The matter of the child in Guandi Temple came to an end, and Feng Qingxue took her sister to join the army of digging wild vegetables and picking young sprouts from leaves.

With the addition of these children, Feng Qingxue finally felt a sense of food shortage.

She truly witnessed what a swarm of locusts looked like.

Wherever the villagers of Caohu Brigade went, the land had been dug up cleanly. Not to mention wild vegetables, even there were few wild grasses left. They could earn work points by handing them in, one centimeter for five pounds of grass, which was the same rule as in Wanglou Brigade.

However, the weeds cannot be completely burned, they will grow again with the spring breeze.

Wild vegetables and weeds have very tenacious vitality. After the ground is clean for a few days, new ones will sprout up, and soon the ground will be green again.

Wild vegetables are not tasty, and the young leaves and buds are even less tasty.

Feng Qingxue followed the crowd and picked half a basket of willow buds. She washed them, blanched them in boiling water, took them out to dry, mixed them simply with oil and salt, and brought them to the table. Feng Qingyun frowned as soon as he took a bite.

"It's so bitter! Sister!" Feng Qingyun wanted to swallow it but didn't want to, and looked at Feng Qingxue eagerly.

Feng Qingxue took a bite and found it bitter and astringent.

This is how it tastes when you add oil, salt, sauce and vinegar to season it at home, but you can imagine how bitter it tastes when others just cook it with plain water.

But she still insisted on swallowing it, and said to Feng Qingyun seriously: "Yunyun, you have only had a few days of good life and you have forgotten the pain of not having food to eat? When you were a child, didn't you always enjoy the wild vegetables and willow buds? Sometimes you couldn't even eat them! Now is the time of the year when there is a shortage of food. Even for me, it is difficult to get food like in the late autumn and early winter. We have to eat sparingly."

Feng Qingyun held the willow bud in her mouth that she had not yet swallowed, biting her lower lip with her teeth, and looked at her stern-looking sister, wanting to cry but not cry.

"Sister..." Feng Qingyun's voice was a little choked.

"Yunyun..." Feng Qingxue placed her soft hand on her head, and her voice became much softer. "Didn't I tell you about Brother Guancheng and Brother Guanyu? There are so many orphans like them who beg for food everywhere. Have you forgotten that we also relied on begging to fill our stomachs after being kicked out of our homes? People can't forget the hardships of the past when they have a good life. When we first started to dig wild vegetables, you were so obedient and reminded me to dig more wild vegetables and dry them for storage. Have you forgotten?"

"I haven't forgotten, sister!" Feng Qingyun swallowed the willow buds in his mouth and pulled his sister's collar with his hand that was not holding the chopsticks. "I just had a good life with my sister for too long, and I can't swallow it for a while. I can eat it, I can eat it!"

As she spoke, she lowered her head and ate the willow buds in big mouthfuls and drank the sweet potato porridge in the bowl in big gulps.

Compared to people who have no food to eat, she is so lucky to have a good sister.

Later, Chen Ming and Xu Aiguo pulled several hundred kilograms of coarse grains to the air-raid shelter in Xishan. Feng Qingxue, who had received the news in advance, specially brought Feng Qingyun over and let her watch the several hundred kilograms of coarse grains being unloaded. They were all dried bean dregs, sweet potato dregs and chopped bean cakes. The only things that could truly be called food were half a sack of dried sweet potatoes and half a bag of sweet potato flour.

"My sister-in-law asked me to make these things, and I knew they were used to save people!" Chen Ming smoked a cigarette. The cigarette was a gift of white flour given by Feng Qingxue during the Chinese New Year. It was given by his leader, and he had never been willing to smoke it. He said to Jiang He seriously, "Boy, I picked them out for you from the farm. They don't taste good. Don't feel like I owe you a favor."

Chen Ming and Xu Aiguo, who used to be soldiers, care for these homeless orphans more than most people.