There was plenty of wild vegetables. Xu Lai filled a whole basket with them, and there were still many on the ground. She stood up, stretched her limbs, and carried the basket home. Anyway, the weather wasn't going to clear up anytime soon, so she could just keep picking them whenever she wanted.
She took a large basin, filled it with well water, poured the lichen into it, separated it, and picked out the impurities. This stuff is quite delicious, but it's troublesome to clean. It took her more than twenty minutes to wash the impurities clean.
The washed lichen is not yet edible; it's best to soak it in clean water for a day or two. Xu Lai finished tidying it up and went back to her room to wash up and go to sleep.
The next day, before dawn, Xu Lai was awakened by a dog barking. She sat up irritably, pushed open the balcony door, and looked at the situation in the yard.
The grandparents were also woken up by the noise. They don't have a dog, and neither do the neighbors. They don't know where the barking came from.
Outside the yard, there was a mother dog with two puppies. When she saw Grandpa guarding the gate, the mother dog turned and ran away, leaving the two puppies behind, staring at Grandpa.
She put on her shoes and went downstairs. Her grandparents had already brought the dogs back, and they were now in a cardboard box. Xu Lai looked at the two dogs and said, "Should we find their owner and return them?"
Grandma shook her head and said, "That female dog was a stray. I don't know whose dog it was. We probably can't find it."
Xu Lai sighed and said, "What is that dog trying to do? Is it just abandoning its puppies?"
Grandpa stroked the puppy's head a couple of times and said, "Why don't we keep it? We can feed it some leftovers every day and it will survive."
Xu Lai frowned. She knew it was a country dog and didn't need to be raised so meticulously, but if she were to raise a dog, she would treat it like a pet dog.
She made the decision: "Let's keep them. I'll buy them dog food."
After rushing downstairs, Xu Lai went back upstairs, washed up, and then came down again. Grandma had already cooked noodles, and to prevent them from running away, Grandpa had tied the two puppies to a tree in the yard.
The two puppies looked to be about a month old. Grandma cooked some porridge and gave it to them first.
After finishing her breakfast, she rode her electric bike to town to buy groceries. There was no veterinary station in town, but there were shops selling all kinds of dog food. She asked the owner and temporarily got some dog food.
She bought the groceries and planned to borrow a car in a couple of days to drive to the pet store in the county town to get her puppy vaccinated.
As soon as Xu Lai got home, the dogs barked at her. Xu Lai put her hands on her hips and accused the two dogs: "Hey, you two, this is my house, how dare you act wildly in front of me."
The puppies couldn't understand, they just kept barking. Xu Lai got annoyed and poured food into their small bowls. "Eat up, eat up, shut up, stop barking, you're noisy."
Zhao Qingyun was also woken up early in the morning by the barking of dogs. He put on his earplugs and went back to sleep.
While I was having breakfast, I heard a dog barking from next door. It wasn't loud, but it kept barking.
Ms. Yingqiu peeled an egg and asked, "Was that a dog barking? Did I hear that right?"
Zhao Qingyun nodded: "I heard it too."
Grandma Jiang took the eggs and said, "It must be the neighbor's dog. I saw a mother dog with two puppies wandering around here a couple of days ago. She must have found a target."
Listening to this description, Zhao Qingyun felt like her neighbor was being watched, even though it was just a dog.
"Why don't you come to our house?" Ms. Yingqiu asked. Grandma Jiang smiled and said, "Maybe you think that our cooking isn't as good as the neighbors'. Even dogs have to choose their own homes."
Zhao Qingyun: I feel offended...
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