Chapter 18 Chapter 18 Weird picture.
Mu Mian really arranged a job for herself. She wanted to give her grandma a whole gift, but like her mother said, the conditions were just like this and she couldn't buy anything good.
The main reason was that she had no money to buy them. The small golden melon seeds were her secret piggy bank, and now she had no way to take them out and use them.
The one dollar compensation from the Shi family was not in her hands either. It was kept by Comrade Liu Shuangcui, who said that she was afraid that she would lose it.
After much thought, Mu Mian finally realized that she could only do some handicrafts, so she asked her mother for some needles, thread and scraps of cloth.
Liu Shuangcui looked suspicious and a little worried, "What do you want to sew? If you don't sew it properly, you'll cry when the needle pricks you."
Mu Mian stretched out her short hand and moved her ten fingers. "No, I'm very flexible and I must be deft!"
Liu Shuangcui was often amused by her daughter. "I've never seen anyone boast so much. If you want to use it, just use it. Don't waste it. The red thread is hard to buy."
Mu Mian patted his chest and said, "It will definitely not be wasted!"
But it's already dark now, so we can only wait until tomorrow to do it.
The next day, Mu Mian woke up and found that it had rained a little the night before, and the ground was much drier by now.
After breakfast, there was a slight breeze, and it was very cool.
Mu Mian stayed in her room, mending the small scraps of cloth. When she went out to the toilet, she found that her mother and father were not at home. Only her grandmother and an old lady were sitting in the yard, talking and making soles.
Mu Mian asked, "Dad and Mom are out? Where did they go?"
Zhao Meihua nodded, "She left early. Your mother is at Guizhi's house, and I don't know where your father is. I guess he's at someone's house talking nonsense again."
Then he asked his granddaughter, "What are you doing in the house for so long?"
Mu Mian chuckled, "Nothing, just messing around."
Aunt Li next to Zhao Meihua sighed, "Girls can sit still, but my two boys run outside as soon as they put down their bowls, as if there were needles pricking them on the stools at home."
Zhao Meihua smiled and said, "Little kids, of course they don't like to run outside."
Mu Mian didn't interrupt the two grandmothers' conversation. She looked at the sky and thought that this day was indeed suitable for a walk up the mountain. It would be a shame not to go out for a run when it was so cool.
Anyway, there was still a week until her grandmother's birthday, so Mu Mian was not in a hurry to make the food today. She carried a small backpack, said hello to the old lady, and went out.
Mu Mian did not go directly up the mountain, but turned to the captain's house first. As soon as he arrived at the door, he saw the captain's eldest son Xu Gaoyi coming out.
Mu Mian looked up and greeted, "Brother Xu."
Xu Gaoyi smiled and said, "Are you here to see your mother?"
Mu Mian shook his head, "No, I'm looking for Lele."
The little girl always comes to see her. If she knew that she went out for a walk without calling her, she would probably frown again next time.
But it's also very easy to coax.
Just as Mu Mian finished speaking, Liu Guizhi's voice came from the yard, "Xiao Mian is here, come in and sit for a while."
Mu Mian took two or three steps into the yard and saw her mother and Aunt Guizhi fiddling with the jar of sauerkraut.
Liu Shuangcui looked at her daughter, "Have you finished sewing?"
Mu Mian shook his head, "Next time, next time
alley. ”
Liu Shuangcui laughed, "Did you prick your hand?"
Mu Mian stretched out her clean white hands to her mother to prove that she was really skillful, "It's fine."
Liu Guizhi took up the topic, "What are you sewing?"
Liu Shuangcui: "She was yelling last night that she wanted to make something for her grandma, but I didn't know what to make, and she didn't tell me."
Liu Guizhi cried out, "Your Xiao Mian is so considerate, well-behaved and filial."
Mu Mian scratched his head and smiled sweetly to change the subject, "Where's Lele? Isn't she at home?"
