The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law walked through several corn fields, pulled out all the tricholoma growing in them, broke off some tender corn, and picked a large bundle of cowpeas.
Mother Zhou put the cowpeas in a basket and said, "You carry it back. I'll go over here and find the vegetables to be sent to the city tomorrow morning."
Yang Chunyan saw that she returned to the old house later than before to look for vegetables, "Mom, the demand for vegetables in the city has decreased recently?"
Zhou's mother nodded, "Yes, they said that more villagers are growing vegetables near the county town, and there are more varieties of small vegetables than before, so they bought them there!"
"So we still need to send those things over there now?"
"Melons and vegetables, eggs, chickens, ducks, geese, and the salted vegetables I made." Zhou's mother paused, "Although the demand for vegetables is less, the demand for chickens, ducks, and geese is more. The money I earn every day is about the same as before."
"The old man wants to help us now. It's hard work for you to grow vegetables by yourself, but you won't be able to sell them for much money. Collect some chickens, ducks, geese, and eggs and send them to Ning'an to sell. You can worry less."
"Yes!" Zhou's mother helped her lift the basket. "Grandpa and the youngest child said they wanted to eat hot and sour rice noodles. I left a bowl of braised pork intestines for lunch in the wine cellar. Vermicelli, beans and kohlrabi are also ready. Go back and get them for him."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Then I'll go back and cook a pot of tender corn and add some hot and sour noodles, and I won't have dinner."
Zhou's mother nodded and said, "Cook some potatoes inside the corn."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan returned the same way and saw the old man carrying herbs over to the herb field. "Grandpa, where's Huai'an?"
The old man waved at her and said, "The red mushroom delivery is here, go back and help."
"Oh!" Yang Chunyan hurriedly quickened her pace and went down the mountain back to the yard. She saw Jiang Yu and others busy by the pond, "How many people are there delivering mushrooms?"
Jiang Yu smiled and nodded, "Many, about forty or fifty."
Yang Chunyan quickly put down her backpack and went to the front yard. She saw Zhao Huifang and Zhang Xiuxiang busy sorting and weighing, and Zhou Huaian was counting and paying, so she squatted down to help pick.
Zhang Xiuxiang glanced at her and said, "Sister Mina also brought red mushrooms today."
Yang Chunyan: "Oh! Has her family finished harvesting the millet?" I have been busy at home and have not had time to visit her.
Zhang Xiuxiang: "We've finished harvesting! I heard the harvest was pretty good. I heard the youngest told her that she would go to help when the grain tax is due."
Zhao Huifang interrupted, "Chunyan, I heard that Mina ranked second in the county in the entrance exam for primary school to junior high school. Which junior high school did she choose to apply for?"
Yang Chunyan nodded, "Yes! She said the junior high school in town is close to home and free of tuition, so she went to town to register."
Zhao Huifang: "I think people are gifted at studying. Look at the siblings Meina. They study and work in the fields, but they still study better than Jiaming and Jialiang."
The woman selling mushrooms interrupted and said, "Of course she is. Her mother and husband are well educated. They both helped with the literacy class in our brigade. When her husband was there, the siblings were only a little bit old when he started teaching them to read."
Zhao Huifang laughed and said, "No wonder, we can write our own names after reading only a few books."
The woman smiled and said, "It's impossible to compare. Comparing yourself with others makes you angry. As long as the child is successful and walks the right path, it doesn't matter if he doesn't study much!"
"That's right!" The villagers behind also started talking.
After a busy period, the few people harvested six or seven hundred kilograms of red mushrooms, as well as some shiitake mushrooms, green mushrooms, and big-foot mushrooms.
These items were all collected by Yang Chunyan's family. The two planned to send them to the provincial capital after the mushroom season. They thought that even if they could earn less, when more people came to collect mountain products in the future, they would have another way out.
Xu Hongbing and Fang Zhiqiang also drove the ox cart into the yard, "Are you all busy?"
