Chapter 206 Treasures in the Mountains
Lin Heng went to Huangtan Town early and met Mr. Gao.
At ten o'clock in the morning, someone from the county came to visit Grandpa Gao, and Grandpa Gao took the opportunity to introduce Lin Heng to him.
Lin Heng treated him with normal etiquette and did not fawn on him during the conversation.
He had no such idea, nor was there any need to do so.
If you run your business normally and make good use of your advantage as a prophet, it will be enough to make a fortune.
These two people were high-ranking leaders in the county. They only showed a little kindness to Lin Heng, chatted with Grandpa Gao for a while, and then left.
But at least we got to know each other, and now we have channels and ways to communicate, and it’s also an additional network.
But he can’t use his connections for now because he doesn’t have enough capital.
After having breakfast with Grandpa Gao, since today was not a market day and there was nothing fun to do in town, Lin Heng rode his horse directly back home.
On the way back, I met the Liu family who were going to the town to buy things with mourning cloth.
Most of the things bought are paper money, incense, funeral clothes and so on.
After returning to Hongfeng Mountain, Lin Heng went to Liu Lan's house to take a look. The people who came to help had already built a tent for the banquet with tarpaulin and bamboo poles.
Some people were helping to slaughter pigs, some were helping to dig lotus roots, and some were going to each household in the village to buy spinach, cabbage and other vegetables.
Lin Heng found out more and found out that the visitor was, as expected, the village party secretary Tian Dongfu.
The so-called "zhike" is the person who is responsible for receiving internal and external guests during the funeral.
Lin Heng asked about it and found out that Tian Dongfu assigned him the job of making liquor, which was a very easy job as he was only responsible for heating the liquor.
His brother Lin Yue was responsible for pouring the wine, which meant pouring the brewed wine into small wine pots and placing them on each table.
There is nothing to do today, and there is nothing to do tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The real business is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, which is the day when guests will come.
Because transportation was inconvenient in that era, it took time to prepare food for the banquet, and it also required people to invite a fortune teller, notify relatives living in other towns, etc.
Unlike later generations with advanced technology, notifications can be handled with just a phone call, and if you need vegetables or something, you can go buy them directly.
Father Lin and his friends were helping to kill the pig. A group of people were talking and laughing, and the village was bustling with activity.
The only ones who are truly sad about this kind of thing are the family members. Outsiders all just smile and enjoy the feast. People’s sorrows and joys are not shared.
Lin Heng just felt it was a pity and lamented the impermanence of life, but looking back he would still smile and eat as usual.
Death is inevitable in this life, so we should cherish our time and enjoy the process instead of being a slave.
Money and career have never been Lin Heng’s top priority, family is.
"Dad, it's time to eat!"
As soon as Lin Heng returned home, Xiaoxia took his hand and said in a baby voice.
Lin Heng's family now has more meat than grain, and there is meat at every meal. Lin Heng has a special liking for braised meat and mugwort tofu.
"This is the last bit of tofu. The only things left are dried tofu and tofu skin."
While eating, Xiulan pointed to the tofu on the plate and said, today there is not only a steamed mugwort tofu, but also a cabbage and tofu soup.
Lin Heng nodded and said, "Let's have hot pot in a couple of days. Let's go to town tomorrow to see if there's any beef or mutton for sale."
"Sure, I want to eat it too." Xiulan was still a little craving for hotpot.
Xiaoxia ate a few bites of food and ran out to play in the snow. When she felt cold, she ran back into the house to warm herself by the fire.
After clearing the dishes, Xiulan looked at Lin Heng and said, "The weather is pretty good today. Do you want to go pick some wild walnuts to eat?"
Wild walnuts are also called hickory nuts. They are similar to domestic walnuts, but have deep lines on them, an extremely hard shell, and very little flesh inside.
However, although the flesh is scarce, it has a strong fragrance and the yield is very high. It is everywhere in the mountains and rivers, and you can't pick it all.
"Sure, then pick up some more."
Lin Heng has nothing to do today, so if Xiulan wants to go, he will accompany her.
"Then let's go now."
Xiulan nodded and went to get two backpacks.
After Xiongba finished his meal, he took Xiaoxia and set off together.
You don't have to go far to pick up these walnuts, they are found by the river. The two of them locked the door and walked towards Shibadanggou. This year, when the honeysuckle was in season, they saw that the walnuts in the gully were very lush.
