Zhou Huaian stepped forward and took Xiao Jiuer, "Grandpa, go to sleep for a while. I'm going to go up the mountain to dig Polygonum multiflorum and Dendrobium."

The old man rolled his eyes at Zhou Huaian and whispered, "That's outrageous. Your mother almost went to the toilet to look for you guys!"

“……” Yang Chunyan’s face turned as red as a cooked shrimp.

Zhou Huaian smiled awkwardly, "Do you know where we are going?"

"If you move your toes, I know what you are going to do!" The old man said, putting his hands behind his back and walking towards the kitchen. "Hurry up, I'm going up the mountain first."

"Okay!" Zhou Huaian carried Xiao Jiuer and followed Yang Chunyan, whose ears were red, into the room, "Grandpa helped us cover it up."

Yang Chunyan rubbed her burning face and said, "I will never do this again next time. It's simply..."

"Luckily it was Grandpa, if it was Mom..."

"What if something happened to me? What did you two do?" Zhou's mother's voice rang out in the main room.

"I didn't do anything!" Zhou Huaian saw Xiao Jiuer in his arms and had an idea, "I, I just sucked Xiao Jiuer and made him cry."

Mother Zhou glared at him and said, "You fool! Little Jiu'er's meat is so tender, how could you bring yourself to eat it!"

"Just looking at his plump and fair son makes me want to take a bite!" Every time Zhou Huaian looked at his fair and tender son, he really wanted to take a bite.

Yang Chunyan awkwardly used her toes to dig out a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, and secretly vowed that she would never go to see a house again, no matter how good it was...

After Zhou Huaian put Xiao Jiuer down, he was beaten a few times by Zhou's mother. He took snake medicine and a pair of sharp scissors, went to the backyard to get two ropes and a few sacks and went up the mountain.

Chunyan just said that you cannot dig it up with the roots, but have to use scissors to cut it. She also said that the nutritional value of Dendrobium is the best around the Qingming Festival, because the photosynthesis of Dendrobium plants is not very strong at this time, and therefore the various nutrients contained in the Dendrobium stems are the highest in the year.

After being dried, the flowers of Dendrobium can be used to make tea, stew soup, fry eggs, and make pancakes.

When he got up the mountain, the old man had already dug a lot of mugwort and put it in his backpack. When he saw him coming, he rolled his eyes at him and said, "Don't think that what the old man said is all lies. You will know it when you suffer losses in the future."

Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "Yan'er is wearing a thin coat and a hat, so she'll be fine." He tied the rope to a big tree above the pit and said, "Grandpa, I'm going to cut the dendrobium. When the sack is full, I'll pull the rope and you pull it up."

"Okay!" The old man helped him tie the rope under his armpits, "Be careful, less money is enough!"

"Yeah!" Zhou Huaian hung the machete on his waist, and walked carefully to the dendrobium while holding the medicine hoe.

The cliff was covered with moss. He grabbed the rope and carefully found a place to step on.

When he got closer, he could smell the fragrance of the flowers. He sniffed and felt that the flowers of this dendrobium were very comfortable to smell. The faint fragrance was a bit like the smell of the agarwood at home.

Digging up a clump of Dendrobium, you can see stems that grow like bamboo sticks, with short nodes, plump and sturdy. The thickest one is as thick as your thumb.

I found that some of the thick stems of Dendrobium were light yellow or gray-brown, some of the thinner stems were light green, and some of the thinner stems were dark green. I picked up a pair of scissors and cut off a branch of Dendrobium two sections away from the root. I broke off a section, wiped it on my clothes, and put it in my mouth to chew.

Zhou Huaian nodded while muttering to himself, "Yan'er said that the best quality ones are those that stick to your teeth, taste sweet, and have no residue left after chewing. If they have all these qualities, we should be able to sell them for a good price this time."

The old man stood on top and looked worriedly at Zhou Huaian who was lying on the slope. He was ready at any time to pull him up immediately if he found anything wrong.

Zhou Huaian cut off the thick stems of Dendrobium and put them in sacks, leaving the newly sprouted shoots so that they can be picked again in two years.

When the sack was half full, he pulled another rope to tie the sack, and pulled the rope a few times, "Grandpa, you can pull it up."

"Got it!" The old man pulled the rope slowly to pull the sack up, took out the Dendrobium inside and put it into the backpack.

While the grandfather and grandson were busy in the big pit, people from Zhao Huifang's family also came with deliveries of Artemisia argyi.

"Aunt San, are you going to dig Artemisia annua too?" Zhang Xiuxiang hurried forward to take the backpack and put it on the scale to weigh it.

Aunt Zhou smiled and said, "Huai Zhong and Huai Jun were grinding beans, so your third father and I went to dig two baskets of beans when we had nothing to do."

Qian Chunhua took the money from Zhao Huifang and said, "It's the best time to dig Artemisia argyi these past two days. Xiaofang and I dug more than 100 kilograms of it on the hillside behind my house. We made four dollars in three or four hours."

Aunt Zhou San: "Not bad. If you go earlier, you can earn ten yuan a day."

"Yes! It's good, but we can only dig in a few days." Qian Chunhua happily carried the basket on her back, "Xiaofang is still digging in the back mountain, so I won't delay her."

"Okay, walk slowly!"

Aunt Zhou walked two steps away, then turned back and asked Zhang Xiuxiang, "Is your mother at the youngest child's house?"

"No, I'm helping to wash the mugwort in the backyard." Zhang Xiuxiang picked up the basket and said, "Aunt San, would you like to sit in the backyard for a while?"

