Era: Started from raising livestock in the mountains

The slope in front of them was already very gentle, but there was no way to continue exploring.

Because the cave in front of them had at least half a meter of water, if they wanted to move forward, they had to wade in the water.

The water in this cave was even colder than the meltwater from the snow mountain, so it was really dangerous to wade in the water.

"Brother, how deep do you think this cave is?" Lin Yue said, looking at the dark cave entrance in front of him.

"I don't know. It may lead to an endless underground river, or it may end after a few meters. This is a pool of water."

Lin Heng shook his head and shone a flashlight on the water surface.

The water was clear and the bottom was sparse sand and yellow silt, and a coral-shaped stalactite could be seen.

Lin Heng didn't know whether these silts contained rust or what, but he saw a lot of small red stones and reached out to pick up two, both of which were only the size of pigeon eggs.

This red one is chicken blood stone, which was formed by volcanic eruptions in ancient times. It is as bright as jade on the outside, but it is like ink inside, with different colors.

"Are there any fish underground?" Lin Yue asked curiously again.

"I don't know about that. Let's pick up a few stones and go back. It's getting late."

Lin Heng shook his head and looked at his watch and said. It's already five o'clock in the afternoon. If we don't go back soon, we may have to walk in the dark.

"Okay." Lin Yue stuck the torch on the side and started looking for it with Lin Heng. There were not many things and they couldn't carry them, so they could only pick the good ones.

There were some red-looking stones in the deeper part that were out of reach. The two of them didn't want to go into the water, so they picked up some and put them in the bag and went back.

"Awoo~"

Xiongba was very unhappy about being tied up all the way, and he rubbed Lin Heng's legs when he walked.

"Silly dog, I'm afraid you will die of lack of oxygen." Lin Heng glanced at it.

When they were about to leave the cave, the flashlight suddenly found an animal corpse, dead on the edge of the cave, and it had become a skeleton.

"This is a muntjac, with horns on its head." Lin Yue said.

Lin Heng nodded and didn't care much. It had been dead for who knows how long.

"Finally out!"

With Lin Heng's sigh, they saw the light again and walked out of the underground cave.

It was hard to adapt to the strong light outside for a while. After adapting for a while, Lin Heng turned off the torch and the flashlight, then poured out the snakeskin bag to check their gains.

The biggest one was naturally his eldest brother's chicken blood stone, which looked like an ostrich egg. The surface was round and smooth, and it felt cool to the touch, like jade.

The blood color inside the red side formed wave-like lines, which felt like a sea of ​​​​fire and a vast ocean.

The yellow side was slightly ordinary, an ordinary brown, very pure, and without any pattern.

"Brother, how much do you think this is worth?" Lin Yue asked curiously.

Lin Heng shook his head: "It's hard to confirm the price of this thing. It's no problem to sell it for hundreds or thousands. If you find someone who likes it, you can sell it for a higher price. My advice is not to sell it, keep it at home and sell it later."

The economy is not good now, and the price of this kind of cultural playthings is also average. When the economy develops and people have spare money, this thing can be sold at a good price.

Just like the antiques and dark wood furniture in his house, he doesn't plan to sell them. It's not too late to sell them when he really needs money one day. These things will not depreciate.

"I understand." Lin Yue nodded and looked at his other stones again.

Lin Heng looked at his rectangular chicken blood stone. The base color of this stone is light white, and the red color is like blood being poured into it to form many strange patterns. Some places are large patches of blood color, and some places are drops of blood-colored "raindrops".

Compared to his eldest brother's, his jade color looks more obvious, with a fleshy texture.

In addition to this, he also has a large crystal disc, as big as a human face, disc-shaped, with clusters of crystal columns growing inside, some transparent, some pink and yellow, better looking than in the cave.

The other small bloodstones and crystals are also quite good. Lin Heng has six small bloodstones and three crystals, and his elder brother has eight small bloodstones and five crystal columns.

The ones they picked are of very good quality, round like jade.

Lin Heng estimated that this cave must have been flooded and receded frequently, or there was a period of time when it was like this, otherwise it would be difficult to form such round stones.

"Let's go."

After packing up their things and taking a look at the sky, the two smiled and walked back.

Although they didn't catch any big prey, the harvest from exploring the cave was not small.

On the way, Lin Yue said, "Let's find a way to bring the red dates up tomorrow. At worst, we can take a detour. Otherwise, we won't be able to explore much if we go back every day. Night is a good time for hunting, but we have to go back."

