It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

For safety reasons, eight people were sent to explore Qinshan, representing nearly 20% of the remaining population of Dongshan Village. Besides Elder Jiang Shun, Jiang Yan, Jiang Yuan, and Jiang Nian, there was also Aunt Gao Ni, my uncles Jiang He and Jiang Hu, and Jiang Ju.

Jiang Yan and Jiang Nian were both struggling physically. One was severely malnourished and frail, the other lacked exercise in the county town. They fell to the end of the group, their cheeks flushed, as they leaned against a chestnut tree, panting.

Jiang Yuan pulled out the second and third planks from his backpack, aligned them, and gestured with his fingers: "Grandpa Shun, we need to walk northwest for about half an hour to find the naihua forest."

Qinshan is not a single peak, but a mountain range composed of numerous mountains, one after another, stretching endlessly. When Dongshan villagers talk about going to Qinshan, they are actually just entering the outer reaches of Qinshan, near Xiaoqingfeng and Pingdingfeng, the two peaks adjacent to Dongshan Village. Any further is just the southern foot of Daqingshan, which lies to the north and south of these two peaks.

There are also many neem trees growing on these two peaks, scattered in different locations, and there are several areas with similar directions and distances.

When Jiang Yuan and his team were drawing the map yesterday, without taking into account the expansion of forests over the past century or the reduction in the area of ​​felling, they roughly estimated the time difference required to reach different reference points based on the length of the lines, minimizing interference factors as much as possible.

Jiang Shun listened patiently, looked at the sun rising higher, looked at the growth of the chestnut tree branches, chose a direction, and continued on his journey.

After entering the unfamiliar forest, everyone kept their ears open and their eyes on all sides, walking very carefully to avoid running into large beasts that came out to hunt.

Jiang Shun also stopped and observed the surrounding forest types along the way, discussing with Jiang Yuan and Jiang Nian the revisions to the reference points and distances on the route map. Fortunately, Jiang Yuan and his sister understood most of the reference points correctly, which reduced the time spent on detours and backtracking.

It was not until the sun was setting, around three or four in the afternoon, that everyone finally arrived at the end of the route map - the halfway point of a high mountain that the people of Dongshan Village had never set foot on.

Everyone dispersed within their own field of vision and searched everywhere for the cave.

Jiang Yan stood on a raised earthen slope, slowly rotating his gaze around. Turning southeast, he finally spotted an unusually large rock two or three meters down and to the right of his sight.

From her current position, Jiang Yan could only see the outer portion of the stone. But with her extensive experience studying the "giant stones" with large inscriptions at the entrances of elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, residential areas, and parks before her time travel, it was hard for anyone to resist leaving their mark on this one.

Especially since this mountain has a cave where our ancestors lived in the past... They may have seen it when they were wandering around the mountain looking for food, and admired it when they were bored. Who knows, maybe our ancestors found a way to move it back... to suppress the cave entrance? ! ! !

Boy, she had a brilliant idea.

Jiang Yan walked to the top of the rock, hooked the tree trunk tightly with his right hand, and then leaned over to look down.

The left side of the boulder is pressed against the wall, while the right side is at a nearly 60-degree angle. Extend your left hand forward and feel the air flow. It feels like the air is flowing faster. There's a good chance there's a cave beneath your feet.

Jiang Yan asked Aunt Gao Ni to break off a long, thick branch to use as a stick and hit the right side of the big rock from above. After knocking for a while, no beasts came out.

Jiang Shun watched from the side and asked Jiang He, Jiang Hu and Jiang Ju to pick up some big rocks and then throw them into the gap between the big rocks and the mountain wall.

The rocks didn't bounce back, so there's definitely a cave. I didn't hear much of the rock hitting the ground, so the cave is quite deep. I've thrown so many rocks, and still nothing's happening. The cave should be relatively safe.

Jiang Shun asked Jiang Hu to join him in exploring the cave, and had Aunt Gao Ni, Jiang He, and Jiang Yuan leave a rope above the rock to help them pull up if there was any trouble. Then he took out the torches he had prepared from his backpack, lit them, and the two of them tentatively advanced into the cave.