Could this cave be a through-passage?
Jiang Zhi glanced at the dozing Jiang Shu and Jiang Wen, signaled silently to Xu Na, and headed deeper into the cave.
She had a flashlight on her, and wasn’t afraid of the dark either.
Xu Na assumed she was going to relieve herself, and didn’t stop her.
Jiang Zhi walked in a few dozen meters, and at a point over four hundred meters away she sensed a red warning dot, her heart tightening slightly.
Just then, that faint, intermittent cool breeze blew over again.
Jiang Zhi caught a vague whiff of a rank, fishy stench and a faint “hiss, hiss” sound.
Suddenly something clicked, and her body went rigid, cold sweat dripping from her brow.
—That red dot wouldn’t be a mutated snake, would it?
Jiang Zhi held her breath and inched backward. Finding that the warning red dot hadn’t moved, she finally let out a slow breath.
Good.
She hadn’t alerted this mutated creature.
Just as she lifted a foot to head back, the mutated creature suddenly began moving slowly deeper into the cave.
Jiang Zhi paused.
Was this cave really that deep?
Don’t tell me this place… had another exit?
She hesitated a few seconds, and seeing the mutated creature about to slip out of the radar’s range, Jiang Zhi gritted her teeth and decided to follow.
She moved very slowly, always keeping four or five hundred meters between herself and the mutated creature, body tensed as she observed the surrounding terrain, ready to flee at any moment.
After advancing about a hundred-some meters, the mutated creature suddenly vanished from the terrain radar.
Jiang Zhi’s heart jumped. She sensed all around, front, back, left, right, but still found no trace of the mutated creature.
Should she go take a look?
Jiang Zhi wavered.
Two little figures waged a war of wills in her heart.
On one hand she knew her behavior was testing the edge of death, pure recklessness, on the other she couldn’t help wanting to explore what lay ahead.
Jiang Zhi stood in place for a while, but in the end curiosity won out, and she lifted her foot and kept walking forward.
She hadn’t gone far when a sliver of light appeared up ahead.
Jiang Zhi’s heart leapt with delight.
Just as she’d guessed, this cave had another exit.
Walking on, ahead lay a narrow path two meters long.
Jiang Zhi probed apprehensively for a moment, and soon understood why that mutated creature hadn’t gone to Collection Zone 3 to harass humans.
—Even someone Jiang Zhi’s size could only just barely squeeze through sideways. A mutated creature of no small size probably couldn’t get through this narrow passage.
By the time she reached the spot where the mutated creature had vanished, her field of view had brightened completely.
Before her eyes lay a lake, tranquil yet exuding an eerie air.
The cave exit connected to the lake’s edge.
Jiang Zhi looked down. The lake water at her feet was a deep green, so profound she couldn’t see the bottom, with the occasional ripple, as if some unknown creature were swimming below.
All around the lakeshore grew countless mutated plants, dense beyond counting.
On the far bank, towering plants shot into the clouds, their trunks twisted and coiling.
Some plants had broad, thick leaves over a person’s height, their surfaces covered in sharp spines that glinted coldly in the dim light. Vines twined around one another, sprawling recklessly across the ground—Jiang Zhi could even see them writhing now and then, as if possessed of their own consciousness.
In the depths of the woods, some plants bore enormous flowers, their petals layer upon layer.
And at the edge where lake and plants interwove, the aquatic mutated plants were even stranger still: rooted in the lakebed, their slender stems poking out of the water with unnamed sacs hanging at the tips, some sacs swaying gently, liable to burst at any moment and release who-knew-what.
This unexplored place had an inexplicably unnerving look to it.
Jiang Zhi sensed for a moment, then her eyes lit up, within just the few hundred meters the terrain radar covered, she found two gold markers.
But correspondingly, there were also no small number of red warning dots, enough to make one’s scalp crawl.
Jiang Zhi pressed down her stirring heart and retreated back into the cave.
