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Qin Yao has been on the island for almost a year. She lives in a small area, mostly in the hospital and the family compound, living a life between two points, and occasionally walking on the familiar beautiful beaches and bay lines.
People are always used to walking on familiar paths, but there are countless places that have not been explored.
There is still a lot of land on the island that has not been seen. Sitting in the car, Qin Yao listened to Miao Cuiye introducing what happened in various places. Miao Cuiye was a very good guide and understood many stories from the past. The island was not liberated until 50 years later, and many stories of struggle took place there.
"Xiao Qin, look at that tree. It's already a hundred years old."
Only those who have farmed know how tenacious plants are. The rubber tree, which is said to be delicate and difficult to care for, is also very tenacious. Miao Cuiye said that most of the newly planted rubber seedlings in this patch of rubber trees have withered and died due to poor management. The rubber trees in another area are plagued by diseases due to too frequent tapping and must be nursed for a few years before they can be tapped again.
Yet even in this bleak forest area, it still appears to be full of vitality. There are green buds next to the dead trees, and strong trees growing vigorously next to the sick trees. Nature is truly magical.
The trees on both sides of the road stand tall and their trunks are very high. From a human perspective, they look like chopsticks stuck on the side of the road. On the top are red roasted chicken legs or green glutinous rice cakes, which increase people's appetite.
Rubber trees are very precious and imported rubber is expensive. Qin Yao originally thought that there were not many trees, but in fact, that was not the case. In the past few years, the island blindly expanded rubber fields and planted rubber everywhere, which also caused conflicts with the local brigade.
No matter how precious rubber is, it cannot be eaten as food. In addition to expanding rubber fields, we must also ensure the planting of grain fields. Otherwise, rubber will be grown but people will have no food to eat.
Qin Yao looked at the dense rain forest not far away. It was full of trees and vines. It looked beautiful, but it was very dangerous. In such a rain forest, not to mention guns and ammunition, even cannons and explosives were useless. These trees were the best natural barriers. Even if you set a fire, you might not be able to burn a whole area. The fire would naturally go out because it was wet.
The scenery in front of me is really beautiful and really suitable for survival in the wild, but the environment is very dangerous.
Only a natural environment like that in the south can hide people. If you want to find a place to hide in the north, there is a lack of food and water, and the land is bare in winter, making it basically difficult to survive. But it is different here.
There are too many trees here. If a person who is familiar with the wild commits a crime, he can just hide in the woods and find a cave to hide in. He won't be thirsty or hungry. He can make a ghillie suit and put it on himself. He can hide for decades without being discovered.
Miao Cuiye: "Don't go into the woods casually, especially into a forest like that. Even if you're more than ten meters away, no one nearby can hear you no matter how loud you shout."
“Sometimes you might be only a few meters apart and you wouldn’t even notice when you passed each other in the woods.” That’s why it’s extremely difficult to find people. Every year, a few people disappear silently and you can’t find them at all, and no trace of their bodies is left.
Of course, it is also possible that some more people appear out of nowhere, and some of the people who once stayed may still be lurking around.
Qin Yao asked curiously, "Are there any snakes on the farm? What if a snake gets in? Should we spread snake repellent?"
Miao Cuiye looked at her strangely after hearing what she said: "Would you despise free food delivered to your door? Isn't this pie in the sky?"
The thing that is most in demand on the farm is probably snake catching enthusiasts. Are you afraid? How is that possible? There were countless people who caught poisonous snakes with their bare hands. At that time, supplies were scarce and extremely hungry people would eat anything they saw.
If a big fat snake breaks into a "nest" of people, the worry is not that it is venomous, but that there is not enough meat to share, so they have to boil a pot of fragrant and rich snake soup.
"I'm not afraid of meeting a snake, but what if a tree is full of snakes?" Comrade Xiao Qin thought Captain Miao was bragging too much. Her fear of snakes was ingrained in her bones.
"Hanging with snakes?" Miao Cuiye: "Is there such a good thing?"
"There used to be a bamboo forest behind the mountain where I live. One time, the forest was full of bamboo pit vipers. Our whole family went out and caught more than a dozen of them. It was so exciting." Miao Cuiye said, and she began to feel a little greedy.