Liu Guizhi nudged her chin and said, "She was lying in the room. She washed her hair with cold water last night and left the window open in the middle of the night, so the wind blew on her. When I woke up in the morning, her face was red with fever."
Mu Mian frowned, "Is it serious?"
Liu Guizhi: "It's okay, it has subsided a little, I think it will be fine after covering it for a morning."
Liu Shuangcui glanced at her daughter's back and said, "Why are you carrying a basket? What are you going to pick up? Wait for your father to get the firewood, so don't bother with it."
Mu Mian shook the backpack and said, "If I don't pick up firewood, I'll just walk around."
Liu Shuangcui didn't care. The child who grew up at the foot of the mountain liked to run all over the mountain.
---
Mu Mian did not pick up firewood, as the small backpack could not hold much, so she just rummaged around and picked up the mushrooms that the purchasing station would collect.
Halfway up the mountain, we met a few boys named Da Zhuang Gu Tou. They had turned a slope into a natural slide, where you "whoosh" and I "whoosh".
As the road was not slippery enough, he fetched some water from the river and poured it on the slope.
Nearly a dozen boys came rushing down, and none of them looked presentable because their bodies were all covered in mud, including some on their faces.
For example, Xiao Chengzi was so dirty that Mu Mian didn’t dare to recognize her. If he hadn’t called her, she really wouldn’t have recognized her.
Little Orange was still inviting enthusiastically, "Sister, are you really not going to play? It's so much fun, it's my turn to skate soon, I'll let you skate!"
One person per person, he has to wait several times before it is his turn.
Mu Mian expressed his sincere gratitude for his cousin's invitation, and then refused without hesitation, "Haha, no need, you can play by yourself."
It's really a beating from your mother, no wonder there are so many patches on your butt.
With such a naughty look on his face, if he doesn't put on two more layers of patching, his butt will probably be exposed.
Xiao Chengzi gave her cousin a look that said, "You really have never experienced what good things are."
Mu Mian really didn't want to experience it. She just knew that if she was so dirty, she would be disgusted with herself.
So Mu Mian left without saying a few words. She really didn't want to stay among the boys.
Mu Mian found some scattered honeysuckle on the road and picked them up.
This thing can be taken to a purchasing station and sold. Unlike other wild medicinal materials, it is not so troublesome to handle. Just dry it.
Without Xu Lele to chat and laugh beside him, Mu Mian walked a little further away without realizing it.
In addition to honeysuckle, she also found some immature astragalus. Both the roots and stems of this medicinal herb can be used as medicine, but they have not grown well yet. Autumn is the best time to dig them.
Mu Mian also saw several rabbit holes, but unfortunately they had been dug out long ago. There were traces of burning at the entrance of the holes, which showed that they were caused by smoke.
Mu Mian continued to walk around for a while, and her small backpack was half filled with miscellaneous things. She didn't know what time it was, but the sky seemed a little too cloudy, and it might rain soon.
Just when he was thinking about going home, Mu Mian suddenly discovered a small patch of honeysuckle under a small slope.
The slope was a bit shaky, so Mu Mian took a detour before going down. But before she could get to the front, the large branch in her hand touched a patch of grass, and a large gray figure suddenly jumped out.
Mu Mian was startled and his eyes widened.
rabbit!
Big rabbit! !
His hands reacted faster than his brain. Mu Mian subconsciously raised his hand and hit it with a stick, but unfortunately it only hit one leg. The big gray rabbit jumped away after being hit.
Mu Mian was chasing after him, his legs moving very fast.
The rabbit with a lame leg was a little panicked and didn't know where to go. Several times it bumped into trees or piles of weeds.
Although Mu Mian failed to wait for the real-life version of "sitting by the tree and waiting for the rabbit to come to her", she successfully kept the rabbit within her sight.
I don't know if it was because the big gray rabbit was dizzy from the collisions with the tree, but its running and jumping movements were obviously much slower afterwards.
Finally, when they chased the rabbit to a small pond and saw the distance getting shorter, Mu Mian pounced forward and successfully caught the rabbit's hind legs.