She took one last look at the world beyond the cave and drew a deep breath.
This place was not somewhere she could set foot in for now, better to come explore once she’d grown stronger.
Just as she was about to lift a foot, she suddenly noticed a dim gold marker appear at the spot where the mutated creature had been.
Jiang Zhi froze, she actually hadn’t noticed it just now.
Jiang Zhi knew she shouldn’t be greedy.
But, she’d come all this way already…
Under the strong temptation, Jiang Zhi couldn’t help but turn and walk over.
That was clearly the mutated creature’s lair.
Even standing far off she could smell the rank stench.
Jiang Zhi glanced back at the situation outside the cave, and seeing no sign of the mutated creature returning, she quickly stepped inside.
The mouth alone was over two people tall, pitch-black as if leading to an abyss, ringed about with jagged, grotesque rocks.
Just standing there, Jiang Zhi felt she might be knocked out by the stink.
The moment she walked in, a damp, rotting, fishy air rushed at her.
The vast cavern hall stretched endlessly into the depths. Stalactites hung from the vaulted ceiling like a great beast’s fangs, while the ground bristled with jagged protrusions like sinister reefs, gloomy and chilling.
From the size of the lair alone, one could guess the mutated creature’s body, probably no less than ten meters long.
Before the great boulder in the middle was spread a layer of rotted, damp leaves, and beside it lingered the bones of past prey.
Jiang Zhi carefully avoided the bones, covered her nose, and picked up a stick to rake around the spot of the gold marker.
But aside from a few palm-sized yellow leaves, there was nothing on the ground.
Jiang Zhi frowned.
That couldn’t be right…
From the moment the terrain radar appeared until now, it had never once been wrong.
She sensed again, and the dim gold marker was still sitting steadily right there.
Since it wasn’t wrong, there was only one possibility—
these few leaves were the gold-marked items.
Jiang Zhi picked them up for a careful look. The few leaves were shaped like cattail fans, their edges serrated and sharp as blades, a strange luminescence flowing through the veins. The leaf surfaces gave off a warm, gentle glow, the veins as if outlined in gold thread, clear and mysterious.
Jiang Zhi leaned in for a careful sniff, a faint, rich fragrance drifted off them.
The next moment, a wave of coolness seeped instantly into her heart, and in that instant the fatigue on her body seemed swept away with the press of a button.
If she’d had any doubt a moment ago, this one sniff settled it, these few leaves were no ordinary thing.
Although she didn’t know what they did, they were good things, beyond a doubt.
Jiang Zhi quickly stowed the leaves and swept the lair with one more glance.
In an unguarded moment, she spotted in a corner something wrinkled like a wad of dirty rag, and her pupils contracted sharply. This was—
a snake slough!
She instinctively held her breath, and only after a few seconds did she recover.
Her heart pounded uncontrollably, thump-thump-thump.
—A snake slough this big. One could imagine just how massive that mutated snake was.
She steadied herself, body taut, not daring to linger, and hurried out of the mutated creature’s lair, returning to the other end of the cave.
She hadn’t been walking back long when she heard Jiang Shu and the others calling out anxiously.
“Ah Zhi! Ah Zhi, where are you!?”
By the sound of it, they were clearly thinking of pressing deeper inside too.
Jiang Zhi quickly answered, “I’m here!”
Hearing Jiang Zhi answer, the three of them visibly relaxed.
Jiang Shu trotted over, and seeing Jiang Zhi safe and whole, scolded with a sour face, “You wretched girl, where on earth did you run off to? Trying to scare us to death?”
Jiang Zhi hastily put on an apologetic smile. “Brother, I’m sorry. I just went to use the bathroom, didn’t expect it to be this deep in here, and I got a bit lost.”
Xu Na said nervously, “You didn’t run into any danger, did you?”
Jiang Zhi opened her mouth, then in the end smiled. “No. Sorry to worry you all.”