"That's right!" Aunt Zhou San followed her to the backyard. "The old family had a big quarrel today. I overheard outside the courtyard wall. It seems that Huaixing was deceived by the youngest brother Xiong. He also told some boss in the city about your collection of red mushrooms."

Zhang Xiuxiang: "Before Qingming Festival, we heard from the youngest brother that Zhou Huaixing and Xiong Laoyao were involved with each other, and my aunt even went to the youngest brother to ask for information!"

She glanced at Zhao Huifang, and the two sisters-in-law began to worry that the truffle business, which still had two months left, had indeed been snatched away by the Xiong family.

By then it will be just like when they were buying eels, the two companies kept raising prices in order to grab business, and in the end neither of them made any money!

Aunt Zhou curled her lips and said, "The first wife's family is always bullying, and what they love to do most is to betray their own people!"

"Third aunt, what has the eldest wife done to betray her family again?" Zhou's mother turned her head and asked with a smile.

Aunt Zhou saw her busy washing the white wormwood, so she rolled up her sleeves and went to help. "...My third son said that he didn't know how much he owed them in his previous life to have to be brothers with such people."

They have suffered a lot at the hands of the eldest wife over the years, and they are filled with disgust when talking about that family.

Zhou's mother was furious after hearing this. "The youngest son didn't even tell me when he came back. I'll go ask him later! If it weren't for the old man, we would have cut off all ties with his family and stopped associating with them."

Aunt Zhou San: "Yes, it's all because of the old man, otherwise I would have stopped associating with him a long time ago."

The two sisters-in-law talked about the gossip of the eldest wife for a while, venting their feelings, and then they felt a little better.

Zhou's mother was busy at Zhou Huairong's house until the sun went down. She put the selected young white wormwood into a colander, went back to scoop some fermented glutinous rice wine, made a confinement meal for Yang Chunyan, and sent it to her room.

"Yan'er, the youngest said he wanted to eat Ye'erba, so I brought back all the mugwort and some glutinous rice dumpling fillings. I'll steam some for you!"

Yang Chunyan took the fermented glutinous rice egg and felt that she was not active enough and eating glutinous food was not easy to digest. "No, I'll make whatever flavor you like. Don't worry about me!"

"They all like the ones stuffed with sprouts, so I'll make a few less. You can eat them if you like, and keep some if you don't."

"Okay!" Yang Chunyan felt that Zhou's mother was considerate and could be the best mother-in-law.

Zhou's mother went out and first went upstairs to collect diapers and clothes, folded them and brought them back to the room to put them in the closet. Then she went to mash the Artemisia annua, squeezed out the juice, mixed it with glutinous rice flour and started kneading the flour.

After kneading the flour, she remembered that she hadn't picked the leaves for the rice dumplings. She thought for a while, turned around and went to find two handfuls of corn leaves for steaming corn cakes, cut off the two ends and used them to wrap the rice dumplings!

Yang Chunyan fed Xiao Jiuer and came out with a bowl. She saw her cutting corn leaves and said, "Mom, you can also make rice dumplings with galangal leaves. There are quite a few growing in the vegetable garden."

"Look, how could I have forgotten the ginger leaves!" Zhou's mother put down the corn leaves. "Ye'erba tastes better when wrapped in ginger leaves. I'll go get some now."

Yang Chunyan nodded and put the bowl on the stove. She heard Zhou Huaian's voice coming from the backyard. She walked to the back door and looked out, and saw him coming in with a basket full of Dendrobium officinale on his back.

"How much have you cut?"

"It's about halfway. We'll have to cut all the crops tomorrow to finish." Zhou Huaian put down the basket with sweat all over his forehead. "Why did you come out?"

"I've slept too much and my bones are getting numb. Get up and walk around!" These days, there was no television or mobile phones. I did nothing for a month except breastfeeding and sleeping. It was really hard.

Zhou Huaian deliberately put on a fierce face, "You have only been in confinement for a few days, and you have only completed the first stage of the Long March! You are already complaining that your bones are soft from sleep. I see you are going to run around today, why don't you lie down quickly!"

Yang Chunyan blushed, "Don't tell anyone about this! If you say it again, I will ignore you!"

Zhou Huaian saw that her face was red, "Okay, don't talk about it! I'll go pick two baskets, and you go back and lie down!"

Yang Chunyan looked at the dendrobium flowers and said, "Huaian, you carry the basket to the main room. I'll put a thick cushion on it and help pick the dendrobium flowers. Otherwise, it would be a pity if they rotted."

"Don't give me that!" Zhou Huaian glared at her, then softened his tone, "Be obedient and lie down quickly. The dendrobium flowers won't rot if you pick them an hour later."

"Okay!" Yang Chunyan returned to the room and saw Xiao Jiuer still sleeping soundly. She picked him up and kissed him. "Yaoyao, it would be great if mommy could just eat and sleep like you!"

Xiao Jiuer looked at her with half-opened eyes, yawned, and fell asleep again.

By the time Zhou Huaian and his grandfather had picked all the Dendrobium officinale, Zhou's mother had finished steaming the Yeerba.

"I'm already starving." Zhou Huaian picked up a Yeerba without washing his hands and ate it in two or three bites. "The Yeerba made by my mom is delicious. Next time I go to town, I'll teach my sister to make it and sell it at the door!"

"If you like it, I'll make it for you next time. Send two to Chunyan first!" Mother Zhou said as she picked up a few more and put them on a plate for the old man. "Old man, try some too. I'll send some to Huairong and the others."

The old man took the plate cheerfully, "Send some over, family."

Zhou Huaian ate three and felt that his stomach was no longer empty, so he picked up two with black sesame filling and went to his room, "Yan'er, get up and eat two." (End of this chapter)