Ye An

In the cave, the old man sat by the fire and polished the bone tools, occasionally glanced at the entrance of the cave, waiting for Ye An and Lily of the Valley to return.The little girl broke off two branches and stuffed them into the hearth. As the flames rose up, the hot soup in the pot began to boil with bubbling bubbles.

The cold wind howled outside the cave, and snowflakes drifted into the cave, melted by the heat, and formed thin ice at the edge of the cave.Several ice edges hang from the ceiling of the cave, so crystal clear that they can almost reflect human figures.

The little girl got up and walked to the entrance of the cave, broke off an upside-down ice edge, looked at it for a while, and suddenly bit off a piece.

"Naughty." The old man beckoned the little girl over, brought over the remaining ice, and said, "My stomach hurts after eating too much."

The little girl leaned against the old man, hugged his arm coquettishly, and shook it slightly.The old man patted the top of her hair, and the little girl didn't break the ice edge anymore, and continued to concentrate on guarding the fire.

After a while, the bow and arrow in the old man's hands were almost polished, and the sound of the rope being pulled came from outside the cave.

Ye An returned from the ground, patted the snowflakes off his body at the entrance of the cave, took the hot soup handed by the little girl, drank it in two or three gulps, and his body warmed up quickly.

"The wind and snow are getting bigger and bigger, we can't wait any longer, we need to move down quickly." While speaking, Ye An took out a fist-sized tuber from his arms and handed it to the little girl, patted her on the head, "Peel off the skin, It can be eaten raw and very sweet."

The little girl thanked Ye An, peeled off the outer skin of the tuber, and instead of eating it herself, let the old man take a bite first, and waited for the old man to wave his hand before biting off a piece.As Ye An said, the taste of the tubers is very sweet and the taste is very crunchy, which can fill the stomach even if it is not roasted.

Lily of the valley stayed underground, and Ye An and the old man worked together to collect all the remaining things in the cave, wrapped them in animal skins and carried them on their backs.

The hot soup is packed in jars, and the mouth of the jar is covered with a wooden lid, which is then sealed tightly with a rope.

The fire in the hearth was covered with snow, and there was a whistling sound, and wisps of smoke rose.The warmth in the cave was quickly replaced by cold as the flames died down.

"Uncle Wang, I'll let you go down first."

The old man wrapped the rope around his body and made sure it was very strong. Ye An stood at the entrance of the cave and sent him down the rock wall.Wait for the old man to land safely before putting the little girl down.

After the old man waved to him, Ye An climbed down the entrance of the cave along the rope with a bundle of animal skins on his back.

Halfway down, the wind suddenly strengthened, and the rope was blown unstable. Ye An kicked hard on the rock wall, jumped down three or four meters from the ground, untied the rope buckle after standing firmly, and pulled the end of the rope. Pull the whole rope out of the cave, coil it together and carry it on your back.

"Let's go."

There was a lot of wind and snow, and the short distance from the rock wall to the water pool was very difficult for the old man and the little girl.

Ye An picked up the little girl and motioned for the old man to pull the rope on his body, bring them to the pool, and use the pulley made earlier to send them underground.

The rope quickly sank to the bottom of the pool. Ye An tried to tug, but the bottom responded twice, and then suddenly lightened, indicating that the grandparent and grandson had landed safely.He was about to tie the rope to himself when suddenly there was a bird song in the sky.

Ye Anxin became alert, and immediately drew out his short knife to look around the prestige.

Through the white snow curtain, a large flock of fiery red birds can be seen besieging a pair of ospreys.The osprey is no match for the bird, and is forced to keep falling, getting closer and closer to the ground.

During the fall, several birds folded their wings and swooped down on the Osprey's back from a height.Even if they didn't kill them on the spot, they did a lot of damage.

The osprey wailed, fell from the sky one after another, and landed in the snow. With its wings spread out, it was surrounded by birds and could not fly, but they also leaned on each other, preventing the birds from approaching.

Ye An remembered what Lily of the Valley said before, stopped the flock of birds, and prevented them from continuing to kill, and at the same time released his will, trying to assimilate the two ospreys.

From Osprey's memory, Ye An knew that there was a convoy camped outside the isolated island, with more than 120 refitted vehicles and hundreds of members.To his surprise, the person in charge of the team turned out to be an old man.

The Osprey carried the blade of grass engraved by the old man and flew to the snow field with a mission.

Ye An picked up an osprey, untied the rope tied to its legs, and found that the grass blades were all tied with slipknots, which would automatically loosen after the osprey flew a certain distance.

Ye An turned over a few blades of grass, and found that the words and patterns on them were basically the same, engraved with the news of opening a market, and the location was chosen near Hunter City.

The bird flapped its wings and chirped, very dissatisfied with Ye An picking up the Osprey.

Ye An crushed the spar on his body and threw it to the flock of birds hovering above his head. The cries of dissatisfaction quickly turned into joy.A few birds flew down and stood on Ye An's shoulders, rubbing their round heads against Ye An's face, ignoring the Osprey who was also attracted by the spar but couldn't even get a piece of it.

To appease the flock of birds, Ye An threw a few pieces of dried meat to the osprey to deepen the connection with the other party, and ensured that the osprey would not reveal their location before letting them go.

After staying on the ground for a while, when Ye An got down to the bottom of the pool, the old man and the little girl had already been brought into the cave by Lily of the Valley.