The captured big gray rabbit struggled frantically, but how could Mu Mian let it get away with the meat in his hands? He was still lying on the ground, so he patted the rabbit's butt and smiled, "I told you to run! But you were caught by me anyway!!"
Hey, hey, big fat rabbit, big fat rabbit! !
She is so lucky today! So lucky! !
Mu Mian was about to get up, holding the rabbit with one hand and supporting herself on the ground with the other. However, as soon as she took her eyes off the rabbit, she noticed something wrong. Not far in front of her, there was a pair of...little feet.
A pair of...human feet.
Mountains, cloudy days, bound feet.
"ah!!!"
Thinking that he had encountered some supernatural event, Mu Mian was so frightened that he suddenly sat up holding the rabbit, and then he saw......
Shi Xiaolian squatted blankly in the middle of a bush, looking at her silently.
She held a piece of glass in one hand and held down an old hen that was barely moving with the other. Next to her lay another old hen that looked dead.
About seven or eight meters away.
A seven-year-old girl is holding a chicken.
An eight-year-old girl is holding a rabbit.
The atmosphere was a little weird for a moment. No one spoke, and there was only the sound of the rabbit flapping its legs and the old hen's dying struggle.
Both of them maintained a tacit understanding of 'I know you have a problem, and I know you seem to know that I have a problem, but I don't want to say anything.'
Shi Xiaolian didn't move. She actually suspected that Mu Mian was the same as her.
But it didn't seem right. Before she died in her previous life, she heard that Mu Mian was burned to death as a child. How could he come back from the future when he hasn't even grown up?
However, she didn't believe that Mu Mian was really an eight-year-old child now.
Everyone in the team said that he was smart and capable and was able to escape after being kidnapped. In his previous life, he was burned to death, so how could he be smart?
So she was a little confused about what was going on.
I don't know how long it took, Mu Mian smiled awkwardly and stood up, "Haha, what a coincidence."
Shi Xiaolian retracted her gaze and continued to wipe the chicken's neck with the glass fragments, "Hmm."
Mu Mian looked at the two old hens. She remembered that two of them were lost from Shi Xinggui's family yesterday morning.
As if knowing what she was thinking, the next second Mu Mian heard Shi Xiaolian say in a light tone: "This is originally my home."
It was her grandmother who took it away, and she was just taking back her own things.
Mu Mian: “Oh.”
After this back and forth, no one spoke again.
Mu Mian looked around and felt that the surroundings were a little unfamiliar. She had never been here before, but she remembered the direction she had just run in. She just needed to return the same way so as not to get lost.
Mu Mian's eyes fell on the pond and he broke the silence again, "Are there any fish in it?"
The water is a bit muddy and seems to be a bit shallow.
Shi Xiaolian shook her head, "No, there will be water accumulation only after it rains."
Mu Mian understood and she said it didn't look deep.
Adhering to the principle of being here now, Mu Mian looked around with the rabbit in his hand, and then he found a dark spot on the cliff behind Shi Xiaolian, with lush vines and weeds growing outside. It could not be seen without careful observation.
Shi Xiaolian took a look and said, "It's a cave."
In her previous life, when she went into the mountains to look for food, it rained and she didn't have time to go back. She slid down a big slope and then found that cave, which was just the right place for her to hide from the rain.
Mu Mian became interested, "Is it big inside?"
As he said that, he walked forward and took a look.
Shi Xiaolian: "It's not big, adults can't go in."
After she finished speaking, Mu Mian had already seen that the entrance to the cave was indeed not big and not deep either.
If an adult wants to get in, he probably can only crawl on the ground, but there are weeds and vines everywhere outside, making it difficult to crawl.
Mu Mian also saw a few chicken feathers on the vines. It was obvious that Shi Xiaolian had hidden the chicken here before.