As they walked onto the road, Liu Lan came towards them and looked at them and said, "Hey, Xiulan and Lin Heng, why aren't you guys going to eat? The feast has just started."
Although today is not a serious business, there is still a table for those who help out. There are two or three dishes with meat, which is considered a big meal in that era, so people usually rush to help out and have a bite.
Lin Hengwei smiled and said, "We've already eaten at home, so we won't go. We'll go up the mountain to pick some walnuts."
He was indeed not very interested in Murakami's meal, especially the meal he was helping with, which was not as sumptuous as the one he had at home in the morning.
"Okay then, we must go over to eat tonight."
Liu Lan didn't say much and left with a smile on her face, without any sadness on her face.
Lin Heng didn't say much, and took his daughter and Xiulan to walk side by side on the dirt road. There was no wind today, the sky was cloudless and the sun was warm, so walking on the road was a kind of enjoyment.
Looking up, the mountains and fields are all gray. The mountain ranges look like giant dragons, and the leafless trees look like the hairs on the dragons' bodies.
Once you enter Shibadang Valley, you can turn around and see some farther and higher mountains with snow on them, giving you a fairyland-like feeling.
"There are so many of them here. These should be the wild walnuts that just fell this year."
Lin Heng looked at the wasteland in front of him and said, there is no sunlight in this ditch and there is snow.
Xiulan looked at it and said, "Let's go up the mountain first and pick it up from the bottom."
"Um."
Lin Heng had no objection to this. The three of them continued to move forward for a distance and arrived at the middle of Shibadang Valley.
"Dad, there's a mouse!!"
Xiaoxia suddenly spoke up and pointed at a gray squirrel on a rock in the distance.
Lin Heng turned his head and saw that the gray squirrel was holding a chestnut in its arms. It looked at Lin Heng and ran away.
"Come on, let's go and look for the squirrel's treasure."
Lin Heng held his daughter's hand and said with a smile.
With Xiongba, the few of them searched there for a while, and finally Xiongba found a pile of chestnuts and acorns in a tree hole.
"Squirrel's Treasure!!"
Xiaoxia widened her eyes, stretched out her little hands to put the chestnuts into her pocket, and was shocked by this little treasure.
Xiulan was also a little surprised. She didn't expect that she could actually find it.
“Woof woof~”
Lin Heng and his team had just packed up about half a pound of chestnuts when Xiongba made another noise in the distance.
"And there's treasure!"
Xiaoxia screamed and ran towards Xiongba with her short legs.
"So many?"
Xiulan pulled Xiaoxia over and found that there was also a pile of them under the stone, but some of them had been eaten by rats.
Lin Heng smiled and nodded: "Squirrels have bad memories. They don't even know where they hide a lot."
In autumn, squirrels will desperately hide all kinds of nuts. One squirrel may even hide them in a dozen places, but in the end they can't even remember where they hid them.
However, after searching this place, no other discoveries were made. But Xiaoxia had heard so many fairy tales that she kept muttering about continuing her search.
“Pick up walnuts!”
Lin Heng carried her to a walnut tree. The wild walnuts that fell in autumn had rotted out of their shells, revealing the yellowish-brown or black walnuts inside.
The yield of pecans is very high. You can fill a basket with the nuts from one tree. The weight is not that much, only about 30 to 40 kilograms.
The three men and the dog walked down for a distance and came to a very large walnut tree. The walnut tree was thirty centimeters in diameter and more than ten meters high. When they pulled aside the grass under the tree, they could see densely packed walnuts.
There are so many of these things that I can’t pick them all up.
Lin Heng had just picked up some fruits when Xiaoxia came to him with something that looked like an orange and asked in a baby voice, "Dad, what is this?"
"This is a bitter orange, you can't eat it."
Lin Heng took a look at this thing and knew that it was the fruit of the small tree covered with thorns next to it.
There is an old saying that oranges grown in the south of the Huai River are oranges, while oranges grown in the north of the Huai River are tangerines. But in fact, oranges and tangerines are two completely different trees and are not the same.
This bitter orange is of no use. It is full of seeds and is completely inedible. It is generally used as a traditional Chinese medicine.
Although she was told not to eat it, Xiaoxia still secretly took a bite of it, then stuