dognovel Chapter 125 What I Saw at the Foot of the Mountain (1)
Chapter 125 What I Saw at the Foot of the Mountain (1)
After figuring it out, Xia Qingyue had no worries in her heart, closed her eyes and fell asleep quickly.
The next morning, before daybreak, her biological clock woke her up. She got up early and did an hour's morning exercise. She made breakfast and went to the poultry house to chop weeds and mix them with some rice bran.
At the end of last year, the rice pounded in the summer was eaten up, so she pounded the remaining rice.
The rice bran and rice husks for the chickens and ducks were used up in November last year. In the winter, she fed them cabbage, pumpkin, and radish, sometimes mixing in a little soybean powder. Later, she pounded rice and continued to feed them rice bran and rice husks.
Nowadays, we don’t have as many chickens and ducks as before, and the remaining twenty-odd kilograms of rice bran and rice husks are enough for them to eat for a while.
She had eaten more than half of the rice, but as she watched the rice jar become empty day by day, she felt like there was a needle hanging in her heart, which would fall and prick her from time to time, causing her flesh to hurt a lot.
To be on the safe side, fearing that she might not be able to get back today, she prepared more water and food for the poultry.
After cleaning up, she took a can of fresh Matsutake mushrooms with salt and prepared to give it to the Li family.
As we all know, not eating salt for a long time will cause unsteady walking, which is harmful to the body.
Following Heihei, he left the tiankeng and headed to the agreed meeting place, which was the place where the water was delivered before.
When she was almost there, she saw Li Benfu sitting under a tree waiting with something in his arms from afar.
"Uncle." She greeted with a smile.
"Qingyue, have you had breakfast? I was lucky today and hunted two rabbits in the woods.
I will kill them now and roast them for food." Li Benfu smiled as he lifted two gray rabbits with blood holes on their bodies, barely breathing, from his backpack.
She knew at a glance that the rabbit was injured by an arrow, "Uncle, I've eaten it, so you should keep the rabbit."
"Okay, let's go down the mountain and get home. We'll kill and roast them for lunch and cook a little."
On the way down the mountain, Heihei ran happily in front, biting flowers and grass and catching butterflies, and Xia Qingyue let it do what it wanted.
As he was going down the mountain, Li Benfu talked about some of the conditions down there:
"Last year, there was a drought, and people from all over Yunzhou in the north had to flee south to find water. Some of them came to our place, and the government gave them land to settle down and arranged for young and middle-aged people to repair houses. In this way, they had houses to live in and could also get wages.
Now you don’t have to pay to enter or leave the town, you just need to show your household registration. Yuzhen went to the town a few days ago and said that the houses and streets are being repaired and several shops have opened.”
"That's good news, uncle. How have you been this winter? Didn't we find some spices before? We can exchange them for money and buy more food."
Li Benfu sighed, "Last year's winter lasted too long, and it snowed more than any other year. Fortunately, we found enough food in the dense forest and prepared a lot of dry firewood, otherwise we really couldn't have survived!"
Their most difficult time was when it snowed. When the snow fell, the open-air caves suffered. Snow piled up in piles. They dared not sleep until dawn at night for fear of being buried in the snow, so they took turns to shovel out the snow.
“After the last heavy snow this year, we were running out of food, so we stayed in the village to repair the house and provided two meals of porridge a day, which helped us survive until now.
Qingyue, you are right. We need to find a way to make more money to buy food. We plan to go hunting in the mountains and look for medicinal herbs at the same time.
Medicinal materials such as Sanguisorba officinalis and Lobelia are in short supply, and the medicine shops are buying them at high prices. Many people in the village have started to go up the mountain to look for herbs. "
Xia Qingyue's heart skipped a beat, and she had a bad feeling. She thought of the people she met in the mountains yesterday, "Ah? Do the villagers know so many kinds of medicine?"
She thought those people were looking for some other medicinal herbs. In her opinion, ordinary farmers didn't know many herbs.
"People from the medicine shop came to the village with some medicinal herbs. Some villagers were smart and recognized them after seeing them a few times."
An hour later, the two arrived at the halfway point of the mountain behind Xiushui Village. Here, they could see people frequently. They were all villagers from the foot of the mountain, going up the mountain in groups to look for wild vegetables and medicinal herbs.
When passing by, Xia Qingyue paid special attention and found that the herbs found by the villagers were mostly used to stop bleeding, reduce inflammation, clear away heat and reduce fire.
It’s really difficult. There will be more competition in finding herbs in the mountains and forests in the future.
She recalled that she dug cassava halfway up the mountain when she came down the mountain last April. "Uncle, do you remember the cassava I asked my aunt to dig last year?"
"Remember, Yuzhen went there some time ago and said that some new growth has appeared. We can dig them up and plant them in the ground when the time comes!"
They came to the place where cassava was grown. There was a small patch of new cassava seedlings in the field. They grew scattered and there were many weeds in between.
Almost reaching the foot of the back mountain, the two men and the dog came to a slope. They stood on the high place and looked down at Xiushui Village below, which was in full view.
Houses are rising from the ground, one after another. Smoke is wafting out of some chimneys. Some moving black spots can be vaguely seen. Those are people walking around.
There are cultivated fields around the house, some of which are lush and green.
Ignoring the fact that the war was not over yet, Xia Qingyue was moved by seeing this scene. She truly felt the vitality, hope, and tranquility of this world.
Walking into the village, Xia Qingyue looked around. The village in front of her was very different from the original owner's impression of the village. The layout was unfamiliar.
He met people every few steps, and when they saw Li Benfu, they greeted him warmly and familiarly.
Many people saw Xia Qingyue and curiously asked Li Benfu who she was.
Li Benfu looked proud and answered without hesitation: "It's my family!"
The Li family's home was on the east side of the village. Xia Qingyue and Li Benfu walked into the Li family's home together. Some of the men including Li Weikang were standing on the wooden ladder, while others were standing on the wall to move the thick wooden racks to the roof.
Chen Yuzhen walked out of the main room carrying a basin of dirty clothes and saw someone in her yard.
The wooden basin fell to the ground with a clang. Chen Yuzhen ran out excitedly to greet her, "Qingyue, Qingyue!"
"Auntie."
The two hugged each other happily.
Li Weikang and his companions heard the noise and came down immediately.
"Sister Qingyue!"
Everyone greeted each other happily, with tears in their eyes.
Infected by them, Xia Qingyue's eyes turned red.
"Come, let's go inside and sit down and talk." Chen Yuzhen took Xia Qingyue's little hand.
There was a big table and a long bench in the main room. Chen Yuzhen pulled Xia Qingyue to sit down and asked about her well-being.
After understanding the current situation of both parties, everyone felt relieved.
After they finished chatting, it was already noon. The two brothers Li Weikang and Li Weisheng found a few bowls and put them into the vegetable basket, saying that they were going to the village entrance to get food.
Xia Qingyue said: "I want to go with you to see it."
Several people went together.
When we arrived at the entrance of the village, we saw two long queues. All of them were villagers who brought their own bowls to get relief food. They were dressed in rags, but looked in good spirits, with obvious light in their eyes.
Xia Qingyue and the other two waited in line for a while before it was their turn.
When she got closer, she saw that the so-called relief food was cooked in two large iron pots, and there were special people serving the food, one bowl per person.
The porridge in the pot was rather thin. Half a spoonful of it was just enough for a bowl. There were a few grains of white rice in the white rice soup.
Xia Qingyue showed her household registration certificate and was able to order a bowl of rice.
Several people took the porridge back home, and she learned more about the situation from the Li brothers.