Of course, they could survive a day without eating, but there were still a small number of people in the tube-shaped building who couldn’t go to The Dawn. These people relied on the steamed cornbread they provided.
So everyone had to go to the Place of Corvee first.
Lame Man Uncle wanted to take Li Wenli with him, but Li Wenli shook his head and refused.
"You... Are you still going to go eagle hunting?" Lame Man Uncle saw through their intentions at a glance.
One-armed Uncle held his forehead with a hand, "Fox, I respect you as a man, but please don’t gamble with your life."
"It’s all because of your influence," One-eyed Uncle shot him a sidelong glance.
Li Wenli, seeing the uncles’ unanimous disapproval, couldn’t help but laugh, "Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I’m staying to clean up the tube-shaped building a bit. Do any of you uncles have any objections?"
"Eh?" The uncles looked at each other, not eagle hunting? Then it’s fine.
They thought these kids just wanted to split up the rooms to sleep in because it was too cramped where they were, so they nodded, "As long as the rooms have no owner, you can deal with them as you wish."
"Then we won’t stand on ceremony, and, by the way, we’d like to do some work on that pond too."
"..." Lame Man Uncle looked at them speechlessly.
These kids were really strange, not willing to work properly but wasting time in Death Valley.
What was so interesting about a pond? Could they really expect to find fish in it?
"Young people, we can’t always hope for pie in the sky; going into the wild for food is risky, and getting by honestly is much more reliable," he advised.
Despite mistaking Li Wenli and his group for opportunists, Li Wenli still smiled and saw them off to work without explaining any further.
Sometimes, actions speak louder than words.
Lame Man Uncle originally wanted to take the Fool with him, fearing that he would really follow Li Wenli to do something as reckless as ’Nine Heavens Moonsnatch’ or ’Five Lakes Turtle Catch.’
Li Wenli and Bai Junjun were lucky, but what did the Fool have?
If the man-eating eagles got him, how could he face Ah Fei?
But One-eyed Uncle reminded him, "If the Fool suddenly recovers now, it may draw others’ attention. What if they find out about this ’Immortal Meat’ and prevent us from doing odd jobs, insisting we hunt man-eating eagles instead?"
After this reminder, Lame Man Uncle had to give up the idea of taking the Fool away.
Still, before leaving, he couldn’t stop himself from warning them repeatedly not to get near the man-eating eagles.
Everyone nodded obediently, so well-behaved that Lame Man Uncle was not reassured at all and could only ask the people who couldn’t go to work in the building to keep a closer eye on them.
However, those who were unable to move themselves were hardly capable of watching over these six able-bodied troublemakers.
But these troublemakers weren’t all that terrible; at least they were busy all morning, so the others were somewhat relieved.
At that time, Bai Junjun and Li Wenli assigned the task of cleaning the tube-shaped building to Bai Sasa.
Bai Junjun rummaged through the space, cut the remaining pieces of leviathan skin into squares, covered the mouth and nose of the four of them, including the Fool, and then put them in charge of sweeping the tube-shaped building.
Truth be told, this task was somewhat cruel.
After all, these were just kids, but they had to clean up corpses and corpse insects. What an inhumane thing to have to do.
But Bai Junjun and Li Wenli had both emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and in their mind, the best environment for a child’s growth was to teach them to be independent and strong.
Experiencing and solving more problems was always better than hiding behind others, hoping for help at every turn.
Even if it was just killing a cockroach, one should rely on oneself.