Yang Chunyan saw Zhou Huaian pushing his bicycle towards her uncomfortably from a distance, and hurried over to him, "What happened? Where did you fall?"
Zhou Huaian sighed, "Oh! Don't talk about it. I've been riding a bicycle for a whole day and my butt is broken into pieces."
When Yang Chunyan saw his walking posture, she immediately understood, "Did you get your skin rubbed off?" She looked at him with pity. It was bound to be painful after riding on the bumpy mountain road for more than ten hours.
Zhou Huaian acted coquettishly, "Yeah! It hurts so much, my tailbone hurts too."
Yang Chunyan took the bicycle and said softly, "I'll put some badger lard on you when we get home. Go to bed early tonight."
"Oh!" Zhou Huaian followed her back, "Is the mutton ready?"
Yang Chunyan looked at him with a smile, "I've been waiting for a long time but you didn't come back, so the old man and the eldest brother chopped half a head for braised lamb, and the other half for stewing a big pot of mutton soup. We took out the meat and cut it into two large bowls, and prepared rice noodles, radishes, pea tips... and mutton hot pot."
Zhou's mother was worried that the child she and Li Qiuyue gave birth to would get epilepsy after eating mutton, so she specially stewed some bone soup for the two of them to make hot pot.
Worried that the two couldn't control their eating habits, he gave an example, saying that a certain family ate mutton during pregnancy and their child was born with epilepsy.
Zhou Huaian swallowed his saliva, "I ate the pancakes and eggs you prepared for me at noon. Now I can eat a whole bowl of it."
"Enough!"
When they got home, Yang Chunyan asked Zhou Jiaming to go to Zhou Yiding and Zhou Datian's homes for dinner while she applied medicine to Zhou Huaian.
When he took off his pants, the skin on the tip of his buttocks was rubbed raw, and there were spots of blood on the crotch of his underwear...
Yang Chunyan wiped him with salt water with concern, then took out badger lard and smeared it on him, "Take a good rest at home tomorrow."
"Yeah!" Zhou Huaian lay on the bed. "I feel much more comfortable after applying the medicine. I will be fine after a day of rest tomorrow."
Yang Chunyan handed him his underwear and cotton trousers and said, "If you're going the day after tomorrow, take the sofa cushion with you to prevent the tractor cushion from being too hard and getting worn out."
"I'll stand in the truck bed and let Third Brother drive." Zhou Huaian said as he carefully pulled up his pants.
At this time, Zhou's mother called out from outside: "Chunyan, youngest, the pig's head and the sheep's head are ready, why don't you come out and worship?"
"Here it comes!" Zhou Huaian hurriedly pulled up his pants, and the wound on his butt was rubbed, causing him to grimace in pain.
When the two of them left the room, they found that pig heads and sheep heads, incense, candles, paper money, and wine cups were already placed on the Eight Immortals Table at the entrance of the main hall.
Yang Chunyan and the other person washed their hands and followed Zhou's mother to worship the gods.
First, I thanked the mountain god for his protection these days, and then I prayed to the mountain god and the land god to bless the children to walk smoothly in the mountains and enter and exit safely.
I pray to the Zhou family’s ancestors to bless the family with smooth travel and to give birth to a big fat grandson next year.
After the worship, Zhou Yiding's family and Zhou Datian and his family also arrived. After exchanging greetings, everyone sat around the clay stove and prepared to eat.
Zhou Daqing smiled and said, "Mutton or black goats taste better. I will raise a few in the forest farm next year."
Zhou Huairong: "It's no problem to raise seven or eight of them in the open space outside the yard."
Zhou Yiding came out and said, "Forget it. The old man has been running around with the logging team since the beginning of the spring, and in the end, it all fell on my head."
"That's right. Raising sheep for food is not as good as the wild goats we hunt in Huoshaolin." Zhou Huaian said as he sat down, and immediately stood up while holding his butt. "Ouch! It hurts so much."
"Hanzi, take the cushions and sit on them." Yang Chunyan handed two cushions to him and Zhou Yiding.
The two of them were placed on a stool, but they only dared to sit on it with half of their buttocks tilted.
Zhou Datian came over from the backyard, saw the two and joked, "What's wrong with you two? You're like a bullied wife!"
Zhou Huaian scratched his head, "I rode my bike to Baicaopao today... and it turned out like this after one lap!"
"No wonder. It's such a long mountain road. We, the old men, can't even ride for a whole day."
Zhou Huaishan: "The tractor road over there is much narrower than ours, just wide enough for a tractor to pass through. The dirt road is full of potholes and not flat at all."
Zhou Datian: "That bumpy dirt road was built in the 1960s by manpower drawn from various brigades. Before, the roads leading into the mountains were all narrow paths, and transporting things out of the mountains depended on mules and horses carrying people on their backs."
Li Qiuyue also said: "My mother and husband said that before the road was built, it took a whole day to go to town and back."
Zhou Huaian recalled how Qu Qiulin and his men left Huangqinggou at rooster crow and arrived at Funiu at noon. "Huangqinggou also relies on mules and horses to transport goods. Why don't they repair their road as well?"
The old man said: "Huangqinggou is a place with high mountains and steep roads. The population is also small. In some places, you can walk for a long time without seeing a single household. It is not easy to build a road!"
Zhou Datian: "Yes! The entire construction team had only two carts, and they relied on people to carry the materials on their shoulders and backs to work hard to build the road."
Father Zhou laughed and said, "We were very obedient back then. When the leaders shouted slogans, we were all excited and worked hard to get ahead and be the first!"
Zhou Daqing thought about it and felt that he was a bit silly at that time. "Young people nowadays are more concerned about practicality!"
Zhou Huaishan said with a smile: "You have high ideological awareness, we just want to fill our stomachs and have white rice and big fat meat to eat."
