Afraid the giant water snake might have accomplices, Yuan Si quickly moved to its head. She aimed the dagger in her right hand at the spot between its eyes and plunged it down. In the next moment, snake blood gushed from the wound, spreading rapidly through the river water.
Yuan Si didn't dare to linger. She grabbed the snake's body, and with a thought to store it, the entire creature vanished from the water. She felt a small sense of relief; since she could store the snake, it meant it was dead.
However, the snake's sudden disappearance from the water created a colliding backflow at the bottom of the river, forming a small whirlpool.
Yuan Si was the closest and was the first to be caught in it. She wasn't frightened, though. During the apocalypse, she had encountered such situations on several missions, so she was experienced. She didn't fight it, simply allowing herself to be spun around in circles. As she spun, she steadily rose higher, the circles of the whirlpool growing wider and wider.
Once the centrifugal force had weakened, she engaged her core and launched herself out of the whirlpool's range. Without pausing, and still fearing she might be dragged back in, she kicked her legs rapidly and swam diagonally toward the surface.
Finally, she managed to break through the surface and see the sky again. Yuan Si took several deep breaths before turning her head to survey her surroundings.
The whirlpool just now had been relatively small and had already calmed down after a few minutes; otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to escape so easily.
Yuan Si breathed a sigh of relief but didn't dare let her guard down. She floated on the surface for a while to make sure the water below was safe before diving back down again.
Based on past combat experience, she knew that after dispatching a large water snake like that, its blood would surely attract any other behemoths in the reservoir—the other "bosses."
Sure enough, before Yuan Si even reached the bottom, she spotted a giant catfish several times her size patrolling the riverbed.
The giant catfish spotted her too. Its four long whiskers drifted in the water as it opened its massive mouth at the adorable little girl, revealing a set of large, white teeth.
The result, of course, was that it met the same fate as the giant water snake.
Although Yuan Si hadn't yet built up her physical fitness, she was armed with a powerful weapon from the apocalypse. Dealing with a few creatures that were all brawn and no brains was more than enough.
'Come to think of it, the rumors about water ghosts in the reservoir were probably because of these two. The bruises on the ankles of drowned children were likely the marks left by the snake coiling around them. By taking out two of them today, I've done a public service.'
But just catching two large ones wasn't enough to meet her needs. After all, she had a family to support now, and getting here wasn't easy. The walk alone took several hours, which was a significant burden on her current body. So, she wanted to catch as many fish as possible to prevent them from running out too quickly and having to make another trip so soon.
With a new goal in mind, the little girl's figure moved through the water with even greater speed, truly like a little fish.
That day, Yuan Si surfaced and dove many times in the large reservoir, and her haul was immense. She didn't just catch fish. Once, at the bottom of the river, she accidentally stepped on something hard in the mud. When she pulled it out, she saw it was a rusted kitchen knife. Though it was rusted and she didn't know if it could be salvaged, it was at least a piece of iron. It would surely be useful for something later. With that in mind, she tossed the rusty kitchen knife into her space.
After that, she began paying close attention to the riverbed. A reservoir like this must have been around for a long time. Who knows, maybe someone had been boating here in the past and dropped something useful.
So, besides fishing, Yuan Si took on the part-time job of a salvage worker. Every time she reached the bottom, she would grope around in the mud. And she really did find quite a few things.
First, the living things. She pulled several turtles of various sizes out of the mud, but since she didn't like to eat them, she released them all.
Then there were things that had clearly been dropped: pots, bowls, ladles, and all sorts of other items. Yuan Si was amazed. 'What exactly was this place in the past? Why would all this stuff be dropped here?' But while she wondered, she didn't leave a single item behind, tossing them all into her space.
Finally, and most importantly, she felt a combination safe and a jewelry box in the mud.
The safe was still intact. It would be difficult to open in the water, so Yuan Si put it directly into her space. The jewelry box was made of wood and had likely been in the water for many years. By the time Yuan Si found it, it had mostly rotted away, but two pieces of jewelry remained inside. Not one to give up, she carefully searched the area around where she'd found the box and actually managed to find a few more pieces.
She busied herself underwater for the better part of the day, only coming ashore when her stomach began to growl.
Once on shore, she first took off her wetsuit and stored it away, then began gathering firewood to start a fire. She needed to eat to replenish her energy.
There was nothing here but fish. She took out several crucian carp from her space, each as long as her forearm. She gutted and cleaned them by the water's edge with her dagger, then rummaged through her space again and produced a grill. It was a camping tool from the apocalypse, incredibly versatile.
The whole rack wasn't very large, about the size of a twenty-inch suitcase and a little over thirty centimeters high. It looked much like a normal grill: you light a fire below and cook all kinds of food on top. The grill plate in the middle was also removable; lifting and pressing it to the sides allowed you to hang a soup pot or set a wok in the middle. The grill could use many types of fuel, including firewood, charcoal, and natural gas. All in all, this camping tool set was extremely convenient and practical.
Yuan Si placed the cleaned fish on the rack one by one and began to grill them in earnest. The fire below burned brightly. She flipped the fish from time to time, and in just over ten minutes, they were cooked.
The only problem was she had no salt in her space. Although the fish was fresh and delicious, it was missing something. Yuan Si was starving and couldn't be bothered with how it tasted. She picked up a fish and started gnawing on it. Only after eating three did she slow down. Now she had the leisure to be picky about the flavor. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. 'The first thing I need to do when I get back is get some salt. This bland fish tastes awful no matter how well you cook it.'
After filling her stomach, she prepared a few more fish and placed them on the grill to continue cooking. She was full, but she had to bring some back for the old woman to try.
While the fish were CRACKLING on the fire, she found an open space and released the two largest creatures from her storage. She couldn't take these two things home whole; they would scare the old woman to death.
Then, dagger in hand, she began skinning and deboning the water snake. The snakeskin, rolled up, made a huge bundle, which she tossed into a corner of her space. Next was the meat. For ease of future consumption, she used her dagger to cut the entire snake into one hundred segments, each weighing nearly ten pounds.
Finally, she collected the water snake's venom and gallbladder. 'These two are valuable things. They would have sold for a lot of money in the apocalypse. I wonder what they're worth in this world.'
After finishing with the water snake, she began to break down the giant catfish.
The catfish was enormous, with a girth thicker than the water snake's. Her dagger struggled with the task of cutting it up. But where there's a will, there's a way. For the sake of meat, for the sake of filling her stomach, Yuan Si summoned a burst of superhuman effort. It took her half an hour, but she managed to dismember the entire giant catfish into chunks, which she then stored away in her space, ready to be cooked whenever she wanted.