Not Required

The woman raised her skinny hand and touched her daughter's dry yellow hair that was as messy as grass, and looked at the father and son and the black dog not far away.

"Mom doesn't know either," she said, shaking her head. She wanted to go forward and ask, but during this special period, everyone was very defensive and didn't allow anyone to approach casually.

"Yeah," the little girl nodded, feeling a little depressed and hungry. But her eyes did not leave the willow basket. She glanced at the wooden stick in her hand, and then followed suit and learned to dig in the cracked soil, although she didn't know what she was digging.

The woman ignored her and continued to searching the surroundings, but didn't dare to leave the child too far away, but still found nothing. Even if there was any, it was gone after the previous group of people swept it, and even the edible wild vegetable roots were dug up clean.

Just as the woman was feeling disappointed, she heard her daughter's small exclamation and saw that the child was holding a mud puddle in her hand, which was very similar to what the father and son dug not far away.

Gulan also heard the little girl's exclamation behind her. In fact, Gulan had already discovered it when the little girl was digging the soil with a stick.

The mother and son did not hide their actions from others, so it was normal for them to be discovered. Gulan did not find it strange.

In addition, the area under the river was not small, and they did not have the ability to take all the clams in the cracks for themselves, even if there were any.

Now is not the time when there were only the mother and son. Imagine that everyone is hungry and their faces are pale. their eyes are red from hunger. Unless they do not open fire or stay away from the crowd, they will never be discovered. Gulan doesn't want to put herself in danger.

Therefore, even if they were not discovered, Gulan did not decide to conceal the discovery of the clams. As for the candidates, Gulan already had an idea after a day of observation.

But now it seems that it is not necessary. Although the little girl has deliberately lowered her voice, it can still be vaguely heard by others who are eager to find food. Everyone gradually approaches the direction of the little girl.

The daughter's words made the woman come to the child. She took the thing from her hand and found that it was a snail with a complete lid. She could see the fresh snail meat inside... It was alive.

The woman's eyes lit up. Although they didn't like to eat snail meat because it had a strong earthy smell, they were almost starving to death, so why would they care about the earthy smell? As long as it was edible, it was fine.

The woman took a look at the father and son who were digging, and immediately understood what they were digging. She couldn't help but look at the backpack beside them with burning eyes.

... They seemed to have dug up a lot, and a trace of envy flashed in her eyes.

Restraining her excitement, the woman quickly put the snails into the small basket she carried tightly, and without saying anything, she took her daughter to search in the cracked soil, hoping to find more, so that the mother-in-law might be able to give the child more food.

While the woman was looking, several people from different directions approached them. In fact, the people who wanted to get closer the most were Gulan and her group. However, due to the big black dog that was guarding them closely, especially the black dog that had stopped digging and was staring at them, no one wanted to test the sharpness of the dog's teeth, but everyone looked at the big black dog with unusually hot eyes.

"What did your daughter from Zhao Gang's family find? Is it something delicious?" An old woman with wrinkled face and inverted triangular eyes, who looked sarcastic at first glance, was the first to come to the mother and daughter. As soon as she opened her mouth, she went straight to the target.

"... Aunt Liu... No... Nothing delicious, just the snails that are often seen in the river. My daughter found one from the crack."

The woman hesitated for a few times and told the truth. After all, Aunt Liu had already seen it, and she thought she couldn't argue with Aunt Liu even if she was not good at talking.

"Snail, Zhao Gang's wife, do you think you can find snails here?" Aunt Liu couldn't help but raise her voice a few degrees.

The woman nodded, and at the same time, Auntie Liu's words were heard by the other refugees who had gathered. Everyone's faces lit up. The snails did taste bad, but as long as they could eat them, everyone had only one word in mind.

Almost instantly, the dozen or so people who had gathered here dispersed and began to search the cracked riverbed without stopping. This is life-saving food!

Soon, one person dug up a river clam that was slightly smaller than his palm. In his surprise, he resisted the urge to burst out his mouth, carefully and quickly put the river clam into the backpack he carried with him, and then searched faster. After a while, everyone had a harvest one after another. The common point was that they did not make it public. After all, the more people knew about it, the more limited the harvest would be.

The main thing was that they also found that the place where river clams and snails existed must have a little moisture in the soil, otherwise even if there were, they would be empty shells that had been dead for a long time and had already dried up and could not be eaten.

There was only this piece of soil at the bottom of the entire river that was still a little moist, and the range was no more than five mu of land. Go to notify others? Everyone was not stupid.

Here, Gulan looked at the crowd approaching, narrowed her eyes, and then stood up and looked at the backpack guarded by Dahei. There were already twenty or thirty river clams and snails of various sizes in the backpack, not to mention the dozens of them that she had secretly put into the space.

These, plus the food used as cover in the package, were enough for their food for half a month. The sky was getting dark, and Gulan decided to stop.

Pulling AnAn, calling Dahei, carrying a basket on his back and leaning on a wooden stick, Gulan prepared to go ashore, and then find a remote place with few people to pickle the river clams in the basket. She had salt in her space, so she could keep it for a while.

Of course, this was just a pretense for her, just sprinkle a little, after all, it was in the space.

"Mom... Dad, are you not going to look for it?" AnAn looked at the people in the distance and thought of what his mother had said before, and quickly changed his words.

"Well, it's almost done," Gulan nodded. Just as Gulan turned around and was about to leave with her son, someone blocked her way.

This was the first time that Gulan had been stopped by someone since she had fled with Little bun these days.

Even though she had deliberately stayed away from the crowd to avoid trouble, it seemed that sometimes trouble was not something you could avoid just because you wanted to. Look, the troublemaker is here.

Gulan stared at the old woman who blocked their way and the two men behind her. The shriveled old woman looked at them nakedly with her turbid and calculating triangular eyes.

"Auntie, is there something wrong?"

The deliberately lowered voice, hoarseness due to lack of water, and the thin and tall body made Gulan look like a slightly weak man. No one doubted that this was a woman. It was impossible for a weak woman to come here with a child. She would either be robbed or killed.

Every time Gulan, who lived under the red flag, thought of her previous life, her head hurt. Except for her original husband, who was a little better, other people didn't take her seriously at all. They were just a hardworking servant in the family, and were driven and tortured like animals.

When there is no use value and becomes a burden, it is not the first time to be abandoned.

But Gulan was glad to be abandoned, otherwise she would not be able to bear it if she followed such a big family of extreme people. Alas, thinking of the status of women here, Gulan couldn't help but sigh in her heart.