Chapter 149: Continuous rain, and the unlucky daily life after the rain
Lin Heng held Xiaoxia in his arms, and the three of them walked to the gate of the yard, where they could clearly see the area where the mudslide blocked the river.
Next door, my eldest brother, his wife and others also came out to the gate to check the situation. Some people in the village even went to the street with umbrellas to see what was going on.
"It looks like the dam is about to burst." Lin Heng sighed as he looked into the distance.
From a distance, the river water was already level with the embankment created by the mudslide, with a lot of water flowing out from both sides. It seemed like the only thing left before the embankment burst.
"Dad, what is that?" Xiaoxia opened her eyes wide and looked curious.
"That's a disaster. It's very dangerous." Lin Heng held his daughter in his arms. The rain and the wind were still roaring.
After waiting for about ten minutes, a big hole appeared under the flushing of water, and then expanded rapidly.
In an instant, the piled up rocks, soil, and trees were all washed away by the angry river water, and a water head three or four meters high rushed towards the downstream like a yellow dragon.
Everything in its path was ruthlessly destroyed.
"The pit fields are gone! These were built stone by stone by your grandfather and your great grandfather."
Father Lin shook his head and sighed, watching helplessly as the river water washed away the stone embankments of the fields along the riverside of his home, and everything was merged into the rolling river.
Although Hongfeng Village is a small basin, it is just a river with a small slope, not flat land. Many of the stone embankments on the land were built bit by bit by the older generation.
There were many other people who were equally sad and angry. Some of them stood on the road, slapping their thighs and roaring in anger.
As the water head receded, the river gradually calmed down. Although it was still turbulent, it was far less than before.
The land that was washed away has disappeared and the riverbed has expanded significantly.
"I'm going back." Father Lin shook his head and walked back with a dull look on his face.
Lin Heng also brought his wife and children back to the house. It was already past two o'clock. Lin Heng warmed up a pot of tea, took two sips, picked up the book and began to read out of boredom.
Xiulan was doing needlework while Xiaoxia was sitting on a mat covered with a small quilt holding Jinbao, interrupting Lin Heng from time to time to ask various questions.
Lin Heng looked at her helplessly and explained slowly, but he was reading a famous book and she just couldn't understand it at all.
After reading for a while, Lin Heng had no choice but to read the storybook to her.
At around six o'clock in the afternoon, Lin's mother brought over a pot of pork leg stewed with yam, chestnuts and Codonopsis pilosula and a few steamed cakes.
"Your sister and the others probably won't be back today." Mother Lin said worriedly as she put the pork leg on the table.
"I've already told Caiyun that when it rains, she can go to the store to rest. I have a quilt there. Don't think too much, mom." Lin Heng comforted with a smile.
Mother Lin nodded, looked at Xiulan and said, "Xiulan, stop pulling at the soles of your shoes and come eat the pork leg before it gets cold."
"Grandma, I want some meat!" Xiaoxia had already crawled into Lin's mother's arms.
"good."
Xiulan put down her needlework, went to the kitchen to get chopsticks and bowls, and they started eating.
"Mom, you should eat too. Don't just feed Xiaoxia." Lin Heng said to his mother.
"Your father and I finished eating in the house before bringing this to you." Mother Lin shook her head, indicating that she was not hungry at all.
After feeding Xiaoxia a yam, she continued, “The village chief is back, and it is said that Li Zigang’s family, who lives in Xiahe near the river, suffered the greatest loss.
They built the pig pen next to the river, and the water was so high that the 200-pound pig ran away."
"This is too tragic. He will be killed immediately." Xiulan couldn't help but feel sympathy.
People in the countryside rely on the pigs they raise for meat every year. If such a big pig is chased away, the Li family will probably suffer for a year.
Because there may not be much meat to eat in the coming year, this year will not be a good year.
"I estimate that the losses in Baima Village will be greater. That place is flatter and many houses are built on the riverside." Lin Heng shook his head.
Floods happen frequently these days.
Everyone was silent for a moment. No matter whose suffering it was, it made people feel sad.
"I'll go back first. You guys take your time eating." After chatting for a while, Lin's mother saw that the rain had gotten heavier, so she left in a hurry.
After dinner, Lin Heng went to feed the chickens and ducks in the rain and picked up three chicken eggs and two duck eggs.
Father Lin has already fed the red dates, so he doesn't need to worry about it.
In the evening, eggs were cooked for Xiaoxia, and Lin Heng and Xiulan finished eating the pork leg that Lin's mother sent them.
After coaxing Xiaoxia to sleep, Lin Heng discussed some philosophical questions with his wife.
