Chapter 487: Everyone Who Sees It Has a Part
When Gao Mingcheng came in with bones and pork, both Gao Yuanjian and Luo Xiaohua had smiles on their faces. Even Huang Su'e, who came with her child to eat, had a look of joy on her face.
Huang Su'e's eldest son is three years old and is playing with a stick. He is tanned because he often runs outside. Huang Su'e's belly is slightly bulging, as if she is pregnant again.
Gao Mingcheng was stunned, then he calculated the date and remembered that his eldest brother's daughter would be born next spring, which means that she is pregnant now.
So that's why. No wonder his mother always sided with Huang Su'e when Huang Su'e and Zhang Jinling quarreled before. Besides the fact that she liked Huang Su'e more, it was also because Huang Su'e was pregnant.
Gao Mingcheng put the meat down, briefly explained his intention, and prepared to leave, to avoid another quarrel after just three words.
Even so, after he left, his mother still had something to complain about.
"The thing the second son is carrying is for the family at the back, right? Oh, there are only a few people in his family, but they actually gave him so much meat! The second son, who has such a crooked arm, was born in vain!"
Gao Yuanjian also felt unhappy because the meat Gao Mingcheng gave to his grandmother's family was obviously more than that given to his own family.
But what they didn't know was that Gao Mingcheng was going to have lunch at his grandmother's house, so he brought more meat with him. He had a big appetite, so a lot of the meat would end up in his stomach.
Gao Mingcheng walked into his grandmother's yard carrying a basket of meat and bones, and immediately heard Xiao Yuanyuan's soft and cute voice.
"Uncle!~"
"Hey, Xiao Yuanyuan, how are you? Uncle brought you some meat to eat!" Gao Mingcheng stretched out his hand and touched Xiao Yuanyuan's face. The child's skin was as tender as a peeled egg.
"Brother Mingcheng, grandma is asking me to go to Niuweiling to call you over for dinner. Did you go into the mountains to hunt wild boars?" Gao Zhuang took off the straw hat on his head and took the basket from Gao Mingcheng's hand.
He looked at the basket of meat and bones, and looked at Gao Mingcheng with admiration.
Brother Ming Cheng is really amazing! He caught a wild boar from the mountain so quickly and cleaned it up!
"It wasn't me who hit him. It was Black Tiger and the Elf." Gao Mingcheng smiled and briefly explained what happened. Then he saw He Xiuman carrying the basket into the kitchen.
Grandma Xi was cooking in the kitchen. When she saw Gao Mingcheng bringing so much meat, she immediately said to Gao Zhuang, "Zhuangzhuang, there's not much water left in the jar. Go get two buckets of water from the well!"
"Hey." Gao Zhuang responded, walked into the kitchen, picked up the bucket and shoulder pole on the ground, and skillfully carried the empty bucket out.
Gao Mingcheng looked at Gao Zhuang's back and found that in just a few years, Gao Zhuang's shoulders had become thicker, which was caused by carrying too much burden.
As the grandmother grew older, she looked more and more old. One of her shoulders was completely deformed due to carrying loads all year round.
This is the mark left on the farmers by the hard times.
He Xiuman decided to cook by herself and asked her grandmother to go out and talk to Gao Mingcheng.
Grandma Xi smiled and said, "Mingcheng is not a stranger. When Zhuangzhuang comes back with water, the two brothers can talk. I'll light the fire for you. You clean the other pot. We can stew the bones in one pot and cook the vegetables in the other. We can stew the ribs Mingcheng brought, and salt the meat and eat it tomorrow."
Gao Mingcheng sent over ten pounds of ribs, two pounds of front leg meat, and half a side of lard, which was definitely enough for everyone to enjoy a hearty meal.
An hour later, the ribs were cooked and gave off a rich meaty aroma that filled the entire yard. The neighbors who lived near Grandma Xi's house felt that the vegetarian dishes in their bowls became increasingly boring after smelling the meaty aroma.
Hey, why didn’t they establish a good relationship with Gao Mingcheng earlier?
Everyone enjoyed the pork ribs dinner to their heart's content. Even Xiao Yuanyuan ate three pieces of ribs, leaving her face and hands covered in grease.
At the dinner table, grandma said that she had planted a lot of sweet potatoes this year, and after digging the sweet potatoes, she planned to make some sweet potato flour.
Grandma Xi said, "Mingcheng, you like sweet potato noodles, I will send you a few kilograms when the time comes."
Gao Mingcheng immediately remembered that year when the weather was dry. His grandmother also planted a lot of sweet potatoes and prepared to make sweet potato flour. However, there was no water in the well in the old village, so they took the sweet potatoes and tools to Niuweiling and made sweet potato flour using the well in Gao Mingcheng's house.
Although Gao Mingcheng doesn't like sweet potatoes very much, every household in Gaojia Village grows them, and he is no exception. He just doesn't plant much, only about three acres of land. He can eat the sweet potato leaves in the summer and dig out some sweet potatoes in the autumn.
Gao Mingcheng asked his grandmother how many sweet potatoes the family had planted this year.
Gao Zhuang answered quickly: "I planted two acres of mountain land!"
Gao Zhuang hates eating sweet potatoes the most, because when he was a child, he ate them every day when they were ripe, and he became sick from eating them!
But grandma Xi was very persistent. Her reason was that she wanted to grow more sweet potatoes so that she could make sweet potato noodles. Xiuman loved it!
With Xiuman saying that she loves to eat it, Gao Zhuang accepted it and managed the two acres of sweet potato field with a pinch of his nose.
Sweet potatoes are easy to grow and do not require much fertilizer.
However, sweet potatoes need to be turned over. If the spreading sweet potato vines are left for a long time, they will grow roots that penetrate into the soil, and then small sweet potatoes will grow.
But in this way, the taproot will not be able to grow big sweet potatoes, which means it is a loss overall.
Therefore, you need to turn the sweet potato vines every once in a while to prevent the vines from growing roots.
In the process of turning over the vines, it is inevitable that the vines will be broken, and those broken vines will become food for the pigs.
Gao Mingcheng was also a little surprised. There were quite a lot of sweet potatoes in two acres of land. It would be a big project to make all of them into sweet potato flour.
But speaking of land, Gao Mingcheng had to remind him: "Grandma, next year you will all move to the county, so we won't be able to farm the land in this village. Do you plan to leave it idle or lend it to others for farming?"
When talking about this, the grandmother's face was full of heartache and confusion.
She really couldn't bear to leave the land in the village!
If it weren't for the future of her grandson and great-granddaughter, grandma would never leave Gaojia Village.
Having lived in the village all her life, she knows people's hearts well. No matter whether it is borrowed or rented to others to grow crops, over time, it will become someone else's!
Even if it is left there idle, others will occupy some of it today and some of it tomorrow. After a long time, it will still belong to others.
Even if I want to quarrel at that time, I won’t be able to win because there are few people in my family.
Whenever she thought of this, she tossed and turned and couldn't sleep because of the heartache.
Looking at his grandmother's distressed expression, Gao Zhuang couldn't help but say that he didn't want to live in the county anymore.
He thought for a moment and said, "I plan to plant rice seedlings in the fields. As for the land close to home, I will plant it, but forget about the land that is too far away."
"You have to plant crops in the fields, because we still have to pay taxes. The yield from seedling transplanting is lower, but it's better than nothing, and it's much easier. We plant some drought-resistant and easy-to-care crops, such as sweet potatoes, soybeans, peanuts, winter melons, pumpkins, etc. As long as there's a harvest, it's fine."
"I will come back every few days by bike, and I can also come back to work with you, Brother Mingcheng."
After listening to Gao Zhuang's plan, Gao Mingcheng nodded in approval.
He always had to go back to Gaojia Village every now and then, so it was okay for him to bring Gao Zhuang back to work with him.
Otherwise, if we suddenly stop farming, my grandmother would definitely find it hard to accept it.
He said, "That's great. Let's do it this way! The village is our root, and we really can't give it up."
After getting Gao Mingcheng's approval, Gao Zhuang's face was full of smiles and he nodded happily.
This method really takes everyone's feelings into consideration. Xi Nainan and He Xiuman both accept it. If the land was to be completely abandoned, not only Xi Nainan, but He Xiuman would not be able to accept it either.
She longs for life in the county, but at the same time she has a deep love for the land.
For farmers, losing their land is like a fish without water; both are difficult to accept.
After dinner and chatting for a while, Gao Mingcheng slowly returned to Niuweiling.
The cut meat is placed in the main room and covered with a layer of cotton cloth to effectively prevent flies from biting.
Next to the meat, three dogs were sitting there in a row, as if they were half asleep and half awake. When they heard Gao Mingcheng's footsteps, the three dogs stood up one after another and came forward, wagging their tails.
"Well done, you are all good employees for sticking to your posts!" Gao Mingcheng praised them and decided to leave more meat for the three dogs.
Everything was normal at home, so he walked towards the chicken coop. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature was very high. The lime water in the chicken coop had dried up, the ground was white, and there were footprints of some chickens left there.
Next to the chicken coop, there was a basket of camphor leaves and mugwort, which were obviously intended to be laid on the ground after it was completely dry.
Gao Mingcheng just laid it out and picked up a few eggs from the chicken coop.
Eggs also have a shelf life. If the temperature is high, they will easily go bad, so no matter how many eggs you pick up, you have to bring them back to the county to sell them.
Yesterday Xuanmei said that there was no firewood left in the county, so he planned to pack some firewood and take it back. Maybe it was because people were used to it, but they always thought that dishes cooked with firewood tasted better.
But Gao Mingcheng thinks this is because it is easier to control the temperature when burning firewood than when burning coal briquettes. If you want a low fire, just remove some firewood. If you want a high fire, just add more firewood.
As for coal briquettes, the fire is weak at the beginning, and when it is completely burned, the fire is too strong, and the heat cannot be changed according to different dishes.
Gao Mingcheng came to the place where firewood was piled up and used an axe to split the whole logs into pieces, each about thirty centimeters long. As for the small branches, they were not convenient to stack and could not be burned, so they were left in the village for use.
After putting the chopped firewood in the truck bed, Gao Mingcheng took a bamboo basket and went to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables.
At this moment, peppers and eggplants are still on most people's plates. Lentils, edamame, bok choy, shepherd's purse, loofah, pumpkin, water spinach, etc. are also regular guests on the dinner table.
The lentils were planted next to the chicken coop. The vines were wrapped around the branches, blooming and producing pods.
Plant five or six lentil vines and you'll have enough to eat for a long time.
However, the cowpeas and cucumbers planted in early spring have grown old and the vines have withered.
Gao Mingcheng picked a whole basket of vegetables and put them on the truck bed. Then he put the eggs he had picked up from the chicken coop today, and finally the wild boar meat.
Zhang Chengyuan burned the hair off the wild boar's head and feet and washed them clean. Gao Mingcheng gave Zhang Chengyuan a pig's foot, some water oil, a few pounds of dragon bones and a pound of hind leg meat.
The rest were placed in a clean bamboo basket, and the internal organs were placed in a separate bamboo basket to prevent the fishy smell from spoiling the meat. On the top of the meat, there were two pieces of meat, both strung with palm leaves. One was given to Gao Shouwang, who was a partner, and the other was given to Huang Dazhi's parents' home.
It is said that whoever sees it gets a share, so naturally they cannot be left out.
(End of this chapter)
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