Aside from the corn porridge she ate on her first day at the educated youth settlement, which was somewhat unpalatable, the food there was otherwise...
Later, the meals consisted of a balanced mix of meat and vegetables, including chicken and fish, and occasionally rabbit and wild boar meat.
She was surprised; she hadn't realized the food at the educated youth settlement was this good.
She almost thought that all the meals from now on would be as unpalatable as the first one she had ever eaten...
If everyone knew what she was thinking: No, what you said before about how hard it was to swallow, that's just our everyday food!
Yan Xiao would occasionally bring her fruit picked from the mountain.
She felt it wasn't right to keep accepting his gifts, so she politely declined and offered him money instead.
But the man said, "If these fruits aren't picked on the mountain, the sparrows will eat them. Picking them and eating them will prevent them from going to waste. Besides, I don't like to eat them."
Wen Qinghe: You don't like to eat it, yet you still picked it...
As if knowing she liked to eat, she later harvested many wild fruits, sometimes blueberries, small apples, sometimes wild grapes, and sometimes kiwis.
She couldn't help but sigh, noting that apart from the lack of electricity, water had to be carried by hand.
In terms of food, the mountains are rich in resources, and with the mountains as their home, people's lives won't be too difficult.
The young lady had no idea that these small fruits were located deep in the mountains, and deep mountains were not places that ordinary people dared to enter.
The mountains are indeed rich in resources, but they are also home to wolves, tigers, and other wild beasts.
Besides the people in the educated youth compound, who have been enjoying wild game delivered daily by Yan Xiao thanks to Wen Qinghe, the residents have also been able to enjoy this.
Everyone's spirits improved considerably after eating meat.
Most families still live the same way they did when she first arrived: wild vegetable porridge, wild vegetable pancakes, and cornbread.
Very few households would occasionally treat themselves to refined rice and flour as a treat.
…
In addition to working two jobs every day, Yan Xiao is now spending even more time on the mountain.
Besides hunting and delivering the ginseng to the educated youth settlement every day, he has been searching for the century-old ginseng from that old Chinese medicine doctor.
Thinking about the little girl's body, her sickly, pale, and delicate face came to mind.
A wave of bittersweet emotion washed over him. Such a beautiful person should have been a dazzling jewel, enjoying the care and protection of everyone.
But now he can only stay in his small room every day, unable to run or jump.
Because of the state of the world, the old Chinese medicine doctor was unwilling to leave his mountain retreat and cause trouble. He visited the doctor several times but was refused each time.
Even when Yan Xiao said that he would give up his entire fortune if he was willing to help just once, that person remained unmoved.
Just as he was losing hope and preparing to seek out other experts,
Hearing what his partners in the black market said,
This old Chinese medicine doctor had been searching for a century-old ginseng plant to use in his medicine. A thought struck him: he would go up the mountain, dig up a ginseng plant, and send it over to try again.
He knew this mountain very well.
The house his parents left him was at the foot of the mountain.
He lost both his parents at a young age and was raised by the families of strangers until he was eight.
According to the village elders, his father was a military officer, though his rank was unknown. He was assigned to this area and stayed there to marry and have children.
Unfortunately, he later sacrificed his life in a mission, and his mother, unable to accept the devastating news, also passed away, leaving him alone.
Did he harbor any resentment?
There probably is.
When they left, he had no memory of them and didn't remember them.
He doesn't understand why everyone else has parents, but he doesn't.
I don't know why his parents abandoned him.
But one time when he went to a villager's house to beg for food, he saw a pregnant mother gently touching her belly, looking forward to her unborn child.
He thought to himself, "Wasn't he also expected to be born in the same way?"
Thinking that he had once possessed it briefly, he felt at peace.
At first, he was young and would run around to different houses in the village at mealtimes. Later, as he grew older, he saw that everyone was struggling financially and that it was already a rare treat for them to share their food with him, so he stopped going to other people's houses to freeload.
They started learning to find food on their own, initially wild fruits from the mountains, and later learned to catch wild rabbits and fish and shrimp from the river.
Later, I gradually got used to cooking three meals a day on my own and no longer bothered others.
Because he always travels alone without any worries, he is not afraid of large prey at all, and even feels a little excited when he encounters them.
Determined to test his strength against his prey, even at the cost of half his life, he ultimately triumphed through sheer brute force and willpower.
Later, he kept venturing deeper into the mountains, and year after year, hunting in the mountains became as simple for him as eating and drinking.
At least we won't have to beg for food from other people's homes anymore, and be at their mercy.
What others found frightening, he found comforting.
………
The old Chinese medicine doctor spent half a month searching for the century-old ginseng he needed. Thinking that the young girl might also need it for her treatment, he put extra effort into finding several more.
But ginseng isn't so easy to find. After half a month, he only managed to dig up one fifty-year-old ginseng and one hundred-year-old ginseng.
As expected, the old gentleman agreed to make house calls, but at this time, he did not want to cause trouble and requested that his identity and itinerary be kept confidential.
Yan Xiao understood, so he only told others that he had met Wen Zhiqing's relatives who were visiting when he went to town.
As they got closer to the educated youth settlement, and thinking that there might be hope for the little girl's illness, he hadn't even had time to be happy.
Then Tang Lingling came running over in a panic:
"Comrade Yan, Qinghe is unresponsive today. I'm afraid to move her. Please go and call the village doctor to take a look!"
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