Chapter 3319 Returning Home in Glory Part 3
It is now the autumn harvest time and every family is busy. The Zhou family was tired from the journey, so they slept a little longer. When they woke up, the sun had already risen.
They got up quickly and Qian assigned them tasks. Those who were supposed to cook in the kitchen did so, and those who were supposed to invite people from various households did so. The rest were all taken to the fields by Old Zhou.
Zhou Erlang said, "We have hired both permanent and temporary workers on our land. The temporary worker is not available at the moment, so the permanent worker lives in a thatched hut at the end of the village."
The rice in the fields is growing well, and a lot of it is bright yellow and ready to be harvested.
After taking a look around, Old Zhou said, "It's time to harvest. Otherwise, the grains will fall off in the scorching sun if they're too ripe."
Zhou Erlang agreed, and the Zhou brothers took their nephews with them, rolling up their trouser legs, to go to the fields to harvest.
When Zhou Man went to the Zhou family and wanted to ask Zhou Erlang about the situation on the mountain, he learned that they had gone to the fields to harvest rice, so he ran back home and said, "My second brother and his family have gone to the fields. Bai Shan, should we go and take a look?"
Bai Shan thought about it and nodded, "Okay."
After breakfast, they also took their sickles and went to the fields, and Yin Huo joined in. He took a basket and picked up rice ears in the fields with his two children.
Their work didn't take long. By noon, the sun was already very high, so Old Zhou put away his sickle and called his sons and grandsons home.
Along the way, there were people returning home from the fields. Some of them held Zhou Wulang, some held Old Zhoutou, and some of them held Zhou Lizhong's former friends. They hadn't seen each other for many years and were a little unfamiliar with each other, but after talking about the current harvest in the fields, they quickly regained their familiarity.
Zhou Man and the others were left with no one to look for them. They quietly went home to wash their faces and hands before looking for Zhou Erlang. "Second brother, we want to go for a walk in the mountains. Are there many families growing medicinal herbs in the village now?"
Zhou Erlang said, "Every household grows some rice. Now everyone is busy harvesting rice, so there's no one on the mountain. If you want to go up, go ahead. Oh, and many families have planted fruit trees. If you go up the mountain to play, you can pick some if you see something you want to eat. Write it down, and I'll tell the families later."
It is common for neighbors in the village to pick fruits. There are two types: those who pick fruits openly after asking for permission, and those who pick fruits secretly.
The latter will most likely be scolded, although the person scolding does not know who he is scolding, but he just needs to pinch his waist and scold at the village entrance so that the real thief can hear it.
Zhou Man naturally wouldn't let himself be scolded, so he agreed immediately, "Second brother, you have to give me a heads up in advance."
"Don't worry, I'm going to call the villagers to dinner later. I'll tell them when I get there."
Bai Shan asked, "Lunch or dinner?"
"Dinner, it's too late for lunch."
Bai Shan then said, "I'll ask the maid to come over and help. If you're short of food, you can get it from home."
Zhou Erlang waved his hand and said, "We have everything at home. Even if we don't have it, we have it in the village."
The Zhou family doesn't raise pigs, but they do raise chickens. They kill a few chickens, and if you need any, you can go to their small farm to buy some. They also have enough eggs and ducks.
There were also people raising pigs in the village. Zhou Erlang said, "Your third brother has already gone to buy a pig. It will be slaughtered soon. It should be ready by noon. You all should come over and enjoy the pig-killing meal."
"No one is raising sheep, but the fourth child went to his uncle's house. Mother asked him to stop by Dali Village to ask his wife's family for two sheep when he comes back. It would be convenient if they could slaughter them and send them over."
This is meat, not to mention vegetables. The Zhou family’s is not enough, so just ask anyone in the village for some.
Or it would be enough for each family to pick some vegetables.
So there is no need to worry about food or manpower. The Zhou family doesn't have much, but they have a lot of people, and the children can all be used. As long as they are properly allocated, things can be done in less than an hour.
Xiao Qian followed behind Qian in managing the family. The entire Zhou family was in perfect order, and there was no place for Zhou Man to be used at all.
So Zhou Man and Bai Shan took Yin Huo and the children happily up the mountain.
Because the paths between the ridges were difficult to walk on, they drove ox carts.
Mingda sat on the oxcart, looking at the rice ears hanging down on both sides. She let her feet dangle over the side of the cart, letting the grass brush against her shoes. She couldn't help but smile, "The oxcart really has a unique wild charm."
Zhou Man sat beside her, with the child surrounded by five adults behind him. He said with a smile, "If you like, we can also drive the ox cart when we go to Dali Village."
Their small village is a little far from the village. After ten years of development, the houses here have been renovated and expanded a lot, and it has become a small village.
A lot of land has been cleared on the mountain. It is no longer just the fruit trees planted halfway up the mountain. They have also opened up several plots of land to plant medicinal herbs such as Ligustrum lucidum.
Because of the lack of manpower, they would buy medicinal seeds and scatter them directly in the mountains and forests. They would simply hoe the land, apply fertilizer, and then let them grow. They would pick them when the year came. The medicine grown in this way would take much longer, but the price would be slightly higher, which was just right for small villages with insufficient manpower.
The road in front of the small village was paved and smooth. As soon as the ox cart stopped, the three children enthusiastically reached out to get off. As soon as they stepped on the ground, they excitedly rushed towards the ducks on the edge of the field - to catch ducks!
The farmhand was harvesting rice in the fields. When he saw his masters coming, he immediately ran over with his sickle in hand. "Master, Master Tang, Miss Man, you are all back?"
The servant who followed said, "Why are you calling them nonsense? Now we should call them Master and Madam."
Zhou Man dismissed most of the people, leaving only two articulate ones, and asked, "What kind of fruits grow on the mountain?"
"These were all planted by my wife and husband in the past. The fruits are even sweeter than before. Now we have pears, winter dates, and persimmons..."
They went up the mountain to see, lifted the children up the trees to pick fruits, and satisfied their desire for a wild outing.
The group picked half a cart of fruit and started distributing it to the children who gathered around them as soon as they entered the village.
Mingda and Yin Huo, who had never experienced this before, were both amazed.
It's not that they haven't gone on wild outings before. Not to mention places far away, they even planted fruit trees in their farm outside Beijing, and occasionally they would take their children there to pick fruit for fun. But everyone they met along the way was very respectful, and no one dared to surround their car.
It was the first time I saw a group of teenagers with a bunch of children running around a car, screaming, without disturbing the cows, as happened in Qili Village.
The palace maids who followed Mingda and Yin Huo's guards saw that the Bai family's servants did not stop them but instead stepped aside, so they also silently took two steps back and were then pushed away by the children.
Zhou Man grabbed a handful of winter dates and stuffed them into a child's hand. More people reached out to them. Bai Shan was afraid they would fall under the wheels, so he had someone stop the ox cart and take shelter under a roadside tree. He simply distributed the fruits on the spot, "Don't you have any at home?"
"My family grows dates, but my mother won't let us eat them. She wants to take them to the county town to sell."
"My family doesn't have dates. We only grow persimmons, and persimmons don't taste good."
“I like pears best.”
Mingda gave the child who was talking a pear. When the others saw it, they immediately reached out to Mingda, "I want one too, I want one too..."
Zhou Man distributed a lot of fruit and decided not to leave in a hurry. He asked, "Are there no jobs left at home?"
(End of this chapter)
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