Chapter 241: Together
Although he wanted to persuade her to give up this dangerous thought, when Yan Bei and the other two faced someone who had made up their mind, they were even more helpless than one another, and in the end, they could only compromise helplessly.
In contrast to their worries, Su Qingshan, upon learning that Su Ning was going along, did not have such thoughts.
After all, which team’s barefoot doctor does not go up the mountain to gather medicinal herbs?
Following the large military was at least better than her going alone, right? It would be much safer no matter what.
Besides, they were not planning to go deep this time, and they were bringing homemade soil guns. As long as they were not extremely unlucky, so many of them could not fail to protect one girl, could they?
However, to avoid anyone else having ideas, Su Qingshan tucked the pipe stem into his belt, straightened up, and said solemnly to Old Zhang with a stern face.
“Ning Ning going along to gather medicinal herbs is a serious matter, not playing around for no reason. It’s for the people on our team. Does everyone have no objections?”
“How could we have any objections? Brigade Leader, rest assured, we understand. We will definitely protect Doctor Su well!”
“Yes, yes, with so many of us, we can surely protect Doctor Su.”
The crowd responded noisily, but fortunately most were sensible and could distinguish right from wrong, so there were no objections to her, who was obviously holding them back.
Nodding, Su Qingshan glanced at the sky, waved his large hand, and said loudly, “Then let’s set off!”
Forty or fifty people immediately entered the mountain in a grand procession.
The vast white snow covered the mountain area, making it hard to see any vegetation, only a few patches of green from pine and cypress dotting the mountain peaks.
The accumulated snow was not packed down and was very fluffy. Stepping in, the deepest spot reached an adult’s knee, and if one was not careful and slipped, it became like pulling a radish.
Yan Bei and the other two tacitly formed a protective circle around her in the middle, matching her speed and falling to the rear of the team.
Because they had just entered the mountain, there were many people and a lot of noise.
Large prey would not be encountered for a while, and small things would be scared away early by the noise.
So the traveling crowd did not pay much attention, advancing at a uniform speed while chatting with their good companions to dispel visual fatigue from looking at the white snow too long.
“Su Ning, can you really identify which of these dead branches emerging from the snow are Chinese medicinal materials?”
“…”
She really could not.
Except for a few special ones with strong recognizability that she could still distinguish, the others… without experience, no matter how much theoretical knowledge, the first attempt could not avoid grasping blindly.
However, since she had to go along, Su Ning’s main purpose was not really to gather much Chinese medicinal materials, so she did not have too many thoughts about whether she could accurately identify or actually gather much.
Obviously, the truth in her heart could not be stated, so she could only pretend to be profound and glance at him.
“If I can’t, then you come?”
“Hehe, if you can’t, then I definitely can’t even more, but it’s not impossible to try. What if my eyesight is poor but my luck explodes?”
At this point, Jiaming could not help but brighten up, feeling that what he said was possible, and quickly asked, “What does that Chinese medicinal material you need look like?”
“Shh~”
Zhang Qi, walking at the front of the small team, suddenly turned back at this moment and made a silencing gesture, his gaze turning to the left.
The puzzled crowd followed his line of sight, only to see a few gray fur balls on the snow over there.
Looking closely, where were they fur balls? They were rabbits.
Strangely, the few gray rabbits were not scared away by the big commotion, but instead lay there like fools at their door, not even drilling into the prepared burrows.
Subconsciously touching below her neck, a strange expression flashed in Su Ning’s eyes: she had almost forgotten this part.
However, to avoid the avalanche in the pre-known scene, the Purple Jade could not be taken off, since she did not know the exact location of that place at all.
Since they were here for hunting, then… having a bit more prey should not be a big problem… right?
The three big men exchanged glances and immediately reached a certain consensus, communicated with simple hand gestures, and quickly took action.
They respectively took three directions, slowly surrounding the few gray rabbits and tightening the encirclement, then suddenly exerted force underfoot and lunged forward.
Five rabbits, not a single one escaped, all caught and legs bound with vines.
“Hahaha, good start!”
