Dawn.
The crimson sun rose quietly from behind the eastern mountain, seeming to have no warmth at all.
The mist among the mountains was driven away by the morning light.
Yu Qiu stood at the doorway, stretching as she gazed at the morning scenery of the mountains.
Yesterday evening, with the help of several teenage boys, they had managed to tidy up most of the place in the time it took to eat a meal.
As night fell, Li Shi urged the boys to hurry home, worried they might encounter danger if they stayed too late.
The boys were reluctant to leave, but only after being offered dinner did they hurry off.
Food was precious. A host rarely invited others to share a meal, and guests rarely accepted.
Especially with growing boys whose appetites were enormous.
When they left, Yu Qiu even divided up the wild vegetables and fruits from her basket, keeping only enough for her own family and a dozen red fruits, giving the rest to Meng family’s son and the others to share in the village.
She had only picked what the original body’s memories confirmed as edible. Those considered inedible by the world, she avoided. With things unclear, she didn’t want to cause trouble.
When she had rejoined the group yesterday, she’d thought of sharing the fruits then. But with too many people and too few fruits, it was better not to hand them out at all.
The boys, unable to refuse and too embarrassed, carried the family’s intact water jar from the collapsed kitchen to the back mountain stream. They scrubbed off the moss and grime until it gleamed clean, then carried it back half full of water.
Yu Qiu had been terrified watching them, afraid the jar would crush their small frames.
Thankfully, nothing happened. They set the jar down, called out a quick goodbye, and ran off, afraid Li Shi might make them stay for supper.
Before leaving, they even sprinkled insect- and snake-repelling herbal powder around the thatched house.
After the boys left, Yu Qiu’s family was too exhausted to cook. The journey and the cleaning had drained them.
They filled their stomachs with some wild fruits, boiled hot water in a clay pot for drinking and washing, then spread bedding on the ground and lay down to sleep.
It was a good night’s rest.
Now, Yu Qiu withdrew from her thoughts and went to the back of the house to break off some willow twigs for brushing teeth. She prepared some for her mother-in-law and the two children as well.
After washing, she slipped out quietly while they still slept and headed toward the back mountain.
Her plan was to catch two fish from the stream to make fish soup as nourishment. Red fruits replenished energy, yes, but they were still just fruit. They could not restore weak bodies. With illness in the family and children so young, they all needed proper nourishment.
Of course, she would never admit that after days of nothing but fruit, she was craving meat!
A person alive should not deny their own mouth.
The early summer mountain air was cool enough to seep into the bones.
Suppressing the chill, Yu Qiu cut a branch, sharpened its end, and crouched silently at the stream. She focused on the mutant fish darting and hiding among the rocks. The water was crystal clear, but there weren’t many fish visible near the banks.
Most aquatic creatures were edible, but after mutation they were more agile and harder to catch. If not handled properly, their taste was too fishy, so few bothered to hunt them.
In her past life, Yu Qiu’s role in missions was healing, speeding plant growth, managing food, and digging shelters. Sometimes she even used plants to block zombie attacks. With spare time, she had foraged for food—so she had experience catching fish. The mutant fish here were much like those she had known before.
Lost in thought, she suddenly thrust her spear sharply into the stream. When she lifted it, a fat fish flailed on the prongs.
Unlike the grotesque mutant fish of her old world, these were bigger, fatter, and more pleasing to the eye.
In her old world, many mutant plants and animals had hideous forms—especially aquatic creatures.
But here, most plants looked the same, only two or three times larger than before. The real change was that plants once only mildly toxic became too poisonous to eat, even after cooking.
Generations of people had risked their lives to test and record what was edible, creating the food catalog.
But for Yu Qiu, such a book was unnecessary. Even in the apocalypse, civilization and technology still existed. Machines could instantly test whether something was edible or poisonous.
Here, the degree of mutation was lower. She might not know everything, but she recognized at least eight or nine parts out of ten.
As for the beasts, she hadn’t seen one up close, but their roars alone told her they were fiercer than those of her world—more violent, stronger, and impossible to face head-on.
Back then, hot weapons had kept mutant beasts from ever being as threatening as zombies.
But in this world, common folk had no such weapons. Blades and bows were controlled as military arms, far beyond their reach.
While her thoughts wandered, her hands did not stop.
In just a quarter of an hour, she had speared two fat fish.
She scaled them, gutted them, and removed the gills in one smooth sequence—her practiced hands revealing her long habit of handling food. The discarded innards floated down the current, drawing out fish of all sizes from their hiding places to feed.
Yu Qiu’s eyes sparkled at the sight. So many fat fish! If only she had brought a basket—she could have scooped up a dozen easily.
It seemed no one had fished these streams in years, allowing the fish to thrive.
She reluctantly turned away. Then, in her peripheral vision, she spotted a plant upstream that seemed familiar.
Running closer with her fish, she confirmed it—oval lance-shaped leaves, purple-red petals, pale yellow rhizomes, and towering more than two meters tall.
It was mutated wild ginger!
Without greed, Yu Qiu used her powers to ripen a single stalk and dug it up. There were only a few nearby; she planned to transplant them later once a garden was cleared.
Back home, she found Li Shi and the children still asleep. Quietly, she fetched a clay pot, knife, and coarse salt. At the ruined hearth outside, she propped the pot on stones, drew water from the jar, and lit a fire.
She washed the ginger, smashed it with the back of her knife, and tossed it into the pot. Once the water boiled, she added the cleaned fish.
With only two clay pots and no oil, all she could do was boil them.
In this era, ironware was more precious than food itself. The family owned only one iron tool—a kitchen knife.
An iron wok was too costly for most, even more expensive than grain.
Clearly, she would need to find a way to earn silver.
Living off the mountain meant meager meals—just two a day, always boiled.
No wonder everyone was skin and bones. They couldn’t eat most things, and even what they could eat was nothing but watery soups and thin porridge without a single grain of rice.
How could anyone grow fat like that?