After not having been here for two years, a lot of wild angelica seedlings have grown in this area, and some have already produced seeds. The three of them took out their handkerchiefs and collected the mature angelica seeds before starting to dig.
Zhou Yiding dug up a tree and said, "Look, the seedlings left behind have grown so big. The ones planted at home should be ready for digging next year, right?"
Yang Chunyan calculated, "Next year will be three years, so it should be possible to dig it up."
Zhou Huaian held up a wild angelica with a reed head thicker than the stick next to it and covered with roots. "Haha, I got a big one. It must have been missed last time."
"We won't sell this. We'll dry it and keep it for ourselves." Yang Chunyan took it with a smile and shook off the dirt. The air was filled with the sweet medicinal aroma of angelica.
The wild angelica root that Yang Chunyan dug up two years ago was dried and not sold at all. She distributed some to several families. When she stewed chicken or meat at home, she would put one angelica root in it. Everyone thought that the angelica root stewed meat tasted delicious.
Zhou Yiding: "Sister-in-law, wild angelica, wild codonopsis, lily, and white striata are particularly attractive to insects. Xuejiao said that the asarum you gave me last time is very useful. Let's look for it in the mountains this time."
Yang Chunyan nodded. "I haven't seen it before. If we don't find it here, we can go down the mountain to look for it in the ravine on the other side of the bamboo forest. Last time, Huai'an and I only walked halfway and went home."
After hearing this, Zhou Huaian thought of the ditch, "Ding Ding Cat, there is also a ditch on the mountain behind the bamboo forest. The water turns halfway and flows into another ditch and flows into the Xinhe River.
When can we go up the mountain and build a sluice gate at the diversion point of the ditch? Then when the weather is dry next year, the water will not be diverted to the new river. "
"After you go down the mountain to harvest the grain, you can go up the mountain to do it."
"The provincial capital will come to buy truffle wine next week. This time, we won't need to package it in batches. We'll just bring it over in large vats."
"If we don't have to repackage, it will save us a lot of trouble, but what about the wine jars? The big wine jars we use to make wine probably cost more than 20 yuan per sip, right?"
"It seems like they need that much!" Zhou Huaian paused, "Wang Zhen said that after they take it over and pack it, they will bring the wine jars back to us."
"That's more like it!"
The three of them picked up the large wild angelica and dug them up, leaving the small seedlings behind. As they went along, the wild angelica they dug up filled most of their backpacks.
Gradually, the sounds of birds in the forest became more frequent. The birds were jumping around on the branches, and Dahuang and Dahei were chasing the long-tailed pheasants from time to time.
Zhou Yiding gave Zhou Huaian a turn and said, "Listen, youngest brother, the birds are starting to return to their nests. Let's quickly fill up the gap here and go check out the woods over there."
"That's right!" Zhou Huaian quickened his movements.
Seeing that the two were in a hurry to go hunting, Yang Chunyan said to them, "Take me to the ditch and I will wash the Achyranthes bidentata and Angelica sinensis. You two can go to the forest to hunt."
Zhou Huaian hesitated for a moment, "Can you do it alone?"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "There's nothing near the yard, so why not?"
Zhou Yiding heard this and said, "Sister-in-law, I'll leave the rhubarb to you. My husband said there are pheasants and meat in the cave behind the house. You can do whatever you want."
"Okay!"
The three of them filled the hole they had dug and returned to the ditch together. Zhou Huaian picked up the backpack from the ditch and said, "Yan'er, we'll go for a run and be back soon."
"Don't run too far. It's not safe in the woods after dark." Yang Chunyan thought about it and reminded the two of them.
Zhou Huaian said: "Don't worry, I'll be back in an hour or two at most."
Zhou Yiding patted Dahuang, left it behind, and crossed the ditch with Dahei and Zhou Huaian, running towards the woods opposite.
Yang Chunyan picked up the backpack from the ditch and saw that the mud stuck on the cow's knees had been almost washed away by the running water. She pulled a handful of grass, tied two bundles of grass together, and squatted by the ditch to clean them.
Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding entered the woods, and the sounds of various birds chirping filled their ears. The woods were even busier than a vegetable market early in the morning.
"The pheasants and rabbits in the forest behind the mountain were scared away by the mushroom pickers. Chunyan and I went in several times, but we didn't even find a pheasant feather."
"My husband said that more people went hunting in the mountains this year than last year. They may not be interested in pheasants, which have little meat, so they all went to look for wild goats."
"Are there still people stealing and cutting down the agarwood trees on the mountain?"
"Of course not. We caught a few a few days ago, but they were scared away by my shooting. Two of them were cut down, and one was cut in half. They died. I wanted to buy them, but some relative of the farm manager wanted them, so they took them away."
Zhou Huaian turned around and asked, "Is the stump still there?"
"Yes! All three are big." Zhou Yiding said with a smile, "Let's go to the north tomorrow, pay the old man Lin who is guarding the wood, and ask him to help us."
"OK!"
"Woof woof woof!" The big black cat walking in front suddenly ran towards a bush. A moment later, a pheasant screamed in panic and flapped its wings and fled quickly.
Zhou Huaian and the other man did not shoot, but just followed Dahei. They saw it leap up, open its big mouth and grab the pheasant's tail. It pulled the pheasant down from the bushes and bit it on the neck. The pheasant flapped its wings a few times and then became motionless.
