After a simple rebirth

Xiaoye led them out of the wild chestnut forest and back to the main road, but continued to climb.

Fu Ying was a little confused. If wild kiwis have to go inside, why don't you pick kiwis first and then chestnuts? Is it because you are afraid that they will be crushed? It shouldn't be the case. Wild kiwis are so hard that they are unlikely to be crushed. It's very heavy to carry on the mountain. After climbing for so long, Fu Ying felt tired and thirsty and wanted to take a rest.

But Fu Ying chose to remain silent for the time being, maybe Xiaoye had his own plans.

After climbing for another ten minutes, they started to walk down. The backpack was carried by two boys, so Fu Ying went down the mountain without any burden and quite quickly.

The downhill road was not a straight line, but a winding mountain road, so when a small river suddenly appeared, Fu Ying was shocked. How could there be a river suddenly? It looked like it was flowing down from the mountain. The river was not wide and the water was not deep. There was a stone forest next to the river. Xiaoye took them to a big rock, put down the backpack and sat down to rest.

Fu Ying also sat down and massaged her calves. She hadn't done much exercise in a long time. Fortunately, they were not new shoes, otherwise, in addition to the pain in the soles of her feet, her toes would also be rubbed.

After sitting down to rest for a while, Xiaoye ran to the river to wash his hands and face, then scooped up a handful of water and drank it directly.

The water in rural areas is always cleaner and less polluted, especially the water flowing from the mountains, which is crystal clear. So there is no need to drink boiled water, and most people drink it directly.

This can also be called spring water. It contains some natural minerals that are good for the body. But at the same time, because the total amount of minerals contained is too high, it is easy to get stones, such as gallstones. Fu Ma had gallstones before because she always drank raw water, and later had surgery to remove them.

Fu Ying was also thirsty, so after Xiao Ye and Fu Zhe finished drinking, she went to wash her hands. Without further ado, she just drank the water, which was icy and a little sweet.

In fact, it is very strange. The mineral water you drink outside has no taste. Sometimes Yilibao tastes a little sweet, but the mountain spring water in my hometown is really sweet.

Fu Ying recalled that when she went to scenic spots in the past, if there was this kind of spring water on the mountain, some villagers would specially take large buckets to collect it home, some to make tea, and some to use directly.

The water that Fu Ying's family drinks now is not spring water, but water from a reservoir via a pipe, so it is actually quite clean.

After sitting by the river for a while, Xiaoye asked Fu Zhe if he wanted to catch crabs. Fu Ying and Fu Zhe looked at him in surprise. He could catch crabs? Fu Ying had heard Fu Zhe say that there were crabs on the mountains, but she didn't know there were crabs in such a low stream.

The two followed Xiaoye to the rocks in the water. He studied them for a while and moved a rock away. Two small green and yellow crabs really crawled out from under the rock. They were really small river crabs, no bigger than the palm of your hand. They were far different from the hairy crabs Fu Ying had eaten, only half the size.

Xiaoye quickly pinched the river crab's abdomen from behind and picked up the two crabs so that they would not be caught by their claws. "These two can be grilled and eaten later!"

Fu Ying was puzzled. How could they eat crabs this small? Was it a baby crab? And they didn’t bring anything with them. How could they roast it?

When Fu Zhe saw Xiaoye find two, he also moved the stones nearby. Xiaoye said that we should look at the stones with holes under them, where the water flows slowly, and we can see them by moving the stones or digging open the holes.

Fu Ying was also curious and wanted to try to find it, but she didn't dare to grab it with her hands, as she would definitely get caught. She ran to the side and broke off a branch to dig it out, but it was also a branch that was caught by the claws.

After a careful look, she found a stone lying sideways with some moss and a small hole underneath. Fu Ying thought that must be the crab hole. Afraid of being accidentally injured by a crab crawling out, Fu Ying squatted on a big stone and used a branch to dig along the hole. A smaller crab really came out.

Fu Ying? So only smaller?

Fu Ying called Xiaoye over, and Xiaoye caught it and threw it into the backpack, pouring the contents of the backpack into another one, which was used to catch crabs first. In order to prevent them from running away, Xiaoye also picked a few leaves to cover them.

Seeing that Fu Zhe had found it, Fu Ying anxiously continued to move stones and finally found a family of crabs, four or five of them. He excitedly wanted to catch them, but his foot was pinched by the crabs first. He jumped around in pain and then kicked his legs frantically to try to shake the crabs off.

Fu Ying laughed loudly, but Xiaoye went over to tell him not to move and helped him put his feet in the middle of the water. The crab felt the current and loosened its claws to swim away. Fu Zhe was so angry that he still wanted to catch it, so Xiaoye helped him catch it.

"You don't want to roast it, do you? This is the crab that gave you athlete's foot!" Fu Ying asked him while laughing.

Fu Zhe looked at the crab, hesitated, took the crab from Xiaoye's hand, and threw it into the distant forest. "I won't eat it. I'll keep you away from your family and the river. Go to the forest and be eaten by insects. Goodbye."

Xiaoye was the main fighting force. He caught about ten crabs. It seemed that there were enough crabs and they were hard to find. Xiaoye said that they could make a fire.

Xiaoye and Fuzhe found a slope and started digging a hole. When they made a fire in the wild, they didn't pile up stones to make a stove, but dug a hole as long as a palm, with a diameter of about the same size. After digging this, they measured another palm-sized slope and started digging a passage below, just like a rabbit digging a hole to connect to the previous hole.

Fu Ying saw them digging a hole, so she went to collect firewood. She only collected dry leaves and branches, which were easier to burn and produced less smoke.

Xiaoye stacked the leaves in the stove in an irregular pattern and placed the branches on top. Fu Ying wondered how he made a fire, because Xiaoye didn't look like a smoker, and Fu Zhe hadn't learned to smoke at that time, so they didn't have a lighter. It was not realistic to start a fire by drilling wood, because the sun was not strong today, and the palms of the hands would bleed.

After Xiaoye finished his work here, he ran to the pile of rocks to look around, and brought over two pine green stones. Fu Ying understood what they were: flints.

She didn't expect to find flint here. In fact, she didn't know where to find flint. She definitely couldn't find it if she really asked her to look for it. It just happened that she needed fire now, and Xiaoye was holding two stones, so she understood.

Sure enough, Xiaoye came over and squatted in front of the cave, using one stone to scratch another stone diagonally. Sparks were produced by the collision, and after a few sparks, the dry leaves below began to fall and started to burn.

Fu Zhe hadn't played with flints for a long time. He took the stone and started to strike it. Fu Ying patted him on the head and reminded him to work on it by the stove so that it would start burning.

Fu Zhe stopped playing after a while, so Xiaoye took him to break some branches, saying that he would use them to string crabs together and grill them.

Fu Ying thought that it was a small crab, and it was grilled on skewers without any seasoning. It was really a very primitive way of eating.