There are only a dozen or so items, and they may not be enough to share.
"When I was five or six years old, I caught snakes with my brother." Miao Cuiye told Qin Yao about her childhood memories, such as how to play with pythons.
There may be some bragging in it, but Qin Yao and Xie Hongni were fascinated by what they heard. The boy and girl playing with snakes was just like a legendary story.
Xie Hongni used to work in the countryside of Guizhou Province, where there were many Miao villages. But now she felt that Miao Cuiye looked more like a Miao girl than the Miao girls there.
"Did you have a lot of material to write about when you were a child?" Qin Yao asked her many questions when she said she wanted to write about Miao Cuiye's story, but she didn't know these key childhood stories. Qin Yao thought it was unbelievable. Some people are so fierce, and this might be the reason.
Thinking back to their childhood, those born in 2000 were all in cram schools and could only go to the zoo to see animals. But Miao Cuiye had seen so many things that she could write an excellent narrative about any one of her experiences.
Playing with snakes? Isn't this new? Add it into the text to give the protagonist some fresh material.
"Composition?" Miao Cuiye, who had been very excited just now, was overwhelmed when she heard this. "I can't write a composition. I hate writing compositions the most."
"You can write an essay about all these experiences, which is much more meaningful than those stories about helping old ladies."
Xie Hongni and Brother Qin San were originally looking at the scenery and didn't pay much attention to the conversation between Miao Cuiye and Qin Yao. At this moment, they couldn't help but feel ashamed.
As children who grew up in the city, both of them wrote about "helping old ladies" in their childhood essays, and they felt that the red scarf on their chests was more colorful...
Xie Hongni and Qin Xuecai looked at each other and immediately understood.
Xie Hongni found it funny. She used to think that two people with very different cultural cognition levels would find it difficult to talk to each other. In fact, they still had a lot in common.
"How can this be meaningful? This is just a joke." Miao Cuiye waved her hand. "When I was a child, what I wrote most was the joy of helping others."
Qin Yao pursed her lips and smiled. She sometimes felt that there was a deviation in Chinese language education. When writing an essay, it should be a record of real feelings and what one really thinks and feels.
However, for ordinary children, it is normal to make up a lot of stories about helping others in their essays.
At this time, the outline of the story in Qin Yao's mind became clearer. Even when creating a fictional novel, it cannot rely entirely on fantasy, but must have a certain source of real material. The more details, the more convincing it will be.
The car drove into the farm. In addition to a large area of rubber trees, there were also a lot of grain planted, office buildings and dormitories, as well as a hospital and a grocery store. There were hundreds of regular employees alone, as well as other educated youth, soldiers, militiamen, and so on.
The three-story building has a flower bed in front, an open playground and a basketball court. Children are chasing and playing in the basketball court. There is a flag-raising platform in the middle with the five-star red flag fluttering in the air.
The green trees here are mango trees, and there are a few jackfruit trees at the corners. The mango trees are already full of fruits, half green and half yellow, and they don't look fully ripe yet. They passed by a mango tree that was already full of fruits, but if you don't look carefully, you can't see the small green mangoes underneath.
The jackfruit tree at the corner is very tall and dry, with three or two ugly and stingy fruits attached to it. There are also papaya trees and longan trees, but they don't bear any fruit.
When the field manager Zhao Hongxing met them, he was eating a pineapple. He cut the pineapple into small pieces and invited them to taste it with a toothpick. Xie Hongni and Qin Xuecai had never eaten this thing before, as it was rare in the north.
This perfumed pineapple has grown too mature, the flesh is greasy sweet, and has a fermented smell, as if it has been infused with alcohol.
It is said to be sweet, and it is indeed sweet and delicious. But after eating a few more bites, I feel greasy and it doesn't quench my thirst very well. I just want to drink water after eating it.
Green coconuts were piled on the ground beside the road like stones, old yellow coconuts were placed on the shelves, large knives were scattered around, and on the broken coconut shells there was still some snow-white coconut meat that had not been peeled off.
Qin Xuecai discovered that there were so many fruits on the island, most of which he had never eaten in the north. When he was a child, he mostly ate apples and persimmons. When he was sent to work in the countryside in Guizhou Province, he often ate a kind of fruit called sea buckthorn, especially the dried fruit, which was very delicious and sour. When he was thirsty in the mountains, he would eat a piece of it, and it would make his mouth water.
