The little yellow flowers were picked, the mushrooms were picked, the wild vegetables were picked, and the honey was all put into bamboo tubes. Half of the honeycomb was cut into small pieces and also put into bamboo tubes.
Leave the other half of the hive so the bees don't starve.
Having finished everything, the seven sat on the mountaintop, silently waiting for the heavy rain ahead to stop, which blocked their way home.
The rain lasted for a full hour before stopping, and Zhao Guihua quickly led the children back home.
"Hurry up, it will be troublesome if it suddenly rains again. If we can't get back in time, we'll have to spend the night on the mountain."
The muddy road was slippery from the rain, making it even more difficult to walk than on the way there. The group had a very hard time walking, and Xingxing was carried in a basket on Zhao Guihua's back the whole time.
As they passed the moss-covered stone path, they noticed that lightning had struck there as well, and some trees had been charred. However, they had no time to stop and look, and were focused on continuing their journey.
Suddenly, Xingxing pointed to the charred tree and exclaimed, "Mom, there are pigs here!"
Zhao Guihua paused, a thought suddenly struck her, and she immediately used a stick to clear away the charred branches. Sure enough, she saw a wild boar, tender inside and charred outside, hidden in the ashes. It looked to weigh about a hundred pounds.
She said with great distress, "Oh dear, how are we going to get such a big wild boar back?"
"Is this considered big? Last time, the five of us managed to bring back that one that weighed over 300 pounds. How could we not be able to bring back this one?" Zhou Erfu said nonchalantly.
Of the quintuplets, Zhou Erfu was the strongest, followed by Zhou Sifu. Having learned from their previous experience, the two quickly found some vines, tied the wild boar to them, found a thick wooden stick, threaded it through the vines, and lifted it up to head back.
"You two brothers should take it easy. If it's too heavy, put it down and rest. Roll it around like last time, but don't hurt yourselves." Zhao Guihua was both relieved and worried.
"It rolls and rolls until it goes home, and it's very heavy to carry," Xingxing nodded in agreement.
"Don't worry, Mother. If Second Brother and Fourth Brother get tired of carrying it, we'll help carry it," Zhou Dafu said.
Despite their hurried efforts, Zhao Guihua finally managed to get the children home before dark. Zhou Laoda had just returned and was starting a fire in the kitchen.
Hearing the commotion, he went out to investigate and was quite surprised. "How come you hunted a wild boar? And why is it burnt?"
"Boom! Thunder! It struck a pig, and then we found it." Xingxing was lifted out of the basket by Zhao Guihua and sat on a stool. She answered as soon as she was settled.
"The weather is strange today. It's thundering and raining on the mountain, but not a drop of rain has fallen in the village. Didn't you get wet?" Old Zhou asked curiously, noticing that they were only slightly sweaty and their clothes weren't wet.
“We were still on the mountaintop when it started raining, and not a drop of rain fell on the mountaintop,” Zhao Guihua said with a laugh.
“We picked a lot of things, picked everything we could, and then waited for the rain to stop on the mountaintop, otherwise we wouldn’t have come back so late,” Zhou Wufu explained with gestures.
"Although we didn't get wet in the rain, we're all sweaty. I'll go boil some water so everyone can take a bath. You, head, prepare the wild boar. Dafu and Sanfu, come help start the fire. Wufu, you play with your sister for a while." Erfu and Sifu had carried the wild boar all the way, so they were told to rest.
Old Zhou took an axe and a kitchen knife and began to process the wild boar. He first cleaned the internal organs, and then called his youngest son over.
"Wufu, take this pot of meat to the kitchen and have your mother stir-fry the pig liver, and stew the pig heart and pig stomach together tonight. We'll have a good meal tonight."
Besides what Zhou Laoda mentioned, there was also a pig intestine, pig lung, and pig kidney in the basin. Zhou Wufu couldn't carry it by himself, so he called Zhou Erfu over to help lift it.
Soon the wild boar meat was processed, and Zhou Laoda took all the pork to the kitchen. "Wife, should we slice this pork and dry it into jerky?"
Zhao Guihua said, "I'll cut about ten jin (5 kg) of it. I'll use some of the rest to make cured pork and some to make smoked pork. Luckily, I bought a lot of salt when I went to town last time."
He paused for a moment, then chuckled and said, "After rendering the lard, we'll fry a lot of loach and eel tomorrow. My daughter has been craving them for so long, but I haven't made them for her yet."
"Our daughter is so lucky. We can eat meat in our family all thanks to her." Old Zhou chuckled, looking like he'd struck gold.
Zhao Guihua suddenly leaned over and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, "Today we not only found a wild boar, picked several baskets of flowers, and collected honey, but there's also a big guy I haven't told you about."
"What?"
"We even dug up a wild ginseng."
Old Zhou glared at him, almost letting out a roar.
Zhao Guihua glared at him and said, "Shh, don't shout. This thing is too valuable. We have to hide it and not let anyone know. We'll take it to the prefectural city to sell it when we can leave the city later."
Old Zhou nodded vigorously, covering his mouth with one hand, afraid to speak.
For the next two days, Zhao Guihua and the children stayed home and cooked. On the first day, they fried loach and eel. After they finished eating the offal and fried loach, they made meat buns.
I've been storing the white flour I bought before without eating it.
"Mom, please make some more dumplings. I want to eat dumplings." Because of the famine, they hadn't had dumplings for several years, and the quintuplets were really craving them.
"Okay, we'll take them all. Now that it's autumn and the weather is getting cooler, let's take a lot more so we can eat for two or three days." There's a well in the yard, so if we can't finish the food, we'll put it in the well in wooden buckets.
Xingxing looked at the steamed buns and dumplings on the table, then at her little belly, and was a little distressed. "Xingxing's belly has gotten bigger again. Sigh, it's really worrying. Dongsheng and Chunchun will laugh at me again when they see me."
"Tell Fifth Brother who else dares to laugh at you, and Fifth Brother will help you beat him up." Zhou Wufu liked to show off in front of his sister the most. Whenever he saw her unhappy, he would yell to vent his anger on her behalf.
Xingxing waved her hand, indicating that she didn't need to. "Thank you, Fifth Brother, but you can't hit Chun Chun and Dong Sheng. They were just joking with me. They don't really think I'm fat. They'll share candy with me."
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