Go to grandma's house

Of course, before that, Yu Shu was taken to her grandmother's house by her mother.

There were still two days before going to school to pick up the report card, so Qin Wan only asked Yu Shu to pick up two sets of clothes.

Yu Shu’s grandmother’s house is not far away, in the development zone, and it takes an hour and a half to ride a bike there.

After I bought a car, I drove even faster.

The further you get to the development zone, the more desolate it becomes. There are large tracts of undeveloped wilderness on the roadside, and from time to time you can see some vegetable fields and oxen working the land.

Passing by a small lavender field, Qin Wan looked at the wilted purple plants and thought of the flowers and plants at home.

Oops, I forgot to take down the flowers hanging on the balcony before going out.

Yu Shu compared the current development zone with what it would be like more than ten years later in her mind.

Although there are no high-end shopping malls or beautiful parks in the development zone now, various factories are constantly gathering here. It has become quite large and high-rise buildings are under construction.

A fertile land for development.

Yu Shu's uncle's kitchenware factory is still in its start-up phase. The couple acts as both bosses and employees, soliciting business and negotiating deals. After a few years, it finally caught the wind and became a well-known factory in the local area, importing a lot of products to the counties and cities below.

Before Yu Shu was reborn, the factory's live broadcast business was also taking off, but due to the sluggish market, it still suffered a considerable impact.

The Qin family has lived on this land of the development zone for generations, from farmland to the current industrial zone, and later to the formal urban area.

The old mud house collapsed and was rebuilt into the current house, which has five floors and houses three generations.

Outside the self-built house, Yu Shu's grandmother sat by the door pasting silk flowers.

He has reached the age where he can enjoy his retirement, but the old man refuses to admit his age and has never stopped doing handicraft work that pays him a penny.

Yu Shu also helped out, and she only earned enough money to buy groceries for a whole day.

Seeing her grandmother standing in front of the house she built from afar, Yu Shu couldn't wait to shout happily.

"Grandma! Grandma!"

"Oh, Xiaoyu is here." Grandma put down the silk flower in her hand, tightened the glue, and responded enthusiastically.

Both big and small, they are her good children, patting their backs and touching their heads.

Grandma was very thin, but the hands holding her were very strong, hands that were used to doing farm work, and there was a faint scent of rice on her body.

Yu Shu buried her head in her grandmother's arms.

"How come you've lost so much weight, our Xiaoyu?" Grandma pinched Yu Shu's little face with heartache. The soft and chubby flesh was gone. Was the pressure of studying so great?

"Oh, grandma, I'm entering puberty and starting to grow taller!"

Grandma had little education and was short. She only knew that children needed to eat more meat to grow taller. "Xiaowan had to stew more pork ribs for Xiaoyu at home. She had to eat it every day."

Qin Wan hadn't even put down her luggage when she was assigned the task of stewing pork ribs for Xiaoyu.

"Okay, okay, her father prepares several meat dishes for dinner every day. The little girl is growing up so fast now, she changes every day. Haven't you seen that Xiaoyu is really beautiful now?"

Grandma pulled the child into the house and turned on the air conditioner in the living room.

Indeed, I look more like a junior high school student than before.

This reminded her of the group of female students she met a long time ago when she followed her father into the city to sell things.

Wearing a white top and a blue skirt, she looks particularly beautiful and generous.

She was a completely different person from a girl who rolled around in the mud. The pretty female student who led the group bought all her lotus pods. I wonder if she's doing okay now...

Tears often welled up in grandma's cloudy eyes, and she turned her back and took out ice cream and cold drinks.

Then I called my cousin Yu Shu.

Qin Wan took their spare clothes upstairs, and Yu Shu lay on the recliner enjoying the ice cream and ice cola her grandmother bought.

Three bicycles came to the door with a bang.

Cousin Qin Yuanqing came back with Qin Yi and Qin Kang.

The faces of the three people who came back from the scorching sun were sunburned red.

Qin Yuanqing ran to the kitchen to wash his face, screaming in his vest and slippers.

Leaving the youngest Qin Kang behind to carry the bucket.

My eldest uncle's daughter, Qin Yuanqing, is a freshman this year, and my second uncle's daughter, Qin Yi, is one year younger than Yu Shu. She occupied the faucet outside the house and was washing her face and hands happily.

Qin Kang is the son of his second uncle. He is only in the third grade and is bullied by his two sisters so much that he dares not complain.

He obediently carried the bucket into the cool area of ​​the house.

In the kitchen, grandma chased Qin Yuanqing out: "You almost let the chicken run away, hurry up and rush outside."

Qin Yuanqing shook his head fearlessly and shrugged at Yu Shu.

Then remove the lid of the bucket.

The red plastic bucket was filled with half a bucket of snails and some small shrimps.

"Xiaoyu, come with us to catch snails later."

Yu Shu squatted on the ground and picked up a snail curiously, and many ways to cook snails flashed through her mind.

Grandma came out of the kitchen tremblingly and poured Yu Shu a bowl of roasted grass jelly: "You guys can cut the snails yourself. Grandma will just stir-fry them for you."

After Qin Yi and Qin Kang finished fighting over the faucet, they saw the grass jelly in Yu Shu's hand and immediately squeezed into the kitchen.

After swallowing a mouthful of roasted grass jelly, Qin Yuanqing put his hand on his grandmother's shoulder and said, "Okay, since you said that, let's roll up our sleeves and work hard!"

Yu Shu silently swallowed the hesitation in her heart.

Go!

Three bicycles of different heights passed through the cold water and set off again.

Qin Kang followed at the back with his short legs and bicycle with small wheels. Qin Yi followed beside Qin Yuanqing, and his thin body looked particularly energetic as he pedaled the bicycle.

Yu Shu sat in the back seat of her elder sister's car, and looked back from time to time to receive the shouting messages from Qin Kang's short legs.

"Ah! Ride slower."

The pace slowed down because Qin Yuanqing ran into Qin Kang's classmate on the way. Qin Yuanqing invited the little brat: "Xiaomi, do you want to go catch snails with me?"

Xiaomi looked at her sister, who was so dark that only her white teeth were visible, with a little envy: "My mother won't let me go near the water."

Water? But they only went to small ditches, less than calf-deep.

Qin Yuanqing tempted: "It's okay, we'll just go to a small ditch that's only a little bit high."

She was afraid that Xiaomi wouldn't believe her, so she gestured on purpose.

The little girl was moved and said to Qin Kang who had just arrived: "Let's go, Qin Kang, get off and I'll give you a ride."

After changing to Xiaomi, the speed of the large group increased a lot.

Chuncheng is a city built along the river. The Chun River meandering out of the city becomes the Xiu River when it reaches the development zone downstream, nourishing this fertile land.

Walking north from my grandmother's house, there is a large piece of wild land with many lotus flowers growing on it. There are lush aquatic plants nearby and many small shallow ditches naturally formed.

Snails like cool weather and lie on the ditch walls where there are lush aquatic plants.

It was Yu Shu's first time to come here to catch snails, and she found that the water quality was much better than the places she had been to before.

The water is ice-cold, with many water plants floating in it, and a faint fishy smell if you smell it carefully.

He bent down and carefully picked up half a bowl from the ditch.

Qin Yuanqing was no longer satisfied with this little fight. She determined the eel's traces from the slippery hole and waited with bated breath.

"Got it! Qin Yi, hand me the bucket."

She was smiling happily, and the eel was shaking its curled body vigorously on her slender arms.

Qin Kang was frightened by the huge eel and ran away. Xiaomi grabbed the bucket that he almost dropped.

Qin Yi took the eel and covered it with a net.

Fluttering around is particularly energetic, and a big meal is in hand.

Yu Shu was so impressed that she gave her elder sister a thumbs up, which made Qin Yuanqing even more excited.

"Qin Yi, let's catch another one so your sister Xiaoyu can have enough to eat today."

It’s a pity that the more you expect something, the harder it is to get it.

Yu Shu seemed to remember there was some term that explained this, Murphy's Law? Or Schrödinger's cat? I can't remember for sure.

There was a lot of mud between her toes.

The ones on my calves have dried out and cracked.

The group of people who were catching snails were called home by grandma.

The adults haven't gone home for lunch yet, so the children get together for lunch.

In order to eat the snails, Yu Shu and the other children hurriedly finished their lunch.

Qin Yuanqing grabbed a few of the kids, took a stool and sat in the living room to wash and scrub.

There was a plastic basin next to each person, which contained snails that had been washed and brushed clean of moss and fine sand.

There was only turbid water left in the bathtub in the middle, which was poured into the small ditch at the door. Qin Wan brought them thick scissors and kitchen knives.

For larger snails, use the back of the knife to hit them along the way, and for smaller ones, just cut them directly.

It took more than an hour to clean six or seven pounds of snails. Grandma had already woken up from her nap. Qin Kang took her hand and asked her to stir-fry the snails for them.

The kitchen in the self-built house is very large. My uncles and their families live with my grandmother. There are two types of stoves: a gas stove and a clay stove.

Of course, stewing and stir-frying in an earthen stove or iron pot is much more fragrant than cooking with gas.

Yu Shu watched eagerly beside the stove while Qin Wan helped her grandmother.

The hot oil brings out the aroma of onions, ginger and garlic, and then add dried chilies, bay leaves, star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns and homemade chili sauce.

"Hold on for a while."

My grandmother was like a seasoned general, skillfully directing the soldiers in the kitchen who made oil, salt, sauce and vinegar to act according to military tactics.

After all the spices and chilies were perfectly blended, the grandmother directed her daughter and eldest granddaughter to pour the snails into the big iron pot.

The fire is high and the snails are crackling, sliding down the shovel into the rice wine, soy sauce and salt.

A dish of pungent and tempting stir-fried snails is out of the pot!

Grandma proudly instructed the children to get bowls to serve the food.

After showing off her cooking skills in front of the children, grandma smelled the rich aroma and said: "Eat as much as you want! After you finish eating, grandma will make more for you."

Snails are not something that is very pleasant to eat, because if you want to taste its deliciousness to the greatest extent, you must first suck the shell vigorously, then use a toothpick to pick out the tender and chewy meat.

It's spicy, juicy, and full of flavor.

My grandmother has bad teeth, but she was tempted and tried a few. She couldn't stand the spiciness, so she stuck out her tongue and continued to suck the shells.

There are two large plates of snails on the big round table, from the top of the hill to the Tarim Basin.

Yu Shu's lips turned red from the spiciness, and her greasy hands were soaked in the taste of snails.

Cool!

Enjoying the ceiling fan, eating spicy snails and drinking soda is simply irresistible.

Everyone on the table had sweat on their faces. Qin Yuanqing, Qin Yi, and Qin Kang all looked more or less similar to grandma, except Qin Wan and Yu Shu.

In her previous life, Yu Shu never doubted the blood relationship of her family.

It was not until my 25th birthday that I suddenly found out that my mother was an abandoned baby adopted by my grandmother.