Li Xiaoxiao had signed a deed of sale. In principle, she had no private property of her own, and theoretically, everything she owned belonged to her employer. So when it came to the four piglets, three of which were to be given to her masters to eat, she had no objection. “All right, half a piglet each.”
When the evening meal was brought over, even Madam Liu was surprised. “Where did the suckling pig come from?”
Even Magistrate Meng, who was lying on his sickbed, could not help turning his head. The aroma of roast suckling pig stirred a great deal of nostalgia in him as well.
Yingchun explained, “They’re wild piglets that Xiaoxiao encountered when she went into the mountains to gather firewood today. She caught four of them and sent one each to Madam, the concubine, and the young miss.”
Madam Liu sighed. “She is thoughtful indeed. Yingchun, reward her with that dish of sweet fermented milk.”
Yingchun readily agreed. “Yes.”
Magistrate Meng could not eat anything else, but this time, he managed to eat several slices of tender roast suckling pig. Afterward, he drank his medicine and fell into a deep sleep.
It was rare for him to regain his appetite and eat nearly half a bowl of rice. Madam Liu was delighted and instructed Yingchun again, “If Xiaoxiao can find any other game in the mountains, I’ll reward her for it when she comes back.”
Li Xiaoxiao and Mama Mao shared one of the piglets in the kitchen. Upon hearing Madam Liu’s words, Li Xiaoxiao nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
Yingchun said happily, “The magistrate ate half a bowl of rice today. If his appetite has recovered, perhaps he’ll make a full recovery soon.”
Mama Mao prayed fervently, “Bodhisattva, please bless the magistrate and let him get better soon.”
Early the next morning, Li Xiaoxiao set off again in the ox cart. This time, with Madam Liu’s instructions, Mama Mao did not stop her. She even prepared enough steamed buns to last her the whole day.
“Take these with you. If you can’t find any game, catching a few fish in the stream will do too. Fish from the mountains taste much better than pond-raised fish.”
Li Xiaoxiao had not even found a water source in the mountains yet. “All right. I’ll look for one near the water.”
When she arrived at Hedong Village, the village head had already led several households to wait nearby. Li Xiaoxiao handed the ox over to them and entered the mountains alone.
After returning home the previous night, the village head had selected six households by drawing lots. Each household would rent the ox for half a day. The man who was using the ox that day watched Li Xiaoxiao curiously as she walked into the mountains.
“Village Head, we’ve already prepared the firewood and grass for her. Why is this young lady going into the mountains?”
Why not just sit in the village and wait for the ox, then go home once she was done?
The village head froze. Right, why was she going into the mountains alone? Could she really be going hunting for game?
Thinking about how she had supposedly gone to gather firewood yesterday but had actually brought back four piglets, he could not help wondering even more. Villagers often went to gather firewood at the foot of the mountain, so wild boars generally did not dare come out. Then where had she found those piglets?
Could she have gone into the deep mountains alone?
The village head turned pale with fright. There were wolves in the deep mountains!
Seeing that she had already disappeared from sight, the village head decided that when he came back to return the ox that evening, he would come over as well and have a serious talk with Li Xiaoxiao. Qifeng Mountain was far too dangerous. She could not simply wander deeper into it. If something happened to her, there would not even be anyone around to hear her call for help!
Meanwhile, Li Xiaoxiao, who had already traveled this way once, followed the markers she had left yesterday and soon found the bamboo grove where she had hidden the wild boar.
But what she saw startled her. Where was the large boar that had been in the bamboo grove? All that remained at the scene were scattered traces of blood and clumps of organs.
Li Xiaoxiao rushed forward and crouched down to examine the traces carefully. The pile of bamboo leaves was covered in mottled bloodstains, along with a huge mass of foul-smelling pig intestines.
Such a huge pig had actually been eaten!
Li Xiaoxiao’s expression darkened. It had taken her so much effort to catch such a large wild boar. Originally, she only needed to drink its blood for four days to accumulate enough energy to activate the necklace. Yet now it had been eaten by other beasts. It was simply outrageous.
There were not many signs of struggle at the scene, which was easy enough to understand. The wild boar had been tied up tightly by her and had no ability to fight back. But this boar weighed at least three to four hundred jin, yet only a set of pig intestines had been left behind. That meant the attackers were not merely a single carnivorous animal. There should have been a whole group.
How many kinds of meat-eating animals were there in the forest? Tigers, leopards, wolves. If nothing unexpected had happened, it should be those three.
