They spent the whole day like this in Jinsha City.
Gu Qingcheng pushed open the door now. She had become psychologically accustomed to the "lifelike ice sculptures" she frequently encountered, no longer feeling fear or excessive sadness.
She thought Mi Guo should also be trained again, otherwise he would still be unable to escape the psychological shadow cast by the natural disaster.
Only by accepting all of this and facing it head-on could one temper their nerves to be resilient and survive such a cruel disaster.
Gu Qingcheng was in constant contact with her parents along the way, storing the ironware they collected into the storage cabinet, and then they separated to continue their scavenging.
Finally, as the sky darkened, the three of them headed east of the city according to their original plan.
After nightfall, the streets in the east of the city were also desolate.
Quite unexpectedly, the ice sculptures in the shops had all been removed. It was likely the work of Prince Xia's subordinates. Upon entering, they found messy footprints on the ground. With the ice sculptures gone, people felt much more at ease.
The soldiers had returned to rest. Gu Qingcheng and her parents simply continued their scavenging. They collected quite a bit of ironware along the way, mainly iron pots from various households, and finally arrived at the blacksmith shop.
They had previously ordered swords at this blacksmith shop. This shop was more than twice the size of the one in the west of the city, and it contained over a thousand jin of iron parts and ingots.
Gu Qingcheng was overjoyed and collected everything.
A rough estimate revealed that their haul today was quite substantial, with an estimated three thousand jin of iron parts collected, completing one-seventh of the required task.
After completing this last task, Gu Qingcheng and her family planned to head back.
Feeling cold and hungry after being outdoors for too long, they had lost the motivation to continue working.
Upon reaching the foot of Cliff Mountain, Gu Qingcheng blew her whistle. After a while, a rope ladder was lowered from above.
The three of them climbed to the top of the slope. Mi Guo, along with a cat and a dog, was already waiting for them outside.
Seeing them, Mi Guo's expression immediately relaxed, and he said happily:
"I didn't dare to cook, afraid I would miss the sound of the whistle."
The cat and the dog, perhaps due to Gu Qingcheng's "Great Strength Pills," were particularly affectionate towards her.
Wangcai stood up on its hind legs, its front paws resting on Qingcheng's waist. Kele, hugging her leg, had become her two walking furry accessories.
Hu Lanfang chuckled and chided, "You two little rascals are too playful. Your master is tired after a long day, let go quickly and don't cling to her."
These two little ones were truly sensible. Upon hearing Hu Lanfang's words, they obediently let go of Gu Qingcheng, but still followed closely behind her, occasionally rubbing their furry heads against her legs.
"Oh, these two really are inseparable from you, they don't come to be affectionate with me."
Gu Chaobei feigned jealousy.
"Ha, who told you I'm more charming?"
Gu Qingcheng picked up Kele with one hand and held her in her arms, while stroking Wangcai's big head with the other. Her heart felt warm, a sense of healing washing over her.
Mi Guo had rested for a day and appeared to be in good spirits now.
Gu Chaobei asked him with concern what he had done on the mountain today.
Mi Guo replied that he had eaten, slept, slept, eaten, played with Wangcai and Kele, and of course, importantly, he had persisted with his physical training.
Furthermore, he had focused on practicing archery. Now he could generally hit six out of ten shots. Mi Guo was very proud and even brought out his target paper to show off.
Indeed, the holes on the target paper were mostly close to the bullseye. This was a vast improvement from his first archery practice.
Gu Qingcheng praised his talent.
Mi Guo's face instantly lit up with satisfaction.
So, to improve, one also needed the praise of their family to feel happy?
This was a new experience for Mi Guo.
As soon as Hu Lanfang returned home, she began preparing food.
She had her eye on the noodle soup that the restaurant had delivered earlier. This noodle soup was no ordinary plain noodle soup, bland with only egg and vegetables. This version contained pork stomach, braised large intestine, pork blood, and pork tenderloin, making it nutritious and easy to digest and absorb.
After a day of hard work and enduring hunger and cold outdoors, it was time for a bowl of warm, soupy food.
Hu Lanfang took the noodle soup from her daughter's storage cabinet and called everyone to eat.
The three people with germophobia, as usual, washed their hands with hot water and soap, and dried them before sitting down to eat.
Mi Guo hesitated a bit when he saw them washing their hands, unsure if he should join them.
In his opinion, his hands were quite clean; there was nothing dirty on them. Did they still need washing?
He was worried about wasting hot water.
Unexpectedly, Gu Qingcheng grabbed him and pulled him to the basin, saying to him:
"You must wash your hands before and after meals. Let's make this a good habit from now on."
"Why? My face isn't dirty. I stayed home today and didn't touch anything dirty. It's all quite clean."
"Just because you can't see dirt on your hands doesn't mean they aren't dirty."
Gu Chaobei took the opportunity to enlighten Mi Guo with a lecture on bacteria.
Mi Guo listened, feeling a bit dazed. Although he didn't quite believe that there could be any microorganisms on his clean hands, he still followed everyone's lead and washed his hands.
After all, everyone else was washing, so he had to as well. If he wanted to integrate into this family, he had to adopt the habits that everyone approved of.
Key point: As long as the family didn't think he was wasting water, it was fine.
Washing hands wasn't a painful task. He was just hesitant, afraid of being scolded for washing such clean hands and wasting hot water!
In the past, his aunt would have truly scolded him like that, and even hit him with a bamboo branch.
After finishing the hot noodle soup, Gu Chaobei patted his stomach contentedly and said:
"This meal tonight was the most satisfying. Qingcheng, how much iron did we collect today? Is it still far from enough?"
"How could it be enough? Over 3000 jin of iron. Upgrading requires 10 tons, which is 20,000 jin of iron. We've only collected one-seventh today."
Hu Lanfang said with a worried expression.
"We only collected 3,000 jin of iron in the entire west of the city. If we continue at this rate in the south, north, and east, we'll likely only collect less than 20,000 jin."
Gu Qingcheng also said with difficulty.
Resources in ancient times were truly scarce.
"It's alright, we already have a yacht, what's there to fear? Anyway, as you said, a three-person yacht can travel freely on water."
Gu Chaobei was best at comforting people.
Indeed, after he said that, Gu Qingcheng's mood improved significantly.
At worst, the three-person yacht could suffice for now. She refused to believe that she couldn't gather the first 20 tons of iron.
The three of them were truly exhausted from the day's work and lacked the energy to play mahjong. They would have to descend the mountain again tomorrow and seize every opportunity to collect iron scraps.
If they didn't collect it now, by the time Prince Xia's army took over all of Shacheng, they wouldn't even have a chance.
After eating, everyone quietly went to their respective rest.
Gu Qingcheng took out a detective novel to read, while Mi Guo remained engrossed in his food channel. Hu Lanfang was binge-watching a drama, a time-traveling Qing Dynasty drama. Gu Chaobei was reading online novels, apparently in the fantasy genre.
Seeing her parents like this, Gu Qingcheng couldn't help but smile. No wonder they had accepted the matter of her spatial ability so quickly. Having watched so many novels and dramas, they were already very open to new ideas.