Lin Heng nodded, "I think so too. Let's find a place to cross the river with the red dates. The mountains here are a little gentle, so we should be able to come here."

It has been three days since he came here. Except for his elder brother who killed a white rice, he didn't catch any good prey.

The two were cautious along the way, hoping to find traces of large animals. After all, they found fresh feces during the day, but unfortunately, they didn't find anything even after walking out of the river.

It was dark before they returned to the location where the red dates were. The two waded through the river and walked down in the dark.

After returning to the location, they saw the red dates lying on the ground. They were relieved. There was no moth this time.

"Alas, I made a mistake today. The shelter was not built." Lin Yue sighed. It took a lot of time to explore the mountain.

Lin Heng smiled and said, "Just make do for one night, and make a simple shelter."

The reason why this place was specially chosen during the day was that it might not be possible to build a shelter at night. The mountain on the shore is slanted, forming a small place to shelter from the rain.

They only need to get some stones to simply surround a half-meter high arc-shaped windbreak wall. There are stones everywhere here, which is very simple to build.

It took the two of them only half an hour to build the windbreak wall, and then they started a fire inside the windbreak wall. The heat of the flames was reflected by the windbreak wall to the mountain wall inside, making this area very warm.

As long as the fire is not extinguished at night, there will be no big problems.

The place under the mountain wall to take shelter from the rain is all sand, and some moss and leaves for insulation can be laid to rest.

After the shelter was built, Lin Heng took out the iron pot to cook. He chopped up all the porcupine viscera that he had cleaned in the morning, fried them, and then threw the last bit of sauerkraut into it and stewed it with water. When the water boiled, he mixed the flour with water into small lumps and put them into the water to make pork offal sauerkraut lumps soup.

His elder brother brought two wooden bowls. The two of them finished most of them, and the rest was fed to Xiongba, who was also given two plum fish.

Neither of them ate the porcupine meat. They made a strip to dry and took it back for the people in the house to taste. The porcupine skin had been stretched and dried, and the porcupine quills on it were also preserved.

After the meal, they began to process the white rice. The white rice skin was peeled off and stretched to dry, and the internal organs were taken to the river to be cleaned and eaten tomorrow morning. The head was stewed directly in the pot and the meat was removed to feed Xiongba.

After processing the large and small intestines by the river, Lin Heng took a flashlight and said, "Let's see if there is anything good in this river."

"It's just right to digest the food. I'm a little full."

Lin Yue nodded, put the processed internal organs in ice water, and followed Lin Heng along the river.

There was a half moon in the sky, and countless stars were dotted. The night in the mountains was quiet, and the river breeze blew gently, like a demon that absorbs calories and makes people shiver all over.

After looking around the river, there seemed to be no special native species. I had seen mandarin fish, minnows, and other species before.

"Damn, what a big grass turtle."

Suddenly, Lin Heng exclaimed, watching a big grass turtle the size of a plate swim to the deep water area, and there was nothing he could do.

"This turtle runs really fast." Lin Yue said in surprise, not giving anyone a chance to catch it.

Continuing down, he saw some eels and loaches. The eels in this big river were not easy to catch, because there were rocks below and his hands could not grab them. There was no way to grab them in the mud like in the muddy field. Therefore, Lin Heng's professional eel catching technique was useless.

And he didn't want to do it because the water was cold. He didn't come to the deep mountains to catch such things, and it would be difficult to carry too many.

I am quite interested in big turtles like this. It is also fun to take them back and raise them. The little grass turtle I caught before is still being raised.

After walking along the river for six or seven hundred meters without finding anything good, the two turned around and walked back. When they arrived at the place where the white rice intestines had just been processed, they saw that the white intestines were torn apart and a group of fish were chewing them, but they couldn't chew them.

"Baby salamander, catch it quickly!"

Lin Yue saw the baby salamander eating not far from the shore with his sharp eyes, and ran over to hold it down. But even if this guy didn't swim fast in the water, he was much faster than him, and his shoes got wet and he couldn't touch the fish's tail.

"Brother, you are too excited. It's too hard to catch it with your bare hands. You have to set a trap."

Lin Heng smiled as he looked at his brother's excitement. It's not that easy to catch a giant salamander with your bare hands in the water. Even if you touch it, it's slippery and you can't catch it.

"I want to give it a try. My shoes dried overnight." Lin Yue laughed, put away the intestines and internal organs and walked back.