The sky was getting cloudy again. Fearing that it would rain and they would be trapped on the mountain, Mu Mian didn't bother to look at them any further. He knocked the rabbit unconscious and put it at the bottom of the backpack. After picking up the things that had just spilled out of the basket, he planned to go back.
The two chickens next to Shi Xiaolian were also dead.
The two looked at each other
Eyes, then...
One pretended not to see it, and the other didn't seem to be afraid that the matter would be told, and they tacitly went about their own business.
When they returned to the place where the honeysuckle was, Mu Mian paused, looked at the sky, and thought about Shi Xiaolian's unhurried appearance.
She guessed that the rain probably wouldn't fall.
Sure enough, when Mu Mian finished picking and returned home with a full basket on his back, not a drop of rain fell.
By now her mother had already returned from the captain's house, but her grandmother was nowhere to be seen.
When Mu Mian went into the kitchen to drink water, she happened to see her mother putting a piece of bacon into the cupboard.
Mu Mian's eyes sparkled, "Mom, where's the meat?"
The leftover bacon in their house wasn't this big.
Liu Shuangcui locked the cabinet and said, "Where else could it have come from? I exchanged it with your Aunt Guizhi."
Mu Mian took a few gulps of the cold boiled water in his enamel pot, "They actually still have extra meat left to eat?"
Liu Shuangcui smiled and said, "There's no such thing as extra meat. This is because we squeezed and shared the meat for your grandma's birthday. Next time they have something to celebrate, we have to share some of it with them."
Mu Mian understood that neighbors should help each other, and in the future when there will be no shortage of materials, the main contribution will be manpower.
Nowadays, if someone can still exchange meat for you, then the relationship is really good.
"Wow, girl, where did you pick such a big basket of honeysuckle?" Mu Mian was still talking to her mother in the house when she heard her father say this from outside.
Mu Mian walked out of the kitchen in two or three steps and found that Comrade Mu Fugui was no longer staring at her backpack.
He took an axe and prepared to chop the big log he had dragged back. The firewood that the men dragged into the mountains was different from the small twigs and sticks that children and the elderly picked up at random. The trees they dragged were as thick as a man's waist.
Some are broken, and some are dead.
This kind of branches is suitable for chopping and stacking in the woodshed. It is convenient for burning in the winter and is much more resistant to burning than those small dead branches.
Liu Shuangcui also came out of the kitchen to take a look. "There are really a lot of them. They are about two taels thick after drying."
Mu Mian walked over to her backpack and looked at her parents like she was showing off her treasure. "You only saw the honeysuckle?"
After hearing what she said, Mu Fugui put down his axe, walked to Mu Mian's side, and cooperated with his daughter. "Let me see what good things our daughter brought back?!"
Mu Fugui was just touching it carelessly, but as soon as he put his hand in, he felt the furry touch.
Mu Fugui, who saw it clearly, stared with his big eyes and exclaimed loudly, "What a fat rabbit! Hahaha, girl, where did you get this? You can even catch this, how are you so capable?!"
Liu Shuangcui stepped forward and weighed it twice, her tone also full of surprise, "This must be five or six kilograms, right?"
Mu Fugui's old habit came back. Whenever he was happy, he wanted to lift his daughter up and weigh her.
Mu Mian, who had been prepared, stepped back and dodged the hands her father stretched out, "Dad, I'm almost ten years old!"
Mu Fugui, who didn't raise his daughter, rubbed his nose and said, "Nonsense, she's not even nine years old."
Liu Shuangcui, still holding the rabbit, looked at her daughter and asked, "How did you catch it? Just chase it?"
Speaking of which, her daughter can really run, like a calf.
Mu Mian shook his head, "I gave it a blow first before I chased it."
Mu Fugui laughed out loud, his face full of pride, "Our daughter is amazing! Dad has already told people to get two pig's trotters for your grandma's birthday. Eat more, my daughter. You will definitely be able to run faster next time."
Mu Mian: “…………”
The main idea is that you will gain what you eat, right?
