Chapter 69 Encountering Danger
The children began gathering firewood to start a fire, all behaving very well and speaking in hushed tones, afraid of scaring the fish in the river away. Unseen by them, delicate pink tentacles slid into the water, selecting about thirty fish of similar size and dragging them to the shore. Molly then used a sharp stick to pierce the fish's bodies before tossing them one by one onto the bank.
A moment later, Qi Nian and the other children sneaked up to Molly. Molly didn't even turn her head. "You want to try spearfishing?"
Qi Nian and the others nodded repeatedly. Molly handed them the wooden sticks she was holding, saying, "Be careful not to fall into the water. If your clothes and shoes get wet, we'll have to go back."
Qi Nian and the others hadn't had enough fun yet and didn't want to go back now. Upon hearing Molly's words, they immediately became cautious.
They approached Molly and saw more than thirty fish on the ground, each weighing about seven or eight pounds. Their eyes widened in disbelief. In less than twenty minutes, she had caught so many.
There must be lots of fish in the river!
Qi Nian and the others felt that even if they couldn't fork twenty or thirty, forking one or two shouldn't be a problem.
Molly ignored the fish, turned and walked to the fire, saying to Mo An, who had already started the fire, "Go and watch over your classmates. Call me if anyone falls into the river."
Mo An stood up. "I understand, sister."
Molly sat in Mo An's seat and asked Lu Lu and Yu San San to bring the seven pheasants. She threw the pheasants into the fire to burn off their feathers and then wiped the ash off their surfaces.
"Xiao Lu, get Mom the kitchen knife." In addition to the sickle, Molly also brought a large, thick-backed knife for chopping wood, as well as a kitchen knife for cutting vegetables.
Lu Lu was tidying up firewood when he heard his mother's words and happily went to get a knife for Molly.
Molly used a knife to gut the pheasant, putting the entrails directly into the soil and burying them. The children watched as Molly processed the pheasant, and after she finished one, she let them take it to roast.
They lit two fires, and even if each child held a chicken to roast, it wouldn't be crowded, but there were only seven pheasants.
"Don't worry if you don't have any pheasants, I'll go get you some fish."
More than twenty minutes passed, and Qi Nian and his group still hadn't found anything.
"Mo An, you give it a try," Qi Nian whispered to Mo An, handing him the stick.
Mo An took it and waited quietly on the shore, his eyes fixed on the water, his gaze focused, even his breathing slowed down.
One second, two seconds, three seconds... one minute, two minutes, finally, in the fifth minute, Mo An moved, his movements quick and fierce, throwing the wooden stick in his hand.
Splash—
The stick grazed the fish's body, leaving bloodstains in the water, but the fish still escaped.
"What a pity!"
Qi Nian looked regretful, as if it wasn't Mo An who had escaped with the fish, but himself.
"You did a great job just now," Molly praised.
"But the fish still escaped." Mo An also felt it was a pity.
"That's because you lack experience. You'll get better with more practice. You can go back and do some speed and strength training specifically." Molly felt that if Mo An was going to join the army in the future, now was the time to start training.
"Sister, we want to practice too, take us with you!" Qi Nian said with a fawning smile.
Molly shook her head. "I won't teach Mo An either. You guys go back and train with the soldiers. I think your parents won't refuse. Alright, everyone else is already roasting pheasants. I'm going to kill some fish now. Anyone who wants to roast a fish, come here and get one."
Once all the children were gathered around the fire roasting pheasants and fish, Molly would sprinkle salt on each of them. As for the fish that weren't roasted, she gutted them by the water, cleaned them, and then salted them.
The water flowed gently, insects chirped and birds sang, and a dozen children talked and played, creating a lively scene.
Molly didn't go near the fire. She was counting the fish, and once she made sure there were enough for fifteen children, she stopped worrying about them.
The aroma soon wafted from the fire, and every now and then, children would ask Molly, "Sister, sister, is my fish (chicken) cooked?"
Molly would then go up and check on them. Once they were cooked, she would place them on clean, large leaves. After all the chicken and fish were cooked, everyone would eat together.
“I brought chili powder, and I’ve poured it on the leaves now. Anyone who likes spicy food can dip some in,” Molly said, as she began to cut the cooked pheasant into pieces, and the grilled fish into several pieces, placing them on the leaves. After she finished, she called the children over to eat.
She even offered up the steamed buns she had made, telling people to take whatever they wanted.
The children also brought their own food, including steamed buns, mantou, biscuits, and fruit, which they laid out on the ground along with the grilled fish and chicken, making it look quite a feast.
The child, who was about half-grown, had a great appetite and ate a lot. He first ate the hot roasted chicken and fish, then went to eat biscuits and fruit, and then left no steamed buns or mantou.
After eating and drinking their fill, everyone started packing up, saying they wanted to move on to another place to continue exploring.
Suddenly, Molly's expression changed, and she stared intently behind her.
