Chapter 16
Since we've already come all this way, spending half an hour on the road just to get this little bit of reed fluff seems like a waste.
Shu Wanxiu finally convinced herself.
The sack of reed fluff she was carrying on her shoulder was not suitable for getting wet, so she had to take off her shoes and go into the reeds to try it out.
Wild animals have exceptionally sensitive ears; they will flee immediately at the slightest sound.
Shu Wanxiu was self-aware and knew that her movements of moving the reeds would not escape their notice, so she set her sights on collecting wild duck eggs and wild chicken eggs.
She set a time limit for herself; if she hadn't found anything after half an hour, she would stop wasting her time.
With a clear goal and a defined timeframe, the speed naturally increases.
She parted clumps of reeds, her eyes scanning the surroundings quickly.
No, no, still no.
After experiencing disappointment after disappointment, Shu Wanxiu looked up at the sky and buried herself in her work.
Clump after clump, and clump after clump, she still didn't find any eggs, but she did discover an old bird's nest.
At least this proves that her idea was correct; there are indeed birds living here.
She became even more focused and absorbed in it. Whether she stepped into a cold puddle or suddenly sank into soft mud, nothing could distract her or make her stop.
About fifteen minutes later...
Even if Shu Wanxiu stood on tiptoe, she could no longer see the shore or the water.
She didn't know exactly how far she had walked, only guessing that she was probably already in the middle of a reed bed.
Along the way, she saw small crucian carp that had died from being stranded in the reeds and were already rotting and smelling bad, and she found a few feathers of different colors on the reed leaves.
Now, the air around her nose is filled with the musty, damp smell and the earthy odor. The howling autumn wind outside can't reach this place; it's warm here.
Wait! Warmth?!
In an instant, Shu Wanxiu was blessed with good fortune.
Humans crave warmth in autumn and winter, and so do animals.
There are no snakes in winter because they hibernate in their burrows. Pheasants and wild ducks don't hibernate, but they still need to find a warm place to build their nests for the winter, right?
Isn't this a warm place?
She immediately began searching more meticulously.
Persistence pays off. Finally, in a withered haystack, she found a nest of eggs, mottled and dark green, tightly covered by gray-black feathers and reeds.
They are slightly smaller than regular eggs and have a rougher shell, but the shell color is very beautiful.
Shu Wanxiu was overjoyed.
She eagerly reached into the nest to pick up the eggs, but when she touched the eggshells, she was surprised to find that the shells were still warm.
Her smile froze, and after carefully examining her surroundings, she noticed some webbed footprints.
This must be a nest built by wild ducks.
Looking into the nest again, there were ten beautiful green duck eggs neatly arranged.
"well!"
"You need to hatch the babies, and I need food."
"I'm sorry."
She took the eggs out one by one and put them into her bosom.
But when only two were left, he finally withdrew his hand.
After hesitating for a moment, feeling as if her heart was being torn apart, she took three more out of her pocket and put them back.
"It's alright, it's alright. The wild ducks worked so hard to lay the eggs, it's only right to leave half of them," she comforted herself.
After concealing the nest, Shu Wanxiu quickly left.
Despite being extremely careful, Shu Wanxiu still discovered several cuts on her arms from the reeds after getting ashore, so painful that even a light touch when she lowered her sleeves caused pain.
But it's okay, I've gained something today.
But this place is so far away, and winter is coming soon, so she probably won't come back this year.
...
A father and daughter had just arrived at the edge of the reed marshes.
Compared to Shu Wanxiu, who only brought one sack, their equipment was obviously much more plentiful.
They brought two burlap sacks for carrying reeds, as well as bamboo traps, fishing spears, a pair of wooden buckets, and covered bamboo baskets.
Of the two, the father, who looked composed and somewhat serious, walked in front carrying the heavy object, while his thirteen or fourteen-year-old daughter followed behind carrying the lighter object.
The two barely spoke the rest of the way. The teenage girl, naturally lively, couldn't hold back any longer and asked a serious question that she had been thinking about for a long time.
"Father, Wanxiu and the others need to prepare winter clothes too, right? Do you think they might come here to pick reeds?"
The two men were thin, and their clothes were just as worn as those that Shu Wanxiu had worn when she fled the famine. They were Shu Wanxiu's uncle, Shu Yanrong, and her cousin, Shu Tingyi.
"Since this is the only place with abundant reeds nearby, they naturally have no choice but to come here."
Shu Tingyi kicked aside a stone blocking her path and said idly, "What if we run into Sister Wanxiu? I wonder how they're doing in Wupai Village."
Seeing the serious expression on Shu Yanrong's face, a hint of worry for the younger generation appeared in his eyes. "In a couple of days, I'll take your brother to Wupai Village to take a look."
Shu Tingyi immediately said, "I'll go too!"
Shu Yanrong didn't reply because the reeds to their left were suddenly parted, followed by a cheerful and surprised female voice calling out to him.
"Uncle!"
Yes, this person is Shu Wanxiu.
She kept her eyes on the distance as she walked, worried about encountering bad people in the wilderness since she was traveling alone. So when she first saw two people approaching the reeds, she quickly hid among them.
She was surprised to find out that the two men were her uncle and cousin Tingyi as they passed by!
Shu Tingyi was first taken aback, then exclaimed how coincidental it was that they had actually met here.