The pig's trotters won't be available for a while, but the rabbits have to be processed first. The weather is a bit hot now, so they can't be kept dry. They have to be pickled with salt and then they can be eaten in a few days.
It’s impossible to feed it for the time being. Most wild rabbits cannot be kept alive after being caught, let alone the one caught by Mu Mian.
First his leg was broken, then his head was hit several times, and then he was knocked unconscious by Mu Mian. Now he is half dead.
While Mu Fugui and Liu Shuangcui were chopping firewood and collecting rabbits respectively, Mu Mian spread the honeysuckle in the backpack on the bamboo sieve.
She didn't put them in the backyard, but found an open space in the house to dry them.
The sky was getting increasingly cloudy, as if it would rain at any moment. If she got caught in the rain, all her efforts would be in vain.
---
The rain finally fell in the middle of the night, coming so fast and urgently, as if it had been brewing for just this moment.
Mu Mian was awakened once by the sound of big raindrops hitting the window, and then fell asleep again in a daze.
When she woke up, she found that it was still raining, and it was quite heavy. The eaves of her house were almost like a water curtain cave, and water was flowing down.
It was grey outside, as if it was still dark.
Mu Mian opened the door of her bedroom, but before she went out, she shivered at the cool breeze that blew in.
Zhao Meihua glanced at her granddaughter and said, "If you feel cold, go back to bed. You don't have to go to school today. Gao Yi just passed by and said that there's a big hole in the roof of your classroom and it's leaking. It can't be fixed in a short time."
Mu Mian rubbed his eyes. "It's so serious. Where's my dad? Is he home too?"
Zhao Meihua: "He left a long time ago. If the rain doesn't stop today, he probably won't come back tonight. Don't worry. He's an adult and knows what he's doing."
Mu Mian nodded. The way back and forth was indeed difficult to walk. It was better to stay anywhere than to go back and forth.
Mu Mian was happy and relaxed as she didn't have to go to school. After a late sleep, she continued to tinker with her scraps of cloth. She hid in the house and mended them, and she finished in half a day.
The lighting was a little bad, otherwise she could have done it faster.
Although she had finished the job, the rain showed no sign of stopping and continued to rain on and off for two whole days.
It was still raining on Tuesday night, and Mu Mian was getting a little worried. "Why is it still raining? Will there be a flood?"
As he said this, Mu Mian suddenly thought of Shi Xiaolian. This person didn't say anything in the past two days, and there was nothing unusual about her. She was leisurely taking care of her old hen by herself.
That shouldn’t be a big problem, and Mu Mian felt a little relieved.
Liu Shuangcui was actually a little worried, but she remained calm. "Don't worry about the kids. The captain and his men must have gone out to check. If a flood really comes, they will definitely notify the villagers to run."
It turns out that there really wasn't a big problem.
As the night went on, the rain became lighter and lighter, and there was only a light drizzle on Wednesday morning.
The school roof has not been repaired yet, so we don’t have to go to school for the time being.
It was almost noon and Mu Mian was helping her mother prepare dinner when she suddenly saw Liu Guizhi running towards the gate of her house with a bag, followed by Xu Lele.
Liu Guizhi waved her hands and said in a loud voice, "Mian girl, quickly ask your mother to go out and catch some fish. I heard that a lot of water has been washed down from the canal."
Liu Shuangcui had already heard Mu Mian's words without him saying anything. She just picked up a bag and followed him out the door.
Xu Lele was much slower than her mother. The two women had already walked about five or six meters before the little girl came running over, her face full of excitement. "Sister Mianmian, let's go! Let's go too!"
Mu Mian really wanted to go, so he grabbed a bag and followed him out.
She asked Xu Lele, "Where are we going to find it? The river next to us?"
She remembered that the upper reaches of the river was not the big canal.
Xu Lele shook his head, "I don't know either. My mom said it was the small river ahead."
Mu Mian recalled and it seemed that this place did exist, but it was too far away and he rarely went there.
