WS - Chapter 153
Chapter 153
These past days, everyone had almost gotten used to Song Shiyue waking only once in the middle of the night. Suddenly this person woke in the daytime, and even stood up and crawled out of the tent on her own — it was startling to the point that saying their minds went blank wouldn't be an overstatement.
Even though Song Shiyue seemed to move normally and was lucid when speaking, others still felt uneasy, afraid that this good news might just be a fleeting moment before something bad happened.
The people around her hovered, extending and retracting their friendly hands; she was treated like fragile glass, and Song Shiyue, enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention, was not heartless — how could she be unaffected?
From thinking she would be left to quietly experience the feeling of starving to death or even decaying, to later being meticulously cared for by Yu Nianbing, her body dry and comfortable despite being unconscious for days as if she were living a normal city life, to gradually being able to move again — these days, with ups and downs, Song Shiyue truly experienced a real-life rollercoaster.
Without Yu Nianbing's persistence, Song Shiyue would never have had a chance to begin recovering.
Probably... she would have quietly woken in the already empty camp, staying in a state where only her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose could move for a short while, then fallen asleep again, repeating until the end.
And these past days, as the most useless person, Song Shiyue had been eating the most. She ate much, did nothing, and then just lay around with her eyes shut...
Yu Nianbing and the other two who went out daily to find food or stayed busy washing things and gathering firewood probably didn't eat half as much combined as Song Shiyue did in a day. And Feng Qianqian was also restrained; despite her injury, she saved the easy-to-eat food and instead gnawed on hard jerky along with the other three.
The good things, the surplus, all ended up in Song Shiyue's stomach.
At first, it was Yu Nianbing's force-feeding persistence when Song Shiyue had no strength to resist; later, when Song Shiyue felt hope of self-healing, she no longer thought that food entering her stomach was a waste.
Using limited food to get better so that the team could obtain more food — that was true sustainable development. Song Shiyue had no reason to be overly sentimental; at most, she just felt unavoidably uneasy when thinking of the worst-case scenario.
Thankfully, she really did stand up.
Actually, Song Shiyue wasn't entirely sure if she would still fall unconscious now that she could wake during the day. But she clearly knew that the strange phenomenon of her strength constantly draining before the Yaoxing Storm had truly ended.
Although she now had little strength, the strength in her body was no longer being drained away.
So now the question arose.
After patching a small hole in a balloon and then inflating it, would the balloon still work? Could it properly inflate like before?
Ning Chuyang could barely remember how long it had been since they had properly sat down and made a real meal.
These days, whenever anyone was unbearably hungry, they would grab a piece of jerky to chew on. At first, they soaked it in water, making it soft and easy to chew. But being easy to chew meant it didn't last long — one piece would be gone in no time, and they could only drink the jerky-water, pretending it was soup. Later, they started eating it dry, gnawing on jerky slowly. The jerky, much harder than ordinary beef jerky, took a long time to finish a piece, as if they were enjoying a big meal.
Thus, each person lived on a few pieces of jerky per day.
Oh, later they could also supplement vitamins with some boiled dandelion greens...
But that taste... really made Ning Chuyang feel that she could actually live without vitamins.
The rabbit holes discovered by Yu Nianbing and the others were both exciting and hunger-inducing.
Although no one dared to pile their hopes too high and hardly mentioned it, but fresh meat — who wouldn't want to eat it!
The jerky had been eaten to the point that people were turning into jerky themselves, okay!
Over twenty rabbit holes, so many traps — even if the rabbits were clever, at least two, two should get caught, right!
One roasted, one stewed, even if each person could only taste a small piece of meat, just thinking about it was delightful.
But as the saying goes, luckily our hopes weren't piled too high, otherwise the fall would have been too painful.
Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan, with Dog wearing a brave face as if seeking revenge, left the camp at the crack of dawn.
They were out for quite a long time, but when they returned, they came back empty-handed.
Most of the traps set the previous day showed no traces of rabbits passing by, and a small part looked like they had been stepped on by rabbits. However, no rabbits were caught...
Not a single one...
It was unknown whether those rabbits were truly so smart they were becoming spirits, or if the previous day's digging up of so many burrows by Dog had stimulated them to not come out at night.
The time Yu Nianbing and the others were out was spent resetting the trampled traps and making new ones.
The camp's food supply was already running low; in addition to the two snare traps, they also gritted their teeth and made the previously abandoned type of trap: using a stick to balance a heavy object, and when the rabbit broke the balance, the heavy object would fall — a rather brutal trap.
Life no longer allowed them to have more mercy.
Although more traps were made, everyone's hearts were not optimistic.
Just as Feng Qianqian had said the previous night, with so many traps, under normal circumstances, at least two rabbits would be caught.
Now with not a single one... I'm afraid this round of traps won't yield much either.
And the camp's food supply was down to just over a bag of jerky brought by Dog and some dandelion greens.
