Seeing Xiao Qiang cry, I was even more at a loss. I hurriedly went over and snatched the stick from her hand.
"What's wrong with you? I already told you, Xu Wei really didn't mean it that way. You went out to pick mushrooms for all of us, didn't you? But no one expected that such a strange thing would steal all our short-legged birds. So you don't need to blame yourself for this. Besides, I know where these short-legged birds are. We can go together and catch more, right? Stop crying."
Xiao Qiang threw herself into my arms and pounded my chest hard with her hands.
"I know you like Xu Wei. You like her gentle and kind nature, and you like the way she looks at you with admiration. But I like you too. You can't be so biased!"
I really didn't know how to comfort her, and I was afraid that if I said anything else, Xu Wei and Wang Xiaoxiao would hear it and it would cause another fight, so I could only quietly hold Xiao Qiang.
After a long while, Xiao Qiang took a deep breath and stopped crying.
She looked up at me and glared at me fiercely before turning and leaving the house.
Lying on Xiao Qiang's bed, I thought and thought and still felt that I should go down the mountain again to deal with those larger cracks.
When Wang Ping erected these fences, the surrounding area wasn't very well secured, so it's possible that someone took advantage of this time to come up the mountain and steal so many things.
Now I not only need to surround this place with vines, but I may also need to set up some traps around here.
Only we know about these traps. If someone else tries to steal something and falls into one, they're out of luck.
However, this project is quite large, so I need to go down the mountain to take a look first.
The problem is that there are rocks everywhere around here, so we need to carefully search for places that can be used to make traps.
For dinner, the few of us ate mushroom and sea cucumber stew. The taste was strange, but the broth was alright. However, we had almost finished the sea salt we brought.
I plan to take some time to go back to our old beach and extract more sea salt, which will be easier to store in jars.
Xu Wei and the other two remained silent, each preoccupied with their own thoughts, and I dared not say anything either.
Just as I finished eating and was about to leave, Xiao Qiang, who was standing next to me, gave me a cold snort.
"You'd better finish repairing the house you built as soon as possible. I'm going back to my room tonight, otherwise you'll be stuck at the door as a night watchman."
After saying that, he turned around and went back to our treehouse from the yard.
I was so embarrassed that I hadn't even come to my senses when Xu Wei turned around and left, leaving only Wang Xiaoxiao and me.
"See? I told you so! Why did you have to get involved with so many women? Now you can't handle it, you've really brought this on yourself!"
After Wang Xiaoxiao finished teasing me, she actually took her things and turned around to go back to her treehouse.
Now I'm completely all alone...
Chen Jian and Liu Jiaojiao were roasting dried fish in front of their treehouse. When Chen Jian saw that everyone had left, he smirked and peeked at me from the side, gesturing towards the house.
"Brother Sihai, is your harem on fire again? Tsk tsk tsk, you're really pitiful!"
"Get out of my way and get on with what I told you to do. Stop talking nonsense."
Chen Jian chuckled and then turned and went back into their treehouse.
I didn't want to go in and face those women, so I dragged a wolf skin out and spread it at the doorway, letting it bask in the afternoon sun. The sun took a nap there.
There was still nowhere to sleep at night.
In the end, Xu Wei felt sorry for me and said that she and Wang Xiaoxiao had stayed together for the night, so I slept in her room.
But it makes me feel even more that I still have my own place, otherwise being kicked out every few days would be too embarrassing.
Early the next morning, I immediately took Wang Ping down the mountain and instructed Chen Jian and several male colleagues to go with Chen Jian to the cave to dig up soil to make plates and relatively large containers.
This is to prepare for our transplanting of rice seedlings.
When they reached the foot of the mountain, Wang Ping frowned as he looked at the towering peaks before him.
“I’ve already looked at this place before. It’s full of sharp rocks. It’s not easy for even a grown man like us to climb this mountain, let alone a woman. I’ve also looked through the woods in this area and found a few suspicious footprints. But strangely, the footprints disappeared after walking a short distance.”
Wang Ping's face was frighteningly dark when he said this. I turned my head and looked towards the woods, feeling somewhat uncertain.
I disappeared halfway there. Is this place haunted?
Since we want to claim this waterfall as our own, we must take proper safety measures around it.
“I don’t think these tree fences are very effective. Why don’t we set aside some time tomorrow to find more vines and make a big net? That way, if we manage to catch some freshwater fish from the stream and keep them in this waterfall, they won’t be caught by the birds around here. Also, it shouldn’t be easy for wild animals to break through this fence. We can be mentally prepared for that.”
Wang Ping nodded. We were talking when a scream suddenly came from the woods.
I was startled, and Wang Ping immediately gripped his knife and looked toward the woods where the sound had come from.
I saw Wang Ping frown: "How could anyone be calling from this place? How many people are left on the mountaintop?"
Wang Ping whispered in my ear, "Our group only has three women left. Your group has Xiao Qiang, Wang Xiaoxiao, Xu Wei, and Liu Jiaojiao, so there are only seven women left in total. The rest of the male colleagues and Bai Wei all went out with Chen Jian..."
That means our people are now split into two groups, but neither of them is going into this forest.
But the call we heard from the woods just now was exceptionally clear, and there's absolutely no mistake about it.
"I feel this woods is eerie, let's not go in."
I was about to nod and tell Wang Ping to go back to the mountaintop and find a safe place before we talked.
But suddenly a gunshot rang out from the woods. The sound startled the birds that had been perched on the branches, and in an instant, the entire forest seemed to be in chaos.
Wang Ping and I almost instinctively turned around and ran towards the top of the mountain.
My heart was filled with endless doubts, but now I remembered that gunshot, which was the revolver I had lost.
But Chen Jian had no idea who had knocked him unconscious, which meant that the gun had indeed been stolen by someone else, and that person was still in the woods, not far from us.
There's no point in saying anything now; I can only find peace of mind when I hold that hunting rifle in my hand.
When Wang Ping and I reached the top of the mountain, we found that Xiao Qiang had already run out with my long-barreled shotgun. When she saw me, her face turned pale.
"Sihai, hurry and find Liu Jiaojiao and Xu Wei, they've both gone into the woods."
I looked at Xiao Qiang, whose vision was blurry, and asked, "When did this happen? I didn't see them when Wang Ping and I came down the mountain."
Xiao Qiang slapped her thigh: "It was you two who were in front and behind! They said they wanted to go pick some more wild vegetables, so when I heard gunshots in the woods, I thought it was the gun you were carrying. Then I remembered that you lost your gun. Go find it quickly, or those two might lose their lives!"
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