WS - Chapter 148
Chapter 148
Yu Nianbing could no longer quite remember how many times she had gone to bed past midnight and woken before dawn.
Unrelieved fatigue and mental tension over a long period left her dazed and slow-witted.
Yet life had to go on.
No wolves ahead, no tigers behind — yet the dwindling food in the thermal storage box alone was enough to make them feel the pressure.
Come to think of it, Yu Nianbing was far from the only one muddled by the weight of survival.
The day before, when she and Zhuang Jiachuan discovered dandelions on the mountain, neither of them remembered that the camp had the miraculous tool of a thermal storage box. They only remembered that dandelions shouldn't be eaten in large amounts, and thought of bringing them back roots and all to keep them fresh... Returning to camp and seeing the thermal storage box, they stood looking at each other in sheer embarrassment.
But the soil wasn't carried back in vain. The dandelions planted last night still stood up straight this morning, and perhaps before they'd eaten them they might even grow a little taller and thicker.
In days when food grew ever tighter, they couldn't overlook even such a tiny bit of growth.
When she woke in the morning, Yu Nianbing felt noticeably dizzy. No need to think too hard — over the past few days they had deliberately eaten less and less, and it was very likely hypoglycemia.
But even so, she couldn't bear to eat a few more bites in the morning. She only carefully chewed a piece of jerky soaked in water, then gathered the tools with Zhuang Jiachuan to go find the place where they had tied a bowknot with vines the day before.
Aside from the long spears and spatula-shovels they already had, the tools now included the small rabbit traps Feng Qianqian had made the night before.
Strictly speaking, since Feng Qianqian couldn't roam freely with them, she only demonstrated at camp and then had them find similar materials and prepare several sets. They were just sticks and thin vines, plus some items they would need to source on-site and assemble to replicate the traps.
If Feng Qianqian hadn't showed them the night before, they'd probably never have imagined that such simple things, put together, could actually turn into traps.
From the method for quickly making pointed stakes and fences, to the little rabbit traps, Feng Qianqian brought them plenty of surprises.
According to Feng Qianqian herself, she used to be quite the homebody and loved doing handicrafts in her free time. Having dabbled in many kinds, she naturally picked up all sorts of odds and ends. Not just simple fences and traps — she'd even built miniature table-sized houses in her spare time.
In the past, Feng Qianqian had also made little bamboo and wooden bicycles and cars, entirely by hand following blueprints, the kind that could actually move. Feng Qianqian herself felt she could actually combine those with a chair to make a wheelchair.
What a pity it was pointless.
Even if she could draw up plans, the materials and shapes needed for a wheelchair were far more than simply sharpening wood.
But what Feng Qianqian considered pointless was, in Yu Nianbing's eyes, anything but.
For Feng Qianqian's legs to keep going, a wheelchair would definitely be far more convenient than being carried on a stretcher. The key issue was that they were too shorthanded. If they carried her forward, stopping to rest along the way, who knew how long it would take to reach the next camp. On such a long journey, they could very well run out of supplies.
And Song Shiyue... Yu Nianbing knew that with enough food, Song Shiyue could at least recover to a normal state. Taking it a step further, maybe if they had even more food, could they get closer to having a wheelchair?
However, Song Shiyue's condition had come on suddenly and without explanation. Even if she got better, if something flared up again later, with a wheelchair at least they wouldn't be trapped in one spot. Their range of activity could expand; after exhausting resources in one place, they could head to the next.
So as for this wheelchair — whether it could be used or not, starting to prepare and experiment now was never wrong.
Anyway, when Feng Qianqian was awake at camp, apart from helping keep watch while Ning Chuyang caught up on sleep, she had little else to do. Since Yu Nianbing thought it useful, there was no harm in trying.
So in the early morning, as Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan went rabbit hunting, Ning Chuyang also brought a pile of supple branches she had gathered from around and set them by Feng Qianqian, letting her try to see if she could make a small wheelchair model while keeping watch.
Because they had paid careful attention on the way back to camp the day before, retracing their steps went quite smoothly.
In under half an hour or so, Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan found the bowknot they had tied with vines on the tree at the foot of the mountain.
"From here, going up should be the place. Song Shiyue said grass chewed by rabbits looks a bit like it's been cut by scissors, and we must also keep an eye on the ground for small rabbit droppings. If we see any, we need to start treading lightly," Yu Nianbing said as she tightened her grip on the long spear.
Zhuang Jiachuan nodded. "When you spot a rabbit, if you can't bring yourself to throw the spear, just point it out to me. I'll do it."
Those words, spoken rather solemnly, made Yu Nianbing pause for a moment.
That's right...
