The filming of the next scene took place right after their meal. Truth be told, filming a movie like this was difficult, especially on a snowy day. The wind was strong, the snow was heavy and the roads were difficult to walk on. Sometimes, a single scene would require several takes, causing those who were involved to sweat nervously.
The cold weather was nearly unbearable, chilly gusts of wind buffeting against them mercilessly. Moreover, the clothes they wore were very thin. At this point, it actually did not matter how low the temperature had dropped in this place.
The most important thing was that the movie had to be filmed regardless how bad the conditions were. The filming must carry on, and it had to be done as perfectly as possible until the very last scene.
Shi Jia walked into the cave, noticing the five campfires that were blazing away merrily inside. She turned around to open the sack on her shoulder, and added the contents to an existing pile in the depths of the cave.
“This is the meat that we’ve saved up.”
Yao Xiaoyu finally recalled something once she saw these things.
“I’ve totally forgotten about this. This is such a huge stash that it should be enough to feed us for a long time.” The stash had actually been saved up over a long period of time. Back then, they had thought of preparing for a rainy day and now, they were really prepared for it. No one remembered who was the one who had come up with the idea but at least they would not starve in the coming days. As for their other dilemmas, they would cross that bridge when they got there.
At the very least, they could still survive.
They brought back all the food that they had saved up in advance and as it turned out, the amount of food saved by several people was rather impressive. If they were careful with their portions, they would have enough food to last them for at least a month. Therefore, it was obvious how wasteful those savages were. If they had been careful with their portions as well, then it would have been possible for the food to last for up to two months.
Yet now, two month’s worth of food had been wasted so much by these people that it could only last for a single month, meaning that they would have to starve for the following half a month. Starving for three days would already be an intolerable feat and starving for up to seven days would actually kill them.
Shi Jia had set up many traps in the area, and paired with the tranquilizer that Yao Xiaoyu had made, catching small animals would be an easy matter.
Thus, they had no problem with their food supply. Furthermore, all the leftovers that they could not finish eating were processed into smoked meat, preserved as part of their food source.
However, the snow grew heavier and scavenging for food became more difficult than before. Even with all the traps that they had dug, they had not caught anything for the past few days, not even a single bird. Their rations were running low as well.
Hence, it was inevitable that they would starve if they could not replenish their food supply.
Shi Jia picked up her dagger.
“I’ll go look for food.”
But the weather…
Yao Xiaoyu held her back, “There’s a blizzard out there! How exactly are you going to look for food?”
“We’ll starve to death if I don’t.” Shi Jia had never been one to wait around for death. If she was going to die, she would not allow herself to die by starvation. She would rather perish in this blizzard or go down fighting in the forest, but she would definitely not starve herself into a pile of skin and bones.
She walked out of the cave. The blizzard was indeed heavy and with all the snow that was covering her face, sight was limited. Yet, she stepped into the blizzard fearlessly, with Tarzan following behind her.
The two of them went to the place known as the Death Valley to the savages, fighting against the terrible weather and narrowly escaping death, but they still found no food.
Shi Jia only brought back some edible tree leaves when they returned.
Until one day, a heavy reverberating noise echoed from outside the cave. Tarzan ran out to investigate and when he came back, he started to gesture frantically at them.
“There is a huge monster outside?” Shi Jia asked.
Tarzan nodded and waved his hands in the air to indicate the size.
“A very big one?”
Shi Jia made her way over to the cave entrance. She had set up a lot of traps in the nearby area with such large animals in mind, thinking that they would appear when the snow fell harder. Therefore, she had made several big traps without knowing for sure if they were useful or if those animals would even be incapacitated by the traps.
They realized that the animals here were all showed signs of intellect and the bigger their size, the smarter they would be.
The reverberating noise outside the cave grew louder until they could even feel the ground shaking beneath their feet.
Several of them stayed behind in the cave and hid themselves.
Only when painful animalistic cries sounded from outside the cave did Shi Jia and the others go right up to the entrance. Upon a look outside, they saw a wild animal almost half the height of a mountain with half of its body stuck inside a deep trap. Coincidentally, it was the deepest trap that Shi Jia and the others had dug and that particular trap had been filled with sharp stakes laced with the tranquilizer made by Shi Jia and the others.
The animal was probably really in pain as it kept growling in its efforts to escape the pit, but since half of its legs were probably numb by now, all it could do was growl, unable to lift its legs.
“Let’s go.” Shi Jia told the other two. Of course, Yao Xiaoyu was spared from this. She was indeed a competent doctor with her skillful handling of a scalpel, but killing something like this, even up till now, was still too advanced for her.
Despite being heavily tranquilized, the beast still retained its primal instincts. All of them were injured by the beast’s struggling, but in the end, Shi Jia and the other two succeeded in outlasting the beast. For those who came from the future, the fauna in this place was unfamiliar to them. Therefore, they could not determine if the meat was edible as they had never seen such an animal before. If it was edible, that would have been for the best, but if it was not, all they could do was throw it away. Thankfully, Zhang Peng had been here for five years and had accumulated some knowledge about this place and its inhabitants.
After looking at the beast, both Tarzan and Zhang Peng claimed that it was edible. Since both of them were the most experienced, everyone else also agreed that it must be edible.
It was such a big one that if they were to preserve the meat by smoking it, it could feed them for an entire winter. They could finally stop worrying over their food supply. The animal was huge and its skin was fairly tough, so its leather was eventually hung over the cave entrance as curtains. It was rather useful as it blocked off most of wind outside.
As for the animal’s meat, they divided it into pieces and eventually turned these pieces into smoked meat. In the end, half of the cave was stuffed full with it and it was because of the abundant food supply that the smile on everyone’s face finally came back.
As long as they had food, then even the coldest day would pass and they could set their mind at ease.
They did not know how long it had been snowing outside, but it seemed as though the snow had not stopped falling since the beginning of winter. Thankfully, they had stocked up enough food beforehand and had came across this animal. Otherwise, even if they did not starve to death, they would have frozen to death.
The weather lasted until the spring of the second year, where flowers bloomed and the earth woke up. The temperatures were still cold and the snow had not melted yet, but they could already feel a sense of warmth, a tiny sliver that seemed all the more noticeable when compared to the wind and snow.