They had just enjoyed a decent meal the night before, so no one mentioned food that morning. After packing up their things, they set off early and continued on their journey.
While the weather was still relatively cool, they wanted to cover as much ground as possible.
“Mom, why does the sun feel even hotter than yesterday?”
Jing Da looked up at the scorching sun. They had only been walking for about two hours, yet the weather was already unbearably hot.
According to their usual schedule, it should only be around Si Hour now (9:00–11:00 a.m.). How could it already be this hot? It hadn’t been nearly this hot yesterday.
“I think it’s terribly hot too. The weather is getting stranger and stranger.”
Grandma Jing let out a heavy breath and stopped to rest for a while.
Jing Yin also looked up at the sky, feeling an ominous premonition in her heart.
It was already mid-October. Normally, the weather shouldn’t be this hot.
The original owner had died early, so Jing Yin didn’t know what happened afterward. However, she had encountered similar weather in the apocalypse in her previous life.
Extreme heat was often followed by extreme cold.
Could they be about to face an extreme cold spell as well?
“Mom, water… There’s water…”
Erdan suddenly spoke weakly and pointed toward one direction.
Everyone hurriedly followed his finger.
At the foot of the mountain was a small area covered in rocks. Under the sunlight, there seemed to be a glimmer of reflected water on one of the rock walls.
It wasn’t until they walked over that they discovered a small depression in the rock wall, roughly the size of a bowl, filled with clear water.
“There really is water!”
Jing Da exclaimed in surprise and immediately praised Erdan.
He was the only one who had noticed it.
It was as if Heaven itself was giving the Jing family a way to survive.
They had rarely encountered water along the way, and now they only had one bamboo tube of water left—the one Jing Yin had brought back.
If they couldn’t find water soon, the entire family would die of thirst.
Now things were better.
Since there was water here and it hadn’t dried up under the scorching sun, there might be a larger water source nearby.
Because Erdan had found the water, Grandma Jing gave him a slightly kinder look.
She called Zhao Xiao’e over and had her slowly collect the water from the rock depression into their water bag.
However, as soon as they finished, more water began seeping into the little stone bowl.
Jing Yin looked carefully and discovered a tiny crack inside the rock wall. A small amount of water was slowly seeping through it.
When the stone bowl was full, the pressure inside and outside reached a balance, which was why the water didn’t spill out.
“There must be a water source nearby. Let’s go look for it.”
Jing Da was the first to run off.
He hadn’t had his fill of water in a very long time.
Grandma Jing and Erdan stayed behind with Zhao Xiao’e to guard the little stone bowl, while the others split up and searched farther up the mountain.
After searching around, Jing Yin finally discovered a hidden spring halfway up the mountain.
It was concealed among several large rocks.
The spring was about the size of a washbasin and was clear enough to see straight to the bottom, yet water was slowly flowing out of it.
It was a natural spring.
Jing Yin called everyone over, and they filled every usable water pouch and water bag.
Even the two bamboo tubes Jing Yin had taken out and the family’s clay pots were filled with water.
Fortunately, they had quite a few water containers, so they were able to carry a considerable amount.
Once they had filled everything, everyone drank until they were belching, only reluctantly continuing on their journey afterward.
This place was deserted and unsuitable for them to stay.
There were also rocks scattered everywhere, making it completely unsuitable for farming.
Having water alone was useless.
After traveling for a while longer, the sun became increasingly fierce, and they had no choice but to find a shady place to stop and rest.
“Today we’ll have millet porridge.”
Grandma Jing took out some of the millet they had obtained the day before and handed it to Zhao Xiao’e to cook.
Jing Yin, however, stepped forward and directly handed the rest of the millet to Zhao Xiao’e.
They had only obtained a little under half a pound of millet from those three men.
Porridge wasn’t very filling to begin with, and with such a large family, the two handfuls of millet Grandma Jing had taken out simply wouldn’t be enough.
“Grandma, we need to eat our fill to have the strength. I want some meat.”
As she spoke, Jing Yin once again got Grandma Jing to contribute another small piece of dried meat.
Grandma Jing was so heartbroken she nearly fainted.
Even during the years when their family had been doing well, they hadn’t been able to eat much meat.
And now?
They were forced to flee from the famine, yet they were eating meat at almost every meal along the way.
What kind of world was this…
While Zhao Xiao’e and Jing Da were busy cooking the porridge, Jing Yin squatted beside Jing Zhao and practiced writing characters.
She could recognize them fairly well, but she really didn’t know how to write them.
Erdan saw this and timidly came over as well.
Jing Yin immediately pulled him over to learn with them.
If you couldn’t read or write, someone could sell you off in the future and you wouldn’t even know what happened.
But if you could read and write, things would be different.
At the very least, if someone sold you, you would know how much they had sold you for.
While Zhao Xiao’e was cooking the porridge, Erdan crookedly wrote a simple character.
The usually quiet Grandpa Jing came over and, for once, praised him.
After all, Erdan was his youngest son, born in his old age.
His wife hated the child terribly because she had nearly lost her life giving birth to him.
There was no way Grandpa Jing could openly go against her wishes and anger her.
