Wealthy Beauty in the 60s
Chapter 48 - 47 Catching the Snake

Chapter 48: Chapter 47 Catching the Snake

"You’re looking down on women, don’t forget your mother is also a woman, and now women hold up half the sky..." Xia Xiao began her lecture, hoping to change Gao Jiaxing’s dismissive attitude towards women.

"I don’t look down on women, I look down on you."

Gao Jiaxing’s words infuriated Xia Xiao so much she wanted to fight him, but considering Gao Jiaxing’s physically imposing presence, she knew she’d be at a disadvantage, so she bit her lip and held back.

"If you won’t teach, fine, I’ll find someone else who will," huffed Xia Xiao, and she walked away without lingering around Gao Jiaxing any longer.

"Fine, I’ll teach you," Gao Jiaxing suddenly said.

Xia Xiao stayed silent, and Gao Jiaxing continued, "I have a day off tomorrow, and the team is also going into the mountains, you can come hunting with me."

Xia Xiao pouted and nodded her head; that sounded more reasonable, she had heard that the team was going into the mountains tomorrow.

The next morning, Gao Jiaxing and Xia Xiao went into the mountains, but not to Nanhua Mountain, instead near the Guangming Production Team.

After work, the production team went into the mountains to gather food.

They collected mushrooms, picked wood ears, wild fruits, and even wild yam and ginseng—anything edible that they could bring back.

"Auntie, why are you pulling at these ferns?" Xia Xiao asked Zheng Xianghong, bewildered.

"This is a fern, it has cooling, damp-clearing, blood cooling, hemostatic, swelling reducing, and detoxifying properties. The team also needs a lot of herbs, Xia Xiao, you should gather more, and you’ll get work points for it," explained Zheng Xianghong.

Xia Xiao’s eyes lit up, "Then I’ll learn about these herbs with you later."

"Okay," Zheng Xianghong replied.

But now Xia Xiao had to go learn how to set traps for pheasants and rabbits with Gao Jiaxing, so she bid farewell to Zheng Xianghong first.

Zheng Xianghong waved her hand, "Go set traps for rabbits with Jiaxing, you can come back here later."

After Zheng Xianghong left, Xia Xiao joined Gao Jiaxing, and she asked him, "Now that we can’t start fires freely, what do we do with the trapped rabbits and pheasants?"

"Hand them over to the production team," Gao Jiaxing said, "It’s been said for years not to start fires freely. Our place is remote, and inspections aren’t that strict. But now, you can still start a fire secretly, just don’t get caught. Anyway, we can’t cook at my house anymore. Last time when Red Star Production Team brought us meat, my father split it half with the production team, so they had nothing to complain about."

Xia Xiao nodded, feeling unsure whether her luck was good or bad to have ended up in the 1960s.

"So today everyone went into the mountains to collectively gather food," Xia Xiao understood.

"Uh-huh, if you hunt good game or gather food and herbs, you can hand them over to the production team and also get work points," Gao Jiaxing said.

"Did the team leader say this?" She had no idea.

"Everyone in the team knows, didn’t the people in your dorm tell you? I don’t even know if you live in the production team, you don’t seem to know anything," Gao Jiaxing glanced at Xia Xiao.

Speechless, Xia Xiao really did miss this piece of information, and she wasn’t sure if Wang Aihua and the others had mentioned it or not.

After entering the mountains, Gao Jiaxing started teaching Xia Xiao how to set traps, how to trap rabbits and pheasants.

Xia Xiao seriously learned, but the mountains near the Guangming Production Team didn’t have as many wild animals as Nanhua Mountain, otherwise so many people wouldn’t be extensively going to the mountains.

"Let’s go, why are you standing here?" Gao Jiaxing walked a few steps and noticed Xia Xiao hadn’t followed, so he said.

"Go? Where to?" Xia Xiao was confused.

"To another place," Gao Jiaxing said.

"But we set traps here, shouldn’t we guard them?" Xia Xiao asked.

"No need, we can check on them when we come down the mountain later."

"Oh," Xia Xiao learned something new.

"Now let’s go gather herbs with my mom, or you can go with others to pick mushrooms."

"Let’s go."

Xia Xiao still preferred to follow Zheng Xianghong. Zheng Xianghong knew some medical skills, and Xia Xiao could learn about herbs from her, which would be useful.

Xia Xiao hadn’t considered learning medicine, but she was interested in herbs.

Suddenly, Xia Xiao saw leaves rustling a few meters away from the ground, seemingly caused by a snake, and she shivered slightly, asking weakly, "Gao Jiaxing, do you see if there is a snake over there? It’s moving, do you see it?"

Previously at Nanhua Mountain, Xia Xiao hadn’t encountered any snakes, and nowadays, she was used to traveling through her space to the bear cave and back, having not been to other places.

She had forgotten about the existence of snakes, remembering when she was reborn here after being bitten by a snake, and the incident of eating snake meat, Xia Xiao felt a little terrified now.

"Coward, what’s there to be afraid of with snakes, and you want to hunt?" Gao Jiaxing looked down on Xia Xiao’s fear, his eyes lit up with the joy of spotting prey, unlike Xia Xiao’s fear.

"It’s not the same." Xia Xiao was scared to move now, fearing the snake might follow her.

Gao Jiaxing tossed a stone over, the leaves shook, and sure enough, a snake appeared.

"Ah, there are two," Xia Xiao screamed upon seeing two snakes coiled together, feeling completely terrified.

She wanted to immediately retreat to her space, but since Gao Jiaxing was there, she couldn’t enter her space; instead, she clung tightly to Gao Jiaxing’s clothes.

"Let go," Gao Jiaxing said.

"I won’t let go," Xia Xiao clung tightly.

"My clothes are going to tear," Gao Jiaxing was speechless, "How can I catch the snake if you’re pulling on me like this? They are green snakes, not poisonous."

"But there are two snakes! What if one comes over when you go there?" Xia Xiao was almost too weak to stand.

"Xiaoxiao, it’s okay, if a snake comes over, just throw me at it, make sure to aim well," Shitou suddenly spoke.

Xia Xiao unconsciously let go of Gao Jiaxing’s clothes, grasping the stone tightly with both hands around her neck.

"Stand still and don’t move."

After Gao Jiaxing spoke, he tore a cloth bag from his body and headed towards the two snakes.

As Xia Xiao saw the cloth bag on Gao Jiaxing, she realized he had brought it to catch the snakes. She tightly watched the two snakes, which had started to seem aggressive as Gao Jiaxing approached.

Shitou said, "He’s fooling you, those two snakes are poisonous, and they were just mating."

Upon hearing this, Xia Xiao tensed up, and although she wanted to call out to Gao Jiaxing, she feared distracting him, which could result in him being bitten by the snakes.

"Gege, do you know what kind of snakes these are?"

"I don’t know," Shitou admitted.

Xia Xiao didn’t ask further, but suddenly her voice trembled, "Gege, isn’t the other snake coming our way?"

"Seems like it."

As soon as Shitou spoke, Xia Xiao tensed up completely, murmuring, "I just want to go into my space now."

"You won’t," Shitou didn’t believe that Xia Xiao would enter her space in front of Gao Jiaxing.

"I’m afraid I will, if the snake really attacks, I might instinctively go in."