Li Lanzhen shook her head and flicked out a string of sweat.
She quickened her pace and entered the cave where she was temporarily living, and her body immediately felt cold.
Li Lanzhen called out to Xue Ni, "Xue Ni, Tonghua, Li Sanya, you guys come here."
We'll be crossing the stone forest soon, so let's make sure everyone has a good lunch today.
As he spoke, he pulled out half a bag of dark flour.
"Continue to cook the dark flour paste, make it a little thicker, and heat up the wild vegetable pancakes."
Upon receiving the order, the group quickly gathered firewood and boiled water to prepare the porridge.
What they didn't expect was that they couldn't find any firewood anywhere, not even a single blade of grass.
Everyone was stunned!
Li Lanzhen said, "If you don't have it, then forget it!"
She looked up at the blinding sun in the sky, then touched the scorching hot stone, and an idea came to her.
“Come on, let’s use what we have here. Look at these stones, they’re so hot to the touch. Let’s spread the pancakes on this big stone.”
Li Lanzhen found a relatively flat large rock.
I took a piece of cloth, wiped off the surface dirt, and then spread the wild vegetable cakes one by one on it.
Other families followed suit and continued to do so.
Xue Nizi brought out the iron pot and placed it in the gap between the stones.
Li Lanzhen glanced at it and chuckled, "Xue Nizi, it probably won't boil; the temperature isn't high enough."
Xue Nizi said, "Mom, anyway, this water has already been boiled, so it's good to heat it up."
At that moment, Li Lanzhen suddenly remembered that the supermarket in her area sold a kind of stone-baked bread.
It looks like a pancake baked on a stone.
On a sudden inspiration, she called out, "Xue Ni, let's knead the dough and bake some wild vegetable pancakes on the stone."
Xue Ni slapped her thigh and said, "Mom, you're so smart!"
"These stones are so hot! Flatten the pancakes a little thinner, spread them on the stone, and they'll be cooked on both sides in no time!"
So everyone followed suit and started making pancakes on the rocks.
Since they couldn't boil water anyway, they figured they might as well make more wild vegetable pancakes to eat along the way.
While they were busy baking pancakes on the stones.
Holding her belly, Zhang Yueniang slowly walked up to Li Lanzhen, tugged at her sleeve, and said, "Mother, I think I heard the sound of water coming from under that cave."
Li Lanzhen exclaimed in surprise, "What! What did you say?!"
Her voice was so loud that it startled Zhang Yueniang.
She murmured, "I, I, you wouldn't let me come out to work, you made me lie on that kang to rest. When I lay on my side, my ear was next to the kang, and I could hear a gurgling sound, like flowing water."
Hearing Zhang Yueniang's words, the people around her were so happy that they quickly crawled into the hole to see what was going on.
Li Lanzhen followed them. As soon as they entered the cave, they lay down on the ground, pressed their ears to the ground, and listened intently.
Sure enough, Li Lanzhen heard a faint sound of flowing water.
Han Mingjiang jumped up with joy and shouted, "Mother! Mother, we're saved! There's water underground!"
Han Minghai said, "What should we do? Should we dig down? Dig a well?"
His words left everyone speechless once again.
Yes, are we supposed to dig a well here? But what if we just sit here with nothing around?
Li Lanzhen thought that since there was water underground, it should flow down the mountain. Should she look ahead along this cave and see if she could find a lower place?
At this moment, Xue Bao also squeezed in. Seeing that Li Lanzhen wanted to go forward, he stopped her and said, "Auntie, let my brother-in-law and I go. You wait here."
Gou Dan, Han Yinan, and Su Chen squeezed to the front, wanting to go with them.
Xue Bao then took the three of them with him.
Li Lanzhen was no longer in a hurry, and instead urged the women to quickly bake wild vegetable pancakes on the stones.
She had a handkerchief on her head to shield her from some of the sun as she turned over wild vegetable pancakes on a large rock.
Suddenly, a dark hand reached out from the side, trying to grab the wild vegetable pancake, but she caught it and threw it away.
Turning my head, I immediately met Zhou's eyes, those shifty, mischievous eyes.
Zhou rubbed her wrist, which had been gripped so tightly by Li Lanzhen, and cursed inwardly: That old hag is incredibly strong. I wonder how much she's eaten. She almost broke my wrist.
But he put on a fawning expression and chuckled as he spoke to her.
"I was talking about that awful woman, oh no, I mean Aunt Li. Could you give me a vegetable pancake? You have no idea, I was starving. I escaped from the village and haven't had a moment's peace on the way here."
Our grain was either stolen by bandits, or we were arrested by government soldiers, or refugees stole our grain and belongings.
I suffered terribly on this journey.
As she spoke, a few tears welled up in her eyes, and she kept glancing at Li Lanzhen.
Li Lanzhen remained unmoved, her face cold. "Stay away from my grain and my family, or I'll throw you out."
Tears streamed down Zhou's face as she froze, stunned. She hadn't expected Li Lanzhen to be so resolute. Enraged, she pointed at Li Lanzhen and cried, "You, you, you, you wretched old woman! You're so heartless!"
Li Lanzhen slapped down the hand that was pointing at her. "I hate it when people point at me. What are you to me? We're practically strangers! Why should I be kind to you?"
“How can we not be related? My family and the village chief’s family are related by marriage, and your family and the village chief’s family are also related by marriage. So, we are related by marriage.”
Li Lanzhen chuckled and said, "Stop! I don't have a relative as awful as you. Get out of my way!"
I'm telling you, I really mean to hit someone. If you're not afraid of getting hit, go ahead and try to get closer!
Seeing that she couldn't gain any advantage, Zhou left, stomping her feet and cursing.
Li Lanzhen turned to Tonghua and Xueni and said, "From now on, when you see this old woman coming, hide all the grain and keep a close eye on the children."
"If these people are cornered, they'll sell our children."
Those around them agreed, saying that it was true; you can know a person's face but not their heart, and since they weren't from the same village, they should be cautious.
Even if they were from the same village, wasn't the original Old Lady Wu just as vicious?
The people of Hanjiacun never imagined that Li Lanzhen's words of advice would come true.
About half an hour later, Xue Bao returned.
Leading the pack were Gou Dan, Han Yinan, and Su Chen. The three children, as joyful as fawns in the forest, ran out chattering and shouting, "There's a river!"
"There's water!"
"There's a river!"
"A great river!"
"Wow, so much water!"
People from the three villages immediately surrounded the entrance to the tunnel at Li Lanzhen's house.
Xue Bao chuckled and said to Li Lanzhen, "Auntie, you are our lucky star. If you go forward through this tunnel, and then through a narrow opening, you will go down to an underground river."
"river!!"
"River water?!"
Wow!
Waaaaah!
For a moment, people didn't know whether to cry or laugh; they all felt a kind of joy at being saved from a desperate situation.
Han Shunde immediately asked Xue Bao, "Are all of us going through here? Can carts get through? Can donkeys and mules get through?"
Xue Bao nodded and said, "Okay."
Han Yinan puffed out his chest and said, "Originally, it was impossible to get through. There was only a hole about the size of my head in the middle. We could see the bright river and the rushing water through that hole. My Uncle Xue Bao used stones to break the hole open little by little."
Dog Egg quickly added, "Uncle Xue said he didn't dare to smash it too hard, afraid the cave would collapse, so he smashed it little by little. He didn't expect that when it was as tall as me, there were rocks on both sides that he couldn't smash."
Xue Bao: "That hole looks like it was built up by someone using soil."
After breaking it open, there was a hole about my height.
Some people said, "The cart and the livestock might not be able to get through."
Xue Bao said, "We can dig a little deeper underground."
Upon hearing this, Han Shunde immediately arranged for people to quickly enter the tunnel and continue digging.
An hour later, Han Shunde emerged from the cave and organized everyone to quickly pack their belongings and leave.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com