Chapter 16: Brother, Your Wife is Gone
Zhou Huaian, who originally thought that Yang Chunyan would ask him to go with her, was stunned for a moment. Just as he was about to speak, his good buddy He Dakuan stepped forward and punched him in the chest, "You kid is really good, you killed the cow."
He Dakuan's parents hoped that he would grow tall and big, but he turned out to be skinny and dry, so everyone gave him a nickname, calling him "Dried Cowpea"!
Zhou Huaian glared at him, "You think I'm like you? My waist is not as thick as my hand."
He Dakuan looked at him and trembled, "Who would dare to provoke you, a man who can even kill a cow?"
Zhou Huaian smiled and punched him, "Say it again, I'll get you!"
Cai Ermei, who looked a bit feminine, nudged Zhou Huaian and said, "Brother, your wife has left, why don't you hurry up and catch up with her? You will have to kneel down on the step when you go back."
Zhou Huaian glanced at him sideways, "Do you think I'm like you, a henpecked man?"
"Blow, blow hard, and wait another half a year, then we'll know whether your ears are rashes or not."
Zhou Huaian kicked him in the ass and said, "Get lost, I don't want to bother with you."
"Youngest!" Zhou Yiding smiled and patted him. "This morning I put a fish cage in the ditch and soaked soybeans to make tofu pudding and cook tofu pudding fish. Do you want to come?"
Zhou Huaian thought that if there were seven or eight people going to the corn field, he wouldn't be missing one more, so he nodded and said, "Okay, go get another bucket, and we'll go get some rocks to go back with."
He remembered that Yang Chunyan ate a lot of the rock crabs he brought back last time.
Cai Ermei glanced at Zhou Huaian and said, "I remember you brought back a lot of stone crawlers last time. Tell me the truth, does your wife like to eat them?"
"My spring swallow doesn't like other fish, but likes to eat stone crawlers." Zhou Huaian looked proud, "You love your wife yourself."
He Dakuan winked and said, "That's right, bring back more fish to appease your wife, so she doesn't have to kneel down and do calculations at night."
Zhou Huaian rolled his eyes at him and said, "You are the one who is kneeling on the abacus."
"Youngest brother," Zhou Yiding hugged him, "Tell me the truth, after losing so much money yesterday, did you kneel down and count the beads on the abacus at night?"
Zhou Huaian glanced at him sideways, "Kneeling on the abacus beads? Don't you even look at who I am!"
He Dakuan curled his lips and said, "I admire you. Brother, I admire you greatly."
The four of them walked towards Zhou Yiding's house while bickering.
Zhou Yiding and Zhou Huaian are from the same family and he is the youngest among the four. His mother died early and his husband is a forest worker, guarding the mountains and only going down the mountain once every two months.
He was from a working class family, and his family conditions were much better than those of Zhou Huaian and his friends. Because of his name, everyone nicknamed him Ding Ding Cat.
With three red brick and tile houses with two turns at both ends and the courtyard being plastered with cement, sand and gravel, Zhou Yiding will be able to take over his old man's job in two years, guarding the forest farm and having a stable job.
The four of them carried buckets of water and walked for more than half an hour to the riverside. They rolled up their trousers and went down to the river towards the rocky beach where the water was flowing fast.
Rock crawlers have a unique living habit. They like to build nests in places with fast-flowing water. As long as a rock with fast-flowing water is turned over,
Under the rock, you can see the little stone crawler with its belly facing upwards. Its tiny body clings to the rock tightly like a suction cup.
The stone crawler is only about ten centimeters long, has no scales, and is covered with mucus. It looks a bit like a small catfish.
A few people walked to the stone beach by the river and looked for stone climbers in the cracks of the rocks where the water was flowing fast.
He Dakuan turned over a large rock and saw several rock crawlers clinging to the rock. "Come on, brothers, here are a few."
"Wow, this one is big!"
Zhou Huaian caught a big, flat-headed, plump rock reptile and fiddled with the whiskers on the front of its head and its pair of eyes as big as rapeseed seeds. He felt that these small eyes were totally disproportionate to its big head.