Gentle women are made of water, making people unable to stop, and they are so fascinated by the big meat buns that they are infatuated with them.
It can be said that the red candle burns the peony, and the flower's tears flow.
Throwing the bed sheet on the chair beside the bed, Xiulan lay on Lin Heng's chest and fell asleep sweetly.
On the 6th, the two woke up from their dream, but the rain still hadn't stopped.
Xiulan lay on Lin Heng's chest like a kitten, looking at the rain outside boredly, not caring that they were still naked under the quilt.
"You did this on purpose?" Lin Heng looked at his wife.
Xiulan looked at him and said, "What's the matter? Do you think I'm getting too fat and putting pressure on you?"
Lin Heng glanced at her, admitted defeat, and asked her to lie down, just to exercise his self-control.
Xiulan snorted softly and showed a smug smile.
After lying down for a while, the two men got up, put on their clothes, and went to look at the leopard skin.
After so many days of tanning, it has transformed from leopard skin to leather.
"Just take it out now, clean it and dry it." Xiulan said as she looked at the animal hide.
"Let me do it, you go cook, I'm a little hungry." Lin Heng said.
"Okay." Xiulan nodded.
They washed their faces, brushed their teeth with tooth powder, and went about their own business.
The rain today was much lighter than the previous few days, with continuous drizzle, but it still did not clear up.
Lin Heng washed the leopard skin several times, and now it feels as soft as a towel.
After washing, he soaked it in clean water again, and only after breakfast did he take it out and hang it under the eaves to dry.
Originally, the day that Lin's father wanted to find someone to look after the body was today, but the rain didn't stop, so they had to find another day.
It was really boring to stay at home. As the rain had subsided again, Lin Heng simply put on a straw raincoat, a hat, and took his bow and slingshot to go outside for a walk.
As a result, I searched the whole village but didn't see any. When I got home, I found a few green-bearded crickets chirping in front of the door.
He picked up a slingshot and killed one, then searched nearby and killed another one.
I looked at the back mountain and saw thick fog. I guess there was no hope, so I could only go home and roast the two green bearded crabs.
At noon, I asked my wife to make some potato pancakes to help me kill some time.
He spent the remaining half day getting a deck of playing cards and calling his elder brother and sister-in-law to play cards together.
On the 7th, Lin Heng had begun to hate rain very much. He took out the mesh of the ground cage that he had not started to make, made a frame with iron wire, and covered the ground cage with the mesh.
In the afternoon, the leopard skin was dry. Lin Heng took it down and tanned it by hand until it became as soft as a towel. Then the skin was considered tanned.
Xiulan took it, looked at it, and said, "Just make two pairs of gloves. It's definitely not enough to make clothes."
"Okay, just do it as you see fit." Lin Heng spread his hands.
The rain stopped when we rested at night.
Early in the morning of the 8th, the rain stopped. When the golden sun rose from the east, Lin Heng could not help but let out a long roar towards the sky.
"Oh my god, it's finally sunny!"
Lin Heng felt that the whole world had become a better place.
"Ohhh, the sun is out!!"
Xiaoxia couldn't help but cheer. She hadn't gone out to play for a long time and missed it very much.
Taking out the benches, the three of them sat under the eaves to bask in the sun.
I didn't go into the house to cook until my whole body was warm and all the moisture was gone.
In rural areas where there is no electricity, continuous rain is like being in prison for farmers.
Lin Heng was still able to read books in the first two days, but in the middle few days he just wanted to barbecue and eat. In the last few days he was in a bad mood and didn't want to do anything, he even didn't want to eat.
While his wife was cooking, Lin Heng took out all the incense powder he had made earlier.
I got three basins, one containing rosin, one containing calamus powder, and another containing mugwort powder.
Add sticky powder made of nanmu to each of them, add water and stir. Nanmu powder contains natural gum and is the best adhesive.
When the mixture is almost ready to form dough, pinch it into thumb-sized cone-shaped incense sticks and place them in the sun to dry.
Lin Heng likes this kind of single scent, and doesn't like the mixed incense that is made by adding various ingredients like alchemy.
For breakfast, Xiulan made rice, and the dishes were stir-fried meat with sour cowpea and braised eggplant.
Lin Heng ate two large bowls of food happily. After the meal, Xiulan looked at him and asked, "How about going to pick mushrooms?"
Lin Heng shook his head: "Forget it, the ground is too humid today, and it has been raining for such a long time, the mushrooms will rot long ago.
Why not wait for two days until the ground is dry and a new batch of mushrooms emerge, and then we can go up the mountain.”
