Chapter 35 Ganoderma lucidum

Zhou Yu accidentally revealed her true nature, and she spent the whole day's breakfast listening to her mother's nagging. Her mother only reluctantly let her go after she repeatedly promised after the meal that she would never say words like fart or shit again.

After breakfast, Zhou Jin took his family to the wasteland allocated to them and discussed building a house with Zhou Ruiquan and several other families.

After discussing for a while, everyone unanimously decided to build the houses in a row, with a total of five courtyards. Several houses would share one outer courtyard wall, with the outer courtyard wall built higher and the inner courtyard wall built lower. In this way, if a thief or a wild beast came, they could shout through the inner courtyard wall and several families would be able to hear it and take care of each other.

The courtyards were all built in a layout of one bright and two dark rooms. Zhou Jin, Zhou Li and Zhou Zelin's families all had three main rooms and two auxiliary rooms. Zhou Rui's family had many people, so they built five main rooms and four auxiliary rooms. Zhou Ruifeng was alone, so he planned to build two main rooms, one for living and one for preparing medicine.

Everyone also listened to Li Gui's suggestion and left more than half an acre of garden in the backyard of each family, which was fenced off so that they could grow vegetables in the future. They also planned to dig a well in the middle of the garden, which would be used to water the vegetables and provide convenient drinking water for several families.

Apart from this, there is nothing else.

The houses of these families were no different from the adobe houses where most people lived, except that they planned to be taller and more spacious than the houses here, and that the courtyard walls were made of stone instead of fences. It was not just that they did not have enough money. Zhou Jin felt that, leaving aside others, the silver hidden by Zhou Ruiquan and Zhou Zelin's families was probably enough to build a courtyard house with three entrances.

But everyone agreed that since they were new here, they couldn't stand out too much. In this village where even a few brick houses would be eye-catching, if they really built a courtyard house, wouldn't that obviously attract bandits?

They had heard from Li Gui that there were not only wild wolves and wild boars in Taibai Mountain, but also bandits. However, because they were not far from the army's garrison and were extremely poor, they had never been targeted by the bandits.

So, after discussing it among several families, they decided to build adobe houses.

Adobe bricks are very easy to make. They don't require much technical skills, but they do take some time. Li Gui said that the Daqing River is one mile east of the village, and the soil by the river is just right for making adobe bricks. Since the weather is not cold yet, the adobe bricks are easy to dry, so everyone plans to make the adobe bricks first.

Li Gui found a total of thirty temporary workers for them, almost all the male laborers who were able to work in Taohua Village, all of whom were over 50 years old. Among them was an old man named Sun who was very good at building fire walls and kangs, and was also an expert in building houses. Zhou Ruiquan took the initiative to entrust the house-building work of several families to him, and gave him an extra 20 cents a day. He asked him to take a dozen people and Zhou Jin and other guys to make the adobe bricks first. Zhou Jin and his friends were not skilled in making adobe bricks, so they were responsible for transporting mud from the Daqing River for Old Sun and his friends. Old Sun and his friends only needed to be responsible for making the adobe bricks.

The remaining dozen or so people were led by a craftsman who knew carpentry to go to the mountains to cut wood. A lot of wood was needed for the beams and windows of several houses.

Zhou Yu always liked wooden floors. He thought that the wood from the mountains didn't cost money anyway. At that time, Liaodong was vast and sparsely populated, and the forests on the mountains were dense, so there was no need to worry about environmental issues. He suggested that the floors of several families be paved with wooden floors. Several families had lived a good life. Although they were down and out now, they also hoped to improve their quality of life in the future based on their current foundation. So they all readily agreed to Zhou Yu's suggestion. Then, except for the kitchen with a fire wall and kang, the floor materials of the rest of the house were also cut down.

Zhou Ruiquan took Li Gui to other villages to contact people to dig wells and buy tiles for a few houses.

Since the Zhou family had hired quite a few people from the village and it was the slack season, the women and children in the village came to help the Zhou family when they saw what was happening. Together with Zheng and Bai, they cleared out the residential land for several families to build houses.

These were just helping out jobs, and there was no way to pay them. Seeing this, Zhou Ruiquan waved his hand and simply decided to provide two meals for anyone who came to help during the few days of building the house.

