of sweet potatoes from several acres of land, and they need to take out 20% to make dried sweet potatoes, as dried sweet potatoes are easy to store.
Zhao Guihua looked blankly at the three diligent female guards. With the three of them around, many of the things that she used to have to do were now being taken care of by the three girls. Zhao Guihua felt like she was going to be bored out of her mind, otherwise she wouldn't always be thinking about the children.
If you give her more things to do, it can distract her from thinking about all sorts of things all the time.
"I'm going outside to take a look. I think I can hear the sound of stars. Could it be that they've come back?" Zhao Guihua said, jumping up and running towards the door.
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
