After dinner, the two brothers took their wives and children back home. They were very tired after a whole day of activities in the mountains.
After dinner, Chunxiao built a big bonfire in the yard, and then started to build kilns in various places in the yard.
She started three at a time, waiting for the incense to burn for more than half an hour to make sure it was all right before asking her father to watch. She also told her father to keep an eye on the holes below and on the top, and to tell her immediately if he saw any open flames. If he found any cracks in the mud outside, he should immediately patch them up. She then started the second batch, and asked Zhou to watch the second batch, and then the third, fourth, and fifth batches. She had to keep an eye on the ones ahead during the process, for fear that the two old men were inexperienced and would fail to check and ruin their previous work.
In this way, she was very busy that night and did not dare to slack off at all.
When the clock was almost ticking, the first fire was finally extinguished, and Chunxiao asked Yan Bingfa to hurry home with the lantern.
Yan Bingfa looked at how much was left, and saw that his daughter was very busy, so he continued to stay to help. It was around 2 o'clock when there were only 6 mounds left. Chunxiao thought that it would be 3 or 4 o'clock before they were done, so she pushed Zhou and Yan Bingfa and asked them to go to their rooms and go to bed quickly, saying that she would not be well for a while.
The two thought that they still had work to do the next day, and they had to come again at night, so they didn't act stubbornly and went to bed obediently.
Chunxiao continued to watch the stove. At around 4 o'clock, all the stoves were finally turned off. He breathed a sigh of relief and continued to add firewood while taking a nap in front of the campfire.
Yan Bingfa got up as soon as it began to lighten. When he went to the backyard and saw his daughter dozing off in front of the campfire, he felt so sorry for her that he quickly woke her up and told her to go back to bed.
"Dad, you should sleep a little longer. It's still early. I'm here. There's a fire, so it's not cold at all."
"No need to sleep. I should go over there. I'll take advantage of the good weather these past two days to get some more wood. You should go to bed now."
Chunxiao didn't argue. She sent her father out and went to bed. When she woke up, the sun was already overhead. It was obviously noon. She went to wash up and saw Zhou cooking. "Oh, mother, why didn't you call me? It's already this late."
"You're so tired and you only went to bed this morning. What can I ask you to do? I can do the wood-hauling work myself, but I'll just have to go slower. And Shuwen Wenfeng and the others are here to help."
"You and Dad have only slept for a short time, especially Dad, who has gone up the mountain now. It would be terrible if he got sick from exhaustion." She felt that everyone in their family worked too hard.
"It's okay, it's not like this all the time. We're used to it. Hurry up, your dad and the others should be back soon."
"Mom, don't we have steamed buns for lunch?" Chunxia looked at the pot, which was filled with thick porridge.
"A family this big can't just eat steamed buns every day. This porridge is rare too. I've fried cabbage and rabbit meat, and you still want to eat dragon meat?"
Chun Xiao chuckled beside him, "Meat still tastes better."
The family returned soon, but Zhou didn't see Yan Bingfa and Yan Dashan. "Where are your father and your eldest brother?"
Da He looked at the rabbit meat in the bowl, his eyes shining. "More meat to eat? I just ran into the village head on the way. He wanted to talk to our father, so Big Brother went with him."
"What could the village head possibly want to ask your father about?" Zhou was confused.
"How would I know? I'll find out when Dad comes back and ask him."
"I think the head of the village doesn't look very happy. I hope nothing will happen." Tian and Zhang looked at each other and frowned.
"Forget it, stop guessing. Go call the children outside the yard back to eat. They have behaved well today, and this meat is mainly a reward for them."
After about an incense stick of time, Yan Bingfa and Yan Dashan came back, and the expressions on their faces were not very good.
"What's going on?" Zhou asked hurriedly.
Yan Bingfa sighed first. "The village head just came to me and said that the villagers are dissatisfied with our family. They said that we cut a lot of large logs when we renovated Chunxiao's house a while ago, and the whole family went up the mountain to cut wood these past two days. This is not appropriate."
"Haven't the trees on this mountain been allowed to be cut down before? No one said anything before?" Zhou was dissatisfied.
"Mom, the village head said that the resources on this mountain belong to everyone, and it's okay for everyone to use them. But if we keep cutting trees from morning till night, every day, there will be a day when all the trees are gone, and then there won't be any left for the villagers to use. He said the village has already said that large-scale logging is not allowed. In short, we are not allowed to continue cutting trees like this."
"Which bastard is so disgusted by this?" Zhou was furious.
"Mom, the village head is actually right. This mountain originally belongs to everyone. If we cut more, others will have less to use. He can't just ignore the villagers' complaints."
"I didn't scold the head of the village, I scolded the villagers. They only now know that they have a problem with us cutting wood. If they knew we were making money from cutting wood, wouldn't they still want to get a share? I think they just can't stand seeing others doing well. They're afraid that others will take more and go up the mountain to cut wood themselves. They just complain behind our backs."
"Mom, forget it. That mountain isn't ours, and there's nothing we can do about it." Chunxiao looked at Yan Bingfa. "So we can't cut it down anymore. We'll clear the wood later and see if there's enough."
"I tried to persuade Li Zhenghao that we needed the trees at home, so we would stop chopping trees this afternoon and only chop dry branches for firewood in the future. He agreed."
"The village head even asked our father what we needed to do with so much wood. He didn't know that we had rolled down the mountain, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed us to go up the mountain this afternoon."
"Old woman, come with us up the mountain this afternoon. This is our last trip this afternoon, so let's cut as much as we can."
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