Although she didn't keep any, she had always liked these fluffy animals.
But now...
Yu Nianbing realized that from the moment she'd seen the gray-black shadow in the flashlight beam the night before, she'd kept thinking: what kind of animal was it, would it be easy to catch, how much meat, could they catch one or a whole litter... how many would it take for Song Shiyue to eat her fill and recover...
Was this... biological instinct?
No... it didn't seem to be just that...
But before Yu Nianbing could dwell on it, Zhuang Jiachuan had already hunched his back and started stepping warily up the mountain.
Never mind all that...
Only the here and now.
Yu Nianbing tightened her grip on the wooden spear again and followed.
From the foot of the mountain up to where they had spotted that shadow wasn't far at all.
As they caught sight of the tree on the slope above with the large vine bowknot, signs began to appear.
"This is the kind of grass you said looked like it was cut by scissors?" Zhuang Jiachuan plucked a small headless blade of wild grass and held it out to Yu Nianbing, speaking quietly.
Yu Nianbing nodded and followed the trail of those grass blades a bit further. Sure enough, beneath another clump of chewed grass were several blackish round droppings the size of a pinky nail.
"We can be certain it's rabbit, not squirrel," Zhuang Jiachuan said as he came over, chuckling softly. "Rabbits are easier to handle. If we had to eat squirrel, we'd really need to get past a mental block."
Finding traces was still a long way from catching prey.
But according to Song Shiyue, rabbits actually prefer to use the same paths. If they found residual signs, they could follow them to see if they could locate a rabbit warren.
If they came across a suspected burrow entrance, no need to say another word — just dig.
The spatula-shovels they'd brought along were exactly for this.
Feng Qianqian's little traps were one thing — saying they came from doing handicrafts was a fairly reasonable explanation.
Song Shiyue's straightforward and rough methods for finding and catching game, though, were a bit baffling. A working actress — why would she know these rustic tricks?
But this wasn't the moment to quibble over that.
Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan cautiously lightened their steps, even their breathing, and circled the area where rabbit activity traces had been found.
Whether they'd missed something, or were simply not skilled enough... anyway, rabbit or rabbit hole, neither was seen.
On this not-so-large hillside, the two of them scrutinized it back and forth twice, yet couldn't find a single rabbit shadow.
Zhuang Jiachuan glanced at the sky, took out branches and thin vines from his backpack, and said, "Looks like we can't bag any ourselves. Let's do as Feng Qianqian said and set a few traps. Place them on the paths where the rabbits come and go the most. By tomorrow morning, we might have snared a whole string of them."
To Zhuang Jiachuan, perhaps this was just extra rations to set aside; but to Yu Nianbing... this was a big slab of meat on Song Shiyue's road to recovery.
Yu Nianbing silently walked the entire length of the path she thought the rabbits used the most, where the ground traces were deepest, and finally sighed and nodded.
Feng Qianqian had taught two kinds of traps the night before.
One was relatively simple: a slipknot made of branches and vines looped around the rabbit's head. The rabbit only knows to bolt forward, and the noose tightens more and more until... it's caught.
The other was more complicated: using two sticks and a smooth vine stripped of leaves, they made a rig. They carved notches so the two sticks hooked together, drove one stick into the ground, used the vine to form a slipknot on the other, and tied it to a nearby small tree. When a rabbit passed and stepped into the noose, it would be jerked up by the branch.
Originally there was another kind... built with three sticks and a heavy weight balanced on top. The rabbit would come to eat the bait under the trap, upset the balance, and the weight would fall and smash its head.
But that method was too bloody, so it was shelved for the time being.
Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan used the first two methods to set several slipknots in the area where rabbits had been active, and also went to other areas to gather some of the wild grass the rabbits had been eating to use as bait.
Just when they had more or less finished setting up and were about to wrap up and go check out the other mountain they planned to climb that day, a new problem appeared.
The new problem barked loudly, woof woof woof, and the sound was getting closer.
Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan instinctively looked up the mountain where the sound was coming from.
One look...
Alright then.
The black-and-white Dog, let loose for only two days, had turned into a mud-dog.
Had it not been for its enthusiastic demeanor and the familiar barking, charging down all gray and grimy, they might have thought it was a wolf.
The Dog stood on a slope not far above and barked gleefully at the two of them.
Seeing that it had caught their attention, it stopped barking, lowered its head, and came bounding down, running and hopping.
Yu Nianbing was still noting that the Dog's running gait looked a little strange, wondering if it had been injured out there.
But in the blink of an eye, the Dog had already leaped right in front of them.
"What's this..." Zhuang Jiachuan crouched down and removed the thing the Dog was carrying in its mouth.
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