Buying a house was just an episode, but everyone obviously took it to heart and thought about it carefully.
"Xiaobao, after dinner, take your classmates for a walk and go for a walk at the foot of the mountain. There are many wild fruits that can be eaten now, but don't go into the deep mountains." Jiang Cheng said to his grandson while drinking.
"There is also our pond. If you feel too hot in the afternoon, you can go swimming in it. You can also touch snails and catch some loaches for your grandma to cook for you in the evening."
There weren't many rare things in the mountain village, so Old Man Jiang could only think of some things that weren't available in the city to appease the two children from the city.
"Screws? When I was a kid, I followed my cousins to try them when I went to my grandma's house. But they are hard to eat. There is not much oil in them and they have a muddy smell." Jiang Wencheng asked curiously while picking up a piece of sour, spicy and refreshing fish fillet.
What he said was true. Loaches and snails both have an earthy smell. They don't need to be stir-fried with thick oil or red sauce. Onions, ginger and garlic can be used to remove the fishy smell. Now that everyone is still at the stage of having enough food and clothing, not many people have the leisure time to study how to eat these things.
Therefore, now, except for those who have some difficulties at home, no one will eat those things. The Jiang family didn't eat them before. It was Jiang Yiliu who once again brought back a bucket of snails and asked the old lady to cook them. He only had theoretical knowledge, but the old lady had strong cooking skills. With the combination of the two, they made a large plate of fresh, fragrant and spicy snails. Since then, snails have become the reserved dish of the Jiang family. Although the raw materials are free, the dish consumes oil and seasonings after all, and cleaning the snails and cutting the snail tails is also a hassle, so the old lady doesn't make it very often.
Jiang Yi stayed aside to explain it to them. As he was talking, he began to miss the taste of spicy snails and stir-fried loach.
Jiang Wencheng was still eating the delicious food when his mouth started to water. All his thoughts were hooked by the screws described by Jiang Yilu: "Then let's go touch the screws after dinner." He said impatiently.
Seeing that he was very excited, Jiang Yilu took the lead in giving him a heads-up: "To pick up the screws, you have to go into the mud. You might encounter leeches or water snakes in there. Don't be scared to wet your pants." He said this to Jiang Wencheng and Xia Ai. He is the son of a noble family. What if he doesn't like these things?
"It's okay. Let them wear your grandfather's and your father's plastic boots. Then they don't have to worry about leeches." Old lady Miao thought of a way for her grandson. Rural people often go to the fields and have long been accustomed to these things. Sometimes after planting rice, there are more than a dozen fat leeches sucking blood on one leg. These things will fall down when they are roasted with fire. The caught leeches are smothered with lime and dried in the sun and can be exchanged for money at the supply and marketing cooperative. To the villagers, leeches are still treasures.
But they like it, but city people may not. The old lady still remembers how the educated youth cried their hearts out when they first encountered leeches, and she was afraid that her grandson’s two classmates would also be scared.
"Thank you, grandma, but I won't wear boots." Jiang Wencheng shook his head like a rattle. Xiaobao was six years younger than him and never wore boots. What was the big deal for him to wear boots?
"I don't need it either." Xia Ai also refused. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Besides, he felt that a few leeches wouldn't scare him.
This matter was discussed and after lunch, Jiang Yilu took the two of them back to the house to take a nap, avoiding the highest sun at noon. When the sun was not so strong, and feeling the cool breeze from the mountains, they put on shorts and short sleeves and began to get ready.
"Second sister, aren't you going?"
Jiang Yilu was packing the things he needed to prepare, and when he heard his second sister suddenly say that she was not going, he asked curiously.
The second, third, and fourth sisters would never miss such interesting things. As for being afraid of getting tanned, they had no such idea and all of them had a healthy tan. Moreover, among the sisters, the second sister was the one who loved to go up the mountain and down the river the most. No one could compare to her in terms of catching snails and loaches.
"No."
Jiang Erni looked a little embarrassed. She glanced at Jiang Wencheng and Xia Ai imperceptibly, a little annoyed by what her mother had just said.
Jiang Yilu didn't notice that there was anything wrong with his second sister. He thought that she just suddenly didn't want to go out, so he didn't care. After carefully checking his equipment, he prepared to set off.
"Forget it, I'll go anyway."
Jiang Erni regretted not going after she said that. It didn't make sense for her not to go because of her mother's irrational words. If her mother went crazy again, she would have to go out. Besides, Jiang Wencheng and Xia Ai were Xiaobao's friends, and they would inevitably come into contact with each other in the future. She was upright, so why should she care about her mother's unrealistic ideas.
After figuring it out, Erni breathed a sigh of relief, hurriedly helped her brother get a few small baskets, and walked out first.
The country road was not very wide. Jiang Yilu and a few other boys walked at the back, while Erni and a few others walked in front.
The sisters were whispering in front, while Jiang Yilu was walking behind, acting as a guide for two roommates who were visiting the mountain village for the first time.
"Second sister, what did mom say to you and eldest sister when she called them into the house?" Sanni and Sini asked curiously when they saw their mother calling their eldest and second sisters into the house for a long time after lunch and not allowing them to go in.
"Nothing,"
Jiang Erni pursed her lips, and felt a headache when she thought about her mother's confused look now. She couldn't take responsibility when she didn't have a younger brother, but now she wants to make trouble. She really couldn't understand her mother's thoughts. Think about the people in her grandmother's family. Except for her uncle who was controlled by his wife, the rest of them were clear-headed and smart. Especially her grandmother, she was simply a strong woman. Could it be that her mother and uncle took after the grandfather she had never met?