Song Shiyue, precisely when they were most depressed and downcast, walked out of the tent, bringing them shock, as well as the words, "Let's go hunt some rabbits."
Even though Song Shiyue had been unconscious, everyone still remembered her impressive skill in killing snakes and frogs. Now, with her breezy "let's go hunt rabbits," it was impossible not to feel hope again.
Before going to hunt rabbits, there still wasn't any proper meal to speak of.
They soaked jerky in hot water, each person fished out a piece, and that was considered a token meal.
Ning Chuyang originally wanted to soak more for Song Shiyue, but Song Shiyue stopped her.
Song Shiyue also ate only one piece of jerky soaked in hot water.
And success or failure rested on this one piece of jerky.
The energy that one piece of jerky could convert into strength was extremely limited, but it was a clear increase and storage.
As expected, her strength was no longer being lost.
This was the final thing Song Shiyue wanted to confirm.
"Can I take these to hunt rabbits?" Song Shiyue pointed at the jerky bag that Ning Chuyang hadn't yet put back in her backpack.
Naturally, there was no reason she couldn't.
These past days, although Ning Chuyang and Zhuang Jiachuan hadn't said much, they also sensed the importance of food for Song Shiyue.
Since it was already insufficient anyway, eating more to hunt rabbits was necessary.
Thus, when Song Shiyue left the camp, she took the last one and a half bags of jerky, a flask of hot water, and a small box of boiled dandelion greens.
It could be said that she had emptied the camp's entire food reserve.
Originally, Song Shiyue had thought that the rabbit hunting might be too bloody for Yu Nianbing to bear, and just having Zhuang Jiachuan lead the way would be enough. But there was no way Yu Nianbing would let the newly awakened Song Shiyue out of her sight, so in the end they all went together.
Dog, who had been desperately trying to stick close to Song Shiyue ever since she woke, was of course brought along, once again strutting out of the camp with its head high, as if forgetting who had returned with its tail between its legs that morning.
There weren't any handy tools at the camp; they brought along the spears Yu Nianbing and the others had made earlier, the kitchen spatula and spoon were also pressed into service as tools, plus Song Shiyue's two old stone knives — that was all the tools they had.
But if Song Shiyue recovered to her peak condition, she wouldn't need too many tools anyway.
There were no delays on the way, and in about half an hour they reached the slope where they had set many traps.
As soon as Song Shiyue climbed onto that slope, she saw the uneven turf, scraped bare in patches like bald spots, and many traps made of small sticks, twigs, vines, and even stones.
These were all made according to what Feng Qianqian had taught Yu Nianbing and the others.
They looked quite impressive, but unfortunately they were up against a group of overly clever rabbits.
Feng Qianqian caught rabbits with traps; Song Shiyue took an entirely different approach.
Upon arriving, Dog was already lying by the nearest burrow, barking into it. Not only that, it kept looking back at Song Shiyue. Seeing that Song Shiyue wasn't reacting, Dog started barking at the burrow while running over to tug at Song Shiyue's trouser leg, running back and forth, busily occupied.
Song Shiyue was also anxious, but before hunting rabbits, she had something more important to do.
When she woke in the camp earlier, Song Shiyue herself had many uncertainties.
The camp's food was only so much, and Song Shiyue was afraid that after eating, if she passed out again before she could hunt rabbits, she'd be stuck with nothing.
But once she was here, it was different.
Before her recent fainting spells, Song Shiyue had a vague feeling each time. If she started eating here and something went wrong, she could still stop the loss in time.
Hot-water-soaked jerky with boiled dandelion greens — although Yu Nianbing kindly added a pinch of salt to the water, the taste... was really so-so.
But Song Shiyue was the kind of person who could tilt her head and down a whole box of beef tallow; these were all food saved by everyone, so she ate with lightning speed, cherishing every bit so much that she even poured the last of the jerky-soaking water into the powder, mixed it, and drank it all.
Yes, powder.
When Song Shiyue left the camp, she scraped up all the camp's food, and didn't forget to bring the finely ground powder made from the snake bones from the first day, which was in her backpack.
It had to be said, although this stuff was mixed like cement, it gave her quite a boost in strength.
But for rabbit hunting, strength wasn't the most important thing.
More than strength, what Song Shiyue valued were the enhanced vision and hearing that recovered along with her strength ability; these two were the true rabbit-hunting tools.
Thankfully, the piece of jerky she ate at the camp earlier confirmed for Song Shiyue that her strength could return, and her vision and hearing could also be boosted again.
One and a half bags of jerky, one box of boiled dandelion greens mixed with snake-bone powder — still far from her peak condition, but for dealing with this slope full of rabbits...
Song Shiyue wiped her mouth, grabbed a spatula-shovel, and this time didn't refuse Dog's invitation to tug at her trouser leg, walking straight toward the nearest rabbit hole.
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