“This fur feels really nice, can make rabbit fur gloves for Ning Ning.”
It was the first time participating in the winter hunt so seriously, and having a harvest not long after entering the mountain. Not to mention Jiaming dancing with joy, Yan Bei and Zhang Qi were also uncontrollably excited.
“Su Ning, how about it, am I awesome? Caught two at once!”
She silently gave him a thumbs up, reaping the expected toothy grin, Su Ning raised the corners of her mouth, smiled, and shook her head, hiding her merit and name deeply.
“These rabbits are nothing. This time I will definitely get a big one!”
“Say you’re fat and you’re panting, don’t get too proud, quickly hand over these few rabbits.”
Jiaming, who had just boasted boldly, did not mind, took the two rabbits they handed over, and trotted ahead to catch up with the large team.
Su Qingshan and a few people most familiar with the mountain situation walked at the front.
Glancing at the few people trailing far behind, someone still could not help asking the doubt in their heart.
“Brigade Leader, why let that reformed one follow us into the mountain? What if the person runs away?”
“Only you are smart, chattering like a woman. Does the Brigade Leader not have his own considerations?”
“Hey, I’m just asking since I don’t understand, you know what the hell!”
“Alright, stop making noise, who doesn’t know your little thoughts!”
Su Qingshan chuckled lightly, his old eyes sharply glancing at the two fake arguing, then casually scanning the crowd who had quietly perked up their ears.
“Engineer Yan was just transferred down for poor and lower labor education, don’t think he’s really staying in this corner for life, he’ll be transferred back after the New Year!”
“Really? Sigh, I said it, Engineer Yan is such a capable person…”
“Stop hindsight, adding flowers to brocade is easy, sending charcoal in snow is hard, not to mention giving any help, just not falling into a well and throwing stones is something to burn incense for!”
Besides the brigade leader’s overt and covert hints, everyone had seen and remembered in their hearts Engineer Yan’s previous help to Team One.
Not to mention help, everyone was afraid of getting into trouble, but things like deliberately making things difficult or bullying people like other brigades really hadn’t happened.
So they wouldn’t have to worry about being troubled after the wheel of fortune turns.
Therefore, after learning about this, besides sighing and rest assured, there were no other ideas.
“Old Master Su!”
“Oh, Jiaming, what’s up?”
Hearing the loud call from behind, the crowd who were about to say something all shut their mouths.
Su Qingshan quickly turned around upon hearing this, and when he saw Fu Jiaming walking through the team to the front with his hands carrying a string of tied gray rabbits, his originally stern face immediately twitched.
“These, did you few catch them?”
“Yeah, that’s right, four big and one small hehehe, Old Master Su, record it for us!”
“You stinky kid, would Old Master swallow them privately!”
Laughing and scolding, Su Qingshan took out the small notebook to record the things, then let the person uniformly responsible for keeping the prey take the rabbits.
“Don’t say these few big rabbits are quite fat, good start, not bad, Comrade Fu!”
“With so many of us, and we didn’t scare away these little things, shows Little Fu and their luck is really good, this time afraid it’s a bountiful harvest!”
“Hahahaha!”
“This is great, hunt more to take back and we can have a prosperous New Year!”
“Alright, since we’ve started, everyone get spirited, don’t let a few young lads take the lead, I can’t afford to lose that face!”
“Hahaha~ Good, then let’s compete!”
With this joking and commotion, the scene immediately became lively, the men all rubbed their fists and prepared to show their own signature skills.
Otherwise, after going down the mountain, when distributing the prey they only get a participation award, that would really be losing face until underpants are gone!
The crowd with high morale all quickened their steps, and unconsciously kept silent, starting to carefully watch the surroundings while moving forward.
As if really living up to the good start, after Yan Bei and them caught these few rabbits, one after another quite a few little things eagerly came to the door.
Although a bit strange, but they
First catch the meat that’s already at your mouth, and that’s it!
The excited crowd gradually deviated from the original direction without the awareness of those few who were leading the way.
Just as he suddenly came back to his senses and prepared to turn back, he inexplicably crashed into the wild boar den!