She searched around the spot and found a small tuft of grayish-white fur. A look of understanding flashed through her eyes.
So that was it. Wolves.
There was a wolf pack in Qifeng Mountain.
She did not feel particularly sorry about losing the wild boar, but having to hunt for fresh blood all over again greatly irritated her.
There was nothing she could do about it. If she did not replenish her blood today, all the blood she had drunk yesterday would have been wasted.
She could only resign herself to it and follow the traces left by the wolf pack.
Wolf packs only lived deep in the forest. Afraid of getting lost, she left markers along the way. Before she knew it, she had gone farther and farther, until the sound of flowing water reached her ears.
Her spirits lifted. There was water.
After walking for so long, she had steamed buns to stave off her hunger, but the water in her flask had already run out, and she was desperately thirsty.
Now that she had found water, she carefully observed her surroundings. After confirming that there were no aggressive animals nearby, she jumped down beside the stream, bent over, and drank deeply.
Once she had finally drunk her fill, she took out two steamed buns and ate them. As she ate, she carefully studied the terrain around her.
Various footprints covered the little sandy patch that had been washed out beside the stream. She carefully compared them. There were birds, wild boars, wolves, and even bears.
Li Xiaoxiao raised her head and looked at the position of the sun. It was already noon.
She was deep in the forest now. It had taken her nearly half a day to get here from the foot of the mountain. If she could not catch a beast and get out quickly, she might have to spend the night here.
Although she was highly skilled and fearless, there were wolf packs and bears here. A single one would not pose much of a problem, but encountering them in groups would still carry considerable risk.
Besides, she only had a half-dull, half-sharp firewood knife in her hand. It was hardly a powerful weapon.
At most, she could stay here for one shichen before she had to start heading back out.
She found a spot by the bank and carefully concealed herself, waiting for small animals to come to the stream to drink.
She had plenty of patience.
After who knew how long, when she was almost falling asleep, she finally heard some movement. A small brown deer appeared in her line of sight at last, cautiously approaching the stream. It drank while constantly looking around.
Li Xiaoxiao’s eyes lit up. She quietly picked up the firewood knife, preparing to launch an attack when it let its guard down.
But something was faster than she was.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a grayish-white figure shoot out from the opposite side of the stream and pounce fiercely at the deer that was drinking.
The deer jerked its legs in fright and immediately tried to turn and run, but the gray wolf was not about to let it escape. It had already pounced on it, snarling as it opened its bloody jaws and bit toward the deer’s neck.
The roar of a beast served to intimidate its prey. In truth, the deer’s movements were extremely agile, but the repeated snarls frightened it so badly that its movements slowed for a moment. It was immediately knocked to the ground, and the gray wolf’s white, gleaming teeth sank deeply into its throat.
Blood gushed out.
At the critical moment, a firewood knife came crashing down from above with a clang and struck the gray wolf squarely on the nose. The wolf yelped and immediately stepped back, releasing the deer from its jaws and turning to bare its teeth viciously at the thing that had attacked it.
What greeted it was Li Xiaoxiao’s fist.
This time, she did not hold back.
Her left hand moved with lightning speed and seized the fur around the gray wolf’s neck. Her right fist slammed down hard onto its skull. With a crack, the wolf’s entire head caved in. Its body immediately collapsed. It struggled and yelped twice before going still.
The little deer tremblingly got to its feet and tried to flee.
Li Xiaoxiao sighed. “Sorry, but you can’t leave either.”
Its throat had been torn open, and blood continued to gush out. Li Xiaoxiao gripped its neck and hardened her heart before biting down.
The deer gradually lost the strength to struggle and collapsed onto the ground.
Li Xiaoxiao forced herself to endure the nausea. She really could not drink any more, so she tore the wound open further and poured the deer’s blood into her flask.
With this flask of deer blood, she probably would not have to come back for the next two days.
She should have thought of this method sooner. Otherwise, she could have simply collected the pig’s blood yesterday and would not have needed to make this trip today.
Half an incense stick later, she washed her face and rinsed her mouth, removing the bloody taste from her mouth. She chopped down a branch with the firewood knife and used it as a carrying pole, hanging the deer from one end and the gray wolf from the other before heading out of the mountains.
The sky gradually darkened, and the sun slowly slanted westward. Li Xiaoxiao followed the direction of her markers and quickened her pace. At last, she reached the foot of the mountain before it became completely dark.