Cai Ermei threw the stone climbing stones into the bucket and said, "Huaian, I heard that stone climbing stones are sold for 20 cents a pound in the town. How about getting some to sell?"
Zhou Yiding shook his head. "No, my neighbor Er Gouzi caught five or six kilograms to sell, and brought back more than half."
Zhou Huaian nodded, "That's right, it's better to braise some pickled cabbage, it's more nutritious to eat."
The four of them rummaged around on the rocky beach, and soon the bucket was half full of rocks.
"Youngest, enough of the rocks, let's go get the fish cage." He Dakuan shouted while splashing water at the three men, in return the three men surrounded him.
****
Over there, Yang Chunyan and her companions had already reached the flat land on the hillside. This flat land was about 100 mu in size, and more than 10 mu of mountain land had been opened up.
All of them were opened by Zhou's father and his wife with their children. When Zhou's father first opened up the land here, he saw a deep pool under the cliff, which was convenient for carrying water for irrigation.
In her previous life, she lived here, and her brothers' housing plots were also approved in this area. Later, everyone moved to the other side of the river at the foot of the mountain, and she was the only one who stayed here.
There are more than ten acres of land, planted with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. A lot of soybeans are also planted on the edge of the field, and the bean stalks are already covered with furry green bean pods.
Looking up, the hillside is planted with broad beans, pumpkins, and winter melons. The vines are growing wildly, and the golden pumpkin flowers and white winter melon flowers are swaying in the wind.
These days, land is the lifeline of the villagers, and everyone has a special feeling for the fields.
Although the whole mountain is covered with soil, everyone will carefully tend to the fields that have been cleared, and every corner in front of and behind the houses is planted with crops.
Zhou Huairong and Zhou Huaijun strode to the sweet potato field above, pulled all the wildly growing sweet potato vines to the top of the ridges, revealing the furrows, and then picked up the hoes and dug diagonally along the bottom of the ridges.
Zhou Huaishan carried soil and fertilizer along the dug trench and spread it to fertilize the sweet potatoes. This method was thought up by Zhou's father. Every year, the sweet potatoes dug by their family are the largest in the Funiu Brigade.
Grinding sweet potatoes into flour and making vermicelli and sweet potato starch can also increase income.
The four sisters-in-law went into the corn ditch, and Yang Chunyan found that a few corns were ripe, and the corn field was also planted with cowpeas and green beans.
The green bean vines have already grown onto the corn stalks. The purple flowers are swaying in the wind, and the slender cowpeas are hanging on the corn stalks.
Zhao Huifang turned around and said, "How about picking some broad beans and eating them with baked broad bean cakes?"
Yang Chunyan recalled the hodgepodge she had eaten before and said with a smile, "Great! I saw that Mom had soaked some soybeans. We can pick some young pumpkins, pumpkin flowers and pumpkin tips, grind them into soy milk and cook lazy tofu."
Li Qiuyue took over the conversation, "Pick some chili peppers and chop them up for dipping in the water."
Zhang Xiuxiang smiled and said, "Pull the grass first, then go back to pick broad beans and pumpkins."
"good."
The four of them squatted down and worked hard.
Yang Chunyan found that the ridges were full of goose grass, wheat grass, shepherd's purse... She also saw a lot of slender sowweed (Moshangcai) and sedge (Cyperus rotundus).
Moshangcai is a plant of the Scrophulariaceae family. It has small lavender flowers and has the effects of clearing liver fire, cooling blood and detoxifying, and reducing inflammation and swelling. It can be used for liver fire inflammation, damp-heat diarrhea, redness and swelling, heat toxins, and hemorrhoidal swelling and pain.
Cyperus rotundus has the effects of regulating qi and relieving depression, regulating menstruation and relieving pain. It can be used for liver depression and qi stagnation, chest and indigestion, irregular menstruation, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, abdominal pain caused by cold hernia, and breast pain. Unfortunately, it is not time to pick it yet.
Nowadays, there are herbs everywhere in the fields. In ten years or so, everyone will rely on pesticides and herbicides to farm, and these ubiquitous herbs will not be easy to find.
(End of this chapter)
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