In a turn of thought, Jiang Zhi decided to keep the matter of another world beyond the cave to herself for now.
That mutated snake had been blocked by the narrow terrain and couldn’t come over, but Jiang Zhi had taken the good thing from the mutated snake’s lair, there was no telling when it might fly into a rage.
Even though she didn’t know whether the mutated snake could squeeze through, there was a risk all the same.
Jiang Zhi made up a casual excuse. “Brother Wen, it’s very deep inside this cave, who knows what snakes and bugs are hiding in there. We shouldn’t come here again.”
Jiang Wen nodded at once. “All right, we’ll listen to you.”
Jiang Shu was still shaken. He went on grumbling, “Ah Zhi, from now on at least say something before you go far. I really thought you’d run into a snake just now.”
Jiang Zhi gave a stiff smile. Wasn’t it exactly a snake she’d run into.
Xu Na chided too, “I figured you’d gone for a number two, but the more I thought about it the more uneasy I got, so I woke Ah Wen and the others.”
Now that they’d found her, the three of them dropped the lecturing.
Jiang Shu said, “All right, the temperature outside has dropped. Let’s hurry and catch more cotton aphids, and head back early today too.”
The four of them left the cave and went on cooperating to catch cotton aphids a few more times.
Whether it was because of the scorching sun or not, the hit rate dropped a fair bit in the afternoon, a whole Oxford-cloth bag yielded only twenty or thirty jin of goods, and not a single low-toxin cotton aphid among them.
Jiang Shu was greatly disappointed. “Don’t tell me we’ve used up all our good luck?”
Jiang Wen consoled him, “We collected plenty this morning anyway. It’s about time now, let’s head back first, and come take a look again early tomorrow.”
Although Jiang Wen reckoned the number of people coming to catch cotton aphids tomorrow would surely grow.
Even though they’d deliberately steered clear of others just now, their movements had been so big that no few people had seen.
The Jiang siblings had no objection. Carrying “great treasures” on them now, of course it was best to leave early.
And Xu Na hadn’t been out gathering in a long time. Although she’d rested at noon, her stamina had reached its limit, so she agreed to head back early too.
Having decided to leave, Jiang Shu and Jiang Wen packed up the whole day’s haul and lashed it onto the cart.
If nothing else, over a hundred jin of cotton aphids already counted as a bumper harvest.
On the way back, Jiang Shu and Jiang Wen, the two grown men, took turns pushing the cart, and as they walked they couldn’t help thinking about how to enjoy these cotton aphids tonight.
Xu Na said with feeling, “This is the first time I’ve ever had a haul like this. Feels like I struck it big.”
Jiang Wen said with a smile, “Same here. Before, when I went out with friends, it was either running into some annoying mutated bug or running into mutated voles in the fields. Just guarding against those things ate up a lot of time, and it was nerve-racking every step, after a whole day, there’d be nothing to show for it.”
The two of them got Jiang Shu feeling smug again. “See? Stick with us and you’ll never go hungry! We’ve got the Goddess of Fortune’s blessing.”
Xu Na said expectantly, “I just wonder if tomorrow can be as good as today.”
Jiang Shu thumped his chest in guarantee, “Don’t worry, it definitely can!”
Jiang Wen couldn’t help laughing.
This cousin of his had had an optimistic, cheerful nature since childhood. With someone like that around, life could never get too bitter.
The four of them walked back, chatting and laughing.
That cartful of goods drew frequent glances from passersby traveling the same road.
Even though it was covered with cloth and you couldn’t see what was inside, this much stuff looked, to outsiders, like a great harvest!
The closer they got to the base, the more people there were on the road.
Seeing their bulging cart, someone couldn’t resist coming up to ask, “Young man, what’s all this you’ve got? Which collection zone did you find it in?”
The moment the man finished, Jiang Wen’s face fell. “What are you after? Don’t you know the rules?”
