The family had just finished lunch when Zhao Huifang happily returned to Funiu from town. As soon as she saw Zhou's mother, she said:
"Mom, Dongming's comrade is really nice. We went to his house and told him about the situation, and he immediately took us to school. It didn't take long for Jiaming to go to school."
Zhou's mother was also very happy after hearing this. "That's good. Go back and have a good talk with Jiaming. Tell him to study hard when school starts and not to embarrass others."
Zhao Huifang nodded, "Huairong told him. I originally thought that only our family got in through the back door, but when I went to check, there were quite a few, all boys."
Zhou's mother smiled and said, "Boys grow up late. Just like Chunyan said, if they study for a few more years and train in the army for a few more years, they will be sensible when they come out."
"Yeah!" Zhao Huifang looked around, "Where are Chunyan and Xiuxiang?"
"I went to take the dog next door. He said he wanted to go to the Hundred Flowers Forest in the back mountain to pick honey fungus."
"I'll go over and ask them to wait for me, and then I'll go and take a look." Zhao Huifang walked out happily, and when she arrived at Yang Chunyan's house, she just saw three people coming out of the yard with the dog.
"Chunyan, wait for me, I'll go back and change my clothes and come back."
Zhang Xiuxiang smiled and said, "Look at how happy she is, she must have agreed."
"That's what I wanted to say, too." Yang Chunyan patted Lai Fu, who kept wagging his tail at her. "You just went there this morning, so it's Wang Cai's turn this afternoon. Stay at home and look after the house!"
Li Qiuyue stroked Wangcai and turned her head to look over. She saw dogs lying at the door of every house. She smiled and said, "Look, every family in this row has a dog."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Sister Ma said it's good to have a dog. If there are more thieves coming, the dog can still resist them."
Li Qiuyue: "She said yesterday that picking mushrooms and selling them for money is good, but you are too busy and they have no place to watch TV if they want to."
Zhang Xiuxiang: "Aunt Chen's family also bought a TV, why don't they go to her house to watch it?"
Li Qiuyue: "Chunyan's family didn't have time to watch it. Yiding and his wife were not at home, so many people went to her house. They said that the courtyard was full of people, and it was more lively than watching a movie on the dam."
While the three sisters-in-law were chatting, Zhao Huifang also came after changing into her equipment, and the four of them and the dog walked towards the back mountain.
As soon as I entered the woods, I saw some withered rice soup mushrooms and brush mushrooms, and I also picked up a few milk mushrooms that had already opened. I said I should have come here earlier.
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at Wangcai who was sniffing at the mushrooms, pulled Yang Chunyan and said, "The bamboo fungus smells so strong, we should give it to Wangcai and Laifu to smell. Next time we go to the bamboo forest, they can help us find mushrooms."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Huaian also said so. If we pick up some good mushrooms later, let's smell them and see if we can find them."
"Sister-in-law, come here quickly!" Li Qiuyue, who was walking in front, waved at the three people, "Look, there are a lot of wild sweet potatoes on the slope. Pick some and eat them before you leave."
"We haven't eaten them this year!" Yang Chunyan and the other two went over and pulled apart the wild sweet potato vines. "There are so many. Xiaoqian and the others even went to Gaokan to pick some. The wild sweet potatoes here are much bigger than those over there."
Zhang Xiuxiang picked one, tore a hole in it, took a sip, and nodded after tasting it. "Point to the brightly colored ones, and the ones that are sweet are the best."
"Yes!" Yang Chunyan picked a handful of fruits and put them in the basket. She walked to a large rock lying on the slope and sat down. She patted Zhao Huifang and the other two and said, "Sisters-in-law, come and sit in a row and eat some fruit."
"Come on!"
After Zhao Huifang solved a big problem, she felt particularly relieved. She walked over to Yang Chunyan with a basket and sat down, eating several wild sweet potatoes in a row. "Haha, it would be nice if we could bring all the little ones at home and have them sit in a row from big to small!"
Yang Chunyan smiled and nodded, "Sister-in-law, this is a good suggestion. When we are done with this busy period, we will bring all the kids here and sit them in a row, and let Huai'an take a picture of them."
Li Qiuyue and Zhang Xiuxiang also came over carrying vegetable baskets. The four sisters-in-law sat in a row, stretching their legs leisurely and leaning on their backpacks.
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at the medicinal trees that had been planted below and the medicinal seeds scattered in the forest, and found that most of them were alive. "Look, the Magnolia officinalis, Eucommia ulmoides, and Cassia bark that we planted are all alive."
Li Qiuyue sighed, "We are alive, but we still have to wait ten or twenty years to see the harvest. By then, we will all be old women."
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at her with a smile, "How can you be that old? In another twenty years, I will be fifty and you will only be forty-eight. It's still a long way to go!"
"Yes, she is still very young at over 40!" Yang Chunyan looked down, and when she saw a large patch of green plants at the bottom of the slope that looked like they were ripped apart by chickens, she stood up with the help of a rock, "I'll go down and take a look!"
"What herbs have you found?" Zhang Xiuxiang also stood up.
"It looks like Aconite." Yang Chunyan paused, "It's Aconitum!"
Li Qiuyue also stood up. "I know Aconitum kusnezoffii. There are a lot of them in Baicaoping. I tell you, you must not touch this thing. Someone in Baicaoping used it to stew pig's trotters to treat rheumatism, but ended up being poisoned to death."
"This thing is very poisonous, but it is also a kind of herb. My old man said it has many uses."
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at Li Qiuyue curiously, "Qiuyue, is it true that someone used Aconitum carmichaelii to stew pig's trotters and killed someone?"
