Chapter 203: Doubt Ah Shu, have you ever been hungry before? ...
The villagers were all stunned.
Are you really here to escape? Why did you even bring a teapot with you?
In addition to the food and bedding that every household took with them when fleeing, Lin Laoer's family also took kitchen knives and chopping boards, and several jars of seasonings - salt, rock honey, sugar, dried green peppercorns, dried perilla leaves, dried dogwood fruits, as well as kudzu flower tea, pine needle tea, bamboo leaf tea, zheergen ginger tea, etc.
I didn't bring a jar of pickled cabbage because it was difficult to carry, but I put some in a bamboo jar and took it with me.
I also didn’t leave behind a few jars of leftover chicken mushroom sauce, which is a great side dish for rice and other dishes.
I didn't bring the fragile ceramic bowls and plates, but I did take a handful of bamboo spoons, wooden spoons, and chopsticks, two wooden buckets, a wooden basin, and a sieve...
Villager: This doesn’t look like they are here to escape!
Compared with other people in the family, Lin Dashan, who used to be the busiest, has become the most idle one.
Lin Dashan scratched his head, feeling embarrassed.
When he was working in the fields, all he saw was work, but when he wasn't doing farm work, he realized he knew nothing.
Since his daughter didn't assign him any tasks, he helped organize the miscellaneous items brought from home.
Lin Dashan accidentally made eye contact with Grandpa Wang, the neighbor of Li Chunmiao, and gave a dry laugh.
While Lin Shu was busy, Li Chunmiao and Zhang Qiaohua's families also followed suit and became busy.
Hanging bedding and clothes to dry is indeed an important matter. They just haven't adapted to it yet. If it were any other time, they wouldn't need anyone to remind them of this.
When Lin Shu was almost done with her work and the backpacks were empty, Lin Shu and Zhou Ye each carried an empty backpack and went down the mountain.
The villagers were puzzled. Someone asked curiously, "Are Ah Shu and Ah Ye going down the mountain? The mountain is flooded. What are they going to do down there?"
Lin Shu and Zhou Ye had already walked away, so He Guixiang replied, "They said they were going to check on the house. If the thatched cottage wasn't too badly damaged, they could go inside and get some useful items. They were also going to look around the rest of the village and see if they could find anything useful to take with them."
The villagers were envious when they heard this.
In the past, they said that the eldest daughter of Lin Laoer was spoiled, but now it seems that she is not spoiled at all. When there is something, she is really determined and does it without any hesitation.
"Sister He, your Lin Shu is really capable. She looks delicate and weak, but I think she's quite strong!"
"Yes, the youngest girl Pu can do it too. All your children can do it!"
He Guixiang replied politely, saying that your child is not bad, and so on, but the smile on her face never faded.
Someone suddenly sighed: "At first I thought your Lin Shu was not as capable as Lin Yao, but now it seems that Lin Shu is more capable than anyone in our Tianshui Village!"
The woman had barely finished speaking when someone hurriedly pulled her arm.
What are you bringing up, Lin Yao? You're really bringing up something that's not related to the topic!
Just when everyone thought that He Guixiang would turn black when she heard the word "Lin Yao", He Guixiang's expression did not even change.
In the first year after Lin Yao passed away, whenever someone mentioned this name, she felt like a piece of her heart had been dug out, but now she has let it go.
When at home, Lin Shu never avoided the name Lin Yao, and would occasionally mention it on her own initiative, chatting with He Guixiang about the Marquis and his wife in the Marquis' Mansion. After the mother and daughter chatted more often, He Guixiang had gone from being awkward at the beginning to now being indifferent whenever anyone mentioned Lin Yao and the Marquis' Mansion, and she would even chat about it in return.
She smiled faintly and said to the woman who still remembered Lin Yao, "Ayao's abilities aren't limited to our Tianshui Village. This child has been strong-willed since she was young, and I don't know if she will become more restrained after going to the capital. I was always worried that she wouldn't adapt to life there, and that her personality would suffer. But Ah Shu told me that Ayao adapted very quickly after going to the capital. The Marquis and his wife both like her. Before Ah Shu left, Ayao was engaged to the prince of the Duke's Mansion in the capital. Maybe she's already the Duke's wife now. I know she's doing well, and I feel relieved."