Jiang Wen was usually smooth and easy to get along with, but with a stern face he was quite intimidating.
Sure enough the man jumped in fright and quickly said, “Don’t get me wrong, young man, I, I mean no harm, I just wanted to know where I could find this much food.”
Jiang Wen was unmoved, his face cold. “We found this ourselves. We’re under no obligation to tell you.”
The man pressed on shamelessly, “Don’t be like that, young man. We’re all from the same base, you can’t bear to watch everyone starve, can you? There’s so much of this resource, telling us costs you nothing, just count it as making friends.”
His words sounded high-minded, and he even tried to stir up the surrounding passersby.
Those few passersby, already eyeing them enviously, took the chance to stop too. “Yeah, yeah, times are hard for everyone now, we just want to know where you found the food…”
“As long as you tell us, we’ll all be grateful to you.”
Jiang Shu laughed in anger, what kind of warped logic was this? He pulled out the bone staff and walked over. “I say, buddy, this moral-blackmail act of yours might’ve worked in the old days, but what era is this? Who the hell can’t bear to watch you starve?”
The man was at a loss for words, and was about to keep going when he saw the tall, willowy girl standing by the cart suddenly draw a machete and swing it a couple of times:
“Why waste words with them, they just want to rob us! Just chop them!”
Jiang Wen: …A few years apart, and somehow these two siblings had gotten more and more vicious.
The man at the head couldn’t help taking a step back.
“We’re just asking. How does that make it robbing you?”
Jiang Zhi said coolly, “Forcing us to tell you the location, how is that any different from robbing us?”
Resources were limited, one more person knowing meant one less share.
This was no longer the peaceful era of before.
After the catastrophe, it was all the more a matter of the strong reigning supreme. If nothing else, you only had to look at the base’s attitude toward Evolvers and how well they were treated.
Jiang Wen cleared his throat and pulled out his spear too. “Stop crowding around us, or don’t blame us for getting rough.”
Those people wanted to say more, when a shout came from behind them: “What’s going on? What are you all crowding around here for?”
The moment the encircling passersby heard that voice, they scattered like startled birds and beasts.
Jiang Zhi and the others turned to look and saw someone in base uniform driving a pre-catastrophe electric four-wheeled sightseeing cart toward them.
It was the base patrol.
And, surprisingly, an old acquaintance.
Jiang Shu broke into a grin the moment he saw who it was.
“Brother Li, what a coincidence.”
Jiang Shu said that one line good and loud, as if afraid anyone with bad intentions might not realize he knew people on the patrol.
Seeing it was the Jiang siblings, Chen Li didn’t mind Jiang Shu borrowing his clout, but was a little surprised. “How’s it you two? Everything all right?”
Jiang Shu grinned. “All thanks to you, Brother Li, or it’d have been hard to say.”
Chen Li smiled faintly.
This kid sure knew how to talk.
From the look of things just now, anyone could tell the group wasn’t easily cowed, if it had really come to blows, those people would likely have come off the worse.
He glanced at the few snakeskin sacks stuffed full on their cart, but didn’t ask. “You’ve had a good haul today, still, be careful. This is base territory, comms work here, call me if anything comes up.”
Jiang Shu’s smile widened. “Will do, thanks, Brother Li!”
He took out a few sections of the cloyingly sweet sugarcane. “This is what we found today, Brother Li, take some to quench your thirst.”
Chen Li waved it off with a smile. “No need. Things aren’t easy for you either, keep it for yourselves. We’re not some warlords, no need for you to pay us tribute.”
With that, Chen Li got straight into the cart. “We’ll be off first. You all hurry on back too.”
And he had his colleague drive off.
Once they’d left, Jiang Wen said, “Dashu, how do you two even know someone on the patrol?”
These people usually wore such a haughty air that they wouldn’t deal with ordinary folk like them at all.
Jiang Shu told him about selling the car, and Jiang Wen said, “You two really did luck out. That day the patrol must’ve been on duty there, and you happened to run into them.”