The dark river was rushing, and Ye An walked along the river, and found that there were schools of fish gathering under the water, as well as a large group of mantis shrimps.Looking at the churning water, Ye An decided to take his tools and go fishing by the river as soon as possible after settling down.

In the underground cave, the shells of snapping turtles emit a lustrous light, and several torches are inserted on the wall, with the ends embedded in grooves, adding more light to the cave.

The tubers produced by the lily of the valley hang from the vines, and less than half of them are picked, and they are piled up on the side of the wall.The little girl should take the initiative to help. According to Lily of the Valley's words, store the tubers with cracked skins separately, and send the rest to the cleaned stone house.

The old man stood in front of a wall, staring at the fish pattern on it, unable to recover for a long time.His hand was trembling and he wanted to touch it, but he retracted halfway, his fingers were tightly clenched, and the veins on the back of his hand were bulging with such force.

Ye An stepped down the stone ladder, saw the old man's appearance, remembered the old man's own story, and didn't say much.He shook his head to the puzzled Ling Lan, signaling her not to ask more questions.

If the old man is willing, he will naturally speak.

Fortunately, the old man's grief only lasted for a short time, and he quickly adjusted his emotions. He helped Ye An and Ling Lan clean up the stone house together, removing gravel, wood and broken bones.

The cleaning work was almost done, so the old man chose a stone house, spread animal skins on the stone bed, and moved in with his granddaughter.

The stone house is very spacious, and each one is comparable to the cave where Lily of the Valley lived before.

There is a hearth in the house, and there are also dug vents, which can be used after cleaning up the gravel and soil.

The temperature underground is already higher than the ground, and with the energy emitted by the snapping tortoise shell, even if there is no fire, it will not make people's hands and feet cold, as if they will be frozen into ice sculptures in the next moment.

The cleaned up debris was piled up together, the burnable ones were thrown into the fire, and the unburnable ones were sent out of the cave, pushed down from the suspended stone bridge, and mixed with the stones under the bridge.

After finishing all this work, several people sat by the fire and heated the broth in the pot on the fire.A few more tubers were roasted by the fire. With the sound of crackling, the skin of the tubers was covered with cracks, and the white flesh was steaming. The sweet taste almost overwhelmed the broth, making people swallow unconsciously.

When the tubers were almost roasted, Ye An used a branch to pull out a few, let them cool slowly on the side, picked up the soup bowl that Lily of the Valley handed over, and handed over the grass leaves brought by Osprey.

Lily of the Valley spread out the leaves of grass, looked back and forth, and asked, "Where did this come from?"

"I met two ospreys outside." Ye An briefly explained what happened, and blew on the hot soup in the bowl.

Ling Lan pondered for a moment, then suggested: "Perhaps, you can try to get in touch with them."

"Contact?" Ye An paused.

"Yes." Seeing Ye An's expression, Lily Lan could somewhat guess his scruples, but the convoy in the trade zone is very special. Under the condition of ensuring that snapping tortoise shells will not be discovered and crystal stones will not be coveted, try with the other party. There's no harm in touching them.

"The fleet in the trade zone is different from the fleet in the merchant city. Anyone can go to trade. As long as the goods are worth exchanging, they will not be driven away, and there is no need to worry about encountering accidents during the transaction." Ling Lan said, while Break off a tuber and hand half of it to Ye An, "As far as I know, this convoy never trades human beings, and the deal is considered fair. Be careful, you can get salt and other necessities from them."

There is no shortage of prey on the island, and with these tubers in the cave, they don't need to worry about food.Living underground, there are enough animal skins, and it is not a problem to keep out the cold.Lily of the valley can give birth to plants and can make medicines. They also have no shortage of medicines.

Only salt will not change out of thin air, basically eat a little less.

Ye An thought for a moment and agreed to Lily of the Valley's proposal.

"If you want to contact, you must do it as soon as possible, preferably today." Ye An said.

The reason for this rush is because he learned from the Osprey that the convoy will not stay for long and may leave soon.

"I'll go with you." Ling Lan turned around to get a few bottles of wound medicine, and said to Ye An, "There should be no pharmacist in this convoy, I'll go with you, if necessary, we can identify ourselves, and we should be able to get more useful medicines." supplies."

Ye An nodded, the two quickly finished the tubers, left the old man and the little girl in the stone house, and prepared medicines and dried meat that could be traded. After thinking about it, Ye An took half of the octopus tooth brought back from the beach.

The two checked the package and made sure there was nothing missing, so they took their weapons and left the cave.

In the camp in the southeast of the island, Zhao Weng is organizing a team to put away the wooden bridge and metal plates, and is preparing to leave the camp.When the preparations were almost ready, Zhao Weng blew the wooden whistle, and the sound of the whistle pierced through the wind and snow, summoning the Osprey to follow the convoy.

In order to hurry, Ye An and Ling Lan didn't go on foot, but sat on the sled.The mutated dog ran wildly in the snow, dragging the sled across the island quickly, getting closer and closer to the convoy.

"what is that?"

The hunter in charge of security in the convoy discovered the situation and quickly issued a warning to everyone.

Zhao Weng climbed onto the roof of the car, saw the mutated dogs and sleds coming from the flying snow, felt the existence of the same mutated people, and couldn't help being surprised, showing surprise on his face.

He led the caravan to walk in the wasteland and met all kinds of people, including many mutants.But it was the first time he had encountered such a unique ability to control so many mutant dogs.