It was dark, pitch-black everywhere. She groped her way to the stove, used a fire striker to light pine needles, then burned dry firewood. The flames burned vigorously.
Without bothering to rest, she hurried to process the horse meat, evenly rubbing it with salt and placing it in basins to marinate.
There were three large basins and two wooden buckets full, estimated to be over two hundred jin.
Worried it might rain again at night, she washed her hands stained bright red with horse blood and went to collect the items she had laid out to dry at the bottom of the sinkhole.
After skinning the horse and cutting the meat, her entire body was stained with quite a bit of blood, reeking of fishy odor.
She had only eaten breakfast in the morning and hadn’t eaten anything from noon until now. She was already starving. The scallion pancakes she had brought to eat outside were never eaten either.
Since it was already very late, she simply reheated the scallion pancakes and ate them with the leftover millet porridge from the morning.
After eating, she heated a pot of water on the stove. While waiting for it to boil, she took the small fish and shrimp kept in a wooden basin to feed Heihei and the chickens and ducks.
She ladled some hot water into a wooden tub, added cold water to adjust it to a suitable temperature, then put soapnut fruits in and rubbed them to produce foam. This was her ancient-style shampoo.
Although this traditional shampoo did not make her hair as smooth as in her previous life, under current conditions this was all she could manage. At least it cleaned well.
She planned to find some He Shou Wu, arborvitae leaves, and if possible ginseng as well, grind them together with ginger and soapnut into fine powder to make medicinal shampoo sachets. Pure and natural, with no additives, good for nourishing hair.
Unfortunately, she still hadn’t gathered enough He Shou Wu, so the plan had to be put on hold.
She soaked her long hair in the wooden tub, wet it with the foamy water, slowly massaged her scalp with her fingertips, and finally rinsed it clean.
Freshly washed hair felt rough and couldn’t be combed. She used a wooden hairpin to fix it up, then used the remaining clean water to wash her dirty face.
After bathing in hot water and putting on clean clothes, Xia Qingyue felt alive again.
While waiting for her hair to dry, she lit a fire and burned arborvitae leaves to smoke cured meat.
Without a hair dryer, she relied on the night breeze. After blowing for over an hour, her hair finally dried. Once dry, it became smooth and refreshing.
She was extremely exhausted today, her whole body sore and aching, but she didn’t use it as an excuse to slack off.
She pinned up her hair, held a horse stance for half an hour, and did aerobic exercise for another half hour.
After finishing, she was drenched in sweat and regretted not exercising before bathing and washing her hair.
Feeling sticky and uncomfortable, she wiped herself with a cloth soaked in warm water and finally felt refreshed.
Lying on the bed, she closed her eyes comfortably and fell asleep in less than a minute.
….
In the morning, Xia Qingyue woke up with soreness all over her body, but she endured the pain and completed her morning training.
It had rained from the first half of the night into the second half, and the ground was still wet.
The air was especially fresh, greenery lush and vibrant. Occasionally, birds flew across the sinkhole, their chirping crisp and clear.
Time felt peaceful.
Xia Qingyue withdrew her gaze from the scenery inside the pit. A new day had begun. It was time to work. Only by getting everything done could she lie flat sooner.
The sky was gray and overcast, so she didn’t take anything out to dry. While cooking porridge, she fed the chickens and ducks and fried a plate of scallion pancakes.
The leftover pancakes were still wrapped in large leaves. She might not return at noon.
After what happened upstream yesterday, she worried that mountain bandits might return or that ferocious beasts might be attracted by the smell of blood and linger there.
She didn’t plan to go there again in the short term. Today she would head downstream.
Before going out, Xia Qingyue tucked a dagger into the hidden pouch inside her sleeve. If anything unexpected happened, she could protect herself.
Downstream of the creek.
The water flowed gently. Lush green plants grew on both banks, including water celery, cattails, and some plants Xia Qingyue didn’t recognize. As she searched, she found edible watercress.
The watercress grew very well, tender and fresh. Whether used in soup or stir-fried, it tasted great. It also liked growing near water and could thrive without much care.
Good as it was, in her previous life when she bought watercress from the market, she had several times found leeches while washing it, which left her with a psychological shadow.
Afraid of leeches, she used a wooden stick to stir the clustered watercress, watching for a long time. She only saw sand and stones at the creek bottom and the plant roots.