Generally speaking, the city-gate guards were a separate post, a different matter from the patrol.
Jiang Shu: “You bet. I figure ever since coming to the base, there’s no stopping my run of luck.”
Xu Na joked, “Then aren’t we riding on your good fortune?”
Jiang Shu lifted his chin. “Well, just a little!”
Jiang Zhi glanced after the departing Chen Li. “This guy’s pretty decent.”
Jiang Shu nodded in agreement. “We can keep doing business with him for this batch of goods.”
If it’d been one of those scheming types, never mind sugarcane, they wouldn’t have left without being slipped something good.
Jiang Wen said with a smile, “That’s the good thing about Ancheng Base, very few people bully the common folk. There’s a class gap, sure, but you don’t usually get those flagrant bullies.”
As they talked, the four of them kept pushing the cart on toward the base.
With Chen Li’s appearance, the trip back went unusually smoothly, and the four made it back to the base without much trouble.
＊
After the children left the house, Ye Qingyun and her two sisters-in-law, Wu Xiu and the other, got busy.
Ye Qingyun planned to weave each household a few grass mats out of crabgrass.
There weren’t enough beds at home now, apart from the original three air mattresses, the rest were cobbled together from boards, and a night sleeping on them left Ye Qingyun’s back aching terribly.
A day or two was fine, but over the long run, people were bound to develop problems.
The mutated crabgrass had grown big and long.
One blade could be split into four or five five-centimeter strips.
Ye Qingyun had traded for this grass from her neighbor Ma Hongyan. It made excellent mats, cool to the touch, perfect for summer.
The women were all capable homemakers, and the prepared crabgrass was soon woven, layer over layer, into mat after mat.
Wu Xiu set down a seat cushion she’d just finished weaving and couldn’t help glancing into the tent again.
Her husband and son still hadn’t woken, and her heart was on them every moment.
Ye Qingyun said, “Eldest Sister-in-Law, go in and look after Eldest Brother and the others. We can manage out here.”
Wu Xiu felt a little embarrassed. “I just worry they’ll wake up later and feel uneasy in unfamiliar surroundings.”
Yuan Ying said with a smile too, “That’s the truth. Eldest Sister-in-Law, you’d best go in and keep watch.”
Wu Xiu didn’t decline further. Jiang Hai and his son had been unconscious a day and a night now, even trusting Jiang Zhi, her heart was still unsettled.
“All right, I won’t stand on ceremony with you then.”
With that, Wu Xiu stood and walked into the tent.
At that moment, Jiang Hai and his son lay quietly on the bed.
Wu Xiu found a low stool and sat beside them.
Looking at the two men’s noticeably ruddier complexions, her heart ached, and she couldn’t help murmuring to herself, “When are you two going to wake up? Ah Zhi fed you something so precious, how come you’re still not awake? You’re tormenting me on purpose, aren’t you…”
“Look at the both of you, too lazy by half, leaving all the housework to me all this time. Not a shred of consideration for a person…”
She muttered to herself for a while, and seeing the father and son still unresponsive, she sighed and was about to stand and go out, when she saw Jiang Jun’s eyelids twitch.
Wu Xiu paused.
She held her breath, staring intently.
But a moment passed, and Jiang Jun showed no further change.
Wu Xiu gave a bitter smile. “Just an illusion after all.”
She turned and lifted the door curtain, only to hear a long-unheard voice: “—Mom?”
Wu Xiu trembled.
She didn’t even dare turn around to look.
Afraid it was just another hallucination.
“—Mom.”
That voice came again.
Wu Xiu suddenly couldn’t stop shaking, tears flooding her face along with it.
She slowly turned around.
And saw that mouth so like her own, curving faintly up at her.
Wu Xiu covered her mouth and, unable to hold back any longer, stumbled over and threw herself at him. “Ah Jun!! Mom’s Ah Jun!”