Xia Tiezhu glanced at him, as if he didn't know him, and continued walking forward.
Li Qiuxiang's youngest son looked at him curiously and frowned, "Brother, who is this? Did his head get caught in the door?"
"Li Laoer, our uncle!" Lin Xiaoshan said in a low voice, glanced at Li Laoer, and followed the three Xia Tiezhu brothers.
"Stop!" Li Laoer was so angry that he rushed forward and grabbed Xia Tiezhu, "Dazhu, I'm your uncle. Are you deaf when I talk to you? Your mother thinks your uncle is more important to you. Is this how your mother taught you to treat your uncle?"
"What kind of uncle are you?" Xia Tiezhu grabbed his hand and pushed it away, saying in a muffled voice, "My mother said that there are only four sisters and no brothers, and asked us to come out and not be fooled by those shameless people."
Lin Dashan stopped and looked at Li Laoer, and said sarcastically: "My mother said the same thing, and also said that there are many lazy, greedy and shameless people out there who like to take advantage of others.
Especially when they come to us and claim to be our uncle or aunt, we absolutely cannot believe them. If they are involved, we will never be able to get away from it for the rest of our lives."
Lin Xiaohu nodded repeatedly, "That's right. Growing up, I only knew that my mom was sold to my husband by her family. This is the first time I've heard of an outsider family!"
The others also looked at him with disgust, "Brother, cousin, let's go. If anyone dares to pull us again, we'll give him two lumps."
“Hahaha…” The villagers in the courtyard looked at the confused Li Laoer and shook their heads, “Young man, he really is your uncle, his biological son!”
Zhou Huaian was also very happy, thinking that the best way to deal with someone like Li Laoer was to ignore him.
"My mother said that we only have an aunt, not an uncle!" Xia Tiezhu replied honestly.
Li Lao Er was so angry that he jumped up and pointed at his cousins, "You are so rebellious that you dare not even acknowledge your uncle. Why didn't the thunder kill you when it struck, you disobedient and unfilial beasts?"
Lin Xiaohu sneered, "God is watching us from above, and you haven't been beaten yet, so it's not our turn.
"Yes, if we are going to fight, we should first fight those who drink the blood of sisters."
"Tsk tsk tsk! Li Lao Er, are you ashamed? You are a grown man and you have to behave like this. If I were you, I would have found a crack in the ground and crawled into it."
"How can he be ashamed? His family has no shame at all, how can they be ashamed?"
"that is……"
"You..." Li Laoer saw his nephews carrying baskets on their backs and leading mules and horses and leaving without looking back, but he had no choice but to pick up the baskets and catch up with the villagers who had already set out.
The villagers who were going home also came out with their belongings. Secretary Zhang led the big yellow ox, and Zhou Huaian helped him put the bamboo baskets on the pack frame, and everyone walked towards the village entrance.
"Youngest brother, youngest brother..." Old Yin shouted and chased after him, leading the mules and horses. The bells hanging on the mules and horses' necks became louder and clearer.
Zhou Huaian turned his head when he heard the shouts. Seeing that it was them, he stopped, took out a cigarette and handed it to them, "You guys are here too?"
The villagers in Lao Yin's village spontaneously organized a mule team. Two teams took turns driving the mules and horses to deliver the goods here. It seemed that they had stayed up all night again yesterday. Everyone had dark circles under their eyes, just like the national treasures in the provincial capital's zoo.
Old Yin smiled and nodded, taking the cigarette card and putting it to his ear. "We set out yesterday afternoon, and slept for three hours at Old Yang's place in the middle of the night, and then we all came out together." He pointed at the villagers walking towards the village entrance and said, "Did the road collapse?"
"Well! We'll have to trouble everyone to get you to the asphalt road."
"It's not a big deal. As long as we can make money, everyone would like to deliver goods like this every day."
Zhou Huaian patted him on the shoulder and turned to look at the mule team behind him. "How many people are here this time?"
"Including Bailingshan, there are 30 people in total." Old Yin pointed to the mushrooms wrapped in various leaves in the bamboo basket, "This time I also brought two bear gallbladders and more than three kilograms of Coriolus versicolor to sell for the fellow villagers."
"Okay, let's check the goods on the asphalt road!" Zhou Huaian turned around and waved at everyone, "Come on, brothers, there's still a long way to go, hurry up and get it done!"
"Okay!" The villagers behind patted the mules and horses and sped up.
Bells were hung on the necks of mules and horses, jingling and making the quiet mountain road lively.
After Li Laoer had walked for half the way, he felt as if his legs were filled with lead and he couldn't even lift them. He walked to the side of the road, put his backpack on a big rock and put it down.
He walked to a high place, stood on tiptoe, looked at the mule team in front, and finally saw Xia Tiezhu and his cousins.
He shouted at the top of his voice, "Dazhuzi, uncle, please, I really can't walk anymore, please help me bring the mushrooms over!"
Lin Xiaohu nudged Xia Tiezhu beside him and whispered, "Cousin, did you hear that?"
"I heard it, but don't look back and pretend you didn't hear it." Xia Tiezhu calmly led the mule forward.
As long as he thought about the suffering his mother had endured over the years at the hands of the old grandmother and bullied by his aunt and aunt in the Xia family, it would be impossible for him and his brothers to help Li Laoer.
He shouted until his throat was hoarse, but Xia Tiezhu's cousins who were walking in front seemed not to hear him and none of them turned back.
The villagers who came behind looked at him and laughed, "Li Laoer, we still have three or four hours to walk, why don't you just sell the mushrooms to me?"
Li Laoer thought this was a good idea and asked happily, "Laohei, how much do you pay per pound?"
"I don't know how much I can pick out of it..." Lao Hei thought for a while, "I'll sell it at half the price of Zhou Laoyao's. And I don't have any money on me. I'll have money to give you after I sell it."
Li Laoer curled his lips and said, "You wish! I don't have any money on me, and you want to buy my mushrooms at half price? I still have several kilograms of morels in my basket!"
"Forget it if you don't want to sell it." Lao Hei said casually. Of course it would be best if he could get a bargain, but it doesn't matter if he can't.
Seeing that everyone was walking away with their baskets on their backs, Li Laoer had no choice but to pick up his basket and follow them. The longer he walked, the more tired he felt. The mushrooms in the basket seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. Gradually, the people selling mushrooms walked further and further away.
He pulled his shoulder straps and walked faster, accidentally kicking a rock. "Oh my god!"
Li Laoer staggered a few times, and the mushrooms in his backpack scattered all over the ground. He also fell to the ground with a thump due to the influence of the backpack.
"If I had known earlier, half price would be better than no money at all!"
He muttered in pain, struggled to get the shoulder straps off, climbed up and sat on the wet mud.
Looking at the mushrooms scattered on the ground, as well as those that he had crushed, and the mushroom-selling team in front of him where there was no one to be seen, he cursed with a sad face.
"Dazhuzi, you son of a bitch... God will strike you with thunder sooner or later, and kill you, a disobedient and unfilial bastard!"
Xia Tiezhu rubbed his hot ears and turned his head to look behind him. There were villagers selling mushrooms behind him, and Li Laoer was nowhere to be seen. He shook his head and continued walking forward.
…
Yang Chunyan placed the beehive next to the wild beehive. Zhang Xiuxiang covered it with a felt blanket and found a stone to press it down. Then the two of them picked up the vegetable basket and walked towards the bamboo forest.
After a heavy rain, mushrooms grew everywhere in the forest, and even the bamboo fungi in the bamboo forest increased in number.
Li Qiuyue and Zhao Huifang went back carrying two full baskets. On their way here, each of them had picked up half of the basket.
"Chunyan, dig some bamboo shoots here and send the bamboo fungus back."
"That's great!" Yang Chunyan put down her backpack and vegetable basket and called Lai Fu in front of her, "Go back and come out again to see if those honey fungi have grown again?"
"I only picked up three or four pounds last time I went there. They should have grown this time." Zhang Xiuxiang used a hoe to dig up the dead leaves, then swung the hoe to dig up the bamboo shoots that were as thick as a bowl.
Yang Chunyan picked a densely grown bamboo shoot and dug it up. She picked it up and nailed the shoot flesh with her fingernails before putting it in her backpack. "It's delicious. It's big and tender."
Zhang Xiuxiang looked back and said, "Chunyan, I heard that some people used to put a water tank on the newly grown bamboo shoots, saying that the bamboo shoots would grow around the water tank, and when they opened the tank a year or two later, the bamboo shoots inside would still be tender."
"I think it might not be the water tank that was used. I remember there was a bamboo shoot in the clump behind the old house. One of the shoots grew under the rotten stone slab and it lifted up the stone slab."
Yang Chunyan remembered the short video she had seen before and tried it. As a result, when she went to check a few days later, the water tank had been knocked to the ground by the bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots were just a little bent and did not grow around the water tank at all.
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at the plump bamboo shoots in her hand and nodded, "You are right. I guess in the past, even if people wanted to stew bamboo shoots, they would probably use spotted bamboo shoots, not moso bamboo shoots."
The two sisters-in-law dug up twenty or thirty bamboo shoots and carried them back. When they reached the back mountain, they saw Zhou Jiaming squatting on the upper floor with his head down. The two looked at each other.
Zhang Xiuxiang said, "It looks like I didn't pass the exam."
"Huaian has already told Fang Dongming that he has a comrade-in-arms at Baima Junior High School and he has already made it clear to him." Yang Chunyan thought about his usual grades and felt that failing the exam was expected, but passing it was unexpected.
"That's good. First of all, it's not like before when we had to rely on the child to come back to help earn work points and share food rations. He's only a little over thirteen years old, so it's a bit young for him to come back to work."
When the two pushed open the gate and went in, they saw Zhao Huifang walking in angrily. When she saw the two of them, she handed the notice to Yang Chunyan.
"Look, 134 points is enough to get into Baima Junior High School. He was only 15 points short. If he had worked harder, he would have passed." Then he sighed, "Now I have to trouble Fang Dongming."
Yang Chunyan nodded after reading it. "This is the only way. You and your brother should ride your bikes to town and settle the enrollment as soon as possible."
"That's what we thought." Zhao Huifang pointed to the rooftop. "Look, we didn't scold him when we got home, but he got angry."
Zhang Xiuxiang advised: "Don't talk about him. It's normal for the child to feel sad because he didn't pass the exam."
"Oh!" Zhao Huifang said with envy, "Xiaoping was admitted to the No. 1 Middle School in the city, but my kid had to ask for favors even to get into Baima Junior High School. It's really frustrating to compare yourself with others!"
Yang Chunyan was also happy for Li Xiaoping after hearing this, and advised Zhao Huifang, "Sister-in-law, don't be angry. It's so difficult to get into junior high school. Jiaming only missed by 15 points this time, which proves that he finally tried his best." (End of this chapter)
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