79 Chapter 79
"Are there many people? What did you tell them?" Tong Shu helped them hide the assault boat, and the group talked quietly as they walked home.
"It's said that there were three communities in this area before. After the mushroom poisoning, most of the people were knocked unconscious. You know, although the mushroom poisoning isn't fatal, it can cause people to remain unconscious for a long time. The people who escaped found the unconscious people the next day and moved them into apartment buildings, but they couldn't feed or water them. The unconscious people held on for a few days, but eventually starved to death..." Wang Jie felt a pang of sadness as he thought of those sorrowful, tearful faces.
"...What a tragedy, this is so pitiful." Shu Hua felt a tightness in her chest and felt very uncomfortable.
"And then? What kind of business are you talking about?" Tong Shu was still quite concerned about this.
“That’s exactly what I was going to tell you!” Wang Jie’s face lit up with a happy smile again as he said this: “There were no poisonous mushrooms on the other side of the river originally, but recently they found a few scattered ones nearby. My uncle didn’t pay attention at first. When they asked us where we came from, we said we were on the other side of the river. No matter what they said, they didn’t believe us. That’s when we found out about them. So I told them about the Lala Vine juice.”
Tong Shu understood immediately, raised an eyebrow and said, "So you sold the Lala Vine juice?"
“That’s right!” Wang Jie smiled smugly: “We haven’t seen the Lala Vine anywhere else since we left Yangshan Village. Now it’s only grown on our island. I told them that drinking Lala Vine juice can prevent the poisonous gas from the poisonous mushrooms, so they don’t have to worry about not waking up at night.”
“Some of them were sleeping on lower floors and got infected a few nights ago. When we arrived, they had already been moved to higher floors. Xiao Jie fed those people a few bottles of Lala Teng juice, and they woke up after a while. They said they wanted to exchange Lala Teng juice with us.” Qin Jiaqiang said this with great enthusiasm.
"In the end, it was my brother-in-law who made the decision. He had them collect bricks for us during the day and transport them to the riverside park. Fifty bricks would be exchanged for a bottle of Lala Teng juice. We would collect the bricks early the next morning, count the quantity, and leave the Lala Teng juice in the park. This way, neither side would meet, and we could trust each other," Wang Jianye said.
There was a large open space in the riverside park, suitable for placing a large number of bricks, and it wouldn't be easy for someone with malicious intent to hide there. Tong Shu thought about it and felt it was quite suitable. Moreover, she could see the situation on the other side at a glance, so she could provide support at any time if there was a problem. Her family wouldn't need to search deeper, so for her and the others, it was indeed a win-win solution.
"Ah Jie really made a great contribution this time!" Shu Hua patted Wang Jie's shoulder happily. She was also very reluctant for her husband and brother-in-law to be too far from home. If something happened to them, not only would she not be able to handle it, but her relationship with her two older sisters would probably be difficult to maintain.
The family happily went home together and enjoyed a lively barbecue.
_______
Early on the third day, three sharp whistles came from the opposite bank of the river.
Tong Songming sat up abruptly from the bed and woke up Tong Shu, who was still asleep in the next room.
“I left them a whistle yesterday. Three whistles are the signal that they’ve brought the bricks over,” Tong Songming explained to Tong Shu.
Wang Jianye and Qin Jiaqiang also heard the whistle from the two wooden houses on the left and right, and they quickly got dressed and came out of the houses.
Wang Jie, still sleepy, rubbed his eyes and said to Tong Shu, "We'll go over and take over; you stay here and keep an eye on things."
Tong Shu nodded, took out binoculars from her bag and looked around. A large mountain of bricks had been piled up in the small park, but there was no one around. It seemed that the group of people were quite sensible. They knew that they did not want to be discovered, so they put their things away and left obediently.
"It seems there's no one around right now, but you still need to be careful when you go over there. I'll keep an eye on things from here, so be quick and come back soon," Tong Shu instructed.
The speedboat was pulled out, and several people sat in the cabin. Soon they reached the other side.
Wang Jie was quite cautious. After getting off the boat, he immediately took an axe and looked around to make sure no one was there before calling the other three to put the bricks into their bags. He then squatted down and took out the prepared vine juice from his bag according to the count.
Finding bricks was time-consuming and laborious, but packing the already stacked bricks was simple and easy. Even so, the four of them were busy for the whole morning, simply because there were just too many bricks. Wang Jie took out more than two hundred bottles of Lala Teng juice, which meant that they had collected more than ten thousand bricks in one morning.
"...I'm exhausted!" Wang Jie staggered off the boat. "I thought picking up bricks wouldn't be that tiring, but all I did this morning was squatting and standing up. My back is killing me!"
Shuli helped her son up and smiled as she wiped his sweat: "You're just used to being lazy. Look at your dad and your two uncles, they're doing just fine."
Shuya said, "How about we go with you to pick them up tomorrow? It's close by, and it won't take more than ten minutes to go back and forth."
For as long as Wang Jie and the others were collecting things on the other side, Tong Shu was watching from the other side. The intense concentration she maintained all morning had exhausted her.