Jiang Erni thought with her imagination running wild.
The second sister didn't want to talk about it, and Sanni and Sini didn't ask either. They all found other topics to change the conversation.
The river beach is not far from the village. It is not very large. The deepest part of the river is only the height of an adult male. There are farmlands next to the river beach. If a child drowns, as long as people nearby shout for help, adults will come in less than half a minute. Therefore, the villagers are very confident in letting their children swim in the river beach.
Jiang Yilu and her sisters grew up on that small river beach when they were young. During the hottest times of almost every summer, they relied on this river to cool off. Swimming and rolling around in the river was no big deal.
There were already seven or eight children playing in the river, and Jiang Yilu also saw a familiar face.
"Mo Xiangdong, come and dig out the screws too." Jiang Erni's eyes lit up and she ran over first.
After the Gang of Four stepped down, some things were controlled more loosely. For example, if you dug and picked wild fruits and vegetables from the mountains, loaches and snails from the riverbank, and other not-so-rare things, no one would complain. But the fish in the river were collective property. If there was a pregnant woman or a sick elderly or child at home, no one would complain if you caught a fish occasionally. After all, everyone might need it one day.
The only one who can earn money in Mo Xiangdong's family is his mother, and he also has a grandmother who has been paralyzed in bed for many years. Life must be difficult relying solely on the food distributed by the team. Moreover, now that Mo Xiangdong has been admitted to university, he could help his mother earn work points when he was not studying. Although he has temporarily borrowed the annual tuition and living expenses from Grandpa Bai, the loss of a labor force has made their life more difficult.
Since returning home, Mo Xiangdong has not rested. He goes to the fields to earn work points, repairs his leaking roof, goes up the mountain to pick wild vegetables, and goes to the river to catch snails and loaches, which are things that no one wants, but at least they have improved their family's meals.
Mo Xiangdong came back a week earlier than them, and in just a few days, his face, which had managed to get whiter at school, had turned darker again. He had probably been here for quite a while, his whole face was tanned red, and the exposed skin on his back was even peeling.
Because they lived opposite each other, Xia Ai and Jiang Wencheng also knew Jiang Yiliu, a fellow countryman who was a bit taciturn. After saying hello, they began to urge Jiang Yiliu to teach them how to touch the screws.
It is actually very simple to feel for screws. You can just start feeling around in the mud. There are not many people feeling for screws these days, so you can easily find more than a dozen screws just by feeling around. Of course, there are even simpler methods.
Jiang Yiliu took out the mesh he had just brought from home, picked up a few thin straight branches, made them into a triangular shape, put them on the mesh, tied them tightly with nylon rope, and then tied a branch to the top corner and bottom of the tripod as a handle. Jiang Yiliu tested the sturdiness and made two more in the same way.
Erni and the others had already made their own tools, and the extra ones Jiang Yilu made were prepared for Jiang Wencheng and Xia Ai.
"How do I use this thing?"
Jiang Wencheng asked curiously.
Jiang Yilu motioned for them to follow, placed his shoes neatly on the river bank, and walked towards the river beach.
"It's slippery. The river is full of mud."
Before I had walked very far, my feet sank into the black mud. It wasn't deep, just up to my calves, but every step was extremely difficult. If I pulled my legs out, it would muddy up the river water and make the bottom of the river look ugly.
At this point there was no need to go further inside. The water was now just below the knees. Jiang Yilu picked up the tools in his hand and demonstrated to them.
"Watch it."
Jiang Yilu held the handle of the tripod and placed it in the black mud at the bottom of the river. He lowered it from a position far away from him to where he was standing. With a splash, the bottom of the river was turbid. Jiang Yilu shook the tripod in the river and filtered out the black mud with a mesh, revealing a small pile of screws and stones.
"This is too easy." Jiang Wencheng was eager to try, and found a place where he thought the screws were most likely to appear, and began to work hard. Xia Ai was obviously also very interested in this, and followed Jiang Wencheng to find an empty space and started to feel the screws.
Jiang Yilu saw so many people touching the screws and had an idea. He put down the tools in his hands, broke off a reed pole from the river bank, tied a nylon rope to it, tied a piece of pork skin to the other end of the rope, and found a secluded place to hang the lobster.
If you don’t eat crayfish in summer, you would be really doing a disservice to this creature.
When the excitement of several people passed, the baskets brought from home were also filled up, a large basket of snails, and a small basket of loaches, all of which were caught by Sanni and Sini. Although Jiang Wencheng looked brave, he didn't dare to catch these slippery things. Just now, a loach swam past his feet in the mud, and he thought it was a water snake, so he yelled in fear. It was Sanni who caught the fat loach, pinched the loach's head, and laughed at Jiang Wencheng.
Jiang Yilu's achievement for the whole afternoon was half a bucket of crayfish, but there was not much meat after the heads were removed. If it wasn't a little late, Jiang Yilu would have wanted to catch more.
"Second sister, why did you only touch so few screws today?"
Sanni said disappointedly as she looked at the snails in her second sister's bucket that barely covered the ground. Then she became happy again and showed off the half bucket of loaches she had caught in front of her.
Jiang Yilu had been fishing for lobsters in the corner and had not noticed any movement at the edge of the mud puddle. Looking at his second sister's flushed face, he felt a little curious.
"I, I just want to give in to you guys. You're the one who talks the most." Erni's face flickered. She poured all the screws in her basket into the big bucket and left in a hurry.
The second sister seemed to be acting strangely since this afternoon, and Jiang Yilu kept the doubts in his heart.
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