The villagers were shocked to hear this.
"Sister-in-law He, your Ah Shu even took the initiative to talk to you about Lin Yao's child?"
He Guixiang's eyebrows raised, and she smiled and said, "That's right. Ah Shu was full of praise when she mentioned Ah Yao. I think the two children have a good relationship. After knowing that Ah Yao was doing well, I was afraid that Ah Shu would be left wanting. But Ah Shu, as you can see, she is living a good life in our Tianshui Village. She also said that she was born to be a member of our Tianshui Village. When she saw you uncles and aunts in the village for the first time, she felt a sense of familiarity..."
After He Guixiang chatted with the villagers for a while, the villagers were all amazed and praised her.
Ping'er from Lin Laoer's family didn't like to hang out with other families in the village, so naturally they never talked about family matters. They only knew that the girl from Lin Laoer's family was pretty and shy, and her sweet smile was very endearing. Although she looked delicate, she was not aloof and never put on any airs of a young lady.
Later, when they heard that Lin Shu was not in good health and needed to eat some precious medicinal herbs and food, they felt that this girl was a burden and felt sorry for Lin Laoer's family for having to support such a burden.
Now, after hearing what He Guixiang said, this girl is not only good-tempered and generous, but she also respects her ancestors. This quality is really rare.
"Mrs. He, hey, don't think I'm nosy. I heard that your Lin Shu wants to eat medicinal herbs such as ginseng and deer antlers to keep herself healthy, and also wants to eat bird's nest and white fungus?" One person couldn't help it. Taking advantage of the fact that everyone was here and He Guixiang was in a talkative mood, he asked about some gossip that everyone in the village had heard.
He Guixiang twirled the hair behind her ear and said slowly, "That's true, but you don't have to eat precious medicinal herbs all the time. Two or three times a year is enough. It's true that expensive ingredients are needed to nourish the body, but they don't necessarily have to be bird's nests and white fungus. As long as they are nourishing ingredients, such as eggs, fermented glutinous rice, chicken, duck, fish, etc. Otherwise, my family wouldn't have dug a large fish pond specifically for this purpose. Isn't fish cheap and nourishing? Ah Ye can occasionally hunt a few pheasants and rabbits from the mountains, but in the future, we won't bring them to town to sell. We'll leave them all for Ah Shu to eat."
What she didn't say was that not only these meat dishes, but also the bamboo fungus and chicken mushroom that Ah Shu mentioned are wild delicacies and are very nutritious.
But during breakfast, Ah Shu said that the bamboo fungus was edible, but few people went to pick it, so they picked it themselves and stored it.
Even though you can't feel it now, when every household has eaten up their stored food, all food will be precious and people will rush to dig up even wild vegetables. So Ah Shu said that all the wild vegetables that can be made into dried vegetables should be dug up, dried and stored at home.
He Guixiang was chatting with the villagers, praising Lin Shu openly and secretly. Lin Shu and Zhou Ye also began the busy task of finding supplies.
"After today, the water level will drop a lot and this bamboo raft will be unusable, so we should just take whatever we can on this trip." Lin Shu estimated the depth of the accumulated water and turned her head to Zhou Ye.
Zhou Ye withdrew his gaze from her hand, which was skillfully supporting the bamboo pole, and replied, "Every household took what they could. The things that couldn't be taken away were difficult to take, such as pottery pots, clay pots, and vegetable jars. However, several families left in a hurry and forgot to take their kitchen knives and farm tools. Some also left behind bedding and clothes."
Before Zhou Ye could finish his words, Lin Shu suddenly laughed. "What are you going to do with all this? They all belong to someone else. If you take them back and give them back to the villagers, will they be grateful? If it were easy, I would take them, but the thatched huts have been washed away by the flood. There's no way to take anything from them. We have to lift up the collapsed huts first. The village head will organize the villagers to do this after the flood recedes."
