After Yang Chunyan got down the embankment, she saw that most of the paddy fields below were planted with seedlings. Aunt Zhou Zhou's family had already finished work. In their own rice field, the old man, Zhou Huaijun, and Zhou Jialiang were pulling out the seedlings. In the paddy field over there, Zhou Huaian and his brothers were planting rice.

"Grandpa, it's time to call it a day and eat."

"Ancestor, food!" Little Jiuer also called out in a baby voice.

"It's time to eat, it's time to eat!" Zhou Jialiang, who had been tired of working for a long time, immediately stood up and kept pounding his lower back, "Ouch~ My waist is so sore!"

"Where can you get the waist from?" The old man picked up a few stalks of rice seedlings and said, "Bring them to the edge of the rice field, and then go to the paddy field over there this afternoon."

"Great!" Zhou Huaijun picked up a few stalks of rice seedlings and walked towards the edge of the field.

Zhou Jialiang also picked up four mushrooms and followed them to the edge of the field. He went ashore and pinched Xiao Jiuer, "Aunt, what mushrooms did you pick today? Do you have any chicken mushrooms? What's delicious for lunch?"

Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "We didn't pick up any chicken mushrooms, but grandma picked up a few, all of which were still closed. We cooked chicken mushroom and pork soup, bacon fried with mushrooms, cold-mixed leeks, and stir-fried rattan vegetables for lunch."

"I'm so hungry, I'm drooling just hearing this!" Zhou Jialiang rubbed his stomach and shouted to the old man in the rice field, "Grandpa, I'm going back first!"

The old man waved his hand and said, "Go!"

Yang Chunyan went to the paddy field and saw that three fields had already been planted. The larger one was a little over one acre, and the smaller two were only a little over five cents an acre. It looked like all eight acres of fields could be planted tomorrow.

Zhou Xiaoqian and the others who were helping to carry the rice seedlings were also very happy to see her. They excitedly shouted to the people planting rice in the paddy field: "Grandpa, it's time to finish work and eat!"

The kids found it tiring to plant and pull out the rice seedlings. There were insects with sharp mouths in the paddy fields that would bite the soles of their feet, and there were leeches that would drill into the fields and not come out until they were full, which was terrifying.

Zhou Jiakang was holding a bunch of loaches, "Look, Xiao Jiu'er, this is what Third Brother found."

"Fish babies, hey, cluck!" In Xiao Jiuer's eyes, after his brothers caught the fish babies, their grandmother would feed them to the chickens and ducks to lay eggs.

Zhou Xiaoqian pointed at the red mark on her calf and said, "Aunt, look at my leg. I was bitten by a leech and it's bleeding a lot."

Yang Chunyan took a look and said, "Ask grandpa for some tobacco oil and apply it on it, and the leech will fall off."

"It's just the soda oil!" Zhou Xiaoqian picked up her shoes. "It's so tiring to plant rice seedlings. It's not as fun as going up the mountain to pick mushrooms."

"It's not tiring today because there's no sun. It's not tiring when the sun comes out and makes my back feel hot. That's tiring!"

"My old man said the same thing."

"We will finish planting tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow we will go to the forest we just contracted to pick them up."

"I have to study the day after tomorrow. Brother Ming has an exam."

"You will also take exams next year. Try your best to get into a good school. If you can get into high school or college, you can work in a company instead of working in the fields."

"Yeah! I want to go to a big city like Sister Mina."

"Our Xiaoqian is so smart, she will definitely be able to do it."

"I'm not smart, Sister Mina is smart!" Zhou Xiaoqian smiled shyly.

"Believe in Aunt Yao, as long as you work hard, you will be no worse than anyone else."

"I remember it!"

Yang Chunyan rubbed her head and said, "Dad and the others may have to finish the work in their hands before getting up. Let's go back."

"Okay!" Several children followed her.

Grandpa Zhou Huaian and his friends finished planting the seedlings in their hands before going ashore. When they got home, the food had been prepared. They saw the chicken mushroom and pork soup, as well as bacon and fried mushrooms on the table, so they picked up their bowls and started eating.

