After drinking the wine, relatives and friends said goodbye and went home. Zhou Huaian and his friend sent Yang's father and mother to the bridgehead before slowly walking back.
Zhou Huaian sighed, "Once the house is repaired, we will have a good rest for a few days."
"Yeah!" Yang Chunyan glanced at him and found that he had become darker and thinner in the past few days. "You should have a good rest for a few days. You have become darker and thinner due to exhaustion."
"Really?" Zhou Huaian rubbed his face, "No, I have to go to the city tomorrow to buy a box of vanishing cream to apply."
Yang Chunyan looked at him with amusement, "I don't know why men like beauty so much!"
Zhou Huaian leaned forward and whispered, "If I wasn't so good-looking, you wouldn't marry me!"
"Go to hell!" Yang Chunyan pinched him, "Stay away from me, what will people say if they see you?"
"We are a legitimate couple. If anyone dares to talk nonsense, I will tear her mouth off!"
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan pulled him aside, "What should I do with the money my mom and the others brought?"
"You idiot!" Zhou Huaian nodded at her a few times, "What should I do? Of course I keep it for myself. Do you want to share it with others?"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Didn't I ask for your opinion?"
"Just put it away. We have done enough for my brother and the others."
"I understand."
…
The next day after the beam was put up, the well digging master brought his men to start digging the well, and everything went on in an orderly manner.
When Zhou Huaian delivered vegetables to Ning'an on a tractor, he also brought home the water pipe fittings and faucets that Huang had helped to buy.
On the construction site of the new house, some carpenters were nailing rafters, while others began to install doors and windows.
Although the wall has been built, the bricklayers are not idle either. The tiles on the roof have not been laid yet and the courtyard wall also needs to be built.
Zhou Huairong, along with his helpers Uncle Zhao, leveled, widened and reinforced the dirt road outside the house. They also built steps in the ditch outside the door to make it easier to go down to the ditch and fetch water for washing.
After the earthen kiln produced the last batch of bricks and tiles, it stopped working. Zhou Huaian and his brothers pulled all the limestone from the riverside to the earthen kiln, preparing to burn lime to make walls and roads.
The old man looked at the limestone piled up into a small hill and said, "Youngest, is this really the same as the one at the lime kiln?"
Father Zhou also felt uneasy, "Yeah, don't work so hard for a few days in vain. Not only will you waste firewood, but you will also be exhausted."
"Don't worry, when I was in school, our teacher took us to pick up lime and burn it. Our classroom was painted with the lime we burned!"
"Really?" The old man looked at him doubtfully, "If not, I'll beat the crap out of you."
Zhou Huaian patted his chest and said, "If you can't do it, just beat me up."
The old man: "Okay, the youngest one has said it's okay, let's get started!"
Three generations of grandparents and grandchildren carried the limestone into the kiln, layering it with firewood and piling it up layer by layer. It took them two days to pile the limestone to the top of the kiln. They followed Liu the potter's example and sealed the kiln roof with clay and started to light the fire.
After a kiln is ignited, it must burn for at least two days, and after the fire is extinguished, it must cool for a few days before it can be taken out of the kiln.
Zhou Huaian wiped his sweat and said, "Brother, do you still remember that you took us to the Guanyin Mountain lime kiln to steal lime medicine fish?"
Zhou Huairong nodded, "Yes! Sprinkle the lime into the river and stir it with a wooden stick for a while, and soon the river will be full of small fishes."
Zhou Huaijun: "We wrapped the fish we caught in leaves and cooked them. That was the time I ate the most."
The old man laughed and said, "At that time, your husband and your mother had to support the five of you with their work points. It was already good enough to raise all of you to adulthood!"
Father Zhou felt that those hard days seemed like yesterday, and he sighed, "Now that you have all started families and careers, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief."
Zhou Huaian: "Grandpa, old man, after we divide the family property, you can grow some vegetables and raise some chickens and ducks when you have nothing to do. We will help you send them to Ning'an to sell for money. We can take care of other things!"
The old man smiled and nodded, "Okay, Grandpa will wait to enjoy his retirement."
"Yeah!" The brothers nodded repeatedly.
…
The next day, Yang Chunyan and her sisters-in-law went to the back mountain of Fangtian Brigade to look for herbs.
