Zhou Yiding and Zhou Huaian put the wood on the shuttle, and the wood slid down the mountain like a rolling stone.
"This is a great idea!" Yang Chunyan and Wan Xuejiao both exclaimed.
Zhou Huaian rubbed his hands excitedly, "Whoever came up with this idea must have a very smart brain! If someone sits on it and slides down, it would be just like riding a shuttle board!"
Zhou Yiding looked at him proudly, "The mountain here is not high, so there is no cableway installed. Everyone has to carry the wood on their shoulders. It is very tiring at the end of the day. So I, an old man, came up with this idea."
"Because of this idea, I was promoted to the leader of the logging team and received a reward of fifty dollars."
"Not bad! Uncle Daqing's brain is really useful." Zhou Huaian said while touching his butt, "It would be nice if there was a cushion. We could sit on it and get down the mountain in no time."
Zhou Yiding glanced at him and said, "I'm afraid that your butt will be smoking when we get down the mountain."
"Go!" Zhou Huaian patted him and picked up the backpack. "Let's go! We still have to drag those branches down the mountain!"
The four of them returned to the valley, and Zhou Huaian picked up the branch and left.
"Huaian!" Yang Chunyan hurriedly called him, "The branches are so dense, it's too inconvenient to drag them down the mountain. We can use a machete to shave them cleanly, chop them up and put them in a backpack to save effort."
Zhou Huaian slapped his head and said, "Oh! My mind didn't come to its senses at once."
Zhou Yiding smiled and said, "If you are stupid, just admit it and don't make useless excuses."
Zhou Huaian waved his fist at him, "You kid, you want to be beaten, right?"
Wan Xuejiao laughed when she heard this, "It would be fun to listen to you two bickering like this when you are eighty years old!"
"Eighty years old!" Zhou Yiding said, hunched over, wrinkling his nose, pouting his lips, and tremblingly pulled Zhou Huaian, "Youngest, you've lived for decades, have you changed your mind?"
Zhou Huaian touched his arm and said, "My god, it's so ugly that I can't stand it."
"Haha!" Yang Chunyan and Wan Xuejiao looked at him and laughed so hard that they couldn't straighten their backs.
The four men shaved the branches clean, cut them into sections, put them in a backpack and carried them down the mountain.
Dahei ran in front with the dog, looking back at his owner from time to time.
Zhou Huaian checked his watch and said, "It's already past five o'clock. It will be at least seven o'clock when we get down the mountain."
"The best time to hunt is at dusk, when pheasants and turtledoves start to return to their nests. I can catch a few and make soup."
"I'm afraid the mountain and the sea in the net bag will all die!"
"Just go back and pick out the dead ones."
The two chatterboxes kept chattering along the way, while Yang Chunyan and Wan Xuejiao kept on going.
The sun slowly went down, the forest became dark, and birds chirped non-stop in the treetops.
After shooting two pheasants, the few of them came to a pine forest. "Woof woof...Woof woof..." Dahei, who was walking in front, spread his four hooves and rushed into the forest with the dogs.
"Youngest, there's stuff in the forest!" Zhou Yiding stopped and began to take off the basket on his shoulders. Wan Xuejiao hurried forward to help take it.
"Got it!" With the help of Yang Chunyan, Zhou Huaian quickly put down his backpack and picked up his gun. "Yan'er, you two wait here."
She nodded and warned, "Be careful!"
"Hey!" Before he finished speaking, two people were already running into the woods with guns in hand.
Wan Xuejiao looked at Zhou Yiding worriedly, "Sister-in-law, they said there are wild boars in the forest. Can they kill them with guns?"
"They can kill him!" Yang Chunyan patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, they should have seen a wild goat."
Over there, Zhou Huaian and the others looked at the little creature surrounded by Dahei and the others, then looked at Lai Fu who was spinning in pain, and the porcupine quills on its mouth and head, and said with a smile: "Oh my! It's so bold that it even dares to bite a porcupine!"
