"Let him go," Mother Li leaned against the doorframe. "Minmin, let your eldest brother go. At least he tried his best."
Back then, she had wished she could be replaced, but in the mountains hunting, how could that be possible? And how could the wounds on one's body be replaced?
"Mom~" Watching her eldest brother turn and leave, she stamped her feet anxiously. "Mom, why did you let big brother go? As long as you asked him to stay, he definitely wouldn't have gone."
"If the person stays but their heart is gone," Mother Li sighed lightly. Her eldest son took after her, stubborn and single-minded. Had she not set a good example?
"Minmin, quickly serve the rice and eat. Do what you need to do. Your sister-in-law is not incapable. The way she saw through Zhang Fangcao and told me to get more sun proves she's no ordinary woman. You can't lack faith in her."
"I, I'm just worried about my eldest brother, his leg..." Li Min's voice lowered, the rest of her words barely audible.
"Don't worry." Mother Li was not worried about her son. "Your brother, apart from walking a bit slower, is not lacking in skill."
A mother knows her son best. If his leg hadn't been severely injured, he wouldn't have been discharged from the army. He was about to be promoted to squad leader, she heard.
As soon as Tian Jing stepped out, she quickly ran towards the back mountain. Early in the morning, there was no one at the foot of the mountain. She quickened her pace, avoiding the small paths worn out by people on the mountain, and deliberately walked through bushes and wild grass.
Using her wood element ability on her feet, the bushes and waist-high wild grass parted as if being pushed aside, revealing a path wide enough for one person. After Tian Jing passed, they quickly closed up again, leaving no trace of the previous anomaly.
After about an hour of rapid travel, judging by her speed, she should be deep in the mountains. Not far ahead was a dense forest. She felt the rich plant energy within the dense woods and stopped, entering the forest, intending to cultivate for a while before finding food.
Upon entering the dense forest, the feeling was different from outside. A pure energy, between plant and wood elements, filled her nostrils. Sensing it carefully, she followed the energy and found a north-facing slope. At the bottom of the slope was a patch of plants with red fruit and green leaves.
The green leaves were palmately compound, and the red fruit was like a red hydrangea made of many small red berries, standing on a stem in the middle of the green leaves. She had never eaten pork, but she had seen pigs run. She had never seen fresh ginseng, but she knew the plants on the slope were ginseng.
What to do?
Tian Jing was stunned by this windfall.
Dig them up? Could they be sold? In an era of food and clothing scarcity, could they fetch a good price?
If she didn't dig them up, would she have such luck again? Wasn't it said that ginseng could escape?
If she dug them up, where would she hide them? This was not like inanimate objects that could be buried underground. Hiding this underground would be like a dog eating a steamed bun – no return.
She sniffed the energy filling her nostrils and decided that cultivating herself was the most important thing.
Throwing down her basket, she rushed down the slope and sat down by the patch of ginseng, unconcerned about the dew on the ground.
She placed her palm on the ground, and the next second, a pit appeared beside a ginseng plant. The ginseng seemed to jump out on its own, leaping onto the ground with all its roots intact.
As soon as Tian Jing picked up the ginseng, she noticed the energy was stronger, like the Solanum nigrum she had optimized many times.
Oh, she was so stupid. If she used her abilities to accelerate the growth of this ginseng a few times, and then kept the best seeds, she could cultivate and plant them herself in the future.
With seeds, who would fear them escaping?
She selected the largest one in the patch, accelerated its growth, produced seeds, planted them, and accelerated them again... repeating this many times, she obtained a handful of seeds slightly larger than peanuts. The sunlight filtering through the dense forest canopy shone on them, making them glisten.
This should be enough. She casually put them into her outer pocket and started the next batch. More seeds were always better; the Solanum nigrum seeds from last time had been very useful.
Later, she also needed to find seeds of some vine-like plants, just in case.
Only when her pockets were almost full did Tian Jing reluctantly finish collecting seeds.
In a great mood, Tian Jing clapped her hands on the ground and sent out her wood element ability. The entire patch of ginseng was accelerated by at least fifty years.
Then she squatted by the ginseng and began practicing extraction. Her technique for extracting plant essence was not yet proficient, so she decided to use these ginsengs to practice. The extracted essence could also be directly consumed and converted into her abilities.
The ginseng, after its essence was extracted, shriveled and crumbled at the slightest touch, similar to absorbing energy directly from plants.
After she had used up most of the ginseng, the energy in her body became a bit overwhelming. She quickly sat down to cultivate.
After a long time, she opened her eyes, a satisfied smile on her face. Because of the ginseng essence this time, her abilities had finally reached the high-level of stage two. Once it stabilized, if she did this again next time, she should be able to reach stage three.
Her cultivation goal achieved, it was time to find food. If she hadn't consumed so much ginseng essence, she would have been starving. She hadn't even had breakfast.
As she prepared to climb the slope, she looked back at the remaining few ginseng plants. She picked out two and 'dug' them up. She would give them to Li Zhengguo, which could cover up her actions today and also serve as her accommodation and food fees at the Li family's.
She climbed nimbly into a tree, picked a few leaves that weren't completely yellow, wrapped the ginseng, placed them at the bottom of her basket, and then carried the basket out of the dense forest. She had to find food.
As soon as she exited the dense forest, she heard a low grunting sound. This sound was very similar to a pig's grunt. In the deep mountains and old forest, it must be a wild boar.
Her food had arrived. Heaven was truly favoring her; this mountain was practically her backyard.
Excited, Tian Jing hid her basket behind a tree and crept towards the sound, holding her chopping knife.
In the middle of a small patch of green vines, a wild boar weighing about two hundred catties was using its snout to dig at the vines. What was that yellow thing peeking out from the vines?
Crack! The wild boar's big mouth bit down, and the yellow thing cracked open. It was a pumpkin, her food.
She quietly squatted down, and her ability passed through the ground, landing at the base of the patch of vines.
Not long after, the wild boar let out a shriek. The spot where the boar and vines were instantly turned into a large pit. The loss of gravity made the wild boar shriek, and it shrieked again as it couldn't escape the deep pit.
Caught!
Tian Jing happily ran to the edge of the pit, which was about three to four square meters wide, and chuckled gleefully at the wild boar in the pit.
This was the first time she had hunted an animal independently. In the apocalypse, mutated animals were impossible to hunt without multiple people cooperating.
The pit was too deep. She turned to find vines that could be used to tie up firewood, ignoring the angry roars of the wild boar in the pit.
Before long, she dragged over more than ten kudzu vines with pods, including the roots. Without roots, how could she control them?
She arranged the kudzu vines around the edge of the pit and accelerated them, using her abilities as much as possible on the vines. What she wanted now were thick vines.
Amidst the wild boar's howls, the vines, as if with eyes, bound its four limbs and its head.
Controlling the boar's head to face her, Tian Jing forcefully swung her chopping knife above the space between the boar's eyes.
The wild boar's screams immediately stopped. Its life ended.