The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 60 Stone Village

The old saying goes that summer thunderstorms come and go quickly.

This year, however, the heavens have been exceptionally unkind.

The torrential rain poured down all night.

The next day at 7:00 AM, the sky was still not clear.

Also, due to the sudden drop in temperature, the area outside the cave was shrouded in rain and mist.

The drainage ditch that the men had worked on overnight came in very handy in the latter half of the night.

The leader, surnamed Huang, had already begun assigning tasks for the day to the big boss:

"We'll split into two groups. One group will go chop lots of firewood, and the other group will continue to dig for wild vegetables."

We don't know when this rain will stop, so it's always good to prepare more firewood and wild vegetables.

It was still very cold in the latter half of last night, and the campfire never went out. All the firewood we chopped was burned!

With so many people, the daily food consumption is low. Yesterday's meal of half porridge and half wild vegetables was perfect! Delicious and economical.”

Although most of the yamen runners were of low social status, they were still drawn from various county yamens.

But they are all native city dwellers.

I only learned about wilderness survival skills during this escort mission.

Now it's time to put what you've learned into practice!

What complaints could the wood-chopping team, who were assigned the task, possibly have?
Walking in the woods.

Gan Minglan had received a hint from King Atu before dawn.

He said he had a lot of succulents to give her.

Tell her to go to the place where she planted dog grass yesterday.

She could only continue with her task of finding wild vegetables for the day.

Zuo Wenkang didn't sleep a wink last night.

After digging the drainage ditch, they wove a raincoat for Gan Minglan using the dried cattails they had collected along the way, taking into account her figure.

And let me tell you, anything made by a master chef is bound to be a masterpiece.

The raincoat I knitted last night is not only good for sheltering from the wind and rain, but it is also very exquisite and beautiful!

Gan Minglan touched her slightly protruding belly and accepted the advances of the cheap man without hesitation.

She only has two sets of clothes to change into.

When I got back yesterday, both my inner and outer clothes were soaked.

The bat cave is a closed environment, and it's not convenient to go inside to change underwear.

She could only roast herself around the campfire.

It took more than an hour to dry the damp clothes until they were half-dry.

To be honest, the whole process was very uncomfortable.

If she hadn't used her superpowers to temper her body every day and drunk the divine tree essence like a functional drink, an ordinary pregnant woman's body wouldn't have been able to withstand such abuse!

To avoid getting wet in the rain, not to mention how exquisite the raincoat that cheap man made for her was.

Now she'd be happy to have hay draped over her body.

Gan Minglan, beaming with satisfaction, led the way in her straw raincoat.

Seeing that she was digging for wild vegetables in the same valley where the disturbance had occurred last night, Mrs. She quickly advised her:
"Xia'er's teacher's wife, shall we go find another place to look for wild vegetables? Those beasts fought all night last night!"

"I wouldn't have gone if they hadn't fought there! Aren't we running out of mixed noodles? Don't you want to give the children some meat?"

"Hahaha, you actually want to snatch meat from the mouth of a ferocious beast? You really dare to dream of that!"

Before Mrs. She could finish speaking, she froze on the spot.

What are those three dark, shadowy things, one big and three small, less than a hundred meters ahead?
Gan Minglan had excellent eyesight; after carefully examining it, she exclaimed happily:
"It's wild boar, a whole family of wild boars! I guess the ferocious beast from last night didn't like wild boar meat, so it's perfect for us!"

As she spoke, she quickly ran towards the wild boar.

He rushed over and dragged them back. King Atu had ripped open the wild boars' throats and drained their blood cleanly.

The time of death was less than two hours.

The meat was fairly fresh!

Upon seeing this, Madam She and the officials who had been following them quickly came forward to help.

Officer A: "Good heavens, this family must have three or four hundred catties of meat! What incredible luck we have!"

Officer B: "Quickly, quickly, let's take the wild boar back to the cave and clean it up while the meat is still fresh! You guys shouldn't just sit around either, go find some wild vegetables!"

Officer C: "That's right, that's right! In this weather, we can't keep the wild boar meat; we have to eat it all today. Eating just meat is too greasy; wild vegetables made into pickles are the best way to cut through the greasiness!"

"."

Of the ten officials who came together, only two remained to supervise the work.

The eight men dragged the wild boar and ran quickly toward the bat cave.

While they were busy, Gan Minglan had already seen the mark that King Atu had left for her.

Very smoothly, the big black bear that it had deliberately hidden was brought into the kitchen of the treehouse.

Gan Minglan: Tsk tsk, the bear paw that the little brat was craving last night can be arranged for him!

In the dead of winter in this border town, surely a bearskin rug like this won't keep you cold!
At that moment, she was preoccupied with solving the problem of food and clothing, and had no time to think about the species crisis.

We still need to keep looking for wild vegetables!

Judging from everyone's enthusiasm for the salt-dressed Dioscorea opposita yesterday, eating it a few more times shouldn't be a problem.

To preserve the original flavor of the wild boar meat, she also picked almost half a basket of leftover doggrass roots from the wild rats the night before.
An hour later.

The group that had come back with a full load of wild vegetables met the wood-chopping team at the entrance of the bat cave.

The entrance to the cave is bustling with activity.

It turned out that a group of mountain people had come down from the neighboring mountain about fifteen minutes earlier.

The leader among the mountain people was an old man who was about 1.75 meters tall, with white hair and beard, and a robust build.

He was talking to the two leaders at the cave entrance.

His weathered face was full of sorrow:

"Sir, my surname is Zhong! We are all villagers from Shitouzhai, the highest peak on the left. Last night's torrential rain destroyed our village."
Of all these mountain ranges, only the Bat Cave on Stone Monkey Mountain is the most secure. Could we also come inside to take shelter from the rain?

The officials had just finished sizing up the hundred or so people.

Among these mountain people, adult men aged 20 to 40 make up 70%.

Of the remaining people.

There were about twenty young wives, aged between eighteen and thirty.

There were also seven boys aged between five and eight.

Old Zhong, meeting the wary gazes of the two leaders, explained to them:

"We, the people of Shitou Village, are all mountain dwellers who fled famine in the north. For generations, we have made a living by hunting. There are no doctors in the mountains, so when we get sick, we can only tough it out."

Women are most likely to die during childbirth, the most dangerous time in their lives.

It's so hard for the boys from Stone Village to find a suitable wife!

In the end, it could only be that several brothers shared one wife, and over time this led to the current situation where men outnumbered women.”

Are there still men willing to share a wife?

Officials: We've only been away for less than two months, and we've already witnessed another strange occurrence!
Old Zhong gave the officials a detailed account of the situation at Stone Village.

A dozen or so tall, strong young men grinned at the officials.

It looks a bit silly.

After discussing it, the two leaders finally agreed to the request of all the people of Stone Village to take shelter in the Bat Cave from the rain.

After all, even a dragon has to coil up on someone else's turf!
(End of this chapter)