So, Zheng and the others withdrew again and, together with Li Gui's daughter-in-law Yang, took charge of cooking for everyone.

Li Gui's eldest son was also serving in the military camp. He married his wife, Yang, a local woman, after being exiled to Liaodong. She had a very cheerful and generous personality, was very outgoing, and efficient at work. In just a few days, she became friends with Zheng and the others, and they became very familiar with each other!

More than 20 people worked together and the adobe bricks were made very quickly. In less than two days, the mud bricks for building houses for several families were made. The next step was to wait for them to dry.

Because they had to do heavy labor such as digging mud and pushing earth every day, Zhou Jin's exercise plan, which lasted only one day, was temporarily put on hold. Except for himself who insisted on getting up early every day to do a set of military boxing and running two laps around the dirt road on the mountainside, the rest of the people went on strike. There was no other way. Everyone was too tired these days. After a day's work, their whole bodies felt exhausted!

It takes three to five days for the adobe bricks to dry. During this period, everyone is busy. The men go to dig the foundation, and the women, under the guidance of Yang, weave the kang mats that will be used by several families in the future.

After the foundation was dug and the adobe bricks dried, everyone started to build the house...

More than forty people worked non-stop for more than half a month, and the houses of several families were finally built. The well in the backyard was dug, the kang and stove were all ready, and the wooden floor was almost laid. After two more days of drying, they could move in.

Everyone was exhausted. After these days of hard work, the young masters and young ladies who had once lived a life of luxury now realized that as people at the bottom of society, it was already difficult to survive, not to mention the gap in status.

But he had to deal with the gap in his heart by himself, no one could help him. Zhou Jin only knew that there were only nine days left before they reported to the military camp.

After deducting the more than 40 taels of silver he used to build the house, he only had 62 taels of silver left. After deducting the silver for buying equipment and winter food, there was really not much left.

The brother and sister thought it was time to go to the mountains. If they could find some herbs to sell, they could help supplement their family income.

A few days ago, Zhou Ruifeng had gone to the town's pharmacy to inquire about the market price of medicinal materials here, and came back to tell Zhou Yu. According to him, although the price of herbs here is cheaper than in Kyoto, it may be because it is close to the border. Although there have not been many major wars in the past two years, there have been constant minor frictions. In addition, there are always gangs coming to plunder every winter. Therefore, the medicinal materials here have always been in short supply, so the price is also acceptable, especially hemostatic drugs and healing drugs, which have always been in short supply.

Zhou Ruifeng has entrusted the house-building task to Zhou Jin these days, and has been wandering around the outskirts of the mountain collecting herbs. However, because he is too old, he dare not go too far into the mountains. All he has collected are ordinary herbs. There are quite a few of them, but they cannot be sold for much silver.

Zhou Jin and Zhou Yu took advantage of the space and planned to go to the deep mountains to take a look, but of course they couldn't tell Zheng about this. The two of them found an excuse to go to the nearby mountains to set up a few traps and left before dawn.

They had to leave early. Zhou Luo was Zhou Jin's follower. If he knew Zhou Jin was going out, he would definitely insist on following him. The two of them had no choice but to run away early while he was still asleep.

The brother and sister walked out of the door in the faint morning light, each carrying a backpack. When there was no one around, they hurried up the mountain.

It was already very cold in the mountains in late autumn, especially in the morning and evening. Fortunately, there were several sets of windbreakers and sneakers in the two people's space. After the brother and sister walked into the mountains for a while, they put the backpack into the space, changed their windbreakers and shoes in the space, and took out a compass, a watch and two small crossbows.

These two crossbows were specially collected by Zhou Jin for Zhou Yu when he was collecting weapons and ammunition in the apocalypse. The crossbows were extremely light and equipped with sights, so a girl could easily pull them. However, they were powerful and fast, reaching over 120 meters per second. They were also equipped with protective devices to prevent accidental injuries or accidental triggering. [Note 1]

Zhou Yu was immediately impressed by the two crossbows, but after experimenting with them, the siblings realized they were a bit useless against zombies. This was mainly because they couldn't fire continuously, requiring a reload after each shot. It was fine against one or two zombies, but against a whole group, who would have the time to reload?! Even their guns were thrown away after the bullets were fired, right?

