Jiang Rou wiped the thin layer of sweat from her forehead; crystalline droplets slid down her flushed cheeks. She carefully tucked the last few pine nuts into a cloth bag, her fingers stiff from the biting cold.
"Alright, good haul today!" She breathed out a plume of white mist and turned to her companions with a smile. "But we need to figure out how to roast these nuts as soon as we get back, or they’ll get damp if they sit too long."
Cheng Yu, squatting nearby and scratching something into the snow with a twig, looked up, a dead leaf clinging to the tip of her nose. "I counted—we found six squirrel nests today. Together, they must weigh four or five pounds!" She gestured excitedly, her red, frozen fingers tracing an arc in the air.
Chapter 109