Shu Yanrong looked at her and said, "Why do you look so disheveled?"
No wonder Shu Yanrong said that; it was perfectly normal for Shu Wanxiu's hair to be all messed up after wandering through the reeds for more than an hour.
The three of them found a more spacious place to sit down and reminisce.
Since it was a two-on-one situation, and Shu Yanrong was the elder, Shu Wanxiu naturally explained the situation first. After the father and daughter finished asking what they wanted to ask, Shu Wanxiu then inquired about their life in Wuli Village.
"Sister Wanxiu, your Wupai Village is so kind! No one in Wuli Village has donated things to us or helped us repair our houses."
From Shu Tingyi, Shu Wanxiu learned how good her life was in Wupai Village.
Wuli Village is also located near the mountains, but it has much more farmland than Wupai Village. So, unsurprisingly, when the county allocated disaster victims, they assigned two households to their village, both of which were "wealthy families".
Shu Tingyi and her family originally consisted of fifteen people, young and old. Because they were quite well-off before fleeing the famine, they pawned their belongings along the way, and many of them survived. Currently, there are still twelve people left.
As for the other family, which was also assigned to Wuli Village, there were also ten people.
No matter how big Wuli Village is, there can't be two ready-made houses for them to live in. So, the two families had no choice but to be separated and taken in by the original inhabitants.
"Sister Wanxiu, you know our family isn't the kind of people who cause trouble. Humph! It's all that Liu family's fault!"
The fact that the family could support ten people shows that they must have had some wealth. But the Liu family was not to be trifled with. They had just settled in Wuli Village when they started causing trouble the very next day.
As everyone knows, the government distributed food rations to the disaster victims. These were relief rations, enough to keep people alive but not enough to provide them with a proper meal.
The Liu family was shrewd. Seeing that the family they were staying with was quite well-off and they could eat a dry meal every day, they took the initiative to approach them and said: "We are willing to hand over all the grain distributed by the government, and from now on, our whole family will eat with them every meal."
Haha, who would want to do something that's obviously a losing proposition?
This not only needs to be mixed with rice, but also with vegetables and meat!
The woman of the house immediately rejected the suggestion without hesitation, but the Liu family started making a scene, crying and begging the village chief to intervene on their behalf.
Shu Wanxiu was stunned and couldn't help but comment, "They're really foolish! They're in a strange place, and sometimes even if they're in the right, they should give way. They've made such a big fuss about something that wasn't even in the right. How can the neighborhood chief help them?"
"Absolutely!" Shu Tingyi said with heartache, "They're as stupid as pigs! They've dragged our whole family down with them."
Shu Wanxiu was about to ask: "This is just one incident, and it happened on your second day here. Now that so much time has passed, the villagers have gotten to know your character. Your lives should be a little better now, right?"
As a result, Shu Tingyi went on to list all the crimes committed by the Liu family.
For example: borrowing things from the neighborhood chief and refusing to return them, keeping them for themselves; secretly picking vegetables from other people's vegetable gardens; being caught stealing vegetables but denying it; instigating their children to go from house to house throwing tantrums and begging for snacks...
The crimes, both big and small, are too numerous to list.
Once bitten by a snake, a person becomes afraid of ropes for ten years.
The entire village of Wuli was terrified by these terrible things.
The families who took in Shu Tingyi and her friends were afraid that they were also a group of unreasonable people, so they rarely spoke to them, avoided walking around them, let alone offered them help, lent them things, or listened to their explanations.
The only good thing about settling here for so long is that the village chief allocated the land for their two families to build houses a couple of days ago. The bad news is that he didn't even mention arranging for village laborers to help with the construction.
"You guys are so pitiful." Shu Wanxiu shook her head blankly.
If Shu Tingyi had considered the possibility of encountering Shu Wanxiu while picking reeds here, then Shu Wanxiu herself never made such a assumption from beginning to end.
In her heart, her uncle was a man who prepared for things in advance, whether it was when they set off to escape famine, on the way to escape famine, or even when they were about to settle down.
She never imagined that her uncle would be slower than others at doing something.
In Shu Wanxiu's imagination, her uncle's family should have stocked up on firewood for the winter, prepared winter clothes and bedding, acquired all kinds of daily necessities, and may even have found a way to make money and were already preparing to purchase farm tools for next year's planting.
Even if she had a brain, she couldn't imagine that her uncle's family had been dragged down to this extent!
Shu Tingyi gave a bitter laugh. None of her family had expected that life after settling down would be even more difficult than when they were fleeing famine.
Shu Wanxiu thought: If it weren't for her uncle's desire to take care of them and his insistence on talking to the officials when they were settling down, her uncle's family would not have settled in Wuli Village. If they hadn't settled in Wuli Village, they naturally wouldn't have met that stupid and wicked Liu family.
She lowered her head to hide the guilt in her eyes. No matter what, she had to find a way to help her uncle and the others, but it was best not to make any boastful claims before she came up with a solution.
She brought up a lighter topic.
"Uncle, are you planning to pick some reeds to take back and catch some fish along the way?"
As usual, Shu Tingyi answered first: "Yes! There are many wild animals in the mountains, but we don't know how to hunt or set traps, so we can only try to catch fish in the water."
A note from the author:
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