Zhou Ye was puzzled. What could they possibly have found? Wasn't everything in this village already owned?
However, it didn't take long for Zhou Ye to find out, and he felt quite amused and helpless after finding out.
The things Lin Shu collected couldn't be said to be ownerless, but even if she had taken them, no one would have said a word, because she took two bundles of straw that had drifted from some unknown courtyard, and she also dismantled a few clotheslines that hadn't been cleared away in time, and she also grabbed a few bamboo sieves that had drifted from the courtyard. All the bamboo utensils used by the villagers were made by Grandpa Gao of the Gao family. They looked the same in every household, and unless they were specially marked, it was hard to tell which family's belongings were.
Ah Shu also caught a few chickens, ducks and geese that were still alive and hiding on the beams of some house.
"Ah Shu, I'm afraid these..."
Lin Shu looked at Zhou Ye with a sly look and explained, "I'll catch them and hand them over to the village head. If he can figure out which family owns which, then we'll return them to their respective owners. If he can't, then these poultry will be confiscated. It wouldn't be bad if every household got a share of the broth."
Zhou Ye nodded and looked at Lin Shu who was searching for things energetically. His eyes fell on her and could not be moved away for a long time.
After hesitating for a moment, he asked, "Ah Shu, have you ever been hungry before?"
Lin Shu replied without blinking, "Yeah, wasn't that the skinny beauty trend among the noble ladies in Beijing for a while, so I followed the trend and went on a diet. I really experienced what it was like to be hungry."
When Zhou Ye heard this answer, which was obviously prepared in advance, he was silent and did not ask any more questions.
Perhaps Ah Shu herself did not realize that she had an extraordinary obsession with hoarding things, especially food.
Just like at home, even though there were always fresh mushrooms and various wild vegetables available in the mountains, Ah Shu always picked as much as she could, and dried the leftovers to make dried goods. It was only when he was clearing out the food reserves at home during the recent flood that he realized Ah Shu had unknowingly stored so much dried goods and food at home.
There was a large basket of dried mushrooms such as bamboo fungus and blue-headed mushrooms, half a sack of dried purslane, several bundles of dried taro stems, a large basket of dried ficus pumila fruits with the shells, as well as dried mugwort leaves, dried broomrape leaves, dried cedar branches, dried flowers and leaves of Polygonum aviculare, dried mugwort leaves, etc.
Then there were two small jars of dried river shrimp, a large ceramic jar of sea buckthorn paste, and several bamboo jars of chicken mushroom paste, not to mention the flower and herbal teas prepared by Ashu, as well as spices such as dried peppercorns and dried perilla leaves.
Let’s not talk about anything else, just mushrooms, dried wild vegetables and taro stems. Even if there is no rice at home, these are enough for the family to eat for a long time.
If the season was not inappropriate, Zhou Ye had no doubt that Ah Shu would still make a lot of salted fish, bacon, sausages, smoked chicken, smoked duck and other long-lasting foods to store.
Ah Shu has a desire to hoard food, or more precisely, anything edible, that is difficult for ordinary people to understand.
But Zhou Ye seemed to understand.
Ah Shu, somewhere unknown to him, was probably starving.
"A-Shu." Zhou Ye suddenly called her, and said solemnly: "I'm here, I won't let you go hungry."
This was not the first time he said this, but he always felt that Ah Shu did not take it seriously.
Sure enough, Lin Shu raised an eyebrow at him. "Aye, you're able to avoid starvation entirely thanks to me. I don't want you to starve yourself just to keep me from starving. We both have big appetites now, so let's work hard together. I'll rely on you for meat, and you'll rely on me for vegetables. We don't have to eat until we're 80% full like before, but 60% or 70% full is no problem."
Zhou Ye was helpless. He really wanted to go hungry rather than let Ah Shu go hungry.
But Ah Shu may not know that if he uses all his strength, he will never miss.
He could hunt wild animals from the mountains every day, but the meat of some beasts might not be so delicious, and many people did not dare to eat it.
But Ah Shu dared, he was inexplicably certain.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
