Traveling through the mountains and farming

Chapter 118 Competition

The boys looked confident and felt they would definitely win.

The girls were not to be outdone and cheered each other on. Li Ke knew that they had an ace player, Li Ju.

Li Ju, like her brother Li Chongwu, inherited her father's natural supernatural powers.

She has been much stronger than other girls since she was young. Her family was worried that this would be known and would affect her future marriage, so they kept it secret.

Li Ke discovered this secret accidentally during morning exercises. Combined with their daily training, Li Ju's archery skills improved with this natural advantage.

So she suggested placing Li Ju at the end, to catch the opponent by surprise and maybe win.

Then let Luo Xiaoya, who has the worst skills, be the first to appear in order to paralyze the opponent.

Sure enough, when the boys saw that Luo Xiaoya shot one arrow that missed the target, one arrow that barely hit the target, and one arrow that was close to the center of the target, they felt even more confident that they would win.

Except for Li Chongle who took it seriously, everyone else let down their guard and thought they could win by just shooting casually.

Li Tao, who performed next, had a satisfactory performance, while the men's team performed relatively normally. Li Chongle and Luo Xiaoxi had the best results, as they had practiced archery with Luo Dashan for the longest time.

When it was Li Ke's turn, she put all her effort into it and shot three arrows. Her results improved significantly, narrowing the gap for the women's team.

After all, she was the first one to practice archery, and before she went into the mountains, Lin Wan arranged for her to practice archery with Luo Dashan every day.

Finally it was Li Ju's turn to perform. She was calm and composed, and she put the arrow on the bow and drew the bow in one smooth motion.

"Swoosh, whoosh, whoosh", all three arrows hit the bull's eye, and the women's team's score instantly caught up and even slightly exceeded.

The boys were panicked. The last person to perform was Li Chongping. They thought they could beat the women's team with the results of the first three, but they never expected that such a powerful Li Ju would appear.

I’ve never seen her so good at morning exercises!

Is he hiding his incompetence?

Li Chongping's archery skills were average to begin with. When he saw the opponent's results and felt that he might have surpassed him, he got nervous and shot two arrows off the target, with only one arrow barely hitting the target.

Li Chongle and Li Ke were quickly calculating the total number.

"draw"

"I hope you didn't make a mistake in the calculation. Why don't you find an adult to help you calculate it?" Li Chong'an asked.

"Brother Xiaole and Sister Xiaoke were not wrong in their calculations. I also calculated that it was a tie."

Lin Jing, who was standing next to him, had also figured it out, and when he heard Li Chongan's question, he immediately answered with certainty.

Seeing that Lin Jing, who was so young, could count, Li Chongan asked:

"You all know arithmetic?"

"Yes, my sister-in-law taught us." Li Chongle replied.

"My cousin's wife can also teach this?" Li Chongan was surprised.

"My sister-in-law is the daughter of a scholar. Isn't it normal for her to know arithmetic?" Li Ke said with his head raised.

In the eyes of children, Tongsheng is very powerful, so it is normal for Lin Wan, the daughter of Tongsheng, to be able to do arithmetic.

Wang Damao interrupted their conversation and asked impatiently:

"How about the extra match?"

He still wanted to play. Maybe if he had been allowed to compete just now, they would have won.

"No, we underestimated our opponent. Even if the women's team wins this time, we will definitely win again next time!" Li Chongan said cheerfully.

When the girls heard this, they cheered with joy.

"I'm sorry, everyone. It's my fault."

Li Chongping apologized to everyone generously.

"How can you be blamed for this? We are on the same team and we will face the wins and losses together!" Li Chongle went over and hugged Li Chongping to comfort him.

"That's right, next time we must prepare well and not underestimate the enemy. We will definitely win." Luo Xiaoxi also echoed.

The children chatted with each other and the atmosphere became lively again.

"Let's go home and have dinner, and continue playing tomorrow!" Someone shouted.

Everyone gathered together, talking and laughing as they walked home.

After returning home, Li Ke told Lin Wan about their competition in vivid detail.

"Sister-in-law, are we amazing?"

"Well, Xiaoke deserves praise. He is brave and resourceful."

Seeing that Li Chongle was a little depressed, Lin Wan smiled and said:

"I also want to praise Xiaole. Not only did he take the competition seriously and shoot well, but when others failed and lost the game, he did not blame them. He knew how to find the reasons and comforted his teammates."

Glancing at Lin Jing next to her, Lin Wan understood that she had to treat everyone equally, and continued:

"Lin Jing also deserves praise. He helped his brothers and sisters calculate their scores, and they were correct."

"Oh oh oh~" Xiaobai next to her rubbed Lin Wan's legs and cried.

Lin Wan gently touched Xiaobai's head and said, "I also want to praise Xiaobai. He knows how to cheer us on from the side!"

Xiaobai barked happily a few times, as if responding to Lin Wan's praise.

"Okay, Xiaole will teach Xiaojing the multiplication table we talked about today, and Xiaoke can help."

When they first started teaching, Lin Wan would wait for Lin Jing to come over and the three of them would teach together. Later, one time Lin Jing was delayed by something, so the two siblings learned the content of the day first. After dinner that night, Lin Wan found that Li Chongle was talking to Lin Jing about what he had learned that day, and he explained it very well.

Lin Wan thought this method was good. The two siblings reviewed what they had learned that day, and Lin Jing didn't need to set aside a fixed time to keep up with everyone's progress. It also helped to enhance the relationship between the three children.

Since then, Lin Wan often asked Li Chongle to explain to Lin Jing what he had learned that day. Li Ke would sometimes join in, and the three children would learn and progress together.

The three kids were studying obediently in the main room while Lin Wan went into the kitchen to cook dinner.

~

After learning about the two new foods, konjac and kudzu, from Lin Wan, He Lizheng led several families living in seclusion in the valley and started searching for them in the mountains every day from the next day.

They did harvest a lot in the past few days, but in order to survive the winter safely, they still needed to dig and store a lot.

Because the people living in seclusion in the cave had previously cleaned the area near the mountains carefully, and coupled with their searching and plundering over the past few days, there were very few konjac and kudzu resources left near the mountains where they lived.

Now they face two choices: either go deeper into the mountains, but that would undoubtedly be more dangerous; or choose to explore outside the mountain, but this would require extra caution to avoid encountering soldiers.

After weighing the pros and cons, He Lizheng decided to take everyone to the outskirts of the mountain early this morning.

Sure enough, after walking out for more than an hour, their chances of finding konjac and kudzu vine increased greatly, and their harvest in the morning was even more than that of the whole day in the previous few days.

He Yunzheng put the kudzu he had just dug into his backpack, straightened up and said:

"Dad, let's go back after we finish digging the kudzu here and come back this afternoon."

"Well, you know what, these two kinds of food are really treasures. You can dig out a lot of them if you find a place, and they are very big." He Lizheng exclaimed with a smile.

"We have to thank Uncle Li and his men from Quanshui Village for generously telling us about such easy-to-find food in large quantities." He Feng, He Lizheng's younger brother, who had been to the dark market with him before, said.

He Lizheng nodded: "They are kind-hearted people. Yun Zheng, you should go and have a look next time. Their cave is well built. It is not only convenient for life, but also very safe."

"Then we should also take safety precautions like them, just in case." He Yunzheng suggested.

"Yes, after we are done with these few days and have enough food stored, we will set up some traps and warning devices at the entrance of the valley and near the yard."

In fact, after seeing the secluded cave where Uncle Li and his people lived, He Lizheng also wanted to improve their valley, but the current food shortage trapped them.