"Huh? Oh! I get it." Yuan Si didn't catch on at first, but she wasn't truly a child, and she immediately understood what her mother meant.
"Good. When you come back, be discreet. It wouldn't be good if anyone saw." Zuo Daya was very pleased. 'My little girl takes right after me. Sharp as a tack.'
"Mhm." Yuan Si pondered this. 'I couldn't care less about a few branches for firewood. What I want is meat.' "By the way, Mom, how come that lotus pond below our house has so few lotuses? Why not plant more?"
The Li family lived on a slope. Just outside their courtyard, a set of steps led downhill to a small pond. A few sparse lotus leaves floated in its center.
"It's not as simple as you think. Years ago, someone tried to cultivate it. They spent a fortune planting lotus roots, and the first year, the whole pond was actually filled with lotus flowers. I was just a little girl then, and I even went along to see all the excitement. But by the second year, it was a failure. Only a few in the middle bloomed; the rest died. That family struggled with it for several years, but it never produced more than those few flowers. For the past couple of years, no one's bothered with it. The land all belongs to the state now, so of course, the pond does too. But the team doesn't manage it. In the summer, it's just a place for some of the kids to swim and cool off. What's this? I used to tell you to go play with those kids and you never wanted to. You want to go now?" Her mother figured her little girl just wanted to go for a swim.
Yuan Si nodded without denying it. 'Isn't that exactly what I want—to go for a swim in the water?'
"Even if you want to, you can't. It's still too chilly to get in the water. You just behave yourself. When it gets warmer, I'll have your cousin Gen Sheng take you," her mother instructed.
Yuan Si couldn't agree to that, but she understood the concept of a white lie. 'It's best not to tell Mom what I'm really thinking for now.'
For the rest of the afternoon, the mother and daughter chatted by the doorway while braiding, continuing until the sky was pitch black. Her mother didn't stop; she didn't even need to see, her hands continuing to braid swiftly in the darkness.
That night, Yuan Si didn't cultivate her powers. Instead, she lay with her eyes closed, listening. Once she was sure her mother was sound asleep beside her, she quietly slipped out of the room. Then, in the main hall, she began to pull equipment out of her dimensional space.
Back in the apocalypse, she had often gone on all sorts of missions, including underwater ones, so she had quite a few tools that would come in handy now.
She took out a black diving suit. It was made from the hide of a North Giant Python, an amphibious mutant beast. Its skin could maintain a constant temperature for a period of time and also provide a person with up to thirty minutes of oxygen.
The diving suit was stretchy. Yuan Si put it on. It was a little big on her small frame, but it was manageable and didn't hinder her movement.
Then, she pulled a flashlight from her space.
She fiddled with a spot on the flashlight's handle, causing it to retract and transform into a flat disc. She then stuck it directly onto her forehead.
The flashlight was a high-tech product invented after the apocalypse, powered by zombie Crystal Cores.
The handle at the base of the light was retractable. When extended, it functioned as a normal flashlight. When pressed in, it became a small disc that could adhere to any surface. It was typically used on the ceiling of a tent, but it could also be stuck to one's forehead and used as a headlamp.
Energy was scarce in the apocalypse, so these tools were all designed to be highly energy-efficient. A single Level 0 Crystal Core could power it for seven full days and nights. She had three such flashlights stored in her space, just in case. As for her supply of Energy Crystal Cores, she had two entire chests filled with tens of thousands of them, of all different levels.
Finally, she took out a round disc. She twisted the plate-like object, grabbed the edge, and pulled it upward. With another twist to the side, the disc instantly expanded into a bucket. She then twisted the base, and it separated into two parts. The section that detached from the bucket wall was its lid.
This was a collapsible bucket made from the wings of a Hei Mountain Bat. It could have a lid when needed, just as Yuan Si had demonstrated. The center of the lid had a net-like opening, specially designed for underwater gathering. A diver could hang the bucket from their waist and stuff any caught fish or other prey through the net, preventing it from escaping.
Once Yuan Si had everything ready and heard no sound from the bedroom, she opened the door and went outside.
It was the dead of night. Aside from the moonlight, everything was deathly still. Yuan Si quickly opened the courtyard gate, descended the slope to the edge of the lotus pond, and carefully scanned her surroundings. Only after confirming no one was around did she relax and step into the water.
The water near the edge of the pond wasn't very deep, only about a meter, but it already came up to Yuan Si's mouth. She was just too short now. After she waded another two meters in, the water level gradually deepened. Soon, it was over her head. She reached up, pressed the headlamp on her forehead, and a beam of light shot forward.
Yuan Si swam toward the center. The pond wasn't large, so she quickly reached the middle, using the few lotus flowers as a guide. She bobbed up and down a few times and estimated the deepest point was over three meters.
'No wonder planting lotus roots here was such a dismal failure,' she thought. 'Water this deep is completely unsuitable for them.'
She swam a circle around the few lotuses that had managed to survive, then prepared to see what edible things the pond had to offer.
She stood in the mud at the center of the pond, calmed her mind, and focused on extending her spiritual power, which wasn't very extensive yet. She was able to vaguely perceive things within a one-meter-diameter radius around her. This was the result of over half a month of cultivating day and night. 'It's nothing compared to my peak, but it'll have to do for now.'
Yuan Si frowned. 'This isn't what I expected. There's food in here, but not very much.'
In the mud, she detected loaches, eels, and river snails.
But the quantities of each were small. Within her range of perception, the river snails were slightly more numerous, but there weren't many loaches or eels. In a one-meter radius of mud, she detected only two eels. 'That's not even enough for one meal. How could I be satisfied? Still, no matter how little there is, it's got to be better than drinking watery porridge every day.' Yuan Si consoled herself.
For someone like her, who had "eyes" that could see in the mud, catching an eel required no technique. She simply plunged her hand down into the muck, pinned the eel's neck, and pulled it out with a single tug.
She immediately stuffed the eel through the net of the bucket hanging at her waist. Catching both eels was easy. Next up were the loaches.
These creatures were small and slippery, which made them harder to catch than the eels. But for the sake of a mouthful of meat, Yuan Si patiently caught them one by one.
Just as she was concentrating, she felt something rushing toward her through the water.