Upon hearing that there was food, everyone's fatigue vanished instantly, and they all stood up and loudly asked where the food was.
Jiang Qinyu pointed to a few places and said, "There's not much stuff, it probably weighs a few dozen kilograms in total!"
Dozens of kilograms was a considerable amount for these villagers who had been starving just a few days ago, so Village Chief Li quickly led his men to the place Jiang Qinyu had mentioned.
"Oh my, so many chestnuts, how did they get into this little hole?"
"Wow, I have so much grain here! It's quite complete, with barley, wheat, rice, and all sorts of things. It looks like it weighs over ten pounds!"
"And here I have too, this is dried fruit..."
Upon hearing this, an older man cursed, "These must be field mice from the mountains causing trouble in our fields! Get them away, they must all be taken away!"
After he said that, Jiang Qinyu suddenly realized that the places indicated on the map were indeed inside caves. However, due to the drought, the outside of these caves was cracked, revealing what was hidden inside.
Wait a minute, doesn't that mean they're picking food out of a rat hole?
Jiang Qinyu suddenly felt that it was better if her family didn't get any of the grain.
But that was just her opinion. For the people of Dingshui Village, as long as they had food, they didn't care where it came from; just not going hungry was a great thing.
Actually, Jiang Qinyu has a common misconception here. Field mice in the mountains are less poisonous than rats that live in the village. Field mouse meat is edible, so if the grains they collect are properly processed, there is naturally no problem with them.
The group quickly gathered all the food they had found together.
"Let's find a place to hide it first, and we'll bring it back when we come back tomorrow," Village Chief Li said, clapping his hands.
Li Dachui nodded vigorously, "Yes, yes, yes, it would be too silly and too much effort for us to carry them all the way into the mountains and then bring them out."
No one objected to this decision. After storing the grain, they could continue their journey.
This time, Jiang Qinyu did not walk in the middle of the group, but followed beside Village Chief Li.
She had a map in her mind, and with her influence, Village Chief Li naturally kept heading towards areas rich in grain.
Jiang Qinyu picked out a few places with a lot of items for everyone to collect, planning to come back and pick up the ones with smaller quantities on the way back, with the main idea being to leave nothing behind.
And so, the group continued their search along the way. By the time the sun set in the afternoon, they had found a total of five or six hundred pounds of edible supplies. However, they hid all of these things along the way and did not take them into the deep mountains.
"I never expected there to be so many edible things in these mountains."
"If I hadn't come today, I don't believe we would still be able to find anything to eat by now!"
"That's why we still need to send the children to school. Isn't it because the eldest daughter-in-law of the Lu family is the sister of a scholar that she knows so much?"
"Sigh, I'd like to send my little rascal to school, but everyone's fled to escape famine, so where can I find a teacher?"
"Let's focus on living well in the present moment, and deal with the rest later..."
The group chatted amongst themselves, and as time went on, surprisingly, no one seemed to feel tired anymore.
However, as they ventured deeper into the mountains, the roads became increasingly difficult to traverse. Often, it was Village Chief Li and Meng Tianze who had to lead the way with machetes so that those behind them wouldn't be without a place to stand.
Village Chief Li was already sweating profusely. While cutting through the thorns blocking the road, he said to Jiang Qinyu, "Niece, it's getting late. Shall we continue on our way?"
Jiang Qinyu glanced at the sky and nodded, saying, "Let's keep going and see if we can find a water source a few miles ahead."
The surrounding greenery is increasing, and the water shortage is not as severe as in the surrounding areas, indicating that there must be a water source in front of or nearby, but it is uncertain whether it is groundwater, a surface lake, or a stream.
Moreover, they didn't encounter a single small animal along the way, which means that all the animals had migrated to the deeper parts of the mountains and forests.
Village Chief Li knew that their search for food and water was equally important, so he said, "Alright, let everyone walk another five miles. If we still can't find water, then we'll go back tomorrow and come back in a few days."
With the harvest of several hundred kilograms of grain from the mountains today, he is no longer opposed to going into the mountains.
Jiang Qinyu roughly knew what he was thinking and was also trying to guess the direction of the water source based on the map clues.
After advancing another two miles, a bright green dot suddenly appeared in the upper left corner of Jiang Qinyu's mental map. Her eyes lit up and her heart pounded with excitement.
There's plenty of food there, and there's definitely a water source nearby!
Jiang Qinyu intentionally or unintentionally led the group towards the upper left. However, it was already getting dark, so she said to the people behind her, "Everyone, be careful and alert. There might be some animals ahead."
They hadn't seen any animals all day, and everyone agreed that Jiang Qinyu's consideration was correct; they might encounter them soon.
Jiang Qinyu and the others held their breath and crept to the left front. It took them a full quarter of an hour to cover a distance of less than two hundred meters.
Just as someone was about to speak up, everyone suddenly heard a "baa baa baa" sound.
Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at each other in bewilderment.
Village Chief Li was a little excited. He took a few steps back and lowered his voice to say to everyone, "Did you all hear that? There are sheep ahead!"
They don't raise sheep in their village, but many people know that there are quite a few goats in Yunshan, and Meng Tianze and Lu Yanzheng have both hunted them before.
Meng Tianze, who was already walking in front, was now staring intently ahead with his eyes gleaming. He spoke in a low voice, "Everyone, don't move. I can hear that there are more than just one or two sheep ahead. I'll go ahead and take a look first."
Jiang Qinyu quickly said, "Uncle Meng, I'll go with you."
Knowing her abilities, Meng Tianze nodded in agreement, "Okay, let's go together."
The two immediately moved forward silently.
Village Chief Li immediately said to the people behind him, "Let's go back first and wait for them to come back before we talk."
Those are goats! The big ones weigh one or two hundred pounds, and the small ones weigh several dozen pounds. If we can catch them, the villagers can have meat for the first time, and the extra ones can be pickled and eaten later.
The others were also incredibly excited. These days, they were grateful to be able to eat their fill, let alone eat meat. They never expected to encounter goats on a single trip into the mountains. Even if there were only two or three, they would still have several hundred kilograms of meat, and each family could get several kilograms!
Meanwhile, Jiang Qinyu and Meng Tianze also arrived at a distance not far from the sound of the goat.
Meng Tianze covered his mouth, his eyes shining with excitement. He gently tugged at Jiang Qinyu's sleeve and pointed ahead.
About three zhang ahead, there was a small grassland, where dozens of goats were resting, some standing and some lying down.
Jiang Qinyu couldn't help but twitch her lips at this moment. There was no way around it, because the goat gathering area was the largest green light on the map.
This map hint is absolutely brilliant. Goats are edible, so they're considered food. Food is roughly equivalent to grain, so is that why it's given a hint?
Meng Tianze tugged at Jiang Qinyu's sleeve again, gesturing for her to go back.
Jiang Qinyu nodded, her heart pounding with excitement.
With so many wild goats, how much meat must that be?
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