"Here he comes! Mrs. Ye even told people that her youngest son went to pick mushrooms." Yang Chunyan smiled and glared at him, "Do you regret it now? Who told you to find some lice crawling on your head for no reason?"
"I just felt sorry for Ye Laoyao, so I said a few words." Zhou Huaian said, "I regretted it after I said it. I was afraid that the kid would really be depressed and hang himself and die. That would be too much."
"Be careful with your words next time. You're not that familiar with him. If he really wants to get over it, how are you going to face the Ye family?"
Yang Chunyan felt that Ye Laoyao might be the kind of person who is in love as people in later generations say. He would be very open-hearted to someone if he fell in love with them. Fortunately, people these days are much more resilient than people in later generations.
"My wife is right. If you talk too much again, just slap yourself a few times!" Zhou Huaian walked away briskly.
Yang Chunyan smiled and shook her head, then squatted down to wash the golden thread vine. The leaves were not dirty at all, but there was a lot of rotten soil and dead leaves stuck on the roots. She cleaned them one by one and put them in the backpack.
Sitting on the stone steps, I watched for a while the small fish in the pond scrambled to eat the washed golden thread vine leaves. The water in the backpack was almost drained out, so I carried it home and went upstairs, spreading the golden thread vine thinly to dry upstairs.
Thinking about what Zhou Huaian said about leasing the mountain land, I thought I could find more herbal seeds and sow them there. After I lease it myself, that piece of land would not be leased by others to plant fruit trees in the future.
The vegetation on that mountain will not be destroyed by herbicides, and those rare herbs in later generations will survive. In the dry land near the mountain temple, we can dig up some rice balls and plant them, and then attract some wild bees back...
Thinking of this, Yang Chunyan smiled and shook her head, "It's simple to think about it, but if you want to succeed, I'm afraid it will take a lot of effort."
She went downstairs carrying the basket and saw that Zhou Yumei had already started to clean up the fish. The silver carp had been killed and placed in a basin.
She looked up and smiled, "Chunyan, Shipeng, wait for the youngest to come back and kill them. I'll kill the silver carp and braise it first, fry the grouper and cook it into sauerkraut and tofu soup. How about Shipeng cutting a piece of pork belly and roasting it?"
Before Yang Chunyan could answer, the old man said, "I'll kill the grouper. Yumei, remember to clean the grouper and throw the intestines into the toilet."
Zhou Yumei smiled and replied, "I understand, Grandpa!"
She still remembered the year when the chickens at home were poisoned to death after eating grouper intestines. It was because the family was too poor, and the child had no oil or water in his stomach. He was still growing, and when he was hungry he would even drink two big buckets of water.
"Yeah!" The old man took the stone and jumped to the side to kill.
Yang Chunyan took the basket and said, "Sister Yumei, I'll go dig some onions and bring them back. You can put them in the fire pit later."
Zhou Yumei: "I'll wash some potatoes and cut them in, add some pickled peppers and chili peppers, and cook it in a hot pot. It's spicy and delicious."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan went to the vegetable garden with a hoe, dug up a few onions, pinched a handful of coriander, and carried them out of the vegetable garden. She saw Zhou's mother pushing a chicken cart to the gate of the yard. The bamboo basket in front was full of green and red peppers and chili peppers.
"I have filled up the jars at the old house. Send these over to soak in the jars over here."
Yang Chunyan smiled and nodded, "The peppers in the fields here are all red. We'll pick them tomorrow and tie them up to dry."
"Yes! There are also cowpeas and green beans in the corn field. Take some time to go there and pick the cowpeas and pickle them."
"Every year I ask you to pickle more, but every year it's not enough."
The whole family likes to eat the pickled vegetables she makes, and Zhou's mother is also a little proud. "Okay, let's go to the town to make silk banners tomorrow, and I'll buy two large jars to pickle cowpeas. You can eat them until you don't want to eat anymore."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "It's not just porridge that we eat. Huai'an and I also like to mix some of this with the noodles we cook. There's no way we can get enough of it!"
"You guys eat weird things, you can mix anything into noodles!" Zhou's mother parked the chicken cart on the eaves, and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law took the bamboo basket down and put it in the main room. "Your third aunt gave me a can of fermented black beans. Tomorrow I will soak some soybeans and make two cans."
"Soak more and make some dried black beans. The stir-fried pork will be great."
"Okay, let's do it all!" Zhou's mother and she carried bamboo baskets filled with chickens, ducks and geese and walked towards the alley in the backyard.
"Your third aunt's family really made the right choice to sell tofu. They sell tofu and bean curd for money, and feed the dregs to pigs. The piglets we caught together weighed about 160 to 170 kilograms."
"Bean dregs can fatten pigs. For example, I feed distiller's grains to pigs for my employer. Last year, we produced more than a dozen fat pigs."
"That's true. We feed them manure, rice bran, pig grass and some sweet potatoes. They are growing better than other families."
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law caught the chickens, ducks and geese and stuffed them into the chicken coop. They closed the door to the alley and came out. Then Zhou Huaian came back carrying a hoe. When she learned that they had picked a lot of golden thread vines in the afternoon, Zhou's mother was so happy that she couldn't close her mouth.
"I found so many good things during my trip, some delicious and some worth selling. When you finish harvesting the red mushrooms, don't sit idle. Go up the mountain and take a walk when you have nothing to do."
Zhou Huaian said with a smile: "You used to curse me when I mentioned going up the mountain. Now you don't object to me going up the mountain?"
"How dare you say that!" Zhou's mother glared at him. "When you were running around in the mountains before, I never saw you bring money home!"