Zhou Jialiang and his friends thought today's meal was especially delicious. In the end, even the soup was poured out by the kids to soak their rice and they ate it all up.

During the meal, sister-in-law Yang Chunyan told everyone about how Xu Feng, Su Ruilan and Lin Aihua were caught picking bamboo fungi in the bamboo forest.

Mother Zhou said with a sullen face, "That scumbag Xu Feng is the most evil-minded. I think she was the one who destroyed all those hairy pears by the ditch last time."

Zhang Xiuxiang nodded, "That's right! If mom hadn't told us, we would have forgotten about it. It must be her, otherwise how would she know there are bamboo fungi in the bamboo forest over there!"

After hearing this, Li Qiuyue said regretfully: "Then we shouldn't have let that bitch go today. We should have taken her to the brigade headquarters and see if she dares to do it again in the future!"

Zhou Huaian thought about what Xu Hongbing had said to him, and said calmly, "I've already let her go. If she dares to go again next time, I'll treat her rudely if I catch her."

Zhou Huairong nodded, "Yeah, there's no point in saying this now. Let's forget about it this time. Next time we catch her, we'll take her to the brigade headquarters."

Yang Chunyan said to Zhou Huaian, "My third sister-in-law and I have found the wooden sticks. You guys can fence off the fish pond later."

Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "Youngest, your little Jiuer has caught some pig worms for you and wants you to go fishing!"

Little Jiuer, who was eating in the sedan chair, thought of his big bug after hearing this and looked up and said, "Dad, fish swing!"

Zhou Huaian stood up, looked at the little guy who had spilled rice everywhere, and wiped the meat off his face. "Just eat your food obediently, and daddy will catch some fish for you!"

"Good boy Jiuer!" The little fellow grabbed the wooden spoon as if it were a big knife, scooped up a big mouthful of rice, stuffed it into his mouth, and puffed up his cheeks like a little hamster.

"Oh, my dear grandson, you drop more than you eat!" Zhou's mother saw that he ate half and spilled the other half, so she went up to pick up his small wooden bowl and said, "Grandma, feed him!"

"Jiuer, eat." The little guy grabbed the spoon and refused to let go.

Seeing that he was unwilling, Zhou's mother had no choice but to let him do what he wanted. "Okay, okay, you eat by yourself. If there's any spilled rice, grandma will sweep it up and feed it to Koko."

At this time, a dog barked outside, and someone shouted, "Grandma Zhou, we want to sell mushrooms."

"Here they are!" Yang Chunyan and her sisters-in-law hurried out and saw four or five half-grown children standing at the gate with mushrooms on their backs. They asked with a smile, "How many mushrooms are there today?"

"A lot!" The round-faced boy nodded. "I picked up a big chicken mushroom, which weighs at least one pound. Aunt Yang, why don't you buy chicken mushrooms?"

Yang Chunyan thought for a moment, "How much did you pick up? If it's not too much, I'll use it to fry chicken and eat it."

Several children said happily: "Not much, we weigh more than ten pounds together."

"Okay, collect the red mushrooms and big-foot mushrooms first, and I'll collect the chicken mushrooms." Yang Chunyan's sister-in-law took out the dustpan and began to sort the mushrooms in the baskets of the children.

Zhang Xiuxiang smiled and said, "Wow! Whose is this? Not bad, there are more than two kilograms of morels."

"Mine, mine!" said the little girl with a ponytail.

Yang Chunyan took a look and said, "We will only collect the morels after the mud feet are trimmed off. We will help you trim them this time, but next time you need to trim them clean before sending them to us!"

The little girl said gratefully: "Thank you, Aunt Yang, we will cut it and send it to you next time."

"You are from Cai Laoer's family, right?" Zhao Huifang saw that she was about the same age as Zhou Jiaming. "You have classes tomorrow, so why don't you go to study?"

The little girl nodded and shook her head, "I didn't pass the junior high school entrance exam last year, so I stopped going to school."

