Feng Si raised a hand to her chest and bent over, dry-heaving a few times with a look of discomfort.
Mao Qiu was startled and quickly steadied Feng Si. "Are you alright?"
Feng Si pressed her lips together, rubbing her queasy stomach. She shook her head. "I’m fine. I think I ate something bad this morning."
In the morning, she had tried the Green Potato that had been sun-drying for the past few days. ’It was slightly sweet and chewy, with a texture similar to the dried sweet potatoes of the modern world, just not as sweet or soft. And for me, it was a bit tough to chew.’
’At the time, I suddenly had a craving for Green Potato, so I ate two large handfuls this morning. The food was probably too hard for my stomach to digest. After all, this body I’m in is the weakest type of female.’
’Green Potato... I never really liked dried sweet potatoes before, but now I have this strange craving. I can earn money from my stall, so I can afford to buy stored food. It’s a price I’m willing to pay to indulge myself for this flavor.’
’Dried like this, it won’t just last for ten days. It could probably last for half a year without any issues.’
Feng Si brushed it off. Once the wave of nausea passed, her thoughts immediately returned to food. "I want to buy some more green potatoes. I love them."
She pulled her arm back, thought for a moment, and asked, "How long does the rainy season last here?"
Looking at the sub-female’s dark, shining eyes, Mao Qiu found it hard to argue. ’Everyone has their little quirks, right?’
"The rainy season lasts for forty days. After that, we enter the cold season with heavy snow. We don’t hibernate, but the prey in the forest does, so everyone stocks up on at least four months’ worth of food beforehand."
Feng Si walked onward, calculating inwardly. ’This place is different from the modern world. Besides the two suns in the sky, a year is divided into thirteen months, and each month has forty days. A day is about 25 hours long.’
’The cold season is four months, and the rainy season is two months. The rest is just a long, dry season.’
Mao Hua, who was waiting for them to catch up, added, "You could stock up on nutrition packs. A sub-female eats two a day, but they taste awful."
The moment Feng Si heard "nutrition packs," her stomach churned, and she felt the urge to vomit again.
"What’s wrong?" Mao Qiu, walking beside her, couldn’t help but worry. "Why don’t you go find Mountain Chief Bai Qingqing right now? She can send you to the Sacrificial Hall to get checked out and buy some herbal medicine."
’The Sacrificial Hall?’
’If I get examined, wouldn’t my identity as a female be exposed? Wouldn’t they find out where I’ve been hiding?’
’I’d have to be crazy to walk right into that trap.’
Feng Si lowered her hand and refused with a smile. "I’m really fine. It’s just hearing about the nutrition packs and thinking of their taste made me feel a little sick."
"The nutrition packs taste pretty good, though," Mao Hua said, tilting her head.
"Even though it’s synthetic meat, the Sacrificial Hall customizes it with all the nutrients a Beastman’s body needs. It’s healthier than just eating meat," Mao Lian added with a nod.
"I’ve never heard of anyone wanting to puke just from hearing about nutrition packs," Mao Qiu said, glancing back at Feng Si as she walked. "Seeing an apprentice priestess at the Sacrificial Hall isn’t expensive—only ten coins. The herbs aren’t expensive either."
The three of them looked at Feng Si, their gazes filled with confusion. ’If you’re sick, you should see a doctor. You can’t just let yourself suffer.’
Feng Si kept her head down, watching the path.
’If I keep refusing, it’s going to look strange.’
Feng Si rallied her spirits, putting on a smile as bright as an early dry-season breeze. "We’re almost at the spot for digging green potatoes. Since we’re already here, I’ll finish digging first. If I still don’t feel well after I get home, I’ll go to the Sacrificial Hall myself."
The Mao Family’s three females: "..."
’That makes sense.’
’We came all the way to the green potato patch. It would feel like a huge waste to go home without digging any!’
The three of them stopped trying to persuade her, and Feng Si quietly breathed a sigh of relief. After walking for a while, they reached a valley where hundred-meter-tall pines gave way to shorter ones. A patch of withered, yellow, and messy low shrubs grew in a grassy area.
This was their destination for the day: to pull up green potatoes and fill their baskets.
As Feng Si walked into the grassy area and bent down, her stomach seemed to clench, making her swallow uncomfortably.
The sunlight, no longer blocked by the tree canopy, became bright. Mao Qiu glanced sideways at Feng Si. The sub-female’s skin was very pale, her face covered in dense black dots, which made her usually rosy lips seem a little white.
Feng Si smelled the heat rising from the ground, which carried a stifling, unpleasant odor.
She covered her mouth and nose, her brow furrowed deeply.
Seeing this, Mao Qiu ran over and patted Feng Si’s back. An image of her own sub-female mother’s morning sickness flashed through her mind, and she blurted out without thinking:
"If it weren’t for you not having a partner right now, I’d think you were pregnant."
Feng Si froze. "..."
’AHHH!! But I’ve had... relations... with a partner before?!!’
She shuddered in the scorching heat, her throat suddenly dry.
’Impossible. It’s absolutely impossible that I’m pregnant.’
’I looked it up online a long time ago.’
’Females with low-level fertility have extreme difficulty getting pregnant. Take this body’s mother, an Intermediate Female, for example. She’s around a full 300 years old.’
’She’s already two hundred and thirty-six, and from the time she came of age at 20 until now, she has only given birth to nine offspring. It just shows how difficult it is for females to get pregnant.’
’Even a Special-level Female here needs to go through three to five mating seasons—that’s three to five years—before she might conceive.’
’As a low-level female, I’m not worthy!’
’If getting pregnant was that easy, I’d have fucking become one of those fertile heroines that beastmen fight over, with a line of handsome young men waiting for me to pick them.’
’Would I need to be hiding out here, miserably digging up green potatoes just to avoid some powerful creep?’
With that thought, Feng Si’s heart instantly calmed down.
She straightened up, looked at Mao Qiu, and shook her head with a smile, even feeling composed enough to make a little joke.
"Heh... I wish I were that blessed."
Mao Qiu chuckled along. ’Sub-females who’ve just come of age don’t get pregnant that easily.’ Not wanting to discourage her friend, she awkwardly changed the subject. "Let’s dig up some green potatoes."
Feng Si nodded. The four of them focused on pulling up green potatoes. Midway through, while the Mao Family’s three females went to pick green fruit, Feng Si slipped away by herself for a bit.
She picked some wild fruits and dug up some wild ginger and garlic in the forest, then returned alone to the small patch of land to pull up a few more green potatoes.
She upgraded her space to three square meters and filled it to the brim.
Keeping busy, she no longer thought about vomiting. By the time she had filled the two empty bags she was carrying and her small back-basket, the Mao Family’s three females had returned.
They had a smooth journey back to Thirteen Mountains with the gathering team. Then, as agreed, she collected the green potatoes and green fruit the small team had gathered.
In total, there were two hundred and thirty-six of them, plus seventy-three green fruit, costing her 837 coins.
Unable to stop herself, she thought about the rainy season arriving in about thirty days, checked her balance, and decided to start stocking up on food for the cold season in batches.
She went downstairs and bought three hundred and thirty jin of pig-skinned beast meat and thirty jin of salt blocks. The salt blocks were expensive—fifty coins for just half a jin—but if she wanted to run a food business, she had to buy a good amount.
After arranging for the stall owner to deliver it, she also ordered another three hundred and thirty jin of meat for the next day from a familiar vendor, then went to the market to buy other things she would need for her stall.