It was actually a mutated fire vole!!
Jiang Zhi couldn’t help straightening up to look.
The vole in the man’s hands looked about the size of an old house cat.
Jiang Zhi had killed this kind of mutated vole once before. They were fast, and when cornered they’d even call for their packmates. If you didn’t kill them in time, it was easy to land in danger.
She couldn’t help glancing at the man a few more times.
He looked twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and even seated you could tell he was powerfully built.
Looking up, his sharply defined features were like they’d been meticulously carved by knife and axe. Beneath his deep, sharp eyes was a high, straight nose.
Jiang Zhi couldn’t help muttering, not bad-looking at all.
Sensing Jiang Zhi’s gaze, the man stopped what he was doing and swept a cool look over.
Jiang Zhi instantly got the illusion of being pinned by a dangerous animal.
She silently drew her gaze back.
The man seemed not to have expected that the one peeping at him was a young girl. After a pause, he too shifted his gaze away.
With that intimidating stare gone, Jiang Zhi quietly let out a breath.
The man didn’t look like an easy mark, but luckily he didn’t seem like a wicked person either, otherwise, relying on just the two siblings, they probably wouldn’t be a match for him.
At this thought, Jiang Zhi felt an urgent desire to improve her own abilities.
It seemed once she got back, she’d have to draw up a plan to boost their combat strength.
Just then, Jiang Shu’s faint snoring came from beside her.
Jiang Zhi was honestly impressed with her brother, he could actually fall asleep in a situation like this.
She quietly went on reading the catalog.
By the time she finished the last page, Jiang Shu was still asleep, and she didn’t disturb him.
Ever since the terrain radar appeared in her head, her energy had been far more abundant than an ordinary person’s.
She only needed four hours of sleep a day to stay fully energized.
With nothing to do now, Jiang Zhi started checking things over in her mind.
As it turned out, it was fine when she didn’t look, but one look gave her a fright.
—Jiang Zhi actually saw several pale-gold markers stacked on that man’s body.
This man had so many good things on him…
She couldn’t help glancing over again.
The clothes on him looked perfectly ordinary, from the outside there was nothing special about them at all.
This time she didn’t dare look long, drawing her gaze back before he glanced over.
She expanded the radar’s range to maximum.
In this whole area, apart from the gold markers on the man, she saw nothing special.
Just as Jiang Zhi was about to withdraw, a red warning point suddenly flashed in the shepherd’s-purse field not far off.
Jiang Zhi went alert.
When she looked carefully, it was already gone, as if it had been her imagination.
But Jiang Zhi was certain she hadn’t seen wrong.
She thought of the silver carp she’d encountered at the river that morning, its gold marker had flickered past in just the same way.
The terrain radar could only display objects above ground. Then… what about underground?
Could she probe down into the earth?
At this thought, Jiang Zhi felt a little excited.
She steadied her mind and worked the radar to change direction. The part that had only covered the ground quickly shifted from horizontal to vertical.
The next moment, she was startled by the dense red and green markers underground.
Right now her detectable range was only four or five hundred meters. Probing into the earth like this, she didn’t expect so many creatures to be hidden just two or three meters below the surface.
Jiang Zhi pressed down her pounding heart and went on searching the surrounding area.
A hundred meters ahead and to their right, several meters down, seven or eight red warning markers overlapped, occupying not a wide space.
Jiang Zhi guessed it was a nest of voles.
She probed further down, and it wasn’t until two hundred meters underground that she could no longer see any trace of mutated creatures.
Having discovered this new trick, Jiang Zhi was rather pleased with herself and searched the whole surrounding area.
But after a while her head grew foggy. Knowing she’d hit her limit, she had no choice but to withdraw her probing power.
During this stretch, several people had tried to approach them, only to be scared off by the man next door’s intimidating aura.
Jiang Zhi paid it no mind and silently dealt with the velvetleaf she’d just picked.
In the blink of an eye, it was four in the afternoon. The temperature dropped noticeably, and Jiang Zhi nudged Jiang Shu.
“Brother, get up, time to work.”
Jiang Shu was sleeping muddle-headed, and had even had a few dreams, dreaming he was soaking in hot water, struggling endlessly but never struggling free.
After making out Jiang Zhi’s face, he snapped awake. “What time is it? Why didn’t you wake me?”
He raised his arm to check the time, and seeing it was already four, couldn’t help complaining, “To be honest, you did it again. Don’t think that just because you’ve got good stamina you don’t need to rest. If Mom finds out, she’ll yell at me again.”
Jiang Zhi pointed at the flatbed cart. “I’m not pushing the cart.”
Jiang Shu: “…So it was so I’d rest up to keep being the manual labor.”
Jiang Zhi couldn’t help laughing.
“Brother, let’s go to the elm grove next and bring back a few logs.”
“Whatever you say.”
Resigned to his fate, Jiang Shu got up and started pushing the cart.
Jiang Zhi didn’t plan to collect any more food for the rest of the time. The base closed its gates at seven-thirty, and they still had to leave time for the trip back.
Before they left, the man next door had already departed. Looking at the few small mutated beasts hanging at his waist, Jiang Zhi frowned.
Could he be an Evolver?
Unable to figure it out, Jiang Zhi didn’t dwell on it and quickly put the matter out of her mind.
The siblings didn’t linger and headed straight for the elm grove not far off.
It was called an elm grove, but there were really only a dozen or so trees. Still, they covered an enormous area, stretching out of sight. The giant elms stood one against another, packed tightly together.