Zhou Huaian stepped forward and patted it, "Great!"
Zhou Yiding picked up the pheasant and put it in his net bag, pointing to the hillside in front of him. "That's where I picked the purple Ganoderma lucidum I gave you last year. There were still a few small ones when I picked them up. Let's go up and take a look."
"That's right!"
"He Dakuan came to my place last night and returned the bullets he borrowed from me. We haven't played together for only two or three years, but I see he already has white hair."
"Anyway, ever since he left me in the woods and ran away last time, I haven't had any good feelings towards him."
"There is another thing. He asked Erchun to ask me about growing mugwort. I don't know when he hid in the corner of the south wall of my house. I think he might be eavesdropping on my conversation with Erchun."
"I think he's a bit sinister. My old man said that Dakuan's way of dealing with people is not as good as Cai Ermei's. He is bad in an open way, but he is evil in a shady way. If you are not careful, you will get into trouble!"
"I also feel it's weird. No matter what he does, we will never be the same as before."
"That's right, if we are not of the same kind, we should avoid each other."
When the two climbed halfway up the slope, Zhou Huaian discovered that there were quite a few red roots growing here. Just as he was about to point them out to Zhou Yiding, he pointed to the tall ferns in front and said:
"Youngest, the people in the forest farm call it the 'golden dog'. If someone gets cut and bleeds, they pick the hairs at the root of the dog to stop the bleeding. It works really well."
Zhou Huaian looked at the golden dog fern that was at least two or three meters tall. From top to bottom, he saw that the golden hairs growing at its roots were tall and thick, and it really looked a bit like a yellow-haired dog lying on the ground.
He went forward and touched it. It was thin and soft, just like touching cotton. "It should be a medicinal herb that can stop bleeding. I'll get some and bring it back to Chunyan later."
"That's right!"
The golden dog fern is a nationally endangered rare plant, also known as the laodizuochuan fern.
The golden hairs at its root are a good hemostatic drug. The traditional Chinese medicine name is Cibotium barometz. If you have a bleeding wound, stick the hairs of Cibotium barometz on it and the bleeding will stop immediately.
The rhizome also has the effects of nourishing the liver and kidneys, strengthening the waist and knees, eliminating rheumatism, strengthening the tendons and bones, and promoting diuresis and relieving stranguria.
The two men climbed up, and when they were almost at the top of the slope, Dahei, who was walking in front, stopped. He seemed to smell something wild. The hair on his neck stood up, and he let out a "woop". He rushed to the top of the slope and quickly ran down the mountain.
"Youngster, there's something!" Zhou Yiding picked up his gun and chased after him.
"Okay!" Zhou Huaian hurriedly followed him.
After Zhou Yiding went up the hill, he saw several wild animals with long white hair on their necks and heads a bit like black goats, but much taller than sheep, in the narrow valley below the hillside. They were frightened by Dahei's barking and ran quickly towards the steep cliff.
"What the hell~" Zhou Yiding screamed, "There's a weird creature here!" He shouted, and immediately aimed at the last wild animal that had jumped onto the rock, and fired two shots in succession.
After a gunshot, the man at the end staggered a few times and fell off the cliff.
Zhou Yiding held the gun in the same position as before. He aimed at the fleeing monster on the opposite side and fired another shot, but this time the shot missed.
The remaining few four-legged beasts sped up their escape, and they were seen jumping and running freely on the steep cliff as if they were walking on flat ground.
Zhou Yiding felt that he had no way of hitting them given their jumping speed, so he simply retracted his gun to avoid wasting bullets.
At this time, Zhou Huaian also caught up. When he saw the wild animal running quickly on the cliff, he was stunned, "What the hell! What is that?"
"It's been about 13 or 14 years. The forest farm once killed one that was bigger than a calf. The old scholar who was assigned to the forest farm said its name was a serow. It can eat grass from birth, and its bones can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis."
Zhou Huaian pointed at the wild animal on the opposite slope with surprise, "Not bad, you can kill one even though you run so fast."
Zhou Yiding raised his eyebrows proudly, "That's right, don't you see who fired the shot! The sharpshooter who can hit the target from a hundred paces away is someone like me."
"Next time you don't have to shoot, just blow your trumpet to blow the wild animal down." Zhou Huaian glanced at him with a smile and ran towards the valley below the slope.
"Get out of here!" Zhou Yiding also ran down.
Standing on a rock and watching the howling Big Black that had long since run away, when he saw them coming down, he turned around, jumped down, and ran back.
Zhou Huaian looked at the creature lying on the ground. "Oh my goodness, it really is a creature of four different shapes. Look how much its horns resemble a deer's. Its hooves are a bit like cow's hooves. Its head is a bit like a goat's. Especially its face, which is a bit like a cow's!"
"If it hadn't looked like this, it wouldn't be called a weird creature!" Zhou Yiding pointed at Dahei, who was coming down the cliff in a dejected manner, and said:
"They say it's a four-legged beast. It can walk freely even on the steepest rocks and jump like the wind. When it's in the woods, it runs as fast as the wind. Dogs can't catch up with it at all."
The two looked at the wild animals on the ground and thought that nature was so amazing that it could grow such wild animals. (End of this chapter)
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