A gust of wind blew, and the seeds of the fleabane on the edge of the field and the roadside were blown far away by the wind.
Eupatorium also has a certain effect in traditional Chinese medicine. Sometimes when villagers get injured accidentally while working in the fields, they can pick some Eupatorium and mash it and apply it to the wound to prevent inflammation.
It can also be used to treat febrile diseases. According to the "Mengzhi Yaozhi", the whole plant is mainly used to treat exogenous fever, diarrhea, gastritis, rash, and scabies.
This kind of grass is everywhere on the mountain. Wherever the seeds fly, they take root. There is no need to collect the seeds at all.
There were no other herbs to be found on either side of the mountain path, so the four sisters-in-law walked straight to the foot of the mountain.
Arriving at the foot of the mountain, Zhang Xiuxiang looked in the direction of Yang Xiaoxue's home and said, "Chunyan, do you want to go call Xiaoxue?"
Yang Chunyan shook her head. "No, Sister Xiaoxue said they have already started firing the kiln. There is not much labor at home, so the whole family is working in the earthen kiln, making bricks!"
Li Qiuyue: "It's better to hire someone to help you than to do it yourself. If you're lucky, the herbs you pick up in one day will be enough to pay someone for a month."
"She said it's hard to find people when the project just started, so my two cousins will come to help the day after tomorrow."
After walking up the mountain for more than an hour, I finally found some herbs and seeds. I went all the way up to the foot of the mountain where I picked a lot of Ganoderma lucidum last time.
After crossing the stream, Li Qiuyue thought of the last time she came here to pick up Ganoderma lucidum, and said with a smile: "Let's go up the mountain and look for it carefully. Maybe we can find some Ganoderma lucidum."
Zhang Xiuxiang: "Yes! This mountain has the most Ganoderma lucidum collected in such a long time."
Yang Chunyan: "Last time you came here to pick mushrooms, you didn't come here to look at it?"
Li Qiuyue nodded and said, "We looked at it and found a few small ones, but we didn't pick them up."
"Then let's look for it carefully later!"
As they were talking, they reached the foot of the mountain. Zhang Xiuxiang pointed at the clover on the slope and said, "Chunyan, I remember you used this to apply to my feet last time. Why don't you cut some back?"
"This is Tripterygium wilfordii. The most valuable part is the root tuber underneath. The best medicinal effect is when you dig it up after the winter solstice."
"Oh! No wonder you didn't ask us to dig."
Yang Chunyan pointed to the bright red fruits among the emerald green leaves on the vine and said, "Let's pick some seeds and take them back."
"Okay!"
Several people took out a burlap bag from their pocket, opened the bag, picked the mung bean-sized seeds one by one and put them into the bag.
They had several such small bags in their pockets, all of which were sewn by Zhou's mother for them to collect seeds.
Yang Chunyan picked the three-leaf green seeds from the vine, turned her head and saw a few weeds that looked like stunted wheat ears growing among the moss and dead leaves, "Gastrodia elata!"
She cried out in surprise, took a step forward, squatted down to take a look, carefully picked the flower spikes and put them into the bag, then put on gloves, pushed aside the dead leaves, and started digging with a wooden stick.
Gastrodia elata is the dried tuber of Gastrodia elata, an orchid plant, also known as red arrow, single-shaking zhi, mother-leaving, and combined grass, etc. It is said that it is a gift from the gods, so it is called "Gastrodia elata".
Gastrodia elata has no roots and no green leaves. Its cylindrical reddish-brown stems look like arrow shafts inserted into the ground, so it is also called red arrow.
It cannot carry out photosynthesis and obtains nutrition from the mycelium of the honey fungus that invades its body. It is a symbiotic organism between plants and fungi, similar to Cordyceps and cicada fungus, so its medicinal value is extremely precious.
Gastrodia elata nature and flavor: sweet, flat. It has the effect of calming wind and calming shock. It can treat dizziness, dark eyes, headache, limb numbness, hemiplegia... and many other diseases.
"Compendium of Materia Medica" says that Panax notoginseng nourishes the heart, ginseng strengthens the kidneys, and Gastrodia elata nourishes the brain.
In later times, wild Gastrodia elata was still a national second-class protected plant. (End of this chapter)
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