"That's true. I guess I can't do anything today. I'll just do some laundry." Xiulan nodded.
After dinner, Xiulan took Hongzao to take a bath at home. There was mud everywhere outside, which was not suitable for going out to play.
Lin Heng fed the red dates to the dog and rode it to check the situation. The road had collapsed in many places, but fortunately it was passable without any problems.
There was a family in Baima Village whose situation was particularly miserable. He saw that his house was destroyed by the flood.
After asking someone, he learned that two more people were run away by the water. Lin Heng was silent for a moment.
We cannot go to Huangtan Town for the time being as the water level is still too high to cross the river. We will probably have to wait until tomorrow for the water to recede.
The next morning, Caiyun and Liu Ciwen, who had stayed in the town for seven days, returned together.
Her family had been very worried these days, and they were relieved to see that she was safe and sound.
"Caiyun, since you are fine, please help take care of Xiaoxia after dinner. She misses you very much."
Lin Heng looked at his sister and said with a smile.
Caiyun puffed her lips and rolled her eyes: "Second brother, you are really not polite at all."
Lin Heng laughed: "Of course, after all, apart from us, you are the only one who takes care of Xiaoxia and she won't cry."
"Then I have to have a good meal at your house today." Caiyun was not polite. She said something to her parents and ran away with Lin Heng.
The meal that Lin Heng’s family cooked in the evening was naturally not bad. The sour cowpea and minced meat rice was so delicious that Caiyun was dizzy.
After dinner, she took Xiaoxia out to play on the street. Xiaoxia wanted to run around, just like Xiongba, she would be unhappy if she didn't run for a few days.
"Let's go. We only have two goals today: Matsutake and black truffle, and Hericium erinaceus." Lin Heng put on the backpack and said to his wife.
"good!"
Xiulan nodded, took her things and went up the mountain with Lin Heng.
“Woof woof!!”
My Xiongba, who had been at home for a long time, was running around happily, extremely excited.
Not long after walking, Xiulan picked up a Ganoderma lucidum. She was a little surprised: "I'm lucky today, it's a good start."
"I picked one up too." Lin Heng said with a smile, holding a small Ganoderma lucidum.
The two of them went straight over the mountains and across the hills, heading towards the older pine forest. They encountered quite a few mushrooms on the way, including yellow mushrooms, broom mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, etc. Most of them would rot if touched.
The best time to pick mushrooms is when it only rains lightly or moderately for two or three days. If it rains for more than three days, most mushrooms will become mushy.
At eleven o'clock, the two came to a pine forest which was even farther away than the last time they picked black truffles. This place was five or six kilometers away from their home.
These two mountains are covered with big pine trees, including black pine, Chinese pine and masson pine, and few people come here.
"There are so many pine mushrooms, but it's a pity that they are all rotten." Xiulan picked up a few beautiful pine mushrooms, broke them open, and found that they were all occupied by insects.
“Woof woof~~”
Xiongba called out from not far away.
"Is there something?"
This made Lin Heng and Xiulan stunned and they walked away.
As she got closer, Xiulan said happily, "It's a morel. I wonder if it's rotten or not."
This mushroom is also very good. At least it tastes good when dried and made into soup.
"Fortunately, they are not rotten. They should have just come out." Lin Heng picked up two, looked at them, and put them in the backpack.
The two continued searching, but found that most of the milk mushrooms were useless, as nine out of ten were rotten.
One afternoon, Lin Heng picked up eight egg mushrooms, weighing about two kilograms, and three kilograms of morels, but did not find any matsutake mushrooms or black truffles.
"Honey, I found Matsutake." Xiulan suddenly cheered.
“Finally found it.”
Lin Heng came over and saw that these matsutake mushrooms seemed a bit old. After digging them out, they found that some of them were indeed infested with worms, but since they were matsutake mushrooms, the two decided to remove the infested parts.
After picking up this nest of matsutake mushrooms, the two had lunch and only picked about five kilograms of morels and two kilograms of matsutake mushrooms in the afternoon.
There was no trace of black truffles, let alone picking them up.
"What a failure." When returning home, Lin Heng looked at the things in the backpack and shook his head in disappointment.
Xiulan glanced at him and said, "You are just too greedy. If other people had so many good mushrooms, they would be so happy."
"Hahaha, don't we have Xiongba?" Lin Heng laughed.
However, what he didn't expect was that the next day, even with Xiongba, they were empty-handed.
I only managed to collect less than 10 kilograms of pine mushrooms in the whole day, and the only good mushroom was one Hericium erinaceus.
"Wife, take my backpack. I'll get a bundle of firewood back." On the mountain behind the house, Lin Heng threw down the backpack and picked up a bundle of firewood.
