Fang Mingyan took Wen Jiajia to the village’s end farm, which was more than 200 meters away from the nearest family, indicating how strong the smell was.

“There are a few pigs in front of the farm, and our ducks are in the back,” she said, using a key to open the back door.

Wen Jiajia took a special look. The walls of the farm were higher than those of her house, topped with broken glass, and there were four dogs inside.

There were two pig farms in the front yard and two duck farms in the backyard.

Her eyes lit up instantly. “What big dogs!”

Fang Mingyan smiled. “Yes. The two on the pig farm are called Doumi and Wangcai. The two in the duck farm are Dawu and Xiaowen. I named them and raised them.”

Wen Jiajia looked at this girl differently. Despite everything, she was quite capable, not only herding ducks but also raising dogs daily.

Raising four dogs was no easy feat, especially making them look smooth and shiny.

The key was that she also had to clean the duck farm, once a day and thoroughly once a week, which wasn’t a small workload.

However, Wen Jiajia didn’t care about this now; she hurriedly asked, “Yanyan, if I want a dog to raise, where can I get one?”

“A dog?”

“Yes. With what happened to Chendun, people are panicking. My family is at the entrance of the village, and we don’t have strong labor, so a dog would be useful.”

Although a puppy might not be very useful now, it could provide some protection if something similar happened again in the future.

Fang Mingyan hissed, reminiscing. “I got these four dogs from my grandmother’s house, but her female dog isn’t ready to give birth. We might have to look at other dogs in the village. When I go back to Shangxi Village, I’ll help you ask around.”

Her grandmother’s house was in Shangxi Village, and three of the ten households there had dogs. Even farms went to their village to buy dogs and borrow male dogs.

Wen Jiajia smiled. “Okay, thank you.”

“That’s a small matter.”

As they talked, she opened another door, revealing a path leading to the wetland at the village entrance.

Along the way, Fang Mingyan taught Wen Jiajia the skills of herding ducks. Wen Jiajia felt she might have a natural talent for it, and by the time they reached the village entrance, Fang Mingyan felt she finally had someone to share shifts with.

Fang Mingyan said, “Jiajia, you don’t know, since I took over this flock of ducks, I haven’t gone to the big market, and I rarely go back to the county.”

“By the way, have you been to the big market?” She waved the duck whip casually and kicked the grass on the roadside. “We don’t have a big market in our commune. The real big market is at my grandmother’s place, and the one in Hongji Commune is the most lively.”

Wen Jiajia shook her head. The original owner hadn’t gone to the market.

Hongji Commune was still in the same county, but it was at the junction of three counties, so it was no wonder it was lively.

“If I have the chance, I’ll take you with me,” Fang Mingyan said. But she thought to herself, with the ducks to take care of, there might not be many opportunities to go out and play.

The two of them quickly herded the ducks into the wetland, arriving almost twenty minutes earlier than usual.

Wen Jiajia carefully observed the wetland environment and felt it was a good place.

The surrounding area was open, and the mountains seemed far away.

Waterways were like chessboards, and islands like chess pieces. When the ducks entered the water, they swam happily and sometimes rested on the shore to feed.

Fang Mingyan beckoned to her. “Sit here, the ducks are still far away.” She moved aside to leave some rocks for Wen Jiajia.

Wen Jiajia sat down, feeling a rare sense of peace.

Because of the open terrain, the autumn wind constantly blew, lifting the depression from people’s hearts.

The ripples on the water surface, sparkling in the sun, made people feel relaxed and happy.

Wen Jiajia couldn’t help but sigh. “It’s so nice here.”

Fang Mingyan leaned back. “Yes, sometimes it’s very easy for us duck herders. Tomorrow I’ll bring a straw mat and lay it on this big rock so I can sleep if I want.”

On their first day working together, they didn’t know each other well, so they didn’t have much to talk about after a while.

The wild ducks occasionally stopped here, leaving a few eggs different from those of the domestic ducks, which was an extra benefit for her and Fang Mingyan.

Neither of them chose to roast and eat the eggs in the wild; instead, they tacitly carried them in their pockets and secretly took them home.

Before noon, they had to drive the ducks back.

As they were about to leave the farm to go to the canteen, they saw Fang Baoguo approaching the farm.

Wen Jiajia asked, “Captain, what’s the matter?”

Fang Baoguo said, “I came to see if you two had come back. Chendun’s person has been arrested, but there are accomplices. The trial revealed one is in our Fuyang.”

Wen Jiajia and the others were taken aback.

The mountains of Fuyang Commune are connected, and the place where they put their ducks can be considered remote. If there were really people… After the initial panic, an afterthought flooded the hearts of the two.

Fang Mingyan, who was acquainted with Captain Fang, hurriedly said, “Uncle, then we won’t let the ducks out for the next two days.”

Life is more important than working in the field.

“Okay, let’s not let the ducks out for the next two days. We also have to search the mountains here, and we’ll discuss things further after the search,” Captain Fang said.

The two of them, who had been in a good mood, instantly became worried. The people in the village also went from watching the excitement to being afraid.

“This damn thief, why don’t you die,” some villagers angrily cursed.

The autumn harvest had to continue along with the mountain search, making everyone tired and frustrated.

But Wen Jiajia always felt that something was wrong.

A robber? What is there to rob in the village? Is it worth the effort for three melons and two dates?

A thief? That didn’t make sense either. Who could arrange for the members to search the mountain, especially at such a critical time?

After all, in the countryside, nothing was as important as food.

Traffickers? Equally impossible. No one had reported any missing children, so what was there to flee into the mountains for?

As for the spies that everyone speculated about, that was nonsense.

What would agents be doing here? Stealing the brewing recipe of the commune distillery? Stealing the Commune Ministry’s dam scheme? Ridiculous.

Could it be that there were military bases in these mountains? Unlikely. If there were, it wouldn’t be the team members searching the mountains but soldiers.

“What is it?” Wen Jiajia whispered.

The incident grew bigger and bigger, and the duck herding was postponed day after day. When the sweet potatoes were all harvested, the matter was still a hot topic in several nearby communes.

The fungus in the mountain kept enticing Wen Jiajia, and she couldn’t resist anymore. She got up early one day and asked Fang Mingyan to go up the mountain to pick fungus.

Wen Jiajia deliberately carried a big bamboo basket. “It rained again yesterday, and the fungus must have grown a lot.”

Fang Mingyan was pleasantly surprised. “Really in Rock Mountain? It’s so close. Let’s go quickly. If they discover it, they’ll have to harvest it.”

The two of them kept heading toward the rocky mountain.

They were not afraid because there were other villagers on the way who were also going up the mountain.

With the autumn harvest coming to an end, there was no time to rest, and the villagers all set their eyes on wild vegetables and mushrooms.

Wen Jiajia pulled Fang Mingyan along the mountain road, a little worried. “Will the mountain searchers who come and go find that fungus?”

Fang Mingyan said, “I heard that they didn’t search Rock Mountain. It’s so close to our village that people don’t hide there.”

Wen Jiajia nodded. True.

Today, the trail was more difficult to climb than before. When they reached the bottom of the mountain, they saw many mushrooms along the way.

Wen Jiajia and Fang Mingyan didn’t let them go; they picked everything they could.

As a native of the countryside, Fang Mingyan had much better mushroom recognition skills than Wen Jiajia. With her guidance, Wen Jiajia learned to identify many edible mushrooms.

“Red mushrooms actually don’t taste good,” Fang Mingyan frowned. “They always have a rusty smell.”

Wen Jiajia agreed. They didn’t smell like rust, but they weren’t as delicious as she had imagined.

She had eaten red mushrooms twice, once scrambled with eggs and another time in soup. She found she preferred the eggs without mushrooms and the soup wasn’t as tasty as morels or bamboo shoots.