Zhou Huaian stepped forward and asked, "How much did you collect today?"
Xu Hongbing said with a smile: "There are more than 300 kilograms of red mushrooms, dozens of kilograms of dried black fungus, and several kilograms of dried morels."
Fang Zhiqiang smiled and said, “I have more red mushrooms than you. I didn’t get any morels, but I got more than ten kilograms of dried black fungus.”
"It's already pretty good. I thought people were still threshing the millet in the mountains. You guys can only collect one or two hundred kilograms at most!" Zhou Huaian went to the backyard with the two of them.
Yang Chunyan said to Zhao Huifang, "Mom, make some vermicelli noodles. I'll go cook the corn and potatoes. We'll have hot and sour vermicelli tonight."
Zhao Huifang nodded. "Hot and sour noodles are good. The radish I planted is ready to eat. I'll go cut some and make hot and sour noodles later."
"Yes!" The two sisters-in-law picked up the red mushrooms on the straw mat, put them in a bamboo basket, and carried it to the backyard.
Zhang Xiuxiang has already squatted in front of Xu Hongbing's bamboo basket and started to sort the red mushrooms. "It's better to buy your red mushrooms. The first and second grades are already sorted, so it will be much easier for us to sort them."
"Of course, we packed them separately when we collected them." Xu Hongbing took down the bamboo basket containing the wood ear and morel mushrooms and put it aside. Zhou Huaian weighed them and gave him the money.
"Have you finished pulling out the Viola yedoensis?"
"After we pulled them out, a lot of seeds that fell into the medicinal field when we were collecting seeds have grown again."
"We just finished pulling out the weeds today, and haven't had time to wash and dry them!" Zhou Huaian said, "The chicken-arrow vines can be harvested now!"
"I'll tell Xiaofang when I get home!" Xu Hongbing looked at him with a smile, "Let me tell you, that day my mother picked a basket of tender leaves of the thorn vine, chopped them up, and mixed them with flour to make pancakes for my son to eat, saying that they would whet his appetite."
Zhou Huaian's mouth twitched a few times after hearing this, "How does it taste?"
"I didn't smell any chicken shit while eating." Xu Hongbing said with a smile, "You know what, my son ate at noon that day and was willing to eat in the afternoon."
After hearing this, Zhou Huaian looked at Yang Chunyan, "Yan'er, can Cistanche deserticola help stimulate appetite and help digestion?"
"Yes!" Yang Chunyan stood up and took out a handful of Herba Monochamus from her backpack and gave them to Xu Hongbing and Fang Zhiqiang. "This is better than Herba Crotonis for curing children's malnutrition. Take it home and dry it. If your child has diarrhea or malnutrition, just buy some bones and stew them in soup for the child to drink."
"Thank you!" The two men took it, put it away, packed the bamboo basket, and drove away in the ox cart.
After Yang Chunyan put the corn and potatoes into the pot, she went to the wine cellar to bring out the braised pork intestines and made hot and sour noodles for Zhao Huifang. She and Zhou Huaian took the herbs and went to the ditch outside to wash them.
The Jerusalem artichokes planted by the pond have begun to bloom, and they look beautiful in their golden color.
Zhou Huaian pushed aside the Jerusalem artichokes that were blocking the stone steps and said disdainfully, "This thing grows so fast that it has filled up the roadside and the pond in less than a year."
"This is after cutting the tender stems, drying them and making straw chaff. Otherwise, I would have gotten more." Yang Chunyan rolled up her trouser legs and stood in the ditch. "In addition to the dozen pigs in the old house, this year we relied on growing Jerusalem artichokes, ramie, and ramie to support us so that we didn't have to cut grass to feed the pigs."
Zhou Huaian thought about it and said, "It will take two months before we can start digging Jerusalem artichokes, right?"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "We can dig it in August. We still have pig grass at home. We can dig it in September."
