Chapter 232
Chapter 232
Curious Little Mushroom industriously continued digging out the rat hole.
She unearthed many soybeans, most of them chewed into fragments.
The two dogs dug beside her.
More rats fled the hole, each plump and well fed.
Clearly, this entire rat family ate exceptionally well.
“Dig. Keep digging.”
She intended to see how much grain they had hidden.
As time passed, she unearthed more and more: soybeans, millet, wheat, rice…
Eventually, she struck something hard.
“This doesn’t look like a rock from the mountain.”
Puzzled, Jiang Yunsui tapped it with her little shovel. It seemed man-made. Hm… a wall!
Bang!
A piece of stone broke loose and shot directly into her forehead.
Little Mushroom’s vision went black. Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.
That familiar feeling! Damn it, there had to be something inside!
That was Jiang Yunsui’s final thought before losing consciousness.
Yes, the flying stone had knocked her out cold.
After an unknown length of time, Jiang Yunsui felt something wet on her face and her body being pawed back and forth. Anxious whines sounded beside her ears.
As awareness gradually returned, she opened her eyes and discovered she could not breathe.
“M-move…”
With all the strength her newly awakened body possessed, she pushed away the large dog lying halfway across her.
Good heavens. The stone had failed to kill her, but the dog nearly crushed her to death!
It had licked slobber all over her face too.
Jiang Yunsui shoved the dog farther away in disgust.
“Zuozuo, Youyou, how many times have I told you not to lick me?”
Their slobber was filthy!
Little Mushroom grumbled as she found a clean handkerchief and wiped her face several times.
Only then did she return her attention to the wall-like object.
Despite having just been knocked unconscious, her curiosity remained undiminished.
With her little bottom in the air, she lay down and studied it carefully. A hole had appeared in the wall, but it was too small even for Jiang Yunsui to crawl through.
The grain in the rat hole had come through this opening.
It was too dark inside to see what lay beyond.
Jiang Yunsui decided to enlarge the hole. She picked up her little shovel and industriously began digging again.
But the obstacle was too hard. After several strikes, her hands ached from the impact, while the opening had not grown at all.
Jiang Yunsui put down the shovel and looked sorrowfully at her reddened hands, blowing on them several times.
“Jiang Yunsui! Jiang Yunsui!”
Huh?
Someone was calling her.
Jiang Yunsui patted Zuozuo’s head.
“Zuozuo, go look and bring them here.”
Her clever little head had produced a fine idea. Digging alone was hard, but she could find helpers.
Zuozuo soon led Ji Lu and the others over. They found Jiang Yunsui sitting in a chaotic pit, filthy once again.
They were used to it. If she ever went out and returned clean, that would be strange.
“What are you doing? Whose burrow did you dig up this time?”
Jiang Yunsui pointed at the nearby corpses.
“Whoa! Those rats are enormous!”
That was everyone’s first reaction.
“You dug all this grain out of the rat hole?”
“What a pity. The rats have chewed it.”
“They ruined so much grain. Rats really are detestable.”
“Liu Liu, Si Si, come help! There has to be a big secret inside.”
Jiang Yunsui beckoned them over.
She had been knocked unconscious. After suffering such terrible luck, there had to be something valuable inside.
The men jumped down beside her and examined the small opening where she sat.
“What’s in there?”
Jiang Yunsui looked innocent. “I don’t know, but the rats seem to have dragged the grain out through this hole.”
The group exchanged glances.
Ji Si crouched and felt the surface. “It’s a constructed wall.”
“So there really is something behind it.”
“Could it be a cellar?”
“We’ll know once we open it,” Ji Lu said.
Several grown men were obviously far stronger than a little glutinous rice dumpling like Jiang Yunsui.
Before long, they had widened the opening considerably.
At least Jiang Yunsui could crawl through now.
The impatient Little Mushroom slipped inside while no one was looking.
Everyone’s eyes widened.
They could not catch her. They simply could not!
“Jiang Yunsui!”
“Are you all right?”
The fall had left Jiang Yunsui dazed.
She rubbed her little bottom, looking aggrieved.
“I’m fine. My bottom just hurts.”
The cellar was dry and smelled of decay and mold from years without inhabitants.
It was dark, but Jiang Yunsui could see clearly.
She had landed atop a mountain of sacks.
Everywhere she looked, there were more sacks.
Rats had chewed holes in some, exposing the grain within.
“Si Si, Liu Liu, there’s so much grain down here! So much…”
Little Mushroom’s eyes shone.
She had never seen this much grain gathered in one place.
She did not know how excited Ji Si, Ji Lu, and the others became at her words.
Grain!
They had suspected it, but confirmation still filled them with joy.
They did not know where the cellar entrance was, so they could only continue widening the hole.
After sustained effort, they finally made it broad enough for an adult to enter.
Enough light also entered for them to see the cellar’s contents.
“Look! What a huge rat!”
Jiang Yunsui had caught an enormous rat from somewhere.
It was unbelievably large!
“Let it go. Be careful it doesn’t bite you.”
Jiang Yunsui obediently released it.
But the rat had presumably ruled this place for too long. Instead of fleeing, it squealed furiously and lunged at her.
Jiang Yunsui recoiled.
“You want a fight? I’m not scared of you!”
She seized the rat by the neck and slapped it several times.
It still managed to bite her, drawing blood from her hand.
“Hiss!”
Little Pink bit the rat. Before long, the aggressive creature went limp and died.
Ji Si and the others jumped down through the opening.
“Si Si, the rat bit me.”
The little girl complained pitifully.
Ji Si took her hand, inspected it carefully, and applied medicine.
“But Little Pink bit it to death.”
Ji Lu lifted the enormous rat by its tail and clicked his tongue.
“It’s bigger than a cat. A cat could eat it for several meals.”
And this rat had grown on grain. It was considerably cleaner than those raised in filthy drains.
“Good heavens, who hid all this grain?”
Ji Lu laughed. “Whoever hid it, the grain belongs to us now.”
Everyone beamed at the overflowing cellar.
Forget a siege by Piao Kingdom lasting several months. With this grain, they could hold out for an entire year!