Next time, she would try frying them with pork, and if that didn’t taste good, the mushroom would be permanently blacklisted from her list of delicacies.

The mountain road was difficult to climb, and the two of them used crutches but still fell, their knees covered with mud.

“Have we arrived?” Fang Mingyan wiped his sweat and asked.

Wen Jiajia recognized the area and pointed to the hillside not far away. “It’s right there, we’re almost there.”

With the target in sight, they regrouped and climbed the hill in one go.

Wen Jiajia was pleasantly surprised to find that the dead branches they had piled up a few days ago were still there, meaning no one had set foot in this place.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” Wen Jiajia urged.

Fang Mingyan, exhausted and panting, said, “Why is your physical strength so good?” 

This was normal, as even though the original owner lived in the county, her life had been much more miserable than Fang Mingyan’s. The original owner had been a worker in a furniture factory, where most of the work was heavy and physically demanding, but she persevered.

When she first arrived, she felt tired because her lazy soul temporarily matched the industrious body, but now she had almost fully adapted.

Wen Jiajia felt the luckiest thing after crossing over was inheriting a good body, much better than the sub-healthy one from staying up late in her previous life.

After Fang Mingyan climbed up, Wen Jiajia took the lead, moved the dead branches, and brought Fang Mingyan in.

The fungus had emerged from the rotten wood that Wen Jiajia had picked earlier, small, slippery, and a little cute to look at.

She didn’t pick it but continued to go deeper.

The fungus in the depths was much larger, and Fang Mingyan’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t expect there to be so much fungus in this place.”

Wen Jiajia had already started picking them. “Let’s try to pick them all before others find out.”

Fang Mingyan nodded and joined in.

There was not only fungus here but also ground vegetables.

The ground vegetable is Lei Gong Cai, which usually appears after the rain. It looks similar to fungus but is more delicious when scrambled with eggs.

Wen Jiajia had eaten something she bought online in her previous life, and when she thought about it, she knew it couldn’t be a wild ground vegetable. In this life, wild ground vegetables were close at hand, so naturally, she couldn’t let them go.

Fang Mingyan was not too upset about the ground vegetables and said, “The fungus is still more delicious, and the ground vegetables are old and difficult to wash. My dad couldn’t see clearly the night before, and my family had eaten this for several years, and it almost hurt me.”

Wen Jiajia shed tears of envy in her heart.

Eating ground vegetables and eating injuries still sounds like a treat? That’s nice.

In addition to the ground vegetables, she also found some wild yams. Now that the autumn harvest has just ended, every household has enough food, and Wen Jiajia’s granary is even fuller. Naturally, she couldn’t look down on the wild yams that are difficult to dig.

Of course, the main reason was that she didn’t have a shovel with her.

Wild yams are difficult to dig, and some even go one or two meters deep underground, making it challenging to dig them up with just hands.

However, Fang Mingyan said, “I have one.” As she spoke, she took out a small shovel from the bamboo basket on her back.

Wen Jiajia was surprised. “Why did you bring this?”

Fang Mingyan took it for granted. “It’s normal to bring this; everyone brings one when they go up the mountain. This way, it’s easy to dig up any medicinal herbs you see on the road without having to go home to get a shovel and then climb back again.”

Wen Jiajia understood and decided she would bring one next time.

Since they had a shovel, they started digging.

She pulled the yam vine apart and began digging along the roots. After only a few digs, she noticed that the yam was very thick, and she couldn’t help but become more interested and speed up the digging.

Fang Mingyan was also attracted and found a wooden stick to help.

“It’s pretty easy to dig,” Wen Jiajia said, wiping her sweat. Maybe because of the rain, the soil wasn’t as hard.

But as soon as she said that, there was an “ah,” and the ground collapsed beneath their feet, causing both of them to fall into a dirt hole.

***

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Also, don’t forget to check out other Vyl’s projects as well!۶ৎ

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