Usually, he could only secretly give Erdan a little help.
He had almost never openly praised him like this.
After praising Erdan, Grandpa Jing glanced at Grandma Jing from the corner of his eye.
Seeing that she wasn’t angry, he finally relaxed.
Thank goodness.
His wife seemed to be in a pretty good mood these past two days.
“Dad, you’re already this old and you’re still afraid of Mom. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
Jing Da walked over with a look of disdain.
He had never seen a man who was afraid of his own wife.
Grandpa Jing immediately puffed out his beard and glared.
How could his son talk about his own father like that?!
“Wife, your son says you’re a tigress. Aren’t you going to do something about it?”
Grandpa Jing immediately turned around and complained to Grandma Jing.
Jing Da: “……”!!!
Σ(ŎдŎ|||)ﾉﾉ
That was slander!
Absolutely blatant slander!
Before he could explain himself, he turned around and saw Grandma Jing already picking up a stick and marching toward him.
“No, Mom! Wait—Ah!”
“Hmph! Such a grown man, yet you still let your mother chase you around and beat you. Pathetic.”
Grandpa Jing snorted.
Trying to compete with him?
His son was still far too young!
…
Once the millet porridge was ready, Jing Yin secretly added a few drops of Spirit Spring Water.
The Jing family’s constitutions weren’t very good after years of hunger.
If she could improve their health, she might as well do it.
After all, this family had treated the original owner quite well.
And if she wanted to survive in this era, she would also have to rely on this family…
Perhaps it was because she had added the Spirit Spring Water, but the millet-and-meat porridge seemed especially delicious.
Yet she still desperately wanted to eat a big mouthful of meat.
Braised pork, sweet-and-sour ribs, soy-braised beef…
She wanted spicy-and-sour rice noodles.
She wanted hot pot…
Although she hadn’t done particularly well in the apocalypse in her previous life, she had never really mistreated herself when it came to food.
Whenever she saw something delicious, she would shamelessly stuff it into her mouth.
What did dignity matter?
In the apocalypse, getting food into her stomach was what really mattered.
But then she transmigrated…
Sigh.
Aside from the food, everything else was actually pretty good.
[Ding! A venomous snake has been discovered. Hurry up and use its fangs to make a beautiful snake-fang bracelet! Host, would you like to accept the crafting mission?]
The system’s voice suddenly rang out.
Jing Yin stared wide-eyed, somewhat dumbfounded.
This system really didn’t treat snakes like snakes at all.
Any snake that encountered it was truly unlucky for eight lifetimes.
Luckily, it had encountered her…
There was no way she would let that snake escape.
(System, accept the mission.)
[Ding! Crafting mission issued. Successfully completing the mission will reward you with 2 points and 1 bottle of Universal Antidote. Failure will result in no reward.]
Perhaps to urge her to complete the mission, the system had deliberately emphasized this time that there would be no reward for failure.
Jing Yin felt quite wronged.
(System, do you think I don’t want to complete the mission? I was obviously forced into it! Clearly, you’re trying to tempt me into giving up on the mission with food…)
Jing Yin grumbled inwardly.
System: “…”
“Snake! Where did that snake come from?!”
Zhao Xiao’e suddenly jumped to her feet and let out a terrified scream.
“Tangyuan, go!”
Jing Yin had already locked onto the snake’s location.
At her command, Tangyuan shot out like an arrow.
By the time everyone reacted, Tangyuan had already bitten the snake’s head off.
Only its arm-length body remained, writhing wildly on the ground.
“Wife! Wife, are you hurt?”
Jing Da hurried over to Zhao Xiao’e and checked whether the snake had bitten her.
Zhao Xiao’e’s face was deathly pale. She shook her head in lingering fear.
When she looked at the snake again, she saw that her daughter had already taken out her dagger and pried the snake’s fangs from its mouth.
“Silver, be careful. I think this snake might be venomous…”
Zhao Xiao’e softly warned her.
“I know, Mom. I’ll be careful.”
As Jing Yin spoke, she rummaged through the bamboo basket and found a length of white thread.
She twisted it together, threaded the two cleaned snake fangs onto it, and finally put it around her wrist.
“Grandma, a snake-fang bracelet. Does it look pretty?”
Jing Yin proudly showed Grandma Jing the bracelet she had made.
Grandma Jing: “…”
Was something wrong with her granddaughter’s eyes?
What part of this thing could possibly be called pretty?
[Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have completed the crafting mission. Rewards: 2 points and 1 bottle of Universal Antidote.]
As soon as Jing Yin finished making it, the system issued her reward.
But for some reason, its voice sounded a little…
Unhappy?
(System, I completed the mission, didn’t I? You don’t seem very happy…)
System: “…”
Happy?
Happy my ass!
So when it said “beautiful snake-fang bracelet,” she had apparently only heard the four words “snake-fang bracelet”!
But what if she thought it was beautiful?
The system couldn’t exactly declare the mission a failure just because it thought the bracelet was ugly…
(New book release! I hope everyone who enjoys it can click the “urge to update” button~ (￣▽￣)~*)