Chapter 124 Huang Xiaoyue

This was obviously not Li Chunfang's first visit to Shuangxi Village.

The carriage arrived at the home of the captain of Shuangxi Village with ease.

Li Chunfang was quite familiar with the captain, and in fact, they were even somewhat related.

The leader of Shuangxi Village was not very old, probably in his thirties. When he saw Li Chunfang, he immediately greeted her with a smile, "Sister."

Li Chunfang smiled and said, "Xiaohe, let's come over to exchange potatoes."

Li Chunfang came to Shuangxi Village almost every year to exchange potatoes, and team leader Gao He guessed it.

After a brief greeting, he led a few people to exchange potatoes.

Shuangxi Village has many mountains, but the land is fertile, so the villagers turned the mountains into terraces to grow sweet potatoes and potatoes.

The people of Shuangxi Village are quite wise.

Thanks to this, even in years of famine, people in the village would not go without food.

Captain Gao He was both happy and worried. He was happy that the village would not be short of food, but...

Gao He sighed and said, "Recently, other villages have been coming to borrow food every day. I am almost worried to death."

They say they are lending, but those villages are extremely poor. When can the borrowed food be returned?

If we really lend the food out, it would be like throwing meat buns at a dog, it will never come back!

Li Chunfang muttered after hearing this: "Can't we exchange it for coarse grains?"

Gao He smiled bitterly and said, "It would be great if they could really provide us with coarse grains."

Those villages just wanted to write IOUs, but Gao He definitely couldn't agree to that. Once this started, the consequences would be uncontrollable.

Gao He took a few people to the village granary to exchange potatoes.

The potatoes must also be picked carefully.

Liu Yinyin used the 20 kilograms of cornmeal she brought to exchange for potatoes, and picked up 60 kilograms in total.

Jiang Cuihua exchanged for 40 kilograms of cornmeal and 120 kilograms of potatoes.

Li Chunfang exchanged for more potatoes, more than two hundred pounds, nearly three hundred kilograms, and she also brought some back to her mother's home.

Gao He collected the cornmeal. When he saw the cornmeal Liu Yinyin gave him, he exclaimed in surprise, "Is this... pure cornmeal?"

In order to save food, the country people grind cornmeal together with the corn cobs.

Just like the cornmeal brought by Li Chunfang and Jiang Cuihua, the texture is rough and has obvious granularity.

And the corn flour that Liu Yinyin gave... was golden in color, delicate and smooth, and exuded a strong corn aroma. It was obviously made from pure corn kernels.

Liu Yinyin nodded: "...it's pure cornmeal."

The cornmeal was actually smuggled out of the system by her.

Li Chunfang helped explain: "Her husband has a job in the county town, and this is the commercial grain he received."

Gao He was slightly stunned when he heard this, then he understood and said, "So that's how it is."

No wonder he said that country people don't know how to live. Eating pure cornmeal is such a waste.

Seeing that the corn flour from Liu Yinyin's family was of good quality, Gao He felt embarrassed to take advantage of her, so he gave Liu Yinyin ten more kilograms of sweet potatoes.

After changing the cornmeal, it was still early, so Gao He invited a few people to his home to sit down.

Li Chunfang refused and said, "No, we still have to go to Huang Laizi's house to exchange for honey."

Huang Laizi is a beekeeper in Shuangxi Village. Because he has a lump of flesh on his face, the villagers call him Huang Laizi.

I don't mean to laugh at him, I just call him that out of habit.

"Okay, then you guys go quickly." Gao He didn't want to keep anyone as he had other things to do.

Because he wanted to raise bees in the mountains, Huang Laizi lived halfway up the mountain at the end of the village.

It was difficult for the ox cart to go up the mountain, so Li Chunfang left his eldest son at the foot of the mountain to watch.

Several women went up the mountain carrying food.

As they walked, Li Chunfang said, "Huang Laizi is so pitiful. He is the only one at home with a daughter."

Jiang Cuihua asked curiously, "Where is his wife?"

"Well." Li Chunfang raised her eyebrows slightly and said, "His wife disliked his ugly appearance and they divorced."

In fact, it was Huang Laizi's wife who had an affair with someone else first, and she remarried quickly after divorcing Huang Laizi.

Li Chunfang continued, "Actually, Huang Laizi is pretty good except for his ugly appearance. He is honest and has a skill to make money."

Huang Laizi is not a lazy person. He can get full work points at work and he also knows how to raise bees. His life at home is no worse than others.

The family his wife later married into was not better off than Huang Laizi's family.

"That's such a pity." Jiang Cuihua also felt that Huang Laizi sounded very pitiful.

She thought his wife was sick or dead, but she didn't expect this to be the case.

However, when Jiang Cuihua saw Huang Laizi's true appearance, she was really a little scared.

Half of Huang Laizi's face was covered with bumps and lumps of flesh, like a tumor.

At first glance, it does seem scary.

Because Huang Laizi was ugly and his wife ran away with someone else, he became more and more inferior.

When he saw a stranger coming to the door, he immediately hid inside the house.

Jiang Cuihua: “…”

Liu Yinyin: “…”

Isn't this a typical social phobia?

It's really pitiful to see a grown man become like this.

After a while, a girl of about seventeen or eighteen came out of the room.

The little girl has big eyes, thick eyebrows, a tall figure, and a generous temperament.

This girl is Huang Laizi’s concubine, Huang Xiaoyue.

"Auntie Chunfang, please come in and sit down." Huang Xiaoyue skillfully moved a stool and poured water for her.

Honey is added to the water, so it tastes sweet.

The yellow leprosy was afraid of scaring strangers, so it didn't come out again.

This was obviously not the first time Huang Xiaoyue had encountered such a thing. It could be said that now all the big and small matters at home were handled by her alone.

Children from poor families have to grow up early. What's more, she has lost her mother and her father is like this. How can she not be smart?

Li Chunfang smiled and said, "Don't be so polite, we'll just exchange some honey and leave."

Because the harvest was bad this year, not many people came to exchange their honey. Huang Laizi and his daughter were very worried because they had already collected several jars of honey.

So, when Huang Xiaoyue saw Li Chunfang bringing people to exchange for honey, she was so happy that she naturally wanted to entertain them well.

In previous years, two kilograms of white flour or five kilograms of coarse grain could be exchanged for one kilogram of honey from Huang Laizi's family.

But this year the harvest is not good, and one pound of white flour or three pounds of coarse grain can be exchanged for one pound of honey.

Liu Yinyin exchanged the five kilograms of flour that she brought for honey. Huang Xiaoyue also gave her a small jar that could just hold five kilograms of honey.

Jiang Cuihua and Li Chunfang both exchanged ten kilograms of cornmeal and more than three kilograms of honey.

Finally, Huang Xiaoyue gave a few people a portion of bee pupae. It wasn't much, only about 30 or 40 grams, but it could be made into a dish.

Cicada pupae are also considered meat. Jiang Cuihua and Li Chunfang were both grinning from ear to ear.

After changing the honey, a few people sat for a while and then left.

Huang Xiaoyue saw them to the door, and when they walked out, Jiang Cuihua still had a smile on her face.