"Aunt," the round-faced boy was very outgoing, "We are all out of school. We were supposed to help the family plant rice seedlings, but my mom heard that you harvested a lot of varieties this year, so she asked me to take my brother to the mountains to pick mushrooms."

"Be careful when going up the mountain, especially where the weeds are thick..."

“…”

When Yang Chunyan saw the end, she found that a child had picked up several pounds of fir mushrooms, so she accepted them and planned to use them to make soup.

The brush mushrooms and milk mushrooms were left to the children. These kinds of mushrooms only cost two or three yuan per pound in the town, and they could only be sold during market hours.

Zhou Huaian and his brothers went to the baking room. The baking room had been idle for several months, so they had to light the furnace in advance and carbonize the wood sticks at the same time.

Zhou Huaian, Zhou Huaishan and Zhou Huaijun took machetes and chopped off one end of the wooden stick. After Zhou Huairong lit the fire, he put the wooden stick into the furnace to carbonize it.

Zhou Huaijun inserted the burnt sticks into the charcoal ash and said, "Youngest, after the wood piles are built, cut a few roses from under your fence and plant them by the fish pond. When they grow up, they will look nice and you don't have to worry about damaging the fence."

"No need to cut them. I cut a lot of them in the spring and planted them beside the fence on the back hill. I can just dig some and plant them."

"The big gardenia in your house is really beautiful. Give it one and plant it next to the fish pond."

"The yellow gardenias planted on the mountain are blooming well this year. Can we harvest a lot of yellow gardenias?"

"We should be able to collect quite a lot." Zhou Huaian carried the last few sticks to the furnace, "Brother, send them over when you're done. Let's go and drive the stakes first."

"Okay." Zhou Huairong stuffed two wooden stakes into the pile of ash.

The three Zhou Huaian brothers came to the fish pond holding wooden sticks. The old man and Zhou's father had already split the bamboo strips. When they saw them coming, they said, "The youngest and third brothers are here piling. While everyone else is busy, let's quickly finish planting the seedlings and harvest the mushrooms in peace."

"Okay, let's go first." Zhou Huairong and Zhou Huaijun put down their sticks and followed them.

Zhou Huaian picked up a wooden stick and stuck it into the soil with force, holding it steady with both hands. Zhou Huaishan hit the stick continuously with a hammer, and soon a wooden stake was planted.

The old man came over with a basket on his back, and the two brothers were banging on it. "Youngest, where do I put these things?"

Zhou Huaian looked up and said with a smile: "Uncle Xia, you are here!" Then he took the quilt he was holding and said, "I will take you to the baking room."

"Great!" Old Shrimp followed him to the grill, "Everyone used to dislike your location, but now it looks really good."

"Uncle Xia hasn't been to my house yet, right?" Zhou Huaian opened the door. There were two wooden beds that were slightly wider than a single bed. He put the quilt on the bed on the left, which was already covered with straw mats, cotton quilts and sheets.

The old shrimp nodded and said, "I've only walked past your house and never been inside. It looks good from the outside."

"I think it's good too." Zhou Huaian helped him put the things away and took him to the baking room. The temperature inside had already risen, and it felt like entering a furnace.

The two looked around and went to the warehouse. "The bamboo flats are for placing mushrooms, and the bamboo baskets are for collecting mushrooms. After Aunt Jiang and the others wash the mushrooms, they put them on the wooden racks. You wait until the water is filtered and then send them to the grills in the roasting room according to their grades.

You have to pick them up during the process. Mushrooms are easy to spoil, so you have to handle them with care. If you have any questions, you can ask my grandfather or the old man. "

The old shrimp took note of it carefully and said, "Okay!"

Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "There's nothing to do right now. Do you want to take a break or go play in the fish pond with me outside?"

"I'll go and help you hammer in the stakes."

"That's right!"

Zhou Huaian and the other two worked for more than two hours to plant the wooden stakes and weave the bamboo strips, and then they were busy planting the rice seedlings. (End of this chapter)