"Yes, what you eat is yours." Zhou Huaijun picked up a piece of mutton, dipped it in the dipping sauce, and put it in his mouth. "This dipping sauce is so delicious!"
"You should eat mutton with dog shit pepper, it tastes better than Sichuan pepper!" Zhou Huairong filled up the glasses for the others, "Let's drink first, then we can talk slowly."
Zhou Datian picked up a piece of mutton and rolled it in the dipping sauce. After eating it, he nodded repeatedly, "My family has never eaten dog shit peppers. I didn't expect it to taste so good!"
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "Chunyan likes to eat dog shit peppers. I picked a lot of them this year and kept them at home. If you like to eat them, take some back when you go."
Zhou Datian smiled and nodded, "Okay, I'll make some when I go back and make dipping sauce at the end of the year."
Dog shit pepper, also known as vine pepper, oil pepper, and fragrant pepper, is a plant with a unique aroma and taste. It belongs to the Rutaceae family, is three to nine feet tall, the tree is dark gray, and its branches and leaves are scattered and extended like vines. It is a perennial shrub with many sharp thorns on the stems and branches, and the leaves are slightly rough and wrinkled; or they are oval, with very short petioles or no petioles.
The inflorescence grows in the axils or at the top of the side branches at the same time. The fruit is purple-red with a few slightly raised oil spots, brown-black. The flowering period is April-May, and the fruiting period is August-October. It has a strong hemp flavor and is mostly eaten directly or seasoned with seasoning.
The single compound leaves grow in clusters, the flowers are small and numerous, the fruit oil is mostly shiny, and the taste is fragrant and volatile. It tastes more fragrant and spicy than Sichuan pepper, and the fried Sichuan pepper oil also has a richer flavor.
According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica", the fruit can be used as medicine to dispel cold and detoxify, disperse blood stasis and activate blood circulation, help digestion and strengthen the stomach, and increase appetite. The fruit can be dried and the aromatic oil, namely: Sichuan pepper oil, has the effects of seasoning, strengthening the spleen, and removing wind and dispersing cold.
Zhou Xiaomei looked at Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding who were sitting there with half of their buttocks tilted, "I never dreamed that my brother and Huaian would be able to persevere and do something good."
Wan Xuejiao felt both distressed and happy. In the past, some relatives said that Yiding was just a second-rate guy who made 10 or 20 yuan a month, and the money he earned was not enough to cover what he spent. Now, they all envied her and said that she was lucky to find a good family.
Li Qiuyue nodded. "That's right. I was too lazy to dry the snakes before. I thought they couldn't do it for two days at most."
Zhou Huaian glanced at her with dissatisfaction, "You look down on us! It's been more than half a year, haven't you seen what kind of life we've been through?"
Zhou Yiding echoed, "I get up earlier than the chickens and sleep later than the dogs. My once fair face has now become tanned black."
Zhou Xiaomei rolled her eyes, "You are dark in nature! How come Brother Huai'an does the same thing as you, but he is still white?"
Zhou Yiding: “…”
Zhou Huaian glanced at Yang Chunyan proudly, "Little sister, I am a natural beauty, you know that!"
Yang Chunyan glanced at him from another table and said silently, "Childish!"
Zhou Xiaomei burst out laughing, "Brother Huai'an is so funny, natural beauty is used to describe women, okay!"
"Then I am as handsome as a jade tree and as handsome as Pan An!"
Zhou's father thought he had no ears, and just as he was about to speak, Zhou Datian smiled and said, "When we were in the production team, every time the youngest son went to work in the fields, there were many girls who peeked at him!"
Zhao Huifang smiled and said, "There are people helping him harvest the grain!"
Zhou Huaian: "Don't talk nonsense! My Chunyan will be jealous later."
Zhou Xiaomei: "Sister-in-law, you see that Brother Huai'an is guilty, we have to interrogate him thoroughly."
Yang Chunyan smiled and nodded, "We need to interrogate him thoroughly."
Zhou Yiding gloated and shouted: "Sister-in-law, interrogation with abacus beads is the best!"
Zhou Huaian glared at him and said, "Your kid is going to have a wedding in the spring! Wait for it! Huh!"
Zhou Yiding immediately changed his words, "Sister-in-law, considering his butt is like that, please spare his life."
"Good boy, you changed your tune so quickly!"
"If you don't hurry up, it will be troublesome when you become the groom!"
Everyone burst into laughter after hearing this.
As everyone chatted and laughed, the mutton and side dishes in the bowl became less and less, until in the end there was only a mess on the table. A few children were still not satisfied and clamored to eat like this during the New Year. But their mothers scolded them and sent them home to cook pig food to feed the pigs.
Zhou's mother, Luo Haili, Zhou Datian and others returned to the old house together.
Yang Chunyan scooped the manure and pig feed into a pot and heated them up to feed the pigs.
Zhou Huaian entered the kitchen and picked up the pig feed bucket, "Yan'er, I'll carry it."
"Yeah!" Yang Chunyan held the oil lamp and walked with him towards the pigpen, "Do you feel better?"
"Much better." Zhou Huaian poured the pig feed into the trough. "Tomorrow Village Chief Qu will send truffles. I have to take the herbs they sent to Doctor Xiao Wang for a check."
Yang Chunyan felt that all the problems had come together. "It will take a few days for the scabs to form on the abraded areas. I think we should just wait for our third brother to come back and drive the tractor."
"Great!" Zhou Huaian picked up the pig manure rake and went into the pigsty. "It's better to feed pigs. Pigs won't poop everywhere. It's much cleaner than raising chickens."
"Laifu drove the chickens out of the backyard and back to the chicken coop. They got used to it and stopped running around." (End of this chapter)
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