Wang Jie traded out more than two hundred bottles of Lala Teng juice, which means that there were at most two hundred people involved in the transaction. To gather so many bricks, they had to move them over, sort them, and allow time for transportation. One day was already a very tight schedule, so they probably didn't have time to send anyone to ambush them.
After thinking about it, Tong Shu agreed to Shu Ya's suggestion and decided to have a few more people join Wang Jie and the others to collect bricks across the street the next day.
In the afternoon, the men rolled up their sleeves again and started watering the ground and laying the foundation. Building the wooden house had taken them a lot of time and effort. After discussing it together, they decided not to tear it down and rebuild it. Anyway, this piece of land was large and there was no one else around, so it would be very easy to find a flat piece of land to build a house on.
Considering that Tong Shu's family had the largest number of people, the group agreed to build a house for Tong Shu's family first.
Tong Songming found a flat area next to the original courtyard, cut down the few scattered trees, and cleared out a large plot of land. This time, he wanted to build a two-story house of more than 100 square meters. He calculated that he would need more than 80,000 bricks, which would keep them and the other side of the river busy for a while.
Tong Shu and his group's wooden house was built some distance from the riverbank, and there was a row of trees blocking the view from the other side, so the group could work with peace of mind and without worrying about being seen.
On the contrary, Tong Shu was more cautious. In the afternoon, she deliberately left the courtyard and went to the woods by the river to look at the situation on the other side with binoculars.
As Tong Shu expected, the people on the other side were indeed collecting bricks in the morning and arranging for people to transport them in the afternoon. From a distance, she could see that there weren't many people transporting bricks. Three or five people were pushing a cart back and forth. They were of different ages. There was a young man who looked to be in his twenties. After finishing a round of work, he would always stand on the riverbank and look at the other side for a while before running back at the call of his companions.
Tong Shu knew that the cart was left on the other side of the river by Tong Songming early that day, just to make it easier for this group of people to transport bricks.
After they finish picking through the bricks near their refuge, they'll probably have to go to a slightly farther place to find more bricks, and the further they go, the longer the intervals between transactions will become.
Since they already have a wooden house to live in, building their own house is just icing on the cake. Tong Shu and the others aren't in a hurry; the current situation is the best for them.
Tong Shu secretly watched the riverbank for two hours before finally feeling a little relieved and strolling back home.
_______
Half a month later, all the bricks needed for the first house were finally gathered, and the foundation of Tong Shu's small self-built house was almost finished.
That day, the group went to the riverbank as usual. Tong Shu, as was her habit, first had them hide in the woods while she took binoculars to observe the situation on the opposite bank. But today, the other side was somewhat different.
A young man stood on the opposite bank without leaving. Tong Shu looked at the black whistle hanging around his neck and confirmed that it must be the whistle he used to blow every day.
"The people on the other side didn't leave today; they're just standing by the river waiting," Tong Shu said.
"Is there something you want to say? Or should we go over and take a look?" Wang Jie asked.
Over the past two weeks, the people on the other side have diligently collected more than 80,000 bricks for them. Tong Shu had already lowered her guard against them considerably. Hearing what Wang Jie said, she also felt that something must have happened on the other side.
“Okay, then Jie and I will go over there, the rest of you can stay here.” Tong Shu said, taking a kayak out of her bag. Just to be on the safe side, she didn’t plan to bring out the speedboat. The two pushed the kayak into the river, each with a paddle, and struggled to row to the other side.
The young man saw them coming out of the woods in the distance, waving to them before waiting patiently in place.
What took the speedboat a few minutes to cover took the kayak nearly half an hour. Tong Shu and Wang Jie reached the shore, panting, and the young man came to greet them.
"Brother, long time no see." The young man greeted Wang Jie, then looked at Tong Shu beside him.
"This is my sister," Wang Jie introduced.
"Hello, hello," the young man greeted, rubbing his hands nervously.
"Why didn't you leave today? Is something wrong?" Wang Jie asked.
"Um...yes, I have a favor to ask you." The young man looked Tong Shu up and down. "That herbal juice, you must have grown it yourself, right? I wonder if you grow anything else. We have a lot of people, and the supplies we stockpiled won't last for more than a few months. If possible, could we trade some of the things we found for some food?"
"How many of you are there?" Tong Shu asked.
“One hundred...one hundred and thirty-odd,” the young man replied.
Tong Shu raised an eyebrow in surprise, then understood. It seemed that they had stockpiled quite a bit of the Lala Vine juice they had exchanged before, probably because they had been wanting to talk to them about exchanging something else for a while.
"How did you know we planted other things?" Tong Shu asked again.
"Actually, there were farmlands on the other side before. We were planning to plant something ourselves when we crossed over, and then we encountered mushrooms..." The young man suddenly remembered something and said urgently, "Don't worry, we definitely won't dare to go over there again. It would be great if we could trade for something, but if you don't have anything, we're growing our own things..."
“Okay.” Tong Shu interrupted the young man: “One pound of steel for one pound of vegetables.”
The young man was taken aback for a moment, then immediately laughed and loudly agreed, "Okay! Thank you! I... I'll tell them when I get back!"
Tong Shu waved her hand, not wanting to say more to him, and gave Wang Jie a look. The two of them tacitly dragged the kayak back into the river.
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