"Wait two days and I'll have time to set up a trap." Lin Heng thought about it and said that he could still catch some fish and bring them back in the days when he was walking fast.

Back in the shelter, Lin Yue took off his shoes and socks to roast, while Lin Heng lay directly on the dry moss to rest. With the windbreak wall and the fire, the ground was still soft sand, which felt better than the previous shelter where you could only sleep upright.

The only thing I was afraid of was the rain.

There was no conversation all night, except for getting up in the middle of the night to add some firewood, and both of them fell to the ground and slept soundly. With Xiongba, there is no need to worry about the danger at night. If anything approaches Xiongba, he can find and remind him in the first time.

It was already seven o'clock when I woke up the next day. I was a little tired yesterday. For breakfast, I had a lighter steamed plum fish, and the soup was cooked with morels.

Originally, I wanted to eat white rice offal, but I ate a lot last night and wanted to eat a lighter meal today, so I chose these two.

"Let's go."

After dinner, the two packed up the big and small bags, put some on Hongzao's back and carried some on their backs, then walked down with Hongzao to find a shallow place to cross the river, and then walked up the river in a detour.

After a few days of exploration, it has been preliminarily determined that there are many animal traces near the river we went to yesterday. Lin Heng plans to build a shelter on the mountain not far from the black bear footprints.

It is troublesome to bring red dates with you. It was not until noon that we arrived here. Finally, we found a small slope halfway up the mountain and settled the red dates there. They built a shelter near the slope near the water source.

"This place is good, flat."

Lin Heng quickly found a suitable small platform, about five or six square meters, with two huge evergreen camphor trees next to it.

Lin Yue looked at Lin Heng and asked, "What kind of camp should we set up?"

"That conical cactus pillar is not suitable. Just build a sloping shed on the top and put a windshield around it."

Lin Heng thought for a while and said, he didn't want to build any luxurious and exquisite shelter. If he didn't have the time, there was no need. Maybe if he couldn't catch prey here, he would have to change the place again.

"Okay." Lin Yue nodded and went to chop down a few small trees to use as beams for the ceiling.

After it is built, add small branches to fill it, and then various fresh green leaves. After filling, lay the film paper Lin Heng took, and lay some dry leaves on the surface to prevent the wind from blowing. It is complete.

The surroundings are even simpler. Just surround it with dead branches to a height of one meter, and then cover it with some moss and leaves. It can prevent the wind from hitting people when you lie down. There is no need to make it fully enclosed.

Although it sounds simple, it was already almost five o'clock in the afternoon when the two of them set it up, so a lot of time was wasted.

"It's finally done." Lin Yue stretched and said with emotion. Although he was tired, building a house with his brother was not boring at all.

This shelter was chosen here to be easily defended even if there are black bears. The top and back are steep and there is no need to defend, mainly the front and downstream.

"I'll get the water and we can eat."

Lin Heng took the pot and went to the mountain spring nearby.

It is said to be a mountain spring, but it is actually a small stream of water of two thicknesses flowing out from the cracks in the rocks and flowing down the cracks in the steep stone walls. You have to use a rope to guide the water, otherwise the water will flow along the cracks in the rocks and you won't be able to catch it.

After receiving the water, Lin Heng turned around and went back to cooking. He cut the internal organs of the white rice seeds and sauteed them with morels until fragrant. Then he added water and boiled them, then added the mixed gnocchi to make gnocchi soup.

When they came, each of them brought ten pounds of flour, some sauerkraut and a small jar of fermented bean curd. After eating the flour, five kilograms of sauerkraut have been eaten, and less than half of the fermented bean curd has been eaten.

"It tastes pretty good. I'll try some thorn sprouts tomorrow." Lin Yue said with a smile. He hadn't eaten green vegetables for several days in the mountains.

"I saw bracken and garlic yesterday. I'm going to get some tomorrow."

Lin Heng nodded, stood up after finishing his meal and said.

It’s almost six o’clock after dinner, and it’s dusk when animals come out to look for food. The two of them glanced at the sun, put some survival tools they carried in their backpacks, and carried them into the forest.

The two of them walked quietly along the mountain forest, and before they knew it, the sky turned completely dark. However, the stars hung brightly in the half moon. Although there were a few dark clouds, they could already see clearly at night.

Lin Heng suddenly stopped while walking and looked warily at the tree not far away. When he saw clearly what he was holding, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.