Chapter 113: Chapter 113: The Fourth Daughter-in-Law Is Capable Too

Everyone looked at Qi Quanli as if he were an idiot, making Qi Quanli’s scalp feel numb: “Why are you all looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong?”

“You didn’t say anything wrong.”

Qi Ercai spoke up.

Qi Quanli’s eyes lit up: “Second brother, you think the same way?”

“Hehe, you didn’t say anything wrong, but you’re not talking about this issue.”

Qi Ercai mercilessly burst Qi Quanli’s bubble of excitement: “Have you ever seen anyone killed by the stench of wolf dung and urine?”

“I…”

Qi Quanli opened his mouth but couldn’t explain anything.

Beside him, Qi Zheng gave his younger son a glare, and the latter immediately fell silent.

Qi Zheng said to everyone, “Previously, we used bear dung to fend off a wolf pack, which shows that bears are more formidable than wolves, so they would be afraid. Now they’re using this method, and I reckon it’s to scare off other animals that might come close. What do you all think?”

Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to make of it.

Qi Quanjin nodded: “I was thinking the same thing as my father. Those wolves drank a lot of our water, but as everyone knows, there’s a water shortage now, so they’re probably really thirsty and came to us for water.”

“Now that they’ve drunk water, the dung and urine they left are probably their parting gift to us.”

Even Qi Quanjin felt that his analysis was quite unreliable.

But other than this reason, Qi Quanjin couldn’t think of any other possibilities.

At this moment, Qi Sangui, who hadn’t spoken much, suddenly asked softly, “Then why didn’t they take those rabbits and whatnot away?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Everyone fell silent.

Indeed, they’ve left dung and urine as gifts, so why didn’t they take their prey?

Qi Quanjin scratched his head.

Now he didn’t know what to do either.

Finally, it was Yi Meng who said, “No matter what, the wolf pack has left, and they’ve left dung and urine to protect us, which is our luck.”

“As for those prey, I think we should still retrieve them quickly and clean them up. Otherwise, if the scent of blood spreads, I’m afraid even if we have the wolf dung and urine as protection, it might not help.”

As soon as she finished speaking, everyone looked at Qi Quanjin, waiting for him to make a decision.

Qi Quanjin didn’t hesitate and immediately led people out to collect the prey.

Handling these animals was no difficult task for everyone.

The only trouble was it required quite a bit of water.

“Wife, do we have enough water?”

Qi Quanjin brought over the just-skinned rabbit and casually asked.

Yi Meng nodded: “There’s enough for handling the prey. But tomorrow morning, we’ll still need to fetch more water, otherwise, we won’t have enough on the road.”

Just as she finished speaking, Ai Zhaodi said, “Fourth sister-in-law, the water pit is dry, today we dredged all the silt from the bottom, and there’s really no water left.”

Yi Meng looked at the others, and each was wearing a bitter expression.

With this prey, everyone could eat meat.

But the cost of eating meat was having no water, which left a bad taste in their hearts.

Seeing this, Yi Meng smiled and said, “Don’t worry, last time we fetched a lot of water, and the next day the water pit was full again, we’ll do the same this time.”

After hearing this, everyone could only muster up the spirit to continue cleaning the prey.

The men dug a pit over a meter deep and poured all the bloody fur and blood water into it.

Once all the prey was cleaned, they buried the pit.

They just had to make it through this one night, and once they left the next day, even if more animals caught a whiff of the scent, there’d be nothing to fear.

Now salt was being used sparingly, with no place to replenish it.

So everyone decided to work together to roast all the meat into jerky.

The future taste would definitely not be great, but this was the only way to save time and extend shelf life.

The women took turns roasting meat and resting, while the men took turns standing guard and resting.

As the sky turned light, Qi Quanjin came to his wife and woke her after barely an hour’s sleep.

“Wife, let’s go fetch some water, or we won’t make it in time.”

Qi Quanjin tenderly tidied the stray hair by his wife’s ear.

Considering this situation, if there were anyone else available to fetch water, he wouldn’t want his wife to work so hard.

Yi Meng composed herself and stood up, guided by his hand.

Everyone watched as the couple headed to the outhouse together, grinning teasingly.

“Wife, what do you think? Why do you think the wolf pack seemed to particularly like drinking our dirty water yesterday?”

Qi Quanjin chatted with Yi Meng, who was fetching water, while observing their surroundings.

The water that was originally stored in various containers in the space had all been poured out, and Yi Meng had no time to refill them, so today she was busy by herself.

Yi Meng yawned and said, “Maybe it’s because I added spring water!”

“Ah? That can’t be!”

Qi Quanjin scratched his head: “If that’s the case, wouldn’t the wolves have been eyeing our water pit long ago?”

Yi Meng paused for a moment, then smiled and said, “You’re silly, don’t you remember what fifth brother’s wife said yesterday? They dredged all the silt from the bottom, so even if the wolves found the pit, they couldn’t drink any water!”

“Oh, that’s right!”

Qi Quanjin thought his wife’s analysis was reasonable and dropped the topic.

After nearly a tea’s worth of time, Yi Meng had partially filled the pit with water.

It’s not that she didn’t want to release more; the flow rate of the spring water was just so, and Yi Meng had focused all her energy on releasing more water, but the yield barely increased.

When Yi Meng and Qi Quanjin were about to head back down the mountain, they crossed paths with the others coming up to fetch water.

“Fourth brother, fourth sister-in-law, why did it take you so long?”

Qi Quanli carried two wooden buckets and seemed surprised to see Yi Meng and Qi Quanjin.

Yi Meng yawned and said, “Your fourth brother wasn’t assured, so he insisted on coming to check if there’s water!”

“So is there any?”

“Yes, but not as much as yesterday. Be mindful of your surroundings when fetching water, and come back immediately if there’s danger, understand?”

Yi Meng felt extraordinarily tired, yawning repeatedly, and just wanted to go back to sleep a little longer.

Qi Quanli responded with a nod and quickly led the people following him to the water pit.

When Yi Meng returned to the group, she didn’t even greet anyone before falling asleep beside her daughter.

Everyone looked at Yi Meng and sighed silently.

The wives of the other three families gathered together, chatting leisurely as they roasted meat.

“The fourth brother’s wife is really capable; she followed us up the mountain for two straight days without a word of complaint and even stayed up half the night working with us.”

“Isn’t that true? The fourth brother’s wife is the neatest of us all, yet she hasn’t had a moment to clean up this whole time, while the rest of us have. Once things settle down, we should boil some extra hot water for her to have a thorough wash.”

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