"Big Brother and his friends are so stingy!" Zhou Yiding shook his head. "They all have old ideas, just like me. No matter how much money they earn, they don't know how to spend it. They save it up and count it when no one is around, grinning foolishly as they count."
Zhou Huaian couldn't help but laugh when he thought of that scene, "When Uncle Daqing comes back, I'll tell him. You said he was grinning foolishly."
Zhou Yiding rolled his eyes at him and said, "I said the same thing to his face."
The two walked towards the woods and saw a light yellow area in front of them. It turned out to be a bunch of cornus officinalis in bloom. The fruits were bright red in autumn and very beautiful.
The mature fruit of Cornus officinalis is similar to that of wolfberry, and its fruit is also the medicinal part. Cornus officinalis, also known as cornus meat or cornus flesh, is a commonly used medicine that is both tonic and astringent.
Cornus officinalis is also used in Liuwei Dihuang Pills.
The two men walked and knocked the grass with sticks. Wangcai, who was walking in front, sniffed and quickly ran into the woods.
Zhou Huaian turned his head and didn't see the dog. Just as he was about to call it, he heard Wangcai barking "Woof woof" in the woods in front.
All kinds of birds living in the woods chirped and flapped their wings and flew up.
"Wangcai has found something!" Zhou Yiding hurriedly handed him the urea bag and took off the gun on his shoulder. "Hurry up and catch up to see if there's anything good there."
"You kid just kept calling me, why don't you follow me!" Zhou Huaian had already gone up the hill.
Zhou Yiding hurriedly followed him. When they caught up with him, they saw Wangcai wandering back and forth under a tree. There was a hole under the tree with new soil that had just emerged.
When Wangcai saw the two people coming, he barked wildly under the big tree and wagged his tail at them. He looked as if he was saying: Master, look how powerful I am. I found something good again. Come and get it!
Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding squatted on the ground and looked at the cave. They saw that the wall of the cave entrance was very smooth. "Is there a badger pig in there?"
Zhou Yiding pointed his headlamp at the hole and took a closer look. "It looks a bit different from the badger hole we found before. It is a bit like the pangolin hole they saw in the forest farm that year."
Seeing that the two were still there, Wangcai started barking at the grass under the tree. Only then did Zhou Huaian see a black and brown thing curled up in the grass.
There was something like fish scales on the body of that thing, and it was curled up in a belly-like area, with a small one hidden inside, moving back and forth in the belly.
Zhou Huaian turned to Zhou Yiding and pointed at the bushes, "It's hiding there, with a little one, a pangolin. This thing always carries the baby on its back when it goes out."
Zhou Yiding looked in the direction he pointed, "Yes, he brought the younger one with him." He turned his head and asked hesitantly, "Youngest one, do you want to fight him? The people in the forest farm said that as long as there is this thing in the forest, there is no need to worry about termites growing in the forest."
Pangolins come out at night. They have very poor vision but a very sensitive sense of smell. Once they find an ant nest in the woods, they will use their claws to enlarge the entrance of the nest, then put their pointed nose close to it and puff up their belly to spray air into the hole.
When termites smell the pangolin, they will involuntarily release a large amount of formic acid. Pangolins can judge the size of the ant colony from the concentration of formic acid, and then extend their long tongues to probe and sweep away all the termites.
In an area of about 250 acres of mountain forest, just one pangolin can protect the forest from being invaded by termites.
"Forget it. If we kill the big one, the small one won't live long." Zhou Huaian thought about it and said, "It would be great if the forest we contracted also had this thing."
"They all come out at night, so you wouldn't know even if they were there." Zhou Yiding patted Wangcai who was still barking, "Let's go, you scared the birds away."
Pangolin, also known as dace, belongs to the genus Pangolin, family Daceidae, order Pholidota, class Mammalia. Female pangolins give birth to only one baby per litter. They like to live in burrows in moist areas with trees such as hills.
It has a cone-shaped head, small eyes, a pointed snout, a long and narrow body, a slightly raised back, short and thick outer limbs, and a body covered with black-brown or yellow-brown tile-like fan-shaped scales. Each scale has a pattern from the base. The dorsal scales are broad diamond-shaped, and the tail is long and flat.
Pangolin scales are used as medicine, and its meat is also considered a wild delicacy. It is a first-class protected animal in the country.
All the birds in the forest were startled by Wangcai and flew away. The two searched several trees but couldn't find the gray storks and turtledoves, so they walked to the foot of the mountain and found the two gray storks curled up on the trunk of the big yellow horn tree.
Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding shot down the gray stork with a slingshot, picked it up and put it in a urea bag. "The chef of Linyuan Hotel said he wants some wild game. Let's go to the grove across the river to have a look."
Zhou Yiding nodded, "What does he want? How about we go to Nanshan to take a look tomorrow?"
"He wants venison, musk deer, badger, stork, and turtledove."
"Then let's get some grey storks and turtledoves first." Zhou Yiding suddenly remembered something. "The day before yesterday, Lao Xu and I were fishing by the river. We saw the two long-haired brothers from the Fangtian Brigade carrying wild ducks passing by the river. They caught quite a few!"
After hearing this, Zhou Huaian recalled the time when they caught wild ducks by the river and cooked them for food. He swallowed and said, "How could you forget about wild ducks! Where did they catch them? Let's get two to stew with mushrooms tomorrow. They will definitely taste great."
"They said they caught them upstream. The two brothers saw us fishing by the river and ran over to see us. They even showed off to us that they had found wild duck eggs."