Li Qiuyue nodded, "Yes, I heard about this folk remedy from the neighboring Yun Province, which said that if you stew it over a low fire for more than ten hours, the poison will evaporate, and eating the pig's trotters stewed in this way can cure rheumatism. The old lady ate up both pig's trotters.
The next day, the family called out to her but she didn’t respond. When they went into the house, they found that the old lady had died long ago. Secretary Zhang even went to the town to report the case.”
Zhang Xiuxiang's eyebrows knitted together. "I don't know what these people are thinking. They clearly know it's poisonous but still believe it. It's just like courting death."
Li Qiuyue curled her lips and said, "People still gossiped about her for a long time after she died. It was so unpleasant. Some said that the old lady ate the big pig's trotters because she was greedy, and some said that her son and daughter-in-law didn't want to serve her anymore, so they sent her away with two pig's trotters."
She still remembered that once Li Erwa had told on her again, causing her to be beaten up by her grandmother. She even thought that if she had the money, she would buy a pair of pig's trotters and stew a handful of Aconitum to poison the old woman to death.
Yang Chunyan remembered that there were still people who believed in this folk remedy in later generations, so she hurriedly reminded them, "Don't believe in unverified folk remedies. Some of them not only cannot cure diseases, but are also very deadly.
Someone once asked my husband about this, saying that stewing pig's trotters with Aconitum carmichaelii is a great tonic and can also treat rheumatism. I heard him say that Aconitum carmichaelii contains poison that will not evaporate even if you stew it for a whole day.
He also said that in the old days, some hunters would dig up Aconitum carmichaelii before going into the mountains to hunt, fearing encounters with wild beasts, and would smear the poison on their arrows to create arrow poison before going into the mountains to hunt.
There are a lot of strange and bizarre folk remedies these days, especially after the implementation of family planning, and there are a lot of quack doctors selling secret recipes for having children.
Families that favor boys over girls, who normally can't even afford to eat meat, are willing to exchange a big fat pig for the so-called secret recipe for having a child, which has harmed many people.
Zhang Xiuxiang: "These people are really weird. They can even poison wild animals to death, but they actually believe that eating it can cure diseases."
Li Qiuyue: "I heard him say that the Radix Aconiti Kusnezoffii they used was processed, and the processed Radix Aconiti Kusnezoffii has many uses."
As they were talking, they came to the place where Aconitum carmichaelii grew. After seeing it, Li Qiuyue said with certainty, "It is Aconitum carmichaelii. I often saw it when I was cutting grass in the mountains when I was a child. Although it is so poisonous, the flowers it blooms are very beautiful."
"I know, the blue-purple ones are like little bells. If they bloom all over, they are really beautiful." Yang Chunyan thought of the Aconitum flowers she had seen before and found that many herbs with beautiful flowers are mostly poisonous.
The leaves of Aconitum carmichaelii are green and look a bit like Artemisia annua at first glance. The whole plant is poisonous, and the most poisonous part is the root tuber that can be used to prepare Aconitum carmichaelii, which is called Aconitum because of its black color.
Aconitum carmichaelii is a plant of the Ranunculaceae family. It is also called salt aconite, goose flower, iron flower, etc.
The medicinal parts are the mother root and lateral roots. The mother root is called Aconitum, which is an antispasmodic agent for rheumatism and rheumatic neuralgia. It is a highly toxic herb. The toxicity of Aconitum mainly comes from aconitine.
The lateral roots are used as medicine, called aconite, which is pungent, very hot, and poisonous. It has the effects of restoring yang, expelling cold, and eliminating rheumatism.
Yang Chunyan looked at the spot where the Aconitum was growing and said to Zhao Huifang and the others, "There are so many little bees in the forest, and this thing is poisonous. Let's dig it up before it blooms!"
Zhao Huifang nodded. "Yes, if something this poisonous blooms, its flowers must also be poisonous. If the bees eat it, the honey it produces will also be poisonous, and that would harm people."
Zhang Xiuxiang and Li Qiuyue also put down their baskets and vegetable baskets after hearing this, "Chunyan, is this thing still useful?"
"Yes, we'll go to the ditch and wash them clean later, and let Huai'an send them to Ning'an to sell tomorrow." Yang Chunyan shoveled away the stem of an Aconitum carmichaelii, dug up another one, and found that the spindle-shaped tuber underneath was quite large.
She thought about how they used to dig Aconitum carmichaelii, usually from late June to August. It was only mid-May now. Although it was a bit early, she didn't know how long it had been growing. Shouldn't the medicinal effect be bad?
Li Chunyan picked up a tree and said, "Look, it's growing well. If there are no bees in the forest, we can wait until it blooms and produces seeds before digging it up!"
"Forget it. Even if we leave the seeds, there's no suitable place to plant them." Zhang Xiuxiang gathered the broken stems into a pile, cut some wild sweet potato vines, tied them up, and hung them on a bush.
The four of them were busy for more than half an hour, digging up about twenty or thirty pounds of Aconitum tubers, putting them in a backpack and placing them on the big rock they had just sat on, preparing to come out of the forest and take the materials back with them.
Yang Chunyan called Wangcai, and the four of them went to the ditch, picked some calamus, washed their hands, and then took the dog to the place where the honey fungus grew.
They picked up a dozen or so chicken mushrooms with their umbrellas opened on the road. Li Qiuyue also picked up a yellow cattle liver that was bigger than her palm. She put it in front of Wangcai and let him smell it. She didn't know if the dog remembered it.
The clover sown in early spring has grown to more than a foot tall, and the tender green vines are climbing up along the small shrubs, as if the higher they climb, the more nutrients they can absorb.
The four sisters-in-law picked some half-flowered flowers, fish and loach, wild buckwheat, and also found a large area of sea gold sand. (End of this chapter)
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