It is more of a purple oval fruit, which looks like a grape but is not a grape. The flesh is watery and crisp and delicious when chewed. After eating it, your hands become sticky, wet and slippery.
After arriving on the island, he saw more unfamiliar fruits. It was really strange. The fruits here were so sweet, and the bananas seemed to be a different variety from the bananas he had eaten before.
The first time Qin Xuecai ate bananas after arriving on the island, he was amazed by the bananas here. They were big, sweet, and the flesh was very fragrant. Therefore, he guessed that there must be a lot of monkeys on the island. Perhaps the Dongsheng Shenzhou in Journey to the West was here.
It’s a pity that the monkeys in Mount Emei don’t have such good fortune.
After listening to Qin Xuecai's self-introduction, the factory manager Zhao Hongxing asked curiously, "Are you a cook? What a coincidence! Our canteen needs help."
Zhao Hongxing is almost forty years old. He has lived on the island for more than twenty years and can almost be said to have grown up on a farm. His father is a soldier. Judging from their ancestral home, they should be from the north. After conquering the island, the whole family moved here and stayed to open up the land. Many farms were originally evolved from the military corps.
"I can cook many specialties." Compared with his father Qin Chuanrong, Qin Xuecai has learned more diverse dishes. After going to the countryside to work as a production team member, he became an excellent sour soup cook. No one's sour soup fish or sour soup noodles are as delicious as his.
At that time, pork was precious and fish and shrimp were plentiful, so Qin Xuecai thought of coming to the island. He was determined not to starve to death, so at most he would have fish and shrimp cooked in sour soup and mixed with rice every day.
The fish, shrimps and crabs stranded on the mudflats are free, and there are always fish in the woods and streams.
"Sour soup? Okay, I'll make it for everyone to try in the next two days."
The north mainly prefers salty food, with many pickles to go with rice. The south mainly prefers sour, spicy and sweet food, especially sour food, which is more popular in hot weather. The sourness of sour soup is the best seasoning. It is difficult to eat cabbage boiled in plain water with rice, but cabbage boiled in sour soup can be eaten with rice for several bowls, and it is delicious even without meat.
Zhao Hongxing took them to visit the cafeteria. Xie Hongni got the job of washing and peeling vegetables. An auntie was sitting next to a large basin, peeling a pineapple with a large knife. After simply peeling the skin, she used a small push knife to remove the pineapple thorns along the grain.
“So many pineapples in the kitchen?”
"A lot of pineapple dishes for lunch."
Now we have no choice, we eat whatever is ripe. There are so many pineapples, if we don’t eat them, they will go bad, so the dishes in the cafeteria have become pineapple dishes, fried pineapple, pineapple cakes, pineapple duck, pineapple meat...
"Pineapple duck?" Qin Xuecai's pupils couldn't help but tremble when he heard the name of this dish.
Are bitter melon duck, dried bamboo shoots duck, roast duck and roast duck not delicious? Why does it have to be a pineapple duck? Is this thing really edible? Is it really delicious?
Miao Cuiye said to Qin Yao: "The pineapple duck on the farm is very delicious. I will treat you to it today."
Qin Yao nodded and asked, "Do you know how to make lemon duck?"
Qin Yao once tried lemon duck in the hospital cafeteria and she thought it tasted pretty good. Duck has a duck smell that must be covered up with a strong flavor, either spicy or sour.
Covering up the sour taste is the lowest cost. She has eaten lemon duck, and it seems that the lemons used are not fresh ones, but pickled lemons.
"Go ask, the chef here knows how to make it, but if you want to ask how to pickle lemons, I do know that."
Qin Yao can communicate with the kitchen chef here, but for Qin Xuecai and Xie Hongni, the most critical point for coming here is the language issue. Most people on the island speak Cantonese, and the educated youth from Guangzhou also speak Cantonese. Qin Xuecai and his friend speak Mandarin, and other Cantonese speakers can understand them, but when they speak Cantonese, Qin Xuecai and his friend cannot understand them.