So, later on, Zhou Yu stuffed the crossbow into a corner of the RV, but because Zhou Yu really liked this kind of shooting weapon, he never threw it away. Unexpectedly, it became useful after he traveled to this ancient world.

Zhou Jin took out the crossbow primarily for self-defense. They were heading deep into the mountains, where they heard there were not only wolves and wild boars, but also tigers and brown bears! While the siblings had the powerful defense of their spaceship, allowing them to hide in it with a simple shout if they encountered danger, what if the beasts suddenly attacked them too late or too nervous to shout?

Although the possibility is very small, the brother and sister were already scared by zombies during the apocalypse. They even had to keep a weapon at hand when sleeping to feel at ease. Now this habit has not changed. They always feel insecure without a weapon in their hands!

In this way, the two of them walked in the mountains with crossbows for nearly two hours. They didn't find many valuable herbs, but they killed quite a few rabbits and pheasants. The two baskets in the space were almost full!

Most of the attacks were done by Zhou Yu. In terms of long-range attacks, Zhou Jin was indeed not as good as Zhou Yu.

Half an hour later, when Zhou Yu shot and killed another roe deer from a distance, Zhou Jin's face became distorted with sourness, and he couldn't help but say in a yin-yang tone:

"I don't think we're even looking for herbs anymore. We might as well just rely on you to hunt and sell them for money! In ancient times, Hua Mulan joined the army to replace her father, and today, Zhou Ayu supports her brother's family. They're both heroic women!"

Zhou Yu...

"Zhou Jin, could you please stop talking to me? Your jealous face is so ugly! I can't bear to look at it!"

Zhou Jin...

Well, he might not be able to win an argument with his sister. To avoid being jealous to death, he decided to go back to Xiao Aying to seek comfort, so he said:

"Okay, I won't argue with you anymore. I think it's getting late. Why don't we just stop here for today and continue searching inside next time when we have time!"

After searching for so long without finding any precious herbs, Zhou Jin couldn't help but back out. Worried that Zheng would be worried if they returned too late, he suggested that they mark the area with items from the space, so next time they come, they can just start from here and search inside.

"Well, okay," Zhou Yu also felt that his plan to find medicinal herbs today would probably fail. He slumped his shoulders and nodded, then walked with Zhou Jin to the roe deer they had just killed. Together they put the roe deer on the ground into a sack, and then each of them held one end of the sack, intending to put the roe deer into the space first.

"Eh? Bro! Wait!"

Just when Zhou Jin was about to shout for the items in the space to enter the space, he was stopped by his sister. Because his sister shouted too suddenly, Zhou Jin was so startled that he bit his tongue!

"Are you chasing your mother away? You little rascal!" Zhou Jin cursed, covering his bitten mouth in pain.

Zhou Yu had no time to care about his brother's anger at this time. He pointed excitedly at a broken tree root in front of him and shouted:

"Brother, look at that direction, about 45 degrees west of where I am, about 20 to 30 meters away from us, on the root of that broken tree, isn't there a Ganoderma lucidum growing there!?"

Zhou Yu excitedly pointed at the distance and shouted, she didn't expect that the precious medicinal herbs that they had been looking for for several hours and couldn't find, she just took a casual look before leaving and actually saw it!

Haha, it’s true that after searching for a needle in a haystack, it finally came to me without any effort!

"Huh? Where is it? Why can't I see it?!"

Zhou Jin's eyesight has never been as good as his sister's. He looked in the direction his sister pointed for a long time but only saw half of the tree root. In a hurry, he suddenly had an idea. He put down the sack in his hand and raised the □□ on his back, using the sight on it as a telescope. This time he saw it immediately!

"Huh?! It really looks like Ganoderma! Come on, let's go check it out!"

So, the brother and sister excitedly ran towards the tree root. As they passed by a patch of grass next to the tree root, Zhou Yu tripped and almost fell out. Fortunately, Zhou Jin, who was standing by, quickly helped her up, saving her from the fate of falling flat on her face.

After Zhou Yu stood firm, he couldn't help but look back at the place where he had just landed, wanting to see which shameless tree root had tripped him. The result was...

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[Note 1]: See f=cp&u=e7510813e30ff371,

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