Gu Ming had, in the past, dug a few traps before in the mountain but rarely caught anything. But, not wanting to let his sister down, he nodded and said, “Okay! Let me go get the hoe from the house and we can dig a few more in some hidden locations.”
Those living in the mountains were simpler and purer, even if they walked pass someone else’s trap that has an animal inside, they would rarely just take them. From their perspective, taking someone else’s game was no different than stealing from them. Behaviors like that would be looked down up by the villagers and might even get one ousted from the village.
Granted, there was always exceptions to the rules. Wu Danggui’s wife had done something like that in the past, and, worse, she was caught red-handed. Mrs. Wu’s reputation dropped to rock bottom in the village. She would have been evicted from the village had her man not had some healing skills.
The two siblings dug two more holes and placed some wild grasses over it. To prevent others from falling in, they even carved marks on the tree branches nearby. When other villagers saw the mark, they’d know to avoid them.
Gu Ye’s plan was once the back basket was full and her brother transport the pine cones down the mountain, she’d wander around the mountain. Any games that she hunted she’d just toss into one of the traps and pretend that they fell inside themselves. Yup! That’s how she was going to do it. What a perfect plan!
Ling Juechen, who had been following her this entire time, smiled lightly. His smile was like flowers blossoming, fireworks exploding, dreamy and unearthly. His well-defined tall silhouette disappeared into the forest. When he reappeared, he has with him a struggling pheasant.
“Little girl is way too weak, she needs more pheasant soup!” Ling Juechen felt his heart aches when he looked at the girl not too far away with her back to him, skinny like a fire rod. He walked over to the crude trap, knocked out the pheasant and tossed it inside. The trap was way too shallow and not too difficult for the pheasant to escape. That was just too unprofessional!
“Gu Ming, I think you got something in your trap!” Only Li Hao was there collecting pine nuts that day. All the other kids went to pick wild vegetables.
Li Hao was aware that the siblings had made a few traps. This area has high human traffic, usually very few wild animals could be seen so he wasn’t very hopeful about them. But when he walked pass it again while collecting pine cones he noticed that the grass on top of the trap seemed to have been disturbed and now the trap was visible.
Gu Ming, who was stirring the pine cones in the tree with his stick, dropped it and ran over after hearing Li Hao’s words. Gu Ye was curious and followed him too. The pheasant in the trap had just regained consciousness and was bumbling around inside of it. Gu Ming ran over pleasantly surprised. He picked up a stick hear by and knocked it out again. (Pheasant: Why me again?)
Gu Ye faked a happy look on the outside but she was very surprised as well. She hasn’t been able to carry out her plan yet, and she hadn’t seen any animal tracks nearby, so where did this stupid pheasant come from? But she quickly put that all behind her and happily discussing with her brother how to prepare the pheasant.
“I think we should make soup out of it. Pheasant soup is good nourishment. The doctor said your stomach is weak and can’t handle anything too overly greasy.” Gu Ming turned down his sister request to barbeque the pheasant.
Li Hao chuckled, “I will go get the soup pot and salt!” Last time there were so many of them, each person only got a couple pieces of meat. That wasn’t enough at all. Today there was just the three of them; this should be a good amount for everyone!
Li Hao had two meals of pheasant because of the siblings, now he considered them closer than his real siblings. He patted his own chest and guaranteed that Gu Ming’s sister was his sister too, and he, too, would protect her!