"Brother, you study hard here so that I can learn from you in the future."
Qin Yao likes dishes like pineapple duck and lemon duck. The cafeteria here also has a kind of pickled vegetable, which may not be called a pickled vegetable, but a dish to go with rice. It is called chili mango, and it is great to eat with rice or with noodles.
Third Brother Qin stayed in the kitchen to watch. Qin Yao and Miao Cuiye walked out of the kitchen. Miao Cuiye patted her chest and said, "I'm going to catch a snake in the next two days. I'll treat you to a delicious snake soup."
"It tastes sweet and fresh."
Qin Yao's mouth twitched. She asked so many questions about poisonous snakes, definitely not because she was craving or curious about snake meat. She didn't eat snakes because she would have nightmares if she ate them.
"Didn't you say the mulberries here are good? Take me to pick some."
"OK."
One of Qin Yao's main purposes for coming this time was to pull up a few mulberry seedlings and bring them back to plant two by the house and have Chen Baozhen's family plant one as well. Mulberries are easy to grow. There are many wild mulberries on the mountain. If you plant mulberries at home, you don't have to worry too much. The mulberries on the island have very sweet flesh.
Fresh mulberries are delicious whether they are made into mulberry fruit tea, mulberry milkshake or mulberry yogurt.
Miao Cuiye took Qin Yao to pick two large bowls of fresh purple mulberries, washed them and ate them by the well, and shared them with several children. Qin Yao decided which three mulberries to dig up and take back.
After lunch, the sour soup cooked by Brother Qin San was well received by the crowd. He stayed in the canteen as a chef, and Xie Hongni helped in the kitchen, earning a few dollars a month.
Facing the educated youth here, Xie Hongni showed a rare smile on her face. The conditions here may not be better than before, but the people around her, whether they were employees or educated youth, all came from other places and spoke words she could not understand, which made her feel familiar. She did not want to be with some familiar people, especially some people who had persecuted her in school.
Now that I'm in a place where I'm unfamiliar with the place, it feels like I've taken off a shackle and I feel more relaxed and comfortable.
Qin Xuecai and Xie Hongni told the farm that they decided to get married, so they arranged a house for them. In fact, housing is tight on the farm now, and ordinary people live in simple bungalows and wooden houses. This kind of house requires some care when a typhoon hits.
"If a strong typhoon comes, stay in school."
After the two were settled, they went to the telephone room together and queued up to make a call home. The call was made to the factory and their mother Chen Guixiang answered the call.
Brother Qin San first spoke to Chen Guixiang and said that he had found a partner. Chen Guixiang on the other end was very happy.
"Let your sister tell me."
Qin Yao answered the phone, "Mom."
"Your brother is here. Did he restrain you? Don't bully your son-in-law too much."
Qin Yao laughed: "Mom, my third brother came just in time."
Now she has a letter of apology written by Gu Cheng in her hand. He wrote it seriously and logically last night, which made Qin Yao very happy.
Qin Yao is not a person who cares about trivial matters. Most of the time she just lives from day to day. Of course, she will never treat herself badly and will eat, drink and dress well.
"That's great. When can I have a grandchild?"
Qin Yao said calmly: "Mom, you work hard today, go home and have a good sleep, and you will be able to hold your grandson in the evening."
"You little girl, you are really going to piss your mother off to death."
After chatting for a few more sentences, Qin Yao hung up the phone with a smile. She was very happy. She seldom spoke to her parents in such a joking way before, but in front of Shen Guixiang, she unconsciously became bolder and turned into a naughty child.
Miao Cuiye listened to her conversation and pulled her aside, saying softly, "Actually...if you don't want to have a baby early, you can bring some...that back home."
Qin Yao: "What?"
"That's it." Miao Cuiye raised her thick eyebrows, "Just now a child was playing with it."
Qin Yao was speechless. It turned out that they were talking about T condoms. The condoms at that time were quite thick and could be used many times.
Some children didn't know what this thing was and thought it was a balloon. They stole their parents' condoms and blew them up at the entrance of the village. It was a beautiful sight.
When these kids grow up, they will realize what stupid things they have done.
