After transmigrating into the body of a widow, I became the richest man in the capital.

Chapter 5 Hunting Wild Game in the Mountains

Several mushrooms have sprouted under the old locust tree after the rain these past few days. I can pick them and make some fish soup to nourish my body.

Su Xiaoxiao had never felt this hungry before. She had eaten some cornmeal porridge last night, which had long since been digested.

Back home, Su Xiaoxiao went straight to the kitchen and skillfully began scaling, gutting, and cleaning the fish. Then she went to the yard, set up a wooden rack for grilling fish, skewered the three large fish, lit a fire underneath, and started grilling.

The fish soup was also cooking over there, so Su Xiaoxiao told Da Bao to keep an eye on it and turn around from time to time to make sure the fish was heated evenly.

Su Xiaoxiao noticed that after she had just defeated Liu Datou, Da Bao seemed to admire her a lot. Da Bao responded immediately to whatever she said, and her guard had lowered a little bit.

Sometimes Su Xiaoxiao thought the boy was quite cute and adorable. She went into the kitchen, found a clay pot, and made soup with the remaining two fish. She washed the mushrooms, added some ginger to remove the fishy smell, and used only salt as a seasoning. However, fish soup is mainly for nourishing the body, so it doesn't need too many seasonings.

While she was busy, Xiao Bao kept peeking into the house, wanting to ask if the fish was ready. But she didn't dare to ask, still a little afraid of Su Xiaoxiao, who had already heard her stomach growling.

"Xiao Bao, are you hungry? It's okay, the grilled fish will be ready soon!"

Su Xiaoxiao put down the fish soup and went to check if the grilled fish was ready.

Da Bao was pinching off a piece of fish with his hand, trying to sneak a bite. The grilled fish was already cooked. It looked pretty good; although it was only sprinkled with a little salt, the key was that the ingredients were fresh, so it was still quite tempting.

"What, trying to sneak a bite?"

Su Xiaoxiao walked over, startling Da Bao so much that he almost dropped the fish he was holding.

"No, no..."

Da Bao appeared very flustered; he was clearly somewhat afraid of Su Xiaoxiao.

"The fish is cooked, you can take it down and eat it now!"

Su Xiaoxiao took down the two grilled fish, removed the bones for them, and placed them on the plate in front of them.

The two children were clearly starving and began to wolf down their food. Su Xiaoxiao was also hungry. When they had almost finished the three grilled fish, the fish soup she had made was ready, so she brought it over and gave it to the two children to drink as well.

While making fish soup, Su Xiaoxiao realized that there was only a little bit of salt left in the house, but fortunately, fish soup doesn't need much salt.

In this era, salt is more expensive than rice, and of the five flavors, saltiness is the most important. The key is to find a way to get some salt, as they really don't have the money to buy it. However, Su Xiaoxiao remembers that there should be a natural salt lake behind the mountain, where she can learn to make salt.

After eating and drinking her fill, Su Xiaoxiao lay lazily on the kang (a heated brick bed), looking at her two adorable children. Suddenly, she thought of her husband, who had just lifted her veil on their wedding night before being hastily summoned to the front lines to fight.

Why does she have no memory of him at all? "Da Bao, Xiao Bao, does your mother remember what your father looks like?"

"Of course!"

It's normal for Xiao Bao to not remember things clearly because he's so young.

However, Da Bao fiddled with his fingers as if counting the days, "Our father has been gone for 1,063 days."

"what?"

Su Xiaoxiao, Liu Xiaozhuang's wife, had no recollection of him at all; the original owner of this body didn't seem to care at all about her husband who died on the battlefield.

"When he smiled, two dimples always appeared. Daddy loved us very much; he was the one who helped us build the swing in the yard. In the summer, he often took us to the stream to catch fish..." Da Bao could still remember some of it, but Er Bao looked blank.

Su Xiaoxiao sighed. Poor child, her mother is dead, and her father died on the battlefield and will never come back.

Having a stepmother like myself and a mean grandmother like Granny Liu is truly unfortunate.

Su Xiaoxiao hugged the two poor children in her arms, and choked up for a moment. She knew she had to treat the two children better in the future to make up for the mistakes she had made.

That night, Su Xiaoxiao and her two children slept on the warm kang (a heated brick bed). Originally, Xiaobao was sleeping next to Su Xiaoxiao, but for some reason, Dabao pulled Xiaobao to his side and hugged him. It seems that Dabao was still wary of Su Xiaoxiao.

Su Xiaoxiao didn't blame them. After all, the original owner would pinch Xiaobao with his hands all the time, and you could still see purplish-red pinch marks on Xiaobao's tender skin.

The fish is all gone, and there's nothing else to eat at home.

Laziness will never get you anywhere. The next morning, Su Xiaoxiao decided to go to the back mountain to hunt some game, or at least dig up some wild vegetables.

The two children insisted on continuing to follow her, and Su Xiaoxiao had no choice.

Su Xiaoxiao walked ahead carrying a basket on her back, with Da Bao and Xiao Bao following behind her as they headed into the forest on the mountain.

Su Xiaoxiao, a former special agent, was used to seeing bullets and killing many people, let alone animals.

Su Xiaoxiao already knew that the dynasty she lived in was called the Former Tang Dynasty, and its customs and traditions were somewhat similar to those of the Tang Dynasty. The mountain village they lived in was a small village in Fengbei County called Baihua Village, which was famous for its many varieties of flowers.

After entering the mountains, Su Xiaoxiao finally understood that in April, as the weather was just beginning to warm up, a patch of green appeared in the mountains, and wildflowers of names that Su Xiaoxiao did not know bloomed all over the hillside.

Suddenly, Da Bao stopped and whispered to Su Xiaoxiao, "There's a pheasant up ahead."

Su Xiaoxiao didn't have a bow and arrow, but the harpoon she made yesterday came in handy. With quick reflexes, she threw the harpoon, and with a whoosh, it pierced the pheasant's belly, killing it instantly.

After catching the pheasant, Su Xiaoxiao put it in her basket, and the two children clapped their hands, exclaiming, "Mommy is so amazing!"

Su Xiaoxiao got carried away with her pride and boasted, "This is nothing! Watch your mother catch you a big tiger in a minute!"

"A big tiger?"

Xiao Bao didn't understand what "tiger" meant, so Da Bao explained it to her.

"Tigers are the most powerful animals, even more powerful than wolves, and they can eat wolves."

"You two check the ground for mushrooms or anything like that, and try not to go too far from here."

After giving instructions to the two children, Su Xiaoxiao noticed something moving in the bushes ahead. Judging from its size, it must be some kind of large animal, and she gradually became excited.

If they could hunt a wild boar or a roe deer, it should be enough for them to eat for a few days, and they might even be able to sell it at the market.

Without thinking, Su Xiaoxiao rushed towards the wriggling grass. As she got closer, she smelled a strong fishy odor. Something was wrong; the thing in the grass couldn't be small.

Su Xiaoxiao quickly took a few steps back, gripping the harpoon tightly in her hand, and got into a fighting stance. Just then, a large tiger with piercing eyes and a white forehead suddenly leaped out of the grass and blocked Su Xiaoxiao's way.

(End of this chapter)