There were many people running there along the way, and this kind of thing spread like wildfire.
Some families even bring out their entire family, just to see who gets the most.
Not long after they walked out, Mu Mian and Xu Lele ran into Shi Xiaolian head-on.
Unlike other families where the whole family goes out, she is the only one in her family, and she doesn't know whether her sister has gone there first or has something else to do.
However, Shi Xiaolian seemed quite happy, unlike before when she walked with her head down and didn't look at people.
Children are naturally more sensitive in terms of emotional perception, and Xu Lele is a little girl who inherited her mother's warm-heartedness.
Probably because he thought this person didn't look that difficult to approach, he took the initiative to talk to Shi Xiaolian, "You're going too, are you going with us?"
Shi Xiaolian paused and said, "Let's go."
Even though she was jogging, it didn't stop Xu Lele from talking. She was very curious, "Why are you the only one in your family? Why isn't Teacher Shi going?"
Shi Xiaolian: "My sister took my mother to Uncle Li's place."
As a real child, Xu Lele's topics sometimes jump so erratically that even adults can't keep up.
For example, now, she has no
Asked why we had to go to Uncle Li.
Instead, he looked at Shi Xiaolian curiously, "You are different from what my mother said. I found that you also care about people. My mother said that you often see people but don't talk."
Shi Xiaolian: “…………”
Mu Mian: “…………”
It turns out that real children speak directly.
After a few seconds of silence, Shi Xiaolian said calmly: "I'm not dumb."
Xu Lele chuckled, "Of course I know you are not mute!"
As she was talking, Shi Xiaolian suddenly turned into a small path.
Seeing this, Mu Mian followed closely.
Xu Lele touched his head and said, "Where are you going? Aren't you going to catch fish?"
Mu Mian turned around and grabbed the person's hand, "Just follow me."
In this way, the three little girls turned here and there, and when they reached the river, there were almost no people there.
Xu Lele was shocked, "Wow! We are so fast! Shi Xiaolian you are amazing!"
Shi Xiaolian said nothing more, rolled up her pants and went into the river.
They arrived early, and the big fish had not been caught yet. Within ten minutes, Mu Mian caught a fish as long as her forearm.
The same thing happened to Shi Xiaolian and Xu Lele. Xu Lele was holding a fish and smiling so hard that his teeth were showing. “Hahaha, what a big fish!”
He didn't care about being slapped by the fish. After carefully putting the fish into the bag, Xu Lele sighed innocently as he touched it. His tone was full of longing, "I have never caught such a big fish. It would be great if it rained heavily every day. The fish in the canal would rush down every day. Wouldn't we have endless fish to eat?!"
It makes me happy just thinking about it! !
Mu Mian smiled and said, "What if it rains every day? If the canal collapses, not only will the fish be washed down, but we will all be washed away too."
Their team was at the foot of the mountain, in low-lying terrain, and would be the most dangerous if the canal collapsed.
As he spoke, Mu Mian subconsciously glanced at Shi Xiaolian.
Xu Lele looked regretful, "Ah? That's scary. I'd rather not eat fish than be washed away!"
Shi Xiaolian followed up with another sentence, "It won't collapse, at least within a decade..."
He suddenly shut his mouth in the middle of his speech.
Shi Xiaolian glanced at Mu Mian with resentment. She usually kept her mouth shut in front of her mother and sister and never let anything slip.
Mu Mian led him out subconsciously.
Mu Mian smiled innocently.
I understand. At least in the next ten years or so, there will be no major floods here, and we can sleep peacefully even if it rains heavily at night.
Xu Lele looked at the two of them strangely, "What are you standing there for? If you don't touch them for a while, the fish will be gone!"
Just as he finished speaking, a clump of water plants nearby shook violently. Xu Lele pounced on it like a dog seeing meat and fell into the water.
After a while, the girl with the waterweed on her head sat up, "Hahahahahaha, I caught another one!"
That innocent and joyful laughter made Mu Mian and his partner's ears tremble.
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