However, he could not say such things either. These were human lives. He could not possibly forsake them and leave them to die.

“I wasn’t the one who hunted the animals. It was a man whom I rescued previously. He hunted quite a lot,” An Jiuyue said honestly.

Sighing, the Chief replied, “But he must have done that to thank you. Jiuyue, you are a good person. Don’t bother yourself with their nonsense. They will get what they deserve one day.”

“Exactly. Don’t listen to them, Jiuyue. We are supporting you. The other guys just have nothing better to do,” one of the men standing behind the Chief chimed in.

He felt that those people should be left in the floodwaters. Perhaps they would stop complaining then.

“Okay,” An Jiuyue replied, “Chief, this food…”

“We’ll bring them in. You don’t have to go in.”

The two men walked over and took the items off her hands.

One of them continued, “It’s too tiring for her to come back and forth delivering food every day. How about we send our people to collect the porridge instead, Chief?”

The Chief thought for a moment, then nodded.

“That works. Jiuyue, we’ll bring these in. I’ll send Gou Sheng and Liang Zi to bring the cutleries and bowls back to you. We’ll collect the food ourselves in the future, lest those people become increasingly absurd.”

He did not want An Jiuyue to be vexed by the sight of those men.

“Okay.” An Jiuyue nodded without saying anything else. After all, this arrangement was less energy-consuming for her.

With that, she thanked the Chief and left.

She wanted to head deeper into the mountain before the sky turned dark. Since Qian Jiyun was not accompanying her, she had to make use of this opportunity to gather more items to put inside her space.

Despite storing many edible things in her space, she could not retrieve most of them. Everything they were eating now was taken straight out of the mountains.

Moreover, once the flood subsides, everyone would be rushing into the mountain, crazily searching for food. This was a serious matter.

They had rescued even more people recently. The number of people under her treehouse and in the cave was increasing. Everyone was waiting to be fed.

Every little food they had would be swiftly eaten.

Back at the mountain cave, the Chief entered with a fire torch in his hand and a cold expression on his face. The two men carrying the food followed closely behind.

“Oh, something smells so good. Is that meat?”

The men in the cave caught a whiff of the fragrance of the meat and were so distracted that they did not notice the Chief’s chilly stare. They rose to their feet and rushed over, eager to eat.

“I knew it! An Jiuyue, that little girl, just needs a beating! See, she sent us some meat after we scolded her.”

“Right! Brother Dog is right! Tomorrow, we have to—Ah!”

The men were interrupted by the sound of a slap. The man who was hit shrieked and covered his face as he looked at the person who had slapped him.

“You… Chief, you… What happened to you?”

He took a step back in fear when he saw the Chief’s glowering face.

“Chief, did An Jiuyue and the other women provoke you? Don’t worry! Let’s teach her a lesson tomorrow. We’ll make sure—”