Zhou Huaian laughed awkwardly, "It's not that I don't want to bring the money back, it's just that I was unlucky before and never found anything good when I went up the mountain!"
After hearing this, Yang Chunyan rolled her eyes at him and thought to herself: You said that Erchun saved four or five hundred yuan, but you didn't save a penny!
Zhou's mother rolled her eyes at him and said, "Do you think I don't know that the money you earned from going up the mountain to find things was spent on watching movies and eating out in town."
"That's not the case!" Zhou Huaian felt that she was just looking for trouble. Worried that she would still dwell on the past, he hurriedly picked up his hoe and walked towards the pigsty.
Zhou Yumei had already cooked the silver carp, and Jiang Yu and the others had packed up and were preparing to go home to eat before continuing.
The fragrant pork belly and stone clam, the spicy and delicious bearded carp, the delicious grouper, sauerkraut and tofu soup, and a dish of cold cowpea salad.
Little Jiuer watched his mother and husband sweating while eating without feeding him anything, and he started to cry out in anxiety.
"You want to eat too!" Zhou Huaian smiled and dipped the tip of the chopsticks in a little tofu soup and fed it into his mouth. He took a sip and then held the chopsticks tightly. Zhou Huaian was so scared that he quickly pinched his little mouth and pulled the chopsticks out.
Xiao Jiuer's mouth flattened and he burst into tears with a loud "wow".
Yang Chunyan stood up and patted his back, "You haven't even started eating meat yet, and you're already eager to eat delicious food!"
Zhao Huifang smiled and said, "We can start eating meat after the ninth day of the lunar year. The youngest brother will go get some crucian carp and cook them up."
"Yes, it's already the end of the month, and it will be the ninth day of the lunar new year in a few days." After finishing her meal, Zhou's mother reached out to take him, "Be good, grandma will make you some delicious rice porridge!"
Zhou Huaian smiled and pinched Xiao Jiuer's nose, "Yes, go eat the rice porridge quickly, so your mother can eat in peace."
He now felt that it was not easy for his mother and father to raise five of them. Now he was the only one in the family, and they felt tired. The most annoying thing was that it was inconvenient for the couple to do things...
Zhou's mother took the child away, and Zhou Huaian sat down and told Zhou Huairong and the others about his plan to lease the mountain land. "Brother, you guys discuss it. If you want to lease it, I'll give you a share."
Zhou Huaishan said without even thinking about it: "Just go ahead and take it, and I'll just follow you."
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "That won't work. You'd better go back and discuss it with your third sister-in-law!"
"Youngest, there's no need to discuss it with my family, just take care of it!" Zhang Xiuxiang said with a smile.
After hearing this, Zhou Huaijun looked at the old man and Zhou's father, "Grandpa, that piece of mountain land is at least one or two thousand acres, right?"
The old man thought for a moment and said, "Two thousand acres is more, not less."
Father Zhou frowned and said, "Youngest, with such a large mountain area, you four brothers and Yi Ding can't take care of it all, right?"
The old man also nodded, "Yes, look at those medicinal fields in the back mountain, we are a little nervous to take care of them."
Zhou Huairong and his brothers also nodded, "We have so much land, we can't take care of it all."
Zhou Huaian: "Here's my plan. After we take over the mountain land over there, we won't cultivate it as intensively as we did in the back mountain. We will just cut down those small shrubs that grow too densely, and then dig up some Magnolia officinalis, Eucommia ulmoides, cinnamon bark, Gardenia jasminoides, honey trees, etc...."
"Honey tree?" Zhou's father looked at him in surprise. "That thing can only be used to burn matches, and it won't grow into any wood. What's the point of planting it?"
Zhou Huaian said with a smile: "Old man, don't despise the honey tree. Doctor Xiao Wang said that the leaves and bark of the honey tree are both medicinal herbs. They charge 60 cents per pound for the dried goods. What we cut and burn is money!"
"Ah..." Even Zhou Huairong and others were stunned.
"Alas!" Zhou Huaishan sighed, "We worked so hard to cut down the honey trees, and then we worked so hard to plant corn, but after all this time we ended up losing the watermelons and picking up sesame seeds!"
Father Zhou's mouth twitched in distress, "Those are at least two or three hundred kilograms, and we burned more than a hundred pieces?"
Yang Chunyan said hurriedly: "Old man, I didn't know before that everyone also cut down Magnolia officinalis and used it as firewood!"
The old man nodded, "The old saying is right, there are no weeds in the mountains, and knowing them is a treasure!"
Zhou Huairong understood what Zhou Huaian meant. "Youngest brother, do you mean that we only need to cut down those overgrown bushes and plant these herbal trees that can be sold for money? We don't need to take care of them like we do in the back hills. Let them grow naturally?"
"Yes!" Zhou Huaian put down his chopsticks. "I went to see today. There are many herbs in the forest over there. Let's collect more herb seeds and spread them in the forest. Then we can attract some wild bees to come back and collect honey from the flowers. The price of that kind of nectar is two yuan more expensive than winter honey."
Yang Chunyan didn't expect that he had the same idea as her. She looked at him happily and said, "We can also find tree seeds and spread them in the forest."
Zhang Xiuxiang echoed, "Just listen to the youngest and take it over. Think about it, we didn't have to pay the contract fee in the first few years. After a few years, we will be able to sow herbs in it."
This year they have tasted the sweetness of growing herbs, and they feel that it is not like growing crops, where if they are not brought home when they are ripe, they will rot in the fields. (End of this chapter)
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