After the meal, Song Wei left to work, leaving Heidan at Lin Zhen’s house.
With the cold weather, it was better for children to stay indoors to avoid catching a cold.
Aunt Xinghua also left her two youngest children there, asking Lin Zhen to keep an eye on them. With three kids playing together, they were less likely to wander off.
“Brother, let me tell you something!” Heidan sidled up to Lin Zhen and whispered about the attempted lockpicking incident.
Lin Zhen’s expression grew serious. “Tell me everything in detail.”
Heidan explained clearly, recalling the events with surprising accuracy.
“Sister Song discovered scratches on her lock and guessed someone tried to pick it. Then she checked Bai Zhiqing’s lock and found the same marks. Bai Zhiqing said she had also lost something. Now they’re planning to catch the thief.”
“Do they have any suspects?” Lin Zhen asked.
“It seems like that Ma Zhiqing. Sister Song told me to pretend I don’t know anything.”
Lin Zhen nodded. “Ma Zhiqing, huh? Male or female?”
“Male.”
Lin Zhen frowned. “Two female Zhiqing trying to catch a male thief? What if he has a knife or something? Song Zhiqing might be strong, but that doesn’t mean she can’t get hurt.”
Heidan’s confidence wavered. “Then what should we do?”
“We’ll wait for Song Zhiqing to come by. I’ll ask her about the plan and see if I can help catch the guy. You don’t worry about it.”
Meanwhile, Song Wei returned to the educated youth dormitory to check her room. Everything was still intact, and it didn’t seem like anyone had been inside.
After securing her door, she left again, this time heading deep into the mountains.
Without Heidan tagging along, she could venture further without concerns.
Unlike her usual foraging trips, Song Wei didn’t stop for long at any spot. She casually picked some edible items she encountered but ignored the dwindling wild fruits. At this time of year, only pine nuts and hazelnuts still clung to the trees, but gathering those was too much trouble.
Am I becoming picky? she thought with a wry smile. Life had been too indulgent lately.
“Is this kudzu root?” Song Wei examined a leaf in her hand to confirm.
Kudzu, a leguminous plant with climbing vines, looked ordinary. But beneath the soil, its starchy roots were both a food source and a medicinal ingredient.
Song Wei chopped down the plant and began digging with a hoe.
This wild kudzu root, having grown untouched in the mountains for who-knows-how-long, had an extensive network of thick, hefty tubers—some thicker than Lin Zhen’s arm.
After a long bout of digging, Song Wei finally filled her basket.
“This is an incredible haul!” she exclaimed, marveling at the abundance. A single burlap sack couldn’t hold it all, so she tied the roots together with vines and hung them from a tree to collect later.
Going deeper into the forest, Song Wei soon stumbled upon another find.
“Wild yams!”
This was a fantastic discovery. Yams were both nutritious and filling, serving as both a staple food and a medicinal herb. Even better, she had found an entire patch of them.
Grinning, Song Wei set to work digging.
The soil was rich and fertile, so the yams had grown long and thick. However, they were deeply buried, making them tricky to extract without breaking.
She had just unearthed a few when a thunderous tiger’s roar echoed through the forest, startling birds into flight.
Song Wei paused.
The roar was distant, and the tiger didn’t seem to be heading her way.
Song Wei, however, was curious.
Abandoning her yam digging for the moment, she picked up her machete and ran toward the source of the sound.
Halfway there, she didn’t find the tiger but stumbled upon something else: a herd of sika deer.
Her eyes lit up.
What adorable creatures!
Observing their panicked retreat, Song Wei quickly calculated their path and hid behind a tree along their route.
As the herd approached, she pounced like a predator, landing on one of the deer.
The startled deer let out high-pitched cries of distress, its large, beautiful eyes wide with fear.
The rest of the herd didn’t even glance back, scattering into the forest. Only a small fawn, barely old enough to be independent, hesitated and turned back.
Standing a short distance away, the fawn stamped its tiny hooves anxiously, bleating in a high-pitched voice that sounded more like a goat’s than a deer’s.
The adult deer beneath Song Wei struggled fiercely, its slender legs flailing. But Song Wei’s grip was iron-tight. Finally, the animal, exhausted, stopped resisting and lay on the ground, its chest heaving.
She was reluctant to kill it because the deer was so beautiful, and now she realized the one she had caught was a mother.
She stared at the little sika deer not far away that wanted to come over but didn’t dare to.
“Come here, little one.”
Song Wei called the little sika deer the same way she called a puppy.
She originally just wanted to tease it, but she didn’t expect the little thing to hesitate for a while and then actually come over tentatively.
Song Wei: …………
Are you so easy to fool?
The little sika deer walked over but didn’t get close. It just lowered its head and rubbed gently against its mother, with a hint of vigilance in its clear eyes.
He doesn’t look very smart.
She sighed. “Fine. I won’t kill you for now.”
Can I even keep a sika deer? she wondered.
She had already started raising chickens and rabbits. Would adding a deer to the mix be pushing it?
The thought of releasing the animal made her reluctant, but killing a mother with its fawn nearby seemed heartless. Keeping them alive seemed like the best compromise.
She can’t raise it in the educated youth dormitory, maybe Lin Zhen could help. She vaguely remembered that households would eventually be allowed to keep livestock—though she wasn’t sure exactly when that policy would come into effect.
Unconsciously, Song Wei had already begun to think of Lin Zhen’s place as a safe haven for her “valuables.”
With a resigned shrug, Song Wei fashioned a harness for the deer using vines, securing its neck and front legs. This way, the animal could walk but wouldn’t be able to escape.
She decided to consult Lin Zhen or the brigade leader about what to do next.
Abandoning her plan to investigate the tiger, Song Wei led the deer back toward her yam-digging spot.
The adult deer followed reluctantly, its strength no match for hers. The fawn, trusting its mother’s presence, trotted behind.
Back at the yam patch, Song Wei tied the deer to a tree and resumed digging.
The little fawn, curious and carefree, wandered over to the pile of yams. It sniffed at them, then took a small bite.
Apparently finding them tasty, it trotted back to its mother with a chunk of yam in its mouth.
The adult deer pawed the ground, lowered its head, and began eating the yams as well.
Song Wei watched the scene in disbelief.
Shaking her head, she muttered, “Fine. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
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