"The quality here is good and cheap. You can bring some back. I'll teach you how to choose." Miao Cuiye suppressed her unspeakable thoughts and instigated Qin Yao to go shopping. She thought that the couple's salary was not low, so they could definitely afford a lot of things, and it was not a problem to use them once and throw them away cough cough cough cough.
But these are not Miao Cuiye's main purpose. She is just a little curious about which number Captain Gu should use?
"Teach me how to choose?" Qin Yao met Miao Cuiye's gossipy eyes and was full of admiration.
Miao Cuiye, this unmarried girl, is really tough.
"Then buy some?"
Miao Cuiye nodded frantically: "Buy, buy, buy."
After saying that, she smiled sheepishly, like a profiteer salesperson.
The two were whispering at the door of the telephone room, speaking in low voices and close to each other's ears so that only the two of them could hear. At this time, there was another woman on the phone, wearing blue pants and a plaid top, a very ordinary outfit.
The plaid woman was carrying something in her hands. She subconsciously glanced at Qin Yao several times and almost bumped into her when she went out. The woman covered her basket and left in a hurry.
Qin Yao watched her movements and always felt that something was strange. What was in the basket?
The look in the woman's eyes just now made her feel uncomfortable.
Qin Yao used her perspective skills and discovered that her basket contained only ordinary needles and thread, scraps of cloth, two handkerchiefs and some odds and ends. If she lifted the cover, she wouldn't see anything on the surface.
But one of the handkerchiefs actually had a layer with a letter sewn inside.
The content of the letter was not a code. Qin Yao had no intention of reading it carefully to pry into other people's privacy. But when she took a casual look, she saw a very strange sentence: Min Guo xxx year.
Her heartbeat slowed down. What kind of person would use this to remember the year?
Qin Yao and Miao Cuiye walked out. She secretly observed the woman with plaid patterns and found that she had met with several people and was listening to a strange radio station and a series of strange numbers on a radio behind the tree house.
Qin Yao carefully searched for any hidden materials and documents and found some letters and codes. After reading them carefully, Qin Yao discovered that these people were planning to set fire to the rubber trees at night.
There will be a partial vacancy in the guard during the shift change tonight, and with the help of internal and external forces, they are going to set fire to the rubber forest.
Several people were instigated, and they were promised that as long as they completed this task, they would be assisted in escaping to the sea and enjoying a luxurious life overseas.
"Xiao Ye." Qin Yao called Miao Cui Ye and whispered a sentence to her: I just found a woman secretly listening to a strange radio station, and I think something is wrong.
Miao Cuiye opened her eyes wide, and an idea suddenly occurred to her mind. "Could it be that... they want to destroy the rubber trees?"
Miao Cuiye has loved watching war movies since she was a child, and she is very familiar with the twists and turns involved.
Qin Yao pointed out a man to her. At this time, Miao Cuiye was no longer curious about the man's type and just stared at Qin Yao.
The two found that there really were people who were making the contact, but their methods were not very sophisticated, because some of them were really stupid. If they were not stupid, they would not be fooled. They were just those people who were lazy and dreamed big.
"Do you want to tell the director?"
Miao Cuiye whispered, "Hush, the fewer people who know about this, the better. I know another male captain. The new people who came today have nothing to do with this place. We will ambush them at night so as not to alert the enemy."
Miao Cuiye is not that simple. Many parents are good, but their children may not be good people.
Miao Cuiye hired someone to ambush at night, and Qin Yao went to watch the fun, hiding in the rubber forest together. Qin Yao used a "lucky" skill on herself, so that even if she couldn't avoid anything else, she could avoid mosquitoes.
At this time, she found that Miao Cuiye, who occasionally seemed out of tune, was very reliable and had a leadership charm as a woman.
In the dark light of the night, Qin Yao looked at the person lying beside her, and an idea suddenly came to her mind. Now she had many stories in her head.
In such an environment, it is best to use your imagination and set up an ambush? Hidden? Hide? In the past, I often heard that you could hold a reed tube in your mouth and dive into the river to breathe. Or, to put it more exaggeratedly, a person would hide in the swamp covered in mud with his entire face submerged in the mud, breathing only through a thin tube, holding on to the tree roots in the mud with both hands to prevent himself from falling into the swamp, waiting for the arrival of the enemy.
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