"Come behind me," Molly suddenly said. At the same time, she took the wooden stick she had used to spear fish back into her hand and broke it in two, turning it into more than ten sticks in her hand.
Molly took out a thick-backed wood-chopping knife from her basket, stared straight ahead, and quickly sharpened the tip of a wooden stick with both hands.
"Sister, what did you find?" Mo An asked anxiously.
Before Molly could speak, a flock of wild sheep came into their view.
It's a sheep.
The children breathed a sigh of relief.
However, shortly afterward, a pack of wolves appeared behind the flock of sheep, outnumbering the sheep by a large margin.
hiss--
The children gasped and instinctively gathered behind Molly.
"How many wolves would that require?" Qi Nian murmured.
“I counted them, no less than seventy,” Mo An said, his voice trembling.
"Are we going to die today?" a child asked, his voice choked with sobs.
"I don't want to die yet." Another child cried as well.
"I don't want to be eaten by wolves."
Does it hurt when a wolf bites you?
"Of course it hurts. I feel terrible when an ant bites me, let alone a wolf with a mouth as big as that. If it bites me, our little arms and legs will break."
"......."
The children, who were full of excitement and joy just a moment ago, are now crying their eyes out.
The flock of sheep is approaching.
The wolf pack surrounded them, with water on one side and wolves on three sides. There was nowhere to retreat or escape.
Molly didn't plan to run away. There were so many children, the oldest of whom was only twelve years old. If they fell or got lost in the mountains, that would be a much bigger problem.
"Don't cry, I won't let you die," Molly said calmly.
The children stopped crying and stared blankly at the slender, upright figure in front of them. For some reason, they suddenly weren't so scared anymore.
But can one person really defeat dozens of wolves?
The children didn't believe it.
When Molly leaped high into the air with her wood-chopping knife and swung it down at the wolf's head, they all stared wide-eyed.
"So handsome!"
"So cool!"
"Amazing!"
With a crack, the wolf's skull broke, its body crashed to the ground, whimpered twice, and died.
Before the children could cheer, a shadow suddenly flashed past them. It was Molly who threw the stick in her hand, which pierced the body of a wolf that was about to attack them from behind.
This was just the beginning. Next, Molly chopped down with her wood-chopping knife again and again, and the wooden sticks in her hand flew out one by one. Soon, the ground was covered with wolf carcasses.
The wolves, who were originally gnawing on mutton, couldn't help but release the meat in their mouths, and with fear and anger, they gathered in Molly's direction.
Molly had run out of sticks, and she said to Mo An, "Give me the sickle and the kitchen knife."
As soon as she finished speaking, Molly charged into the wolf pack, switching from passive defense to active attack.
The children only saw a figure flashing by and wolf carcasses falling one after another. Several wolves tried to attack Moan and the others, but before they could get close, Molly grabbed their tails and flung them onto a rock not far away, smashing their brains out.
Despite the bloody scene, the children weren't scared; they only thought Molly was incredibly powerful at that moment, and Molly instantly became the most powerful person in their eyes.
As each wolf fell, Mo An would count. When he counted to eighty-two, the remaining wolves, seeing that things were not going well, turned and headed back into the mountains.
"We're safe?" Qi Nian's eyes widened in disbelief.
But no sooner had he finished speaking than a gunshot rang out.
Upon hearing the gunshot, the child burst into tears as if he had seen a relative.
Why is there a child crying?
"It's up ahead, let's go take a look."
"Oh dear, there's more than one child, over a dozen."
"So many wolf carcasses, how are you? Is anyone injured?"
More and more soldiers came running after hearing the commotion, and they were all stunned when they saw the wolf carcasses scattered all over the ground.
"Uncle, we're not hurt," Qi Nian said. The fear had subsided, and now he was filled with excitement. "Uncle, you didn't see how cool my sister was when she killed the wolf! She did this, and then this, and with a flick and a throw, the wolf was dead."
Qi Nian gestured with his hands and feet, almost tripping over a wolf carcass.
The soldiers looked at each other, their eyes filled with doubt. Was this woman really responsible for killing all the wolf carcasses on the ground?
But children don't lie.
The wolf carcasses on this ground will not be there either.
They had heard of Molly and that she had hunted three wolves in the mountains, but three and eighty-two are dozens of times different!
How did she, a woman, manage to do something that even these battle-hardened warriors couldn't do with their bare hands?
"Sister-in-law, did you kill all these wolves?" a soldier asked.
Molly nodded. "Yes, they came after the flock of sheep."
"To be honest, this should be our fault. We disturbed the sheep and wolves, letting them run outside. Luckily, it was you, sister-in-law, who came today. If it were anyone else, we'd probably be in grave danger by now." The soldier couldn't help but feel afraid. Fortunately, there was someone so capable among the people who came today; otherwise, these dozen or so children would probably be in danger.
How did this young woman manage to kill so many wolves without harming herself and her child?
Molly remained silent and offered no explanation.
After today, I doubt any parents will agree to let her take her child into the mountains anymore.
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