“Looks like there aren’t any. Later I can bring some back and raise it in the water channel.”
The water celery growing in patches by the creek would probably turn old in another half month. She planned to harvest it sometime and make it into dried preserved vegetables.
Xia Qingyue walked and stopped along the way, finding two He Shou Wu plants and three bupleurum plants.
As usual, whenever she saw medicinal herbs outside, she picked them along the way, just in case she fell ill in the future and had no medicine to use.
Without realizing it, over an hour had passed. Just as she felt a bit thirsty, she saw a particularly familiar tree in the forest beside the creek, bearing yellow-orange fruits.
“Loquats!”
She ran over happily, but when she reached the base of the tree, she was stunned.
Not a single loquat on the tree was good. They had all been pecked by birds and gnawed by insects, damaged and rotting. The air still carried the uniquely sweet fragrance of loquats.
“What a pity,” she sighed, looking disappointed.
Although the loquats couldn’t be eaten, loquat leaves could be used as medicine. They were excellent for relieving cough and resolving phlegm.
She picked up her sickle and cut loquat leaves, cutting several large bundles and stuffing them into her basket.
“Woof woof woof!”
Heihei had somehow run to a small dirt slope in the distance. Seeing it barking at her, Xia Qingyue guessed it must have discovered something good. She picked up her things and ran over.
When she got closer, she saw green plants on the slope laden with dark purple fruits. Her eyes lit up. “Aren’t these mulberry trees? There are so many mulberries!”
Three mulberry trees grew on the slope not far from each other, each one full of mulberries.
She picked one and popped it into her mouth. Juice that was nine parts sweet and one part sour burst across her palate. It was rich and full of juice.
So delicious.
She grabbed a handful of mulberries and tossed them into Heihei’s mouth. It ate happily.
After taking one bite, she couldn’t stop. She fed herself and Heihei at the same time. Soon, both her hands and mouth were stained black-purple.
Without looking in a mirror, she knew what her teeth must look like.
After eating many mulberries, she not only quenched her thirst but also filled herself to about sixty to seventy percent full.
Some mulberries bore traces of being pecked by birds. She avoided those and picked a basket full of good ones.
Mulberry leaves were also treasures.
After drying, they could be brewed with prunella and wild chrysanthemum as tea, equivalent to summer herbal granules that clear heat and detoxify, soothe the liver and brighten the eyes. They made excellent cooling tea for summer.
She picked several handfuls of mulberry leaves.
There were still many mulberries on the trees. Since she couldn’t eat them all at once, she left the rest for the birds.
At noon, Xia Qingyue didn’t return. She found a large area in the forest growing bracken, wild mushrooms, and shepherd’s purse. Together with Heihei, she ate scallion pancakes and mulberries to stave off hunger.
Over the course of the afternoon, she picked over a hundred jin of mixed mushrooms. Her basket, sack, and vegetable basket were all filled to the brim.
She also harvested several dozen jin each of bracken and shepherd’s purse. Anything she couldn’t finish eating would be dried.
She also spotted wild garlic shoots in the grass. Just as she was about to go over, Heihei suddenly darted into the grass ahead.
After a flurry of movement, five or six snakes with white patterns scattered and slithered away. One shot off and disappeared instantly. The remaining ones tangled together, winding and crawling away.
Her stomach churned violently. Xia Qingyue’s face turned pale as she raised a hand to cover her mouth, almost vomiting, her heart filled with lingering fear.
Those were poisonous five-step vipers, also called hundred-step snakes. If not for Heihei discovering them and driving them away, she would surely have been bitten if she had gone over.
After calming down for a long while, she walked over to look at the wild garlic shoots. However, at this season the shoots were already old and had grown scapes.
The garlic scapes were long and especially tender. Many garlic plants grew nearby. She pulled out all the scapes, being extremely careful of her footing, afraid that snakes might suddenly dart out again.
After quickly harvesting them, the total came to over two jin.
She now had a psychological shadow over this place and hurriedly left, returning to the familiar creek.
“The mountains are really great. You can find different mountain goods every day,” Xia Qingyue couldn’t help but sigh.
Setting aside dangerous beasts and mountain bandits, diligent people living in the mountains would never starve.
She wondered whether Aunt Yuzhen and the others had gone up the mountain yet, and what the situation outside was like now.