Because she was a woman.
The county magistrate's wife really wanted to say that, but in the end did not say it out loud.
Before meeting Li Yao, as a woman who came from a scholarly family, she had always obeyed the conventions of the world, married and raised children, thinking that a woman's life should be like this.
But now from Li Yao she saw something different.
It turns out women are no worse than men, and can also stand on their own to become heroes.
"She may have her own ideas," thought the county magistrate's wife.
...
Li Yao assigned the task of making cement to Wang Yuanbang, and under the villagers' efforts, the dam was progressing quickly.
The soap workshop run by Wang Xueshi was also managed quite well.
With people helping to take care of everything, Li Yao's days became more and more free, so she decided to take this opportunity to explore the deep mountains again.
Arriving at the Valley of Broken Souls, Li Yao took out her climbing claws from her backpack and climbed up the cliff on the other side of the valley.
What met her eyes was an even denser forest, with grass and vines growing between the trees. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves, which felt like walking on a carpet several feet thick when stepped on.
Li Yao became more vigilant and slowly groped her way forward.
She hadn't gone very far when a green plant caught her eye.
From the shape of the leaves, it was a he shou wu, but the vines were thicker than her arms, and spread over a large area, no one knew how many years old.
Continuing forward, she soon saw many more high-year herbs.
It was no wonder no one had come to this place, the natural resources were even richer than she had imagined. If she dug all this up and sold it, it would be enough for the poorest family to get rich overnight.
But danger was everywhere.
As she passed a tall american ginseng, a viper thicker than her arm and the same color as the fallen leaves suddenly darted out from the undergrowth. If she hadn't dodged in time, the whole village would probably have had to eat a vegetarian diet.
This omnipresent danger gave Li Yao a hint of excitement, and made her even more alert as she continued groping her way forward.
The day quickly passed, and before night fell, she found a safe little cave. She lit a large bonfire at the mouth of the cave.
The firelight illuminated the entire forest brightly, but still failed to scare away the wild beasts nearby, whose green eyes kept darting around.
Li Yao now understood why no one had come this deep, for ordinary people this was basically nine deaths out of ten.
Over the next three days, Li Yao groped her way forward through the dangerous forest. She encountered a python that could swallow a piglet whole, a giant venomous scorpion that could kill with one sting, and fell onto a grassy cushion from a steep cliff face.
In exchange for daring to risk her life like this, aside from once again experiencing the joy of fighting to survive, she also found many foods that could never be eaten outside this deep forest.
In a very deep karst cave, she found an underground river. Many unknown silvery fish swam briskly and carefreely in the icy water.
Li Yao gripped a homemade spear tightly, aimed at a silver fish that swam to the shore, and threw it with force.
Swish -
With the sound of the spear entering the water, she dragged a foot-long silver fish onto the shore.
After washing it clean, Li Yao brushed a thin layer of salt onto the silver fish and grilled it over the coals.
The grilled silver fish gave off an aroma completely different from ordinary fish, and the garlic-like translucent fish flakes melted in the mouth.
She had never eaten such delicious fish before, and couldn't help spearing two more to eat her fill before contentedly lying down by the fire.
Rest well, there was still the huge karst cave to get through tomorrow.
She guessed that on the other side of the cave might be a completely new world.
And her guess was proven right.
After two days of crawling through a narrow rock crevice, what appeared before Li Yao was an immense flat plain.
The temperature here was much higher than the outside, with verdant grass and trees. It looked nothing like late autumn, more like warm spring.
Wisps of faint mist filled the air, obscuring the distant snow mountains, and a winding brook flowed in from afar, pouring into the karst cave at the foot of the mountain.
It was truly an earthly paradise, and Li Yao instantly fell in love with it.
Stepping on the lush grass, Li Yao walked through the oxygen-rich forest. Coming to a place with sparse trees, scattered red caught her eye in an instant.
Peppers!
This discovery delighted her.
In all her time in this world, she had never seen any sign of chili peppers.
If she wanted spicy food she could add prickly ash or lots of ginger, but the spicy flavors were very different from chili peppers and didn't suit her palate.
And now she had finally found them!
There were long red, green, and purple peppers, and many fallen on the ground.
She carefully bit into a greener pepper. The familiar spicy flavor instantly filled her mouth, making her eyes water.
With peppers, she could make boiled pork slices, fried eggplant with minced pork, hot pot...
In an instant, countless mouthwatering dishes involving peppers flooded her mind.
So she decided that this time, she could take nothing else back, but must harvest all of these peppers.
She didn't even bother exploring the surroundings, and went into a frenzy picking peppers. The red ones could be sun-dried, and made into dried chilies, chili oil, or seeds for planting. The green ones could be stir-fried, and any extras pickled in salt to eat slowly.
In the end Li Yao filled two large bags, probably over a hundred pounds.
And in this earthly paradise, besides the peppers and medicinal herbs everywhere, Li Yao also found several lemon trees covered in yellow fruit.
She picked some lemons, and decided to come back again next spring to transplant some saplings.
Carrying the two heavy bags of peppers, Li Yao hurried back as fast as she could.
Arriving home late at night a few days later, without even resting, Li Yao went straight to the kitchen.
There were no refrigerators in this time, so the kitchen had no fresh meat. This was a problem - did she really have to kill a chicken in the middle of the night to go with these peppers?
"Who's there?" The sounds from the kitchen woke up Da Zhuang, who came over with a wooden stick. Seeing it was Li Yao, he relaxed, "Mistress, you're back. I'll have the maid cook for you."
"Is there any meat in the house?" Li Yao asked.
"There's dried wolf meat, and two wild rabbits that San'er and Song Zhe bought from Hunter Liu yesterday."
"Is there any fresh ginger left?"
"Still some."
Rabbit, fresh ginger, chili peppers... Li Yao decided, she would make rabbit in dumb sauce!