There were many more torches in front of her. They belonged to villagers from Hedong Village. Seeing that she had not come out for so long, they had come to search for her.
“She’s out! Over there!”
The villager walking at the front immediately shouted when he saw her carrying two pieces of game.
The village head quickly pushed his way to the front. Seeing the two animals Li Xiaoxiao was carrying, he was taken aback.
“This… young lady, you, you went hunting?”
How could there be game at a time like this?
The villagers who had come to help search for her immediately forgot that they had intended to question her. They surrounded Li Xiaoxiao, the torches gathered together illuminating a small patch of the world as brightly as day.
It was a wolf and a deer.
The two wild animals together provided more than a hundred jin of meat. The villagers only organized hunting expeditions in winter, when the cold weather made it difficult for the animals to move. Whatever game they obtained was divided among the entire village. If they were lucky, each person might get a few liang of meat. If the hunt failed, they would basically return empty-handed.
For a moment, almost everyone looked at Li Xiaoxiao with envy.
Even the village head could not help reaching out to touch the grayish-white wolf. “Good heavens, what beautiful fur. If you tan this fur and make a wolfskin coat, it could get you through an entire winter~”
Li Xiaoxiao’s eyes lit up. “You know how to tan hides?”
A man in the crowd excitedly spoke up. “I do!”
It turned out to be an old hunter from Hexi Village. He eagerly stepped forward and carefully inspected the gray wolf’s body.
“What beautiful fur. It’s still warm, too. If you skin it and tan it right now, the hide will be loose and soft. A good wolf pelt can sell for dozens of taels of silver~”
Li Xiaoxiao immediately took the wolf down. “Then help me tan it. You can have the meat as payment.”
The old hunter’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
This wolf was not light. It weighed at least forty or fifty jin. After removing the hide and entrails, there would still be more than thirty jin of meat. She was really giving all of it away?
Li Xiaoxiao nodded. “Yes. I don’t want the meat. I only want the fur. I still need a winter coat.”
Giving away dozens of jin of wolf meat without a second thought was not like Li Xiaoxiao at all, but the truth was that she had eaten so much wolf meat during the first dozen or so years of her life that she had grown sick of it. As a result, she felt nauseated whenever she saw a wolf now. She did not even want to collect the wolf’s blood, let alone eat its meat.
Besides, winters in the apocalypse could reach temperatures of fifty or sixty degrees below zero. She did not know how cold the winters in Miyang County would get. Without a good fur pelt, she was afraid she would not survive the bitter cold of winter.
When the villagers heard that she was so generous as to give dozens of jin of meat entirely to the old hunter, they were all green with envy. The old hunter grinned from ear to ear and immediately called his son over.
“Daqing, come here quickly and help me carry the wolf home.”
The hunter’s son happily answered and immediately came forward to help his father carry the wolf away.
Before leaving, the old hunter also called out to Li Xiaoxiao, “It’ll take at least two or three months to properly tan the hide. Come find me in two months to collect the fur pelt. I’ll make sure it’s done properly for you.”
Li Xiaoxiao answered and glanced at the sky. It had already grown so dark that she could barely see anything. She borrowed a torch from the village head.
“I won’t be coming tomorrow. If you need to use the ox, just come to the back gate of the county government office to find me. I’ll lend it to you for another three days.”
The village head hurriedly agreed and lent her the torch in his hand.
Holding the torch, Li Xiaoxiao put the deer onto the ox cart and immediately drove the ox toward the county town.
The remaining dozen or so villagers held their torches, their eyes gleaming with barely contained eagerness.
“Village Head, there are deer in the mountains, and wolves too. We haven’t had meat in ages.”
Even the hunters in the village only dared to go into the mountains to hunt during winter. This was summer, when wild beasts were at their fiercest, yet Li Xiaoxiao had actually managed to bring back such good prey.
The village head was envious too. This little girl had only been in the mountains for two days. On the first day, she had found four piglets, and on the second day, she had actually caught a wolf and a deer. Wasn’t her luck a little too good?
He thought about it for a moment.
“Once all the autumn crops have been planted, we’ll organize a trip into the mountains too and see if we can come across any good prey.”
The villagers cheered and each headed home with their torches.
Meanwhile, the old hunter and his son, Daqing, carried the wolf home and immediately took out their knives to skin it.
Before long, the entire pelt had been removed intact. The old hunter was stunned.
“There isn’t even a single tear in it!”
…
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