Since that day's quarrel, Qiuhua no longer greeted Jiang Guihua when she met her. She was also a bit of a woman with a bad temper.
There are two camphor trees outside the yard of Master's house. They were planted by her father when she was a child. After decades, they have grown into towering trees.
Camphor trees are evergreen trees with basically no yellowing leaves. They are full of vitality even when the weather is freezing cold.
But something was wrong this year. First, the leaves of the tree on the left turned yellow and began to fall off slowly, gradually becoming bald. Then the leaves of the tree on the right also turned yellow. Finally, both trees became bald and lifeless.
"Master, there's something wrong with the two trees at the door." Qiuhua went out to get some water and looked up again and again.
Jiang Xiang also looked over and said, "Something's wrong. Why is it withering?"
Qiuhua muttered in his heart: Master, you really are oblivious to what’s happening outside the window. You only noticed when the tree was about to fall!
"Oh no! I'm afraid he still can't be saved!"
After all, Qiuhua does farm work at home, so she has some common sense about planting trees. It is definitely abnormal that all the leaves of the camphor tree are withered and falling, and the trunk is dry.
A tree that has been there for decades will naturally have strong vitality, and it would definitely not look like this for no reason.
Qiuhua hurried back to the house and took out a hard bamboo broom, and swept the dirt outside against the tree roots.
After a few diggings, the superficial soil was swept away, revealing a layer of white snowflake-like substance.
"What is this?" Jiang Xiang squatted down to look.
Qiuhua picked up a little and put it under her nose to smell it, then licked it with her tongue.
It's salt! Pure white salt! I guess there's several kilograms of it!
She swept aside another tree and saw the same thing.
In other words, the two trees were maliciously filled with salt water. When the water dried up, white salt was left behind. The two old trees could not withstand it and died.
"Master, it's salt." Qiuhua held the broom tightly in his hand, anger rising from the bottom of his heart, "How despicable!"
"This..." Jiang Xiang was so shocked that she was speechless. Her family had a good relationship with other people in the village, so how could such a thing happen?
"This kind of trick is common in the village. I saw it when I was a child. They don't dare to harm people, so they harm the trees in front of people's houses. How despicable! Master, I know who it is..."
Jiang Xiang looked around nervously, signaled Qiuhua to stop talking, and quickly pulled her into the house.
"Qiuhua, be careful, there are ears on the other side of the wall!"
Qiuhua nodded, and after entering the house, he whispered, "Master, what are you going to do? Are we just going to endure this?"
"Of course not. I can't bear it."
Even someone as good-tempered as Master cannot stand this. If he tried to stand this for a moment, he would probably get mad to death!
"Let's keep quiet and wait for your uncle to come back tonight. We have no evidence right now. The two trees are already dead, and they won't do anything again. We have to think of a solution."
When Zhou Shengnan came back in the evening, he was in a good mood and brought back half a roast chicken, but the mood was a little low at dinner time.
"What's going on? Why are you all eating white rice?"
Zhou Shengnan gave the only chicken leg to Jiang Xiang, who then gave it to her son.
"I have something to tell you." She put down the bowl.
"Why did you put your bowl down? Eat while talking!" Zhou Shengnan was about to pick up some food for Jiang Xiang again.
She stopped him and said, "Just listen to me first. You'll have an appetite only after I finish talking about this. You've been mad at me all afternoon."
"Okay, okay, you talk, I listen."
Jiang Xiang told Zhou Shengnan everything about Qiuhua's discovery of salt under the camphor tree in the afternoon. The expression on Zhou Shengnan's face changed from confusion to shock, and then to anger. In the end, he rushed out with a broom without even eating, and after a while, he swept out a pile of salt.
"Great, you're going to make an enemy of me, Zhou Shengnan!" He returned to the house and sat down, asking, "Tell me, have I been too easy to talk to since I got married, making people forget that I used to be a troublemaker?"
After hearing what he said, Jiang Xiang's originally stern face actually smiled.
"Don't come on, you devil! Look who's afraid of you!"
"Haha, that's good to hear. Just laugh. They've destroyed our trees, and if you can't eat because of this, that's exactly what they want. Let's eat our meal and solve this problem."
"How to solve it?"
"Eat. Don't worry, I'm here."
After dinner, the three of them gathered together to discuss, sometimes serious, sometimes joking, sometimes frowning, sometimes beaming with joy.
Thinking about this all night, Qiuhua didn't sleep well and woke up the next day with dark circles under his eyes.
She dug out all the salt from the roots of the tree, and then fetched two buckets of water to water the tree thoroughly.
"Qiuhua, can this tree be saved?" Jiang Xiang came out from the yard.
"Yes, of course. My eldest brother is a tree planting expert. He once told me about this situation. The camphor tree is different from other trees. It has strong vitality. I just removed all the salt and watered it. It's been warm these few days and it won't freeze. It will be alive in a week."
Qiuhua squatted on the ground to loosen the soil of the tree and slowly watered it.
"Hey, what are you doing?" The second deputy hall master and Jiang Guihua walked past the door.
"Well, I don't know who poured salt water under my tree. The tree is almost dead. Qiuhua is trying to save it."
The second deputy hall master looked up and saw that the two trees really looked like they would not live long.
"These two trees seem to have been planted by your father. What a pity! We should save them if we can!"
"Yes, I can save you."
Qiuhua looked up and smiled at the two of them. Jiang Guihua leaned over and asked, "Can you really save him?"
"Why not? My eldest brother is an expert in tree planting. He was specially trained by the county. He taught me."
The two people who had not spoken to each other for a long time asked and answered each other about the two trees today.
"Okay, we have something else to do, so we'll leave first. You guys take your time." The second deputy hall master walked forward, but turned around and saw his daughter still squatting.
"Osmanthus, what are you doing? Hurry and go!"
"Okay, here I come."
After the two of them walked away, Qiuhua stood up and said to himself, "It should be useful!"
It gets dark early in winter, so the family eats dinner early and goes back to their rooms.
Winter nights in the countryside are too cold, so most people go into bed after dinner.
At this time, a faint rustling sound was heard at the gate of Jiang Xiang's house.
"Who! Don't move!"
Suddenly, a black shadow jumped out and kicked the camphor tree hard. The opponent fell to the ground with a groan. The courtyard door opened with a crash and several people rushed out of the house.
"Follow me in!" Zhou Shengnan carried the person on the ground into the house.
Jiang Guihua fell to the ground in a mess, holding an empty bucket in her hand, and her body was covered with wet mud.
“It’s you!”
Qiuhua was the last one to come in from outside, holding a wooden basin filled with freshly dug soil.
"What right do you have to hit people?" Jiang Guihua threw the bucket, still full of momentum.
"Qiuhua, go call the second deputy hall master."
"Okay." Qiuhua turned and left.
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