Zhou Huaian nodded. "Tomorrow Village Chief Qu will send mushrooms and herbs. Ding Dingmao has a week off. I want to ask him to go to Huangqinggou with me?"
Yang Chunyan frowned, "It's too far away. Besides, Village Chief Qu and his men are also collecting herbs. I think you should wait for Yiding to come back and go to the forest farm with him."
"That's fine!" Zhou Huaian took out the washed herbs and put them in a basket. "I'll have to talk to Wang Zhen about this when I go to Ning'an tomorrow. Ask him to help contact his acquaintances in the provincial capital and find a doctor with better skills to perform the surgery on Zhang Erge's child."
"When are they going to go?"
"He said he'll go after the autumn harvest." Zhou Huaian turned his head and looked at her, "Yan'er, after the operation, will the child really be able to run and jump? Will he be able to get married when he grows up?"
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "I think even if he can't be like a normal child, at least he can live a normal life after the operation, and he should be able to get married and start a family when he grows up."
Zhou Huaian felt that if she said yes, it would definitely work, "That's good. Brother Zhang and his wife have placed all their hopes on going to the provincial capital's big hospital for surgery this time."
Yang Chunyan sighed, "Their family is considered to be very fond of their child. If it were someone else, they would have long since ignored the child's life or death."
Before the implementation of family planning, every family had several children, and the older ones almost always took care of the younger ones. Some parents spent less time taking care of their own children than they did the older children in the family, while for others, raising children was almost like raising piglets.
The two men were busy at the ditch for an hour or so before they cleaned the herbs, carried them home, and spread them out upstairs to dry.
"Chunyan, youngest, it's time to eat." Zhao Huifang shouted downstairs.
"Here they come!" The two of them went down carrying the backpack. When Xiao Jiuer saw Yang Chunyan, he reached out to hug her, babbling non-stop.
Zhou Xiaoqian, who was holding him, quickly handed him to Yang Chunyan, "Aunt Yao hasn't come back yet, so Xiao Jiuer is better behaved."
Zhou Xiaoru said, "I think Xiao Jiuer is the best kid. My brother always cries at night!"
Zhang Xiuxiang said, "Qiuyue is the same. It's so hot, and I told her not to wrap the child in a blanket. But she unwrapped the blanket during the day. At night, she was afraid that the child would be cold, so she wrapped him up tightly. Of course, the child would complain if he was uncomfortable."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Xiao Ru and Xiao Lin were both born after winter. She might be used to wrapping the baby up. Tell mom later and let her go and talk."
Zhou Xiaoru looked up, "My grandma is at my house right now!"
"Eat first, then talk!" Zhao Huifang brought the hot and sour noodles to the table, "Sprinkle the seasoning yourself and add whatever you like."
"The pig intestines are delicious, and the kohlrabi, fried soybeans, and cooked chili peppers are also delicious..." Zhou Jiaming and the others were discussing.
Zhou Huaian put the seasoning in front of Yang Chunyan, "I know you don't like too sour food, so I put less vinegar."
"Thanks!" Yang Chunyan held the child in one hand and picked up a spoonful of hot and sour noodles with the other hand. She thought the homemade noodles were just good, soft, sticky and smooth. "When it's hot, you have to eat sour and spicy food to whet your appetite."
Zhang Xiuxiang smiled and said, "I think so too. I should have eaten less corn earlier."
Zhou Huaian said proudly: "I ate it once in Ning'an last time and I thought it was delicious. I told my mother about it and she made it."
Zhou Huaishan took over the conversation, "I see there are more and more snack stalls in Ning'an now!"
Zhou Huaian: "Yeah! There are two more stalls selling jelly and cold noodles at the north street corner."
Zhou Jiaming's eyes lit up after hearing this, "Mom, how about you make some cold noodles sometime?"
"I can't do it!" Zhao Huifang glanced at him, "As long as you can get into junior high school next year, I'll take you to Ning'an to eat!"
"..." Zhou Jiaming kept silent. (End of this chapter)
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