After walking for so long, her legs were already sore and aching. At this moment, all she wanted was to rest.
So she decided to take a break first and recover some strength before climbing the tree.
Although she said she was resting, Gu Shiyi didn’t completely relax.
She leaned against the tree, but her eyes kept scanning the surroundings, searching for anything edible.
She didn’t know how much food her father had left in the sinkhole.
In this unfamiliar ancient world, food was extremely important.
“Hm? That looks like ginger?” In the distance, on a small mound of earth, she spotted a few plants that looked very similar to ginger.
Delighted, she ignored the pain in her foot and hurried over, crouching down to examine them closely.
“Haha, it really is ginger!” After careful inspection, she confirmed that they were indeed ginger plants.
Excited, she took out her machete and carefully began digging them up.
The roots were buried deep in the soil, and it took a lot of effort before she could pull them out completely.
In total, she harvested about three catties (around 1.5 kilograms) of ginger.
The pieces were a bit small—probably because they were wild—but finding them at all already made her very satisfied.
From her memories, no one here cultivated ginger in large quantities, nor did people use it in cooking.
Here, ginger was considered medicine and could be sold at a pharmacy. However, Gu Shiyi didn’t plan to sell it.
She wanted to use it to remove the fishy smell when cooking.
She didn’t stop there. She continued digging deeper into the mound for a while, making sure there was no more ginger before finally stopping.
She gathered all the ginger, roots and all, and stored them in her space.
Thinking about the climb ahead, bringing the three dogs with her would be inconvenient, so she decided to store them in the space as well.
She successfully put Xiao Hua and Ah Hua into the space, but when it came to Ah Hui, she ran into a problem—the space seemed to reject him. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t bring him in.
“What’s going on?” Gu Shiyi felt puzzled, but time was pressing, and she couldn’t think about it too much.
“Forget it, Ah Hui. You climb up yourself—you’ve done it before anyway.”
With that, she began climbing the tree.
Carefully, she made her way up and reached the cave entrance. Standing there, she called down, “Ah Hui, come up!”
Her voice echoed softly inside the cave.
Ah Hui understood immediately. With a powerful leap, like a gray flash of lightning, he sprang up to the entrance and landed steadily beside her.
Gu Shiyi nodded in satisfaction. “Good job, Ah Hui.”
She pushed aside the grass covering the entrance and stepped inside.
Ah Hui followed closely behind her.
Once inside, she rearranged the grass to cleverly conceal the entrance again, making it difficult for anyone to notice.
She fumbled around in the darkness for a moment until she found a fire starter.
Skillfully, she lit it, and the faint flame illuminated the surroundings.
Looking up, she saw a lantern hanging above the entrance.
Smiling slightly, she took it down and lit it with the fire starter.
The fire starter and lantern had been left here by her father. To reach the living area, one had to pass through a dark and narrow passage.
With the lantern lighting the way, Gu Shiyi felt a bit more at ease.
Taking a deep breath, she continued forward, with Ah Hui closely following behind.
After walking for a while, she began to feel lonely, so she released Ah Hua from the space.
In this dark environment, having two dogs with her made her feel much safer.
As soon as Ah Hua came out, she wagged her tail happily, curious about this new place.
She had always stayed at home before and had never been here.
Ah Hua ran around Gu Shiyi, giving her a sense of comfort.
As for Xiao Hua, she was still too young. Gu Shiyi worried she might get frightened in the dark, so she decided to let her out later.
And so, with the two dogs, Gu Shiyi slowly walked deeper into the cave under the dim light.
After walking more than two hundred meters, the cave gradually widened, and she could hear the sound of running water.
Her heart lifted—hearing water meant the exit wasn’t far.
Sure enough, after walking a bit further, she could see light shining in from the exit.
The cave grew brighter, and she quickly blew out the lantern.
There wasn’t much oil left, so she had to conserve it.
Following the beam of light, she quickly walked out of the cave.
The moment she stepped outside, her vision suddenly opened up.
Before her lay a patch of wild, overgrown land.
It was already autumn. Among the green grass were patches of yellow, carrying the faint breath of the season.
There were also some edible wild vegetables growing among the weeds.
Although they were a bit old, they could still fill her stomach when no other food was available.
Looking around, she saw steep cliffs on all sides—rugged, bare, and devoid of vegetation.
From below, the sinkhole appeared hundreds of meters deep, towering like it reached into the clouds.
Standing at the cave entrance, she saw a pool in the distance.
Clear spring water flowed from cracks in the cliff, gathering into the pool and creating a shimmering surface.
Beside the pool stood a large water jar, which her father had placed there.
He had used a bamboo pipe to guide the spring water into the jar, so they wouldn’t have to fetch water from the pool every day.
As for how large the sinkhole really was, Gu Shiyi didn’t know.
Although she had stayed here before, her parents had never allowed her to wander far, only letting her move around near the house.
She limped straight toward the small courtyard her father had built.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door, she saw that the yard wasn’t large, but it was neatly paved with stone slabs and kept very clean. Even when it rained, it wouldn’t turn muddy.
On the left side of the yard was a thatched shed filled with firewood—some neatly chopped and stacked, others still waiting to be cut.
This firewood would last her for a while, but with winter coming, she would need to gather more.
The small courtyard had only four tiny rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, a storage room, and a latrine combined with a washroom. The floors were all paved with stone, clean and tidy.
This little courtyard had taken her father half a year to build.