Others are fleeing famine, but I am a salted fish

Nothing happened overnight, and everyone got busy the next day after dawn. The mountain road was difficult to walk on, especially after dark. If you are not careful, you may step on a snake lying in the grass, and it will bite you suddenly, which is very fun.

So, we discussed it last night and got up early every day to prepare at least two meals. No matter whether it was dry or liquid, everyone would find a way to carry it. We would not stop to light the fire and cook at noon. We would only stop to rest when we were really tired, but we still had to try to squeeze in more time to walk. It was not until nightfall that everyone stopped to rest and prepare food.

Aside from the three families who came to seek medical treatment later, they didn't have to take care of their food. Lin Xiaoyue counted the 3 people on her side, and based on the daily consumption of surplus food, they could last for about seven or eight days. If they ate sparingly and added some chopped wild vegetables and leaves to cook together, and if she could find an opportunity, she could grab a handful or two from the space before cooking each time, which wouldn't be too conspicuous, and it would be no problem for everyone to last another ten days or half a month.

It would be difficult for her to pay out even if it was more. The key point was that she had no excuse.

But the good thing is that everyone is in the mountains, and as long as they are not extremely unlucky, the mountain products, leaves, bark and grass roots can still allow them to get to the state capital.

But, it won’t work without water.

At present, almost every household has been cut off from water and can only rely on their family to survive. Even if Lin Xiaoyue sneaked out of the space, everyone could see after going up the mountain that they only had two jars of water (the jars for pickled cabbage were washed and filled with water, otherwise they only used wooden barrels, which would spill all the way up the mountain).

Excluding the money used for making pancakes in the morning and boiling medicine for the patients, the remaining money could probably fill a water bag for each family, and that was almost the bottom.

Therefore, in addition to protecting Dr. Qiao and Chun Xing as they collected herbs, the second purpose of their group today was to find water along the way.

It's so damn hot today. If there's no water, I'm afraid they won't be able to survive for even three days.

Fortunately, Doctor Qiao often went into the mountains in his early years, and the porters and mountain people he hired were all experts. During the conversation, they also mentioned how to find herbs close to water sources in the Ten Thousand Mountains.

It just so happens that among the missing raw licorice, Yuanshen, red peony root and coptis chinensis, there are medicinal herbs that grow with water. Therefore, today's two goals can be said to be extremely consistent.

Generally, water sources are either at the bottom of the valley or in the mountainous areas.

Doctor Qiao remembered that the mountain people once told him that there was a ravine between two mountains, and the rocks in the ravine were followed by the flow of water. The chances of finding water source would be greater if one went to the high slopes between the two mountains.

With a direction in mind, everyone no longer had to walk around blindly. They quickly put their breakfast in their arms, put on their backpacks, and quickly formed a formation to continue climbing the mountain.

Now they had to climb over the mountain before they could get down to the narrow, low-lying ridge behind it to find the underground current under the rock.

During this day's trek, the group discovered that the higher they went, the steeper the mountain became. There were some places where animals simply couldn't climb up. They could either choose to take a detour and climb up the gentle slope, but that would take more time; or they could only rely on a few men to pull and push from the front and back to help the animals climb up.

Considering the time problem, Lin Xiaoyue decisively chose the second method. She didn't ask anyone else, but pointed to Ergou to help pull the animal in front, and pay attention to the direction, so as not to let the animal slip when it goes up.

It's not that she didn't want others to help, but most of the old, weak, women and children in their group who could carry the load had fallen. Even if there were one or two people who were still strong, it was hard enough just to carry the items on the shelf, so how could they have any extra strength?

As for the remaining women and children, it's ok to kill some chickens and ducks on weekdays, but as for pulling cows, forget it, there's no way they can carry both people and animals down with them.

So, after everyone went up, they saw Lin Xiaoyue's great strength work miracles again. She weighed Lin Laodi on the backpack behind her, asked him to keep steady, then rubbed her hands together, and pushed the mule and ox weighing hundreds of kilograms up the steep slope.

He raised his hand without hesitation, as if he was playing a game, without any effort at all.

If you don’t know, you might think that the cow and mule are made of paper.

It's simply fantastic.

The ox and the mule probably never thought that there would be a day when they would be lifted up high by two-legged beasts. Their huge pupils were about to pop out.

After both of them went up, it took him a long time to come back to his senses.

However, Lin Xiaoyue patted the stubborn mule specially, and the mule did not lose its temper or kick its feet today. It was unexpectedly well-behaved.

Mule: ...Do I dare? With your ridiculously large strength that is totally disproportionate to your thin arms, even if I were given ten times the courage, I would not dare to act rashly...I am so depressed.

After passing the steepest section of the mountain road, everyone walked much faster.

When the sun was high in the sky, they finally climbed over the top of the mountain and then headed down the mountain.

It is said that it is easy to go up a mountain but difficult to go down, let alone the wilderness and the untrodden mountain roads where no one has ever stepped on. Both people and animals will slip from time to time.

Fortunately, everyone had a walking stick to support themselves, but the animals could not do that. In order to prevent the animals from slipping, Lin Xiaoyue tore two strips of cloth and wrapped them around the hooves of the cows and mules to increase the friction with the ground. At the same time, in order to prevent them from falling, everyone had to slow down their speed to accommodate the animals.

In this way, the group walked cautiously, stopping and walking until Shenshi (around four o'clock in the afternoon), and finally saw the concave ridge at the foot of the mountain.

When they reached the foot of the mountain, everyone immediately went to look for moist rock layers and muddy ground. They bent over and spread out, carefully exploring every inch with their hands.

The women and children soon found edible wild vegetables and grass roots, and they were all very happy; Doctor Qiao and his grandson also found several herbs growing in the shade. They all grew well, with no signs of withering, which showed that there was groundwater flowing under this concave ridge. Otherwise, they would not have been able to harvest so much.

Finally, it was Little Four and Little Five who were sharp-eyed. They saw a few sparrows gathered in a field pecking at insects. The two little kids happily rushed over, scaring the timid sparrows so much that they flapped their wings and flew away, leaving the insects without their claws, which immediately turned around and burrowed into the soil.

The two little kids couldn't catch the little sparrow with wings, so how could they let go of the little bug that couldn't fly? So, they broke off a branch from somewhere and poked the place where the bug had gone down.

Then, everyone heard the two little ones exclaiming loudly, "Sister, sister, come quickly, there is water coming out here!"

When everyone heard the noise, they immediately gathered around to see what was happening. As expected, they saw the two little guys had done a great job by finding the source of water. Then, the two heroes were taken aside by her second and third sisters.

The men spat into their palms and rubbed them with great enthusiasm, then began to swing their arms, waving hoes and shovels, and started digging at the places where the two little guys had poked out.