After tying up the dry firewood and preparing to go back, beekeeper Wang Jinsong came down the mountain, looked at Lin Heng and said with a smile: "It seems that you didn't get much today, so you've all started to dry the firewood."
Lin Heng didn't want to pay attention to him and just replied: "Yes, I didn't get it."
"Hey, I picked up a lot of Hericium erinaceus today. Isn't it pretty good?" Wang Jin opened the bag and smiled, showing off.
"It's just so-so. It's not much." Lin Heng said indifferently. He felt that this was a naked provocation.
This made Wang Jin extremely dissatisfied. He had taken the initiative to show goodwill, so why was Lin Heng still so harsh?
He immediately took his things and left, cursing from a distance: "Why are you pretending to have a little money? Sooner or later, you will lose it all!"
Lin Heng was stunned, then shook his head and laughed: "This guy is really funny."
He just didn't do what he wanted, so he got angry and started cursing.
"He is the one who likes to show off the most." Xiulan said speechlessly. Every time she walked in front of his house, this man always liked to show off.
"Let's go back." Lin Heng shook his head and walked down the mountain carrying the firewood.
After returning home, Lin Heng put down the firewood and asked Xiulan to wash the milk mushrooms in the evening, and make half of them into fried mushrooms and stir-fry the other half.
Fried mushrooms are made by every household in the countryside. The mushrooms are wrapped in flour and eggs, and then fried in oil until crispy.
It is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and its taste is the best snack in the countryside. Xiaoxia sat on the bench and ate a small bowl in one breath.
"Are you going up the mountain again tomorrow?" Xiulan asked curiously.
Lin Heng nodded: "I don't believe that I can't find black truffles. I'll go to the pine forest near Sanyegou tomorrow to have a look."
"Then I won't go, otherwise Xiaoxia will have no one to take her." Xiulan felt that her husband was crazy. Black truffles were too rare, otherwise the price would not be so expensive.
"Okay, then I'll go alone and hunt at the same time." Lin Heng nodded and ate a few more bites of fried mushrooms.
The next morning, Lin Heng and Xiong Ba set out again.
I came back in the afternoon and brought back three green mullets, and the only mushrooms were three pitiful egg mushrooms.
"Forget it, let's wait for a while before going." Xiulan advised.
"I'll try again. If I fail, forget it." Lin Heng shook his head.
These words were like a spell, and they turned out to be true. Although he did not come back empty-handed in the next few days, the amount he gained each time was far from proportional to the time he wasted.
On this day, Lin Heng finally gave up and no longer obsessed with the pine forest. Xiongba was very happy in the oak forest.
“Woof woof~”
When Xiongba called out, Lin Heng hurried over. When he saw it was another Ganoderma lucidum, he immediately smiled from ear to ear.
"Fuck the black truffle, isn't Ganoderma lucidum fragrant?"
As he picked fruits along the way, Lin Heng found himself letting go of his anxiety and becoming happier.
As long as I don’t think about getting black truffles, it’s pretty fun to just pick a Ganoderma lucidum here, a morel there, and look at the scenery in the distance from time to time.
I've been losing my appetite recently because of black truffles, but it's really unnecessary.
"I'm obsessed!"
Lin Heng shook his head, looked up, and found that he was not far from Baishigou.
"Then let's go over and see if there are any more Ganoderma lucidum." Lin Heng thought about it and decided that Baishigou was too far away, but he could look for Ganoderma lucidum nearby. There were quite a lot of mushrooms in this place.
Before he knew it, Lin Heng found that he had picked up more than a pound of Ganoderma lucidum, five or six pounds of morels, three or four pounds of tricholoma, and more than a pound of oyster mushrooms.
After looking at the road, he changed direction and came to a chestnut forest. For some reason, the chestnuts in this forest did not bear fruit, and almost no people came here.
Lin Heng walked for dozens of meters before he picked up a dozen chestnuts. The grains were so small that he suddenly lost interest and didn't want to pick them up anymore.
"Xiongba, let's go and find a place to eat some dry food first." Lin Heng called out.
Xiongba ran over from the woods in the distance. When it got closer, Lin Heng saw that it was holding a black object in its mouth.
"Huh? Where did you find this?" After seeing it clearly, Lin Heng couldn't help but widen his eyes and open his mouth.
＊
＊
＊
ps: There is a problem with the price of black truffles in the previous article. Ten kilograms of wet truffles are equivalent to one kilogram of dried truffles, so the price of dry truffles should be ten times that of wet truffles. It was written wrong and has been corrected.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