Dense branches reached out in every direction, interweaving to form one vast canopy. From a distance, it looked like a great forest holding the sky aloft.
The two of them stopped beneath one of the elms.
Underfoot was a thick layer of fallen leaves and branches, giving off the smell of rot. Looking up, you could only see a few stray rays filtering through the gaps in the leaves.
From below, the leaves were broad and dense, layer upon layer, blocking out the sunlight completely. Go any deeper in, and you couldn’t even make out the path ahead.
Jiang Shu touched the elm in front of him. The bark was rough and thick, the texture deeply grooved.
He took a deep breath. “Ah Zhi, you really want to bring this tree’s branches back?”
Jiang Zhi nodded.
After mutating, elm wood was harder and more fire-resistant than before.
Jiang Zhi planned to bring a few back to nail around the perimeter of the tent. Then they’d wrap a big spread of shepherd’s-purse leaves around it, which would temporarily block outsiders’ view.
Jiang Shu sighed helplessly.
“With the tools we’ve got, I doubt we can chop these trees down.”
Jiang Zhi looked around at the ground and picked up a branch over a meter long, as thick as an adult man’s arm.
“Who said we had to chop? Picking them up works too.”
Jiang Shu: …Fine, he’d been dumb again.
In the end the siblings picked and chose a dozen or so elm branches of roughly the same length and size.
To avoid crushing the food, the two of them had to rearrange the things on the cart.
Limited by their conditions, the cart wasn’t very big, a meter twenty wide at most, and only a meter fifty long.
Loading those dozen-plus elm branches on, the density was too great and the weight astonishing, so the spare tire was pressed two centimeters into the ground.
She hadn’t weighed it, but Jiang Zhi estimated those trees alone were close to two hundred pounds.
Jiang Shu gave it an experimental push, still bearable.
“Turns out having a means of transport really is convenient.” He then piled the food they’d collected earlier on top, covered it with a layer of leaf-bearing, seemingly inedible elm branches, and finally lashed everything tight to the cart bed with elastic cords. “No wonder those people look at our cart like it’s some hot commodity.”
This cart saved a lot of effort.
Jiang Zhi checked the time and said, “Brother, it’s getting late, let’s head back first.”
They’d collected a fair amount, and Jiang Zhi was afraid someone would waylay them on the road.
Even though they could protect themselves, holding on to a whole cartful of stuff wasn’t easy. Jiang Zhi didn’t want a whole day’s hard-collected haul to just get snatched away.
Jiang Shu had no objection.
With the bone staff, they weren’t afraid of bugs and ants either.
The siblings deliberately skirted around the crowded areas, returning to the valley mouth through the tall, dense wild grass.
Few people headed back at this hour. On the road they saw only a scattered few figures, all traveling alone, probably, like them, afraid of being robbed on the way home.
The two returned to the main road, and they hadn’t walked far when two red warning points appeared on the terrain radar in Jiang Zhi’s mind.
Jiang Zhi’s heart tightened, they were about four hundred meters ahead and to the right.
Jiang Zhi slowed her pace and looked over with a frown.
There was only goosegrass over there, and that grass wasn’t dangerous. So whatever was dangerous could only be something hidden inside it…
Seeing her stop, Jiang Shu stopped too.
“Ah Zhi, what’s—”
Before he could finish asking, an arrogant, raspy voice came from ahead.
“You little brat! Hand over what’s in your hands right now!!”
“No!” came another voice, young and choked with tears. “I searched forever to find this.”
“You think ‘no’ settles it? Hand it over!!”
As the man spoke, he snatched the thing from the child’s hands.
The child was so anxious he was crying, and lunged forward trying to grab it back. “No! Please, give it back, my dad hasn’t eaten for days…”
“Get lost!”
By the sound of it, someone had laid in wait there and robbed a passerby.
And the one robbed was a child, too.
Jiang Shu frowned. “These people really have no class, robbing even a kid.”
That said, Jiang Shu had no intention of getting involved. “Ah Zhi, let’s go.”
Jiang Zhi pursed her lips and kept walking forward.
For some reason, that child’s voice made her inexplicably uneasy.
As the two passed by, they heard one of the robbers say, “Big bro, there are two fat sheep here too! And they’ve even got a cart!”
The man’s words were like an excuse handed to Jiang Zhi to meddle.
She turned her head to look.
After getting a clear look at the child’s face, Jiang Zhi froze in place.
Right after, a surge of furious rage rose up within her.
Jiang Zhi slowly turned her head toward the two men, a roiling tide of emotion suppressed beneath her calm expression.
Word by word, she said: “Did you two give him the wound on his face?”
Sensing something off about her, and afraid she’d go meddling, Jiang Shu quickly said, “Ah Zhi, don’t you—Ah Zhi?!”
By the time Jiang Shu reacted, Jiang Zhi had already drawn her machete and charged over.
The two robbers were caught off guard by her sudden attack and could only raise their arms to shield their heads. With a “hiss,” blood was immediately drawn.
“Damn! This little wench has a knife!”
The taller man, wounded, tried to counterattack at once, only to be sent flying by a kick from Jiang Shu, who’d come right on her heels.
Even though he had no idea what his sister was up to, Jiang Shu would never allow anyone to bully his little sister!
Jiang Shu spat fiercely. “You dare touch my sister? Tired of living?!”
As he spoke, Jiang Shu’s gaze passed over a familiar face, and he froze on the spot—
“Sui—Suisui!?”
The filthy little kid before them, who else could he be but their nephew, Jiang Sui?