By evening, there were more small animals around the river. Shen Qingyao couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed with herself. She shouldn’t have wasted so much time. Trading should have been saved for the evening.
Fortunately, these small animals were quite timid too. As long as she didn’t provoke them, they didn’t take the initiative to attack her.
After searching beneath several rocks along the riverbank, she finally found a few earthworms. She tossed them into the shrimp traps and firmly secured the traps with stones.
Next, she decided to look for more food!
Her luck wasn’t bad. She actually found several large freshwater mussels!
Their meat had a muddy, earthy taste, but it was still meat. Besides, their shells could be used as bowls, making them very practical!
The freshwater mussels weren’t particularly dangerous, so she collected them without any trouble.
With her clothes still damp from the river, she hurried back to the wooden cabin before nightfall. On the way, she encountered another frog.
This time, she carefully went around it!
She couldn’t afford to provoke it!
For now, all she could do was avoid it!
She kept only one mussel and submitted the rest to the system.
Because the mussels were so large—each weighing more than ten jin—she actually made it onto the leaderboard!
“Ding! Congratulations, Host! You have submitted Freshwater Mussels ×5 and earned 864 points. They will materialize on Blue Star at ten thousand times the original amount. Please choose a delivery location!”
Fifty thousand mussels?
Naturally, she was going to have them delivered to her hometown!
After all, everyone had their own selfish desires. Her parents had died when she was young, and her relatives had raised her by sharing their food with her and saving portions from their own meals.
She had to repay them somehow!
She zoomed in on the map little by little and found the village threshing ground. Then, she pressed Confirm!
“Crash—!”
Fifty thousand large freshwater mussels, each weighing more than ten jin, suddenly appeared in the middle of the Red Mountain Village threshing ground!
What Shen Qingyao didn’t know was that this mountain-like pile of mussels alarmed the entire village!
Only then did the villagers realize that one of their own had become a participant in the survival game!
Otherwise, there was no way the person could have accurately chosen their village as the delivery location!
“Who is it?”
“Who could it be?”
“Who went to participate in the survival game?”
“Quick, check which households have someone who suddenly disappeared! Report it immediately!”
While the authorities were investigating the situation, the village chief was practically glowing with excitement.
Someone from Red Mountain Village had become a survivor!
Wonderful!
They wouldn’t have to worry about food in the future!
Unfortunately, they were destined to be disappointed. Shen Qingyao had left the village many years ago and rarely kept in touch with her relatives. At this moment, no one thought of her at all.
They could only compare the livestream rankings and identify the survivor’s ID:
“666 Big Boss!”
“Wow! They really are from our China!”
“Then who in our village could it be?”
“Er Gouzi seems to be missing!”
“No, isn’t he the one who got arrested for stealing?”
“I heard San Ya is missing too!”
“Didn’t she elope with someone?”
Shen Qingyao knew nothing about any of this. She only saw that her points had placed her 18th on the leaderboard!
She had submitted dozens of jin of mussels, yet she had only reached 18th place. Clearly, while many people were incapable on the first day, there were also plenty of truly formidable people!
She had already set up the Basic Workbench and learned the Stone Pickaxe blueprint.
“Stone Pickaxe: Required materials—Stone ×1, Wood ×1.”
She immediately began crafting.
She made ten pickaxes in a row, stopping only when her head began buzzing.
She kept one for herself and listed the other nine on the trading market in exchange for wood.
Just before closing her eyes, she happened to spot a blueprint for pottery. She casually bought it with one jin of freshwater mussel meat.
Shen Qingyao lay on the bare wooden bed and gradually fell asleep.
Because of that, she never saw the terrifying, ghostly green eyes surrounding the outside of the wooden cabin.
The next morning, when she woke up, she found that the bonfire still contained a few glowing embers.
Unhurriedly, she added two pieces of firewood, preserving a little of the flame.
Then she headed to the river to collect her shrimp traps.
Her luck was average. Two of the traps had been swept away, leaving only one behind. Fortunately, it contained some small fish and shrimp.
Judging by the violent splashing and thrashing inside, she had thought she had caught something huge!
She hadn’t expected the small fish and shrimp in this other world to be so strong either!
The shrimp trap had nearly been destroyed!
She let out a sigh of relief. At least today’s meals were taken care of.
She followed the current for a short distance and soon found the two damaged shrimp traps.
As expected, there was nothing inside. Both traps had huge holes torn into them!
Regretfully, she put them away. If she repaired them later, they should still be usable.
After collecting water and digging up some clay along the riverbank, Shen Qingyao began heading back.
She didn’t know whether it was because of the cattail shoots she had eaten yesterday, but she felt that her physical strength had improved considerably.
With the dagger in her hand, when she encountered another one of those frogs, she stabbed at it.
And this time, she actually killed it!
She stood there blankly for a while before finally snapping out of her daze and carrying the frog back with her.
For breakfast, she ate freshwater mussel meat.
The system hadn’t given it any rank notification before, so it was probably only a mortal-grade, first-rank ingredient. She reluctantly ate two pieces before losing her appetite.
That frog, however, was actually mortal-grade, second-rank.
After eating it, another system notification appeared:
“Ding! It has been detected that the Host has consumed a mortal-grade, second-rank native frog. Your physical fitness has been slightly enhanced!”
After breakfast, she grabbed her stone pickaxe and went back to digging.
With the stone pickaxe, she was able to dig deeper into the ground.
She harvested quite a few stones and bundles of dry grass. As for seeds, however, apart from adzuki beans and huìhuìcài, she didn’t find anything else!
The adzuki beans and huìhuìcài she had planted yesterday had already sprouted.
Judging from their appearance, the huìhuìcài would probably be ready to harvest in just a few days.
On Blue Star, this plant only needed thirty days to mature. At the growth rate in this other world, it could probably be harvested within a few days. It truly was the best crop to plant for now.
After reclaiming another mu of land, she was so exhausted that she could barely lift her arms. Even so, she persisted and planted all the huìhuìcài and adzuki bean seeds.
As for water, she forced her exhausted body to make several trips to and from the river before finally finishing the watering.
She secretly gritted her teeth.
She had to put pottery-making at the top of her priorities!
As the sun climbed higher, she returned to the wooden cabin, gulped down some water from a stone bowl, and began studying how to make pottery.
Fortunately, she had a workbench and a blueprint. As long as she placed the clay on the workbench, it could automatically produce pottery!
She first chose to make a clay jar.
She desperately needed something for fetching and storing water, so she had to make one as soon as possible.
A flash of white light appeared.
Looking at the clay jar on the workbench, she nodded in satisfaction. Then she made a clay pot, clay bowls, and even a large clay vat.
She vaguely felt that she wouldn’t be able to craft anything else today, so she used the clay pot to cook the fish and shrimp.
In the past, she might eat only once every few days. But now that she had food, she intended to return to eating three meals a day.
At the very least, she needed to restore her health first.
While waiting for the food to cook, she checked the system.
The public chat channel was still filled with wailing and chaos.
Then Shen Qingyao suddenly remembered—
She still hadn’t opened today’s wooden chest!
And she also hadn’t claimed yesterday’s reward for making it onto the leaderboard!