Zhou Yiding picked up Fu and pulled out the porcupine quills on its mouth. "Tsk tsk! Like master, like dog!"
Zhou Huaian stroked Dahei and said, "Why don't you say that your master didn't teach you well?"
"Stupid people have many excuses. My master didn't teach me well. Why didn't Wangcai bite me?"
"Woof woof~Woof woof~" Lai Fu barked in pain after the thorn was pulled out.
Zhou Huaian hurriedly picked it up, "Oh my! How pitiful! Your mouth is bleeding, go back and ask your master to apply medicine on you." He picked up the gun and stood up, "Ding Ding cat, you can take care of the porcupine."
Zhou Yiding looked at the huddled porcupine and said, "Forget it, this thing is not tasty. Just let it go since it looks so pitiful!"
"Yeah, let's go!"
The two of them brought the dog back to Yang Chunyan and the others. Zhou Huaian handed Lai Fu to her and said, "Look, this stupid dog didn't catch the prey, but his mouth was poked into a sieve by others."
Yang Chunyan looked at the blood spots on Laifu's mouth and quickly took out the hemostatic medicine. "Did you encounter a porcupine or a hedgehog?"
Zhou Huaian took the medicine and sprinkled it on Lai Fu's mouth, "Porcupine! Wangcai didn't even eat it, but this greedy guy did."
Yang Chunyan looked at the pitiful Lai Fu and said, "Where are the quills you pulled out? Porcupine quills can be used as medicine. They can also be used as floats for fishing rods. They are better than what you make with goose feathers!"
"It was thrown into the woods!" Zhou Yiding turned and ran, "I'll go pick it up."
"I'll go take a look too." Wan Xuejiao followed.
Yang Chunyan watched her run away and said with a smile: "Didn't you say Xuejiao looks like a boy? I think she's pretty good!"
"Of course she's different now that she's grown up!" Zhou Huaian put Lai Fu down, "When she was little, she was more active than boys. When she came here to play, she would go mowing the grass with us every day, go fishing in the ditch, catch fish from mountains and seas, dig out bird nests, and climb trees faster than me."
By the time the four returned to the forest farm, it had already fallen dark.
After putting the purple Ganoderma lucidum away and drying the Paris polyphylla and Polygonatum sibiricum in the basket, I started to cook dinner.
Zhou Huaian and his friend killed chickens and cleaned wild crabs, while the two women were busy washing mushrooms and looking for vegetables to cook.
Yang Chunyan broke off a few bags of tender corn in the vegetable garden, picked a handful of cabbage sprouts, and picked some cowpeas to prepare cowpea rice.
"Sister-in-law, where are you going to find herbs tomorrow?"
"Go check out the Paris polyphylla that was left behind last time, and then go to the ditch to dig up the Asparagus cochinchinensis that was left behind last time."
"Sister-in-law, you are amazing. You can recognize so many herbs. I don't even recognize them when I see them. I will definitely learn from you when I have the chance in the future."
"Okay, as long as you are willing to learn, I will take you up the mountain."
…
At the foot of the mountain, the Zhou family had already had dinner.
Zhang Xiuxiang rubbed her sore arms, "No wonder people say that building a house is harder than the busy farming season. I've only worked for a day and not only are my arms sore, but even my soles hurt."
Zhou's mother laughed and said, "Repairing a house is always hard. We even hired help this time. The year we renovated the old house, you became a skeleton after the work was completed."
Zhou Huaijun took over the conversation, "I still remember that my eldest brother took me to help carry earth bricks. He could only carry one brick at a time. If I refused, he would beat me. When my grandmother saw it, she said that the beating was good. At that time, she carried the third child on her back and helped to comb wheat straw to cover the ridge of the house."
"Your grandma was a person with a sharp tongue but a soft heart. She suffered all her life, never wore a good piece of clothing, and passed away without even having a meal of white rice."
"Yes! My grandma was most worried about the youngest child at that time. It would be great if she were still alive!" (End of this chapter)
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