At noon, Baoyu was not in the wooden house, so Zhou Chenyu ate alone. She heated up the leftover rice from the morning, stir-fried dried fish and wild vegetables together, and that was how she hastily finished her lunch.
Without Li Xiuju by their side, not only did the siblings' diets decline sharply, but their soybean intake also became much less.
Zhou Chenyu watched as Huangdou licked the leftover rice from its bowl, leaving not a single grain. She stroked its furry body and said, "I hope I can catch a few big fish this afternoon, so we can all have an extra meal!!"
Afternoon, as the sun began to set, the light in the woods became weaker.
Zhou Chenyu took a knife and went to the vicinity of the boulder she had climbed. She cut a large bundle of vines and returned to the wooden house. Thanks to the cage-weaving skills she learned from Li Xiuju, she made a fishing net made of vines in the time it takes to drink a few cups of tea.
He grabbed a fishing net and a crossbow, and said, "Soybean, let's go!"
"Woof woof woof!" Huangdou excitedly got up from the ground and followed Zhou Chenyu closely. Zhou Chenyu, carrying a stack of woven fishing nets, went to the deep pool of water closest to the wooden house.
Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the water flow at the inlet and outlet of the deep pool was exceptionally rapid. If a vine-covered fishing net were lowered into the water, it was likely that the net would be swept away by the current before any fish were caught.
"This won't do. We need to find a place where the current is slow and the banks are narrow. Soybean, let's hurry!"
After finishing her rambling, Zhou Chenyu immediately moved to another spot, walking uphill along the mountain stream for about four or five hundred meters until she found a narrow, sunken inlet.
There is plenty of running water here, with the banks being two or three meters apart. The outlet is like a small waterfall cascading down, blocking the fishing nets here. The fish automatically enter the nets with the current, without anyone watching them. Once they fall into the nets, they can't escape.
“Okay, this is it!” Zhou Chenyu got right to work, moving two large stones to place on either side of the water outlet to weigh down the fishing net, and the babbling stream flowed vertically through the net.
She paused to observe for a moment, and after confirming that the fishing net was sturdy and secure, she picked up her crossbow and continued hunting nearby.
"Soybean, let's go!"
With a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, Zhou Chenyu parted the dense grass and stared intently at the marks on the ground. He soon found a few animal droppings on a patch of weeds.
As soon as the soybean spotted something alive, it wagged its tail violently, as if to alert her.
"Shh, I know." Zhou Chenyu made a gesture, and Huangdou's tail stopped swaying. He squatted down with her under the big tree. The wind blew through the forest, and there were soft, rustling sounds all around. The sounds didn't last long before they disappeared.
"What exactly is that?" Zhou Chenyu frowned, pulled the bowstring tight, and when the sharp arrowhead was pointed at the two o'clock position, two rabbit heads that were eating grass suddenly jumped out of the clump of grass.
"It's a wild rabbit! You're unlucky to have met me. This time, I'm going to catch you no matter what!" Zhou Chenyu pursed her lips, her facial features straining. She stretched out her right arm and pulled the bowstring all the way back. Just as the rabbit lowered its head to eat grass, she released the arrow without hesitation. The arrowhead shot out like a gust of wind and hit the rabbit's hind leg.
"Ah, we got it! We really got it!" Zhou Chenyu exclaimed. Huang Dou immediately ran over and followed the rabbit closely to prevent it from escaping.
Seeing the struggling rabbit, Zhou Chenyu raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly, "Looks like I have a talent for hunting too."
She was pleased with herself for a while, then grabbed the rabbit, tied its feet with vines, and put it in the basket.
With this successful start, Zhou Chenyu seemed to have unlocked his full potential, and he shot three more wild rabbits nearby, two of which were caught alive.
Once they're fattened up, a few wild rabbits can be sold at the market, bringing in another sum of money.
Zhou Chenyu was so engrossed in hunting that she forgot about the fishing net still soaking in the water. If it weren't for the darkness in the forest, she would have continued deeper into the mountains.
"Two dead rabbits and two live rabbits, the harvest this afternoon was pretty good. Soybean, let's go back and check on the fish!"
Huangdou barked twice, seemingly still wanting more, while Zhou Chenyu grabbed a basket of wild rabbits and hurried back to where he had set out the fishing net.
"There are so many wild rabbits, and if there were so many big, fat fish too, I'd stay here and not leave!" Zhou Chenyu said with a smile as she put down the basket, intending to have Huang Dou watch over it so she could go into the water to retrieve the fishing net.
But when I turned around, I couldn't see any trace of soybeans.
"Hey, you little thing, I just lowered my head for a moment and you disappeared, didn't you? Soybean! Soybean! Come back here!" Zhou Chenyu called out twice, but Soybean didn't respond. Usually, when he called it like that, it would appear in front of him within seconds.
Where did they go?
Zhou Chenyu hurriedly came out of the water and shouted twice. At this moment, Huang Dou's echo came from not far upstream. The shout was not as leisurely as before, but seemed to be more urgent.
Something went wrong?
Zhou Chenyu abandoned everything except for a crossbow for self-defense and hurried over. When he was almost at the stream, there was no one in sight, only Huangdou barking wildly at the water.
"What's your name?" she called to the soybean from where it could hear.
Soybean remained rooted to the spot, chirping incessantly, unwilling to budge an inch, seemingly looking at something!
"What is it that attracts you so much?" Zhou Chenyu's curiosity was piqued. He walked down the slope to the bottom of the mountain stream, and just a few steps away from Huang Dou, a blue floating corpse appeared in front of him.
"ah!"
Zhou Chenyu's legs went weak, and she fell to the ground, her mind going completely blank with fright.
She had never seen anything like this before. The scene before her was even more horrifying than the bloody scene when Qian Rushan beat Zhou Baoyu until he was covered in blood.
That...that was a corpse.
Seeing her sitting on the ground in a state of terror, Huangdou ran over to her and licked her cheek.
Zhou Chenyu looked in the direction it came from, her face paling even more, her voice trembling with fear, "Huangdou, you didn't lick that one over there, did you?"
She had never wished for Baoyu to be by her side as much as she did at this moment.
Huangdou blinked its big eyes and looked at the floating corpse, nudging Zhou Chenyu with its furry head. Zhou Chenyu felt Huangdou pushing him forward with the strength of its head. It is said that animals have a spirit. Could it be that the people over there are still alive?
If that person is still alive, her indifferent departure is tantamount to indirect murder.
Zhou Chenyu got up from the ground, grabbed the crossbow, and mustered his courage to walk over.
Approaching the "floating corpse," she used her crossbow to push its back with trembling hands. The man didn't react, but Zhou Chenyu could clearly see his breathing rising and falling.
He's still alive!
Very good!
Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. Zhou Chenyu disregarded his own safety, threw away his bow and crossbow, ran into the water, and turned the man over.
The moment Zhou Chenyu saw the man's true face, her eyes widened instantly, her pupils trembling. "Yang Xi, how could it be you?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com