"We'll see tomorrow."
"Then come and call me tomorrow morning." Zhou Yiding paused, "I remember that there seemed to be a lot of Polygonum multiflorum growing in the forest where we went to hunt wild ducks."
Zhou Huaian remembered it immediately, "If you hadn't told me, I would have forgotten. The edge of the forest is covered with vines. I don't know if anyone has dug them up?"
Zhou Yiding smiled and said, "If it's something incidental, dig it up if there is, and forget it if there isn't."
The two of them took the dog out of the forest and headed towards the grove across the river. When they got there, they discovered that there were many more gray storks and birds living in this forest than there.
After strolling around in the woods, Zhou Yiding returned home contentedly carrying the urea bag. He kept two turtledoves and hung the rest on the back seat of his bicycle and took them away.
When Zhou Huaian got home and opened the door, he saw his mother standing on the steps in her coat, "Mom, why aren't you asleep yet?"
"I slept too much at noon today, so I'm not sleepy at all at night." Zhou's mother stepped forward to take the urea bag and asked, "How many did you kill?"
Zhou Huaian carried the urea bag and walked towards the wine cellar in the backyard. "Six gray storks and a dozen turtledoves. Keep half for Wang Zhen and Xiao Mei to eat when they come tomorrow, and give the other half to Ning An and Master Li."
Mother Zhou thought about it and followed him, "Your sister is opening a shop tomorrow, why don't you go and see it?"
"You and Chunyan can go, I have to go make money." Zhou Huaian looked at her with a playful smile, "The TV will be back the day after tomorrow, you can watch TV if you can't sleep in the future."
"Lao Qian asked me yesterday why I didn't buy a TV. He said that your Aunt Chen's family had gone to Ning'an to look, and they asked several stores but they all wanted industrial vouchers, so they didn't buy it."
"It's easy without industrial coupons. Wang Zhen's department store will open on May 1st Labor Day. He doesn't need coupons. He has everything you want to buy."
"Then I'll tell her tomorrow." Zhou's mother sighed, "Your Aunt Chen's family is really capable. The old couple raised fat pigs and sold piglets. They made a fortune of ten thousand yuan last year."
Zhou Huaian curled his lips, "What's so strange about being a millionaire? You have several of them!"
"That's right!" Zhou's mother waved at him with a smile, "Go take a shower and go to bed. I'll get the gray stork and the turtledove out."
"Then go to bed early." Zhou Huaian returned to the room after washing up. When he turned on the light, Yang Chunyan turned her head and looked over. "You're back?"
"I woke you up!" Zhou Huaian closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed. "We saw a pangolin with a baby in the woods tonight, but we didn't beat it."
"It's right not to fight them. We rely on them to eliminate the ant nests in the forest!" Yang Chunyan remembered that there were so many ants and wasps in the forest later, which might be because there were fewer and fewer pangolins.
"Then don't hit them when you see them next time." Zhou Huaian went to bed and carried Xiao Jiuer to the crib. "Little thing, you became more and more naughty last night. You played like crazy during the day and even climbed on my head when you slept at night."
Yang Chunyan looked at the father and son tenderly, "He only slept for a short while in Hengshan today. He didn't sleep at Sister Yumei's place in the afternoon. He didn't even wake up when I cleaned him at night."
"He was very well behaved when I was pregnant with him, but why is he getting more naughty as he grows older?" Zhou Huaian covered him with the quilt, got on the bed and hugged Yang Chunyan in his arms, "The TV will be back the day after tomorrow, where do you think we should put it?"
Yang Chunyan thought about the appeal of the TV and said, "It can be placed at the entrance of the main hall or the entrance of the west wing."
"Okay!" Zhou Huaian pulled the light cord to turn off the light, and the couple fell asleep together.
The next day, early in the morning, Yang Chunyan handed Xiao Jiuer to the old man, and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law rode their bicycles towards the town, turning from the woods to the main road.
Today happened to be the market day in town. Along the way, I met several villagers who were carrying baskets and loads on their shoulders to go to the market to sell eggs and poultry.
Seeing the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law riding their bicycles over, I felt both envious and jealous.
"Look at Guilan, she's old, but she's still riding a women's bicycle."
"When they were young, the couple worked hard to raise their son, and now they are old, they enjoy the blessings of their son and daughter-in-law. Who would say that we didn't give birth to a few capable sons?"
"What's the point of having many sons? If they turn out to be unfilial, they will be wasted their lives."
When the Zhou family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law arrived at the drying dam, they saw Qian Chunhua and Aunt Chen waiting there. Li Qiuyue and Yang Chunyan stopped and took the two with them and drove towards the town.
"Chunyan, have you heard? I heard that Xiong Laoya and his wife are getting a divorce!" Qian Chunhua whispered in the back seat behind Yang Chunyan.
"I haven't heard of it." Yang Chunyan turned her head and asked curiously: "Why?"
Qian Chunhua: "They said the woman was infertile. She had been married for more than a year but still hadn't gotten pregnant."
Aunt Chen took over the conversation, "It's normal not to get pregnant for a year. I gave birth to my first child in the third year after I got married. After I got pregnant, I gave birth to three more children in succession."
Qian Chunhua curled her lips, "I heard that it was Zhou Sufen who was behind this. She saw that Yiding and Erchun's families both had children, but his family didn't, so she instigated Xiong Laoya and his wife to have several fights." (End of this chapter)
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