Chapter 18

The next morning, Ning Qing woke up her younger siblings to help plant the herbs before they could take it anymore and died. The younger siblings quickly washed their faces and went to help Ning Qing work diligently. They spent the whole morning working until they finished their work before going to have breakfast later. Since Ning Qing didn't want to leave the work and come back to do it later, she did so. When the younger siblings saw how hard-working their older sister was, they didn't complain at all, but helped their older sister finish the work together.

While eating, Ning Qing was still thinking about where else she could earn money besides planting herbs. She asked her mother if her uncle who went hunting was selling well. When she found out that her uncle was selling well, she wanted to go hunting too. However, her parents were afraid that it would be unsafe for her, so they didn't let her do it. Ning Qing explained to her parents that she would set up traps and then go collect them later, so that her parents wouldn't have to worry about her. Ning Guan, who knew how to make traps, volunteered to help her daughter. Ning Qing thanked her father for understanding that she had to help earn money for the family to treat him. The father and daughter helped each other make simple traps from bamboos that were around their house. Ning Qing was the one who went to cut the wood and dragged it for her father to help make because Ning Guan still couldn't move much, otherwise his leg bones would heal slower than they are now. Ning Qing cared a lot about her father because she wanted him to get better. In the future, she would have a pillar to help with the work she planned in the future.

The father and daughter helped make simple traps with Ning Gui and Ning Yang helping with the simple work. Xiao Shui, seeing the family helping each other so much, could only smile happily. She hurriedly went to cook for everyone for dinner after they made a few traps. Tomorrow, Xiao Shui would take Ning Qing to see her brother to go up the mountain to set animal traps.

After breakfast the next day, Ning Qing went to her grandparents' house with Xiao Shui to have her uncle take her to set the five animal traps that they made yesterday. Ning Qing strung the traps together to make them easier for her to carry from the beginning. Ning Guan also told her daughter to be careful. Ning Qing promised to be more careful. Don't worry everyone. Moreover, she had her uncle with her so she wasn't too scary. In her previous life, she liked to go out into the forest. Her life in the forest had always been good. She was confident that she would be fine. Ning Qing also brought a small machete with her to mark where she had set the traps.

When she reached her grandparents' house, fortunately, her uncle had not gone out yet, so she asked to follow him up the mountain to set the traps. When her uncle Xiaoyao first saw her niece, he could only praise her for being so hard-working. Unlike his children who invited him up the mountain, he didn't think about going. Instead, he liked studying more. He had already earned money to send his three sons to study in the city for two years. The children would come back on weekends, so he had to work hard to find as many baits as possible to sell for his children's tuition fees. After Xiao Shui left Ning Qing with her brother, she went back to help her children take care of the herb garden.

Since her husband had not fully recovered, she had to take care of these things on his behalf for the time being. Fortunately, since they got married, she had often helped her husband. So she did everything like her children. Xiao Yao saw the strange-looking trap and didn't know if the bait would get caught or not. He himself had set traps before, but wild animals rarely got caught in his traps. This time, he would try to see if his niece would get any bait. If it worked, he would ask his niece to teach him. It wouldn't hurt. After the two of them set the traps, Ning Qing asked to go home and would come back in the evening to check the traps with his uncle.

When Xiao Yao saw that she had set them, he took her down the mountain like that. He himself wanted to know if the traps would work or not. He wouldn't have to risk hunting animals and get injured many times like before. Ning Qing also asked her uncle to dig a big hole before coming down the mountain. In case they could get a big wild boar to keep as food. Xiao Yao had never dug such a big trap before. He wasn't sure if the bait would really fall in. But he tried to follow his niece's suggestion. They were hoping to get some animals anyway. After Xiao Yao sent her niece home and visited Ning Guan, he made an appointment with her niece in the afternoon to go back and check the traps. Ning Qing thought that the nearly three hours should allow her to catch some animals as well, so she made an agreement with her uncle to go to him at the agreed time.

They weren't afraid that the other villagers would go up the mountain to steal their animals in the first place. Because only Xiao Yao dared to go up this mountain. When the appointed time came, Ning Qing stopped working in the herb garden and went to her uncle's house. Then, the two uncles and nieces went up the mountain without wasting any time. Ning Qing wasn't as excited as Xiao Yao. Because she knew that her traps would definitely work. And it was true. With so many wild animals in the forest today, she had already caught wild rabbits, wild chickens, and a wild boar that had fallen into a hole and been stabbed to death by a stick a while ago.

Ning Qing told her uncle to quickly bring the pigs up first, because she was afraid that the other dangerous wild animals would smell the blood and follow them. Ning Qing then tied the five traps with bait in them together so that she could drag them back with the big boar that her uncle was bringing up. She had him tie a rope around the boar and they helped pull it up. Fortunately, the hole she dug wasn't very deep, so it was very convenient to move it around. The two uncle and niece smiled at each other and quickly went down the mountain.