Chapter 87 Chapter 87 Yongyue
*
At noon, I still couldn't escape the trap of chayote. There was chayote and yam spleen-strengthening soup, chayote fried pork slices, chayote and egg fried with black fungus... a chayote feast.
The hot food was placed on the table and everyone was seated, but everyone was holding their bowls and chopsticks, as if they were embarrassed to be someone else's guest. No one picked up the food with their chopsticks, including the old man who was cooking himself.
"Why!"
Cai Lu's face turned even greener. Gu Mengran sighed, silently picked up a piece of yam from the soup bowl, and reluctantly took a small bite.
"Ah!" The old man also sighed, and hesitated for a long time before putting down his chopsticks and looking at Gu Mengran, "Chayote...how much is left?"
Gu Mengran chewed on the yam and said without raising his head, "If you eat more every day, ten days or half a month won't be a problem."
“Forget it.” Zheng Yijie’s hand holding the chopsticks trembled slightly. “It’s still ten days or half a month. I feel a little sick just looking at it now!”
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing? That's too much!"
The old man glanced at Zheng Yijie and wanted to defend his chayote, but when he glanced at the dining table, forget it. He immediately knocked on the table and said to everyone, "After dinner, go pick those melons and pull up the vines. Plant something else."
"After that, pick out the melons and send the good ones to Hengrongsheng and Shijin Village. The rest... the rest will be fed to the pigs and chickens. Anyway, I don't want to eat them anymore."
Zheng Yijie, who ran to the next door every few days, waved his hand and said, "Heng Rongsheng doesn't need it. They have grown it too. They can't eat it all. They can't eat it all at all."
This batch of chayote has a high yield, good quality, and large size. The old man is a little reluctant to feed all of them to small animals. Although it is okay to store them in the space and they will not go bad, they have eaten enough of them recently. They probably won't touch this thing again in the next few years.
It would be a pity to leave it alone, and it would be a pity to feed it to small animals. The old man looked at Gu Mengran eagerly, "What about the village? I remember you also gave them chayote seeds?"
"Yes, I have planted it," Gu Mengran swallowed the food in his mouth and said slowly, "But the soil is different, the yield is not as good as ours, and there are many people in the village, so they won't think that there is too much food, so you can send some over."
Giving it away seems to be the best destination for the chayote. The old man breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Okay, let's eat, and then we'll go pick some. Let's see if the rain can get lighter this afternoon, and then we'll find a time to send them over."
"Oh, this table of food is so hard to eat."
"You've become a picky eater, haven't you? Even if you starve me for three days, I'll still find it delicious."
"It's the last meal, just make do with it."
…
Heavy rainfall lasted for a year, and the Fengyi had been floating on the empty lake, going out without entering for nearly a year. Relying on growing vegetables and the space in Gu Mengran's hands that existed like a bug, the Fengyi had a very comfortable life.
Our neighbor Heng Rongsheng was also living quite well. They planted a large amount of high-yield and filling crops on the ship, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins. Although the food was not as good as on the Fengyi, they never went hungry.
Especially some time ago, Xu Xinghe and Zheng Yijie fell in love with fishing. They would sit on the deck with their fishing rods for the whole day. Sometimes they would come back with nothing, and sometimes they would come back with a full load, which would improve the food for their family.
In comparison, Shijin Village, which is still on the shore, lives a relatively difficult life.
After lunch, the old man stayed in the kitchen to clean up, while the others each took a pair of scissors and a woven bag and went to the "vegetable garden" on the first floor to pick vegetables.
If you ignore the taste of chayote, the process of picking the vegetable is still very relaxing. With a "click", a big and plump chayote falls into your hand, which is quite substantial.
But the fun was only at the beginning. When the bitter melons in the hall were picked and the vines were pulled out by the roots, Gu Mengran pulled Liang Zhao and Zheng Yiji to the space. The relaxed and happy expressions on everyone's faces suddenly became solemn.
The sky is as blue as ever, with no wind or clouds, and the temperature is just right.
A stream came from nowhere and was flowing. A group of sleek ducks were swimming happily in the water, quacking from time to time and splashing water.
The hens and roosters strolled around, and the chicks followed behind, pecking at the ground tremblingly; the docile sheep, the strong cows, and the fat and big-eared pigs lay lazily together in the open space, one next to the other, getting along in great harmony.
It is still the same land and the same animals, but they have become a little bigger. The once lifeless yellow land has completely changed its color, and a vibrant green can be seen everywhere.
Cabbage, radish, leek, pepper... almost all the vegetables that could be seen before the disaster are available. The fruit trees planted before have also grown into small trees that are one meter tall. Unfortunately, it will take more patience and a few more years for them to bloom and bear fruit.
A piece of open space was specially reserved for poultry and livestock. The three of them walked in on the yellow mud. When they passed by a fat pig that had eaten and drunk its fill and was napping on the ground, Zheng Yijie couldn't help but take a few more glances and muttered quietly, "It's so fat, should it be slaughtered?"
"What?" Gu Mengran, who was walking in front, didn't hear clearly and asked casually.
Liang Zhao, who was in the middle, acted as a messenger: "He said the pigs are fat and it's time to slaughter them."
"Don't even think about it," Gu Mengran snorted and laughed, "I raise them specifically for breeding. The big pigs give birth to piglets, and I'll slaughter the next batch of piglets when they grow up and eat them."
Zheng Yijie frowned and scratched his chin thoughtfully, "Breeding? But I vaguely remember... sows can be bred and conceived at seven to eight months old. Why is it that after a year, none of your pigs have conceived?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Gu Mengran paused and turned around abruptly.
The tip of his nose bumped into Liang Zhao's shoulder without warning. Gu Mengran didn't even bother to rub it. He grabbed Liang Zhao's arm to steady himself and asked hurriedly, "Is it true? Aren't pigs the same as cows and sheep, and they take one and a half to two years to get pregnant?"
Zheng Yijie's mouth twitched, "Who told you that? Pigs are best at eight months old!"
Gu Mengran turned his head to look at the group of lazy fat pigs, and a crack appeared on his calm face.
I haven’t gotten pregnant in more than a year. Will I not be able to eat pork in the future?
"So, what should we do now?"
Zheng Yijie: "How would I know? I'm not an expert..."
Halfway through his speech, Zheng Yijie was caught off guard by Liang Zhao's sharp eyes. He coughed lightly and changed the subject: "Well, you should have bought some relevant books, right? Bring them to me later so I can study them further."
Gu Mengran hummed, "Whether I can eat pork in the future depends on you."
Zheng Yijie's mouth sank: "Don't put pressure on me!"
Not forgetting the important matter, five minutes later, the three of them came to the racks densely packed with chayote melons.
Dead objects cannot be brought into the space, and neither can wood for building the shelves. This certainly did not pose a problem for Gu Mengran. He simply used materials available on site and planted a field of purple sugarcane to use as wood to build shelves for crops that needed to climb.
Without any tools, it was quite difficult to pick the melons with bare hands. Gu Mengran wanted to dismantle the rack directly, but Zheng Yijie said not to do so yet, and let the remaining small melons grow slowly and be saved as seeds.
Professional matters should be handled professionally, and Gu Mengran chose to listen to him.
After three hours of hard work, they finally finished picking all the chayote. Since they were already here, they also picked some cabbages from the field next door to feed the small animals.
It was already past five o'clock when we returned to the cabin. The harvested bitter melons filled more than twenty large woven bags. Four people sat in the living room to pick and choose, and finally selected three bags of the best-looking large melons to be delivered to Shijin Village.
The rain was a little lighter in the evening. A strong wind blew, and the dark clouds in the sky followed the wind. The dim sky gradually brightened, and the heavy rain turned into a drizzle.
It is better to arrive in time than to arrive early. The rain stopped just as they divided the bergamot. Gu Mengran and Liang Zhao simply put on raincoats while there was still time, got on the diesel boat controlled by the old man, and swayed down to the lake.
With a twist of the accelerator, the diesel boat was launched out with a roar, carrying hundreds of kilograms of bitter melons.
It was hard to feel the passage of time on the boat, except for the increasing rust on the deck, there was basically no change. But once on the lake, sitting on a diesel boat that was dozens of times smaller, the field of vision became lower and all he could see was water. Only then did Gu Mengran feel that it had been raining for a year.
The water level rose so much that in just a few minutes, the diesel boat passed by the former tourist pier. The reception platform, approach bridge, sightseeing check-in signs... everything was submerged by the lake. If it weren't for the street lamps standing in the water with only half of their heads left, there would be no trace of them at all.
The road used to end here and you had to walk the rest of the way. But now, it’s hard to say whether it’s good or bad, it’s convenient and fast - you can take a boat directly to the village entrance.
The roads and hillsides along the way, including the ruins after the earthquake, were all flooded by rainwater. The land belonging to Shijin Village was also shrinking inch by inch. The diesel boats were able to travel smoothly all the way. It was estimated that it would not be long before even the Fengyi would be able to drive directly into the village.
Without turning a single corner, they were very fast and reached the village entrance in fifteen minutes. The rainstorm had just subsided, and the lake was still covered with a layer of white mist. Gu Mengran sat on the boat and looked around, looking for the steps leading to Shijin Village.
Visibility was low and there were almost no reference objects around, so it was quite difficult to find the stairs. Gu Mengran focused all his attention on the surroundings. Unexpectedly, before he found the stairs, the diesel boat sailing at full speed suddenly stopped without any sign.
It was as if someone suddenly pushed him hard from behind, and inertia almost threw Gu Mengran out of the diesel boat. Fortunately, Liang Zhao reacted in time and pulled him in time.
Not knowing what had happened, Gu Mengran patted his chest in shock and looked at Liang Zhao in confusion, "Why... wuuuu."
The words were covered by Liang Zhao's hand, and Gu Mengran finally realized that something was wrong. He followed Liang Zhao's line of sight, and his eyes stayed in the rain and fog for five seconds. His pupils suddenly shrank, and his whole body became stiff.
On the empty water surface, a huge ship that almost blended into the water mist stopped silently in front. It was white in color, nearly ten stories high, and the top was almost invisible at a glance.
Cruise ship!
Relying on the blurry shadow, Gu Mengran could tell at a glance that it was a huge cruise ship.
His body was shaking uncontrollably. Gu Mengran clenched his teeth and used his last bit of strength to take out a ship-mounted telescope from space.
The familiar white and blue color scheme, the familiar ship shape, he had a glimmer of hope, but the name printed on the bow dealt him a heavy blow.
——Yongyue.
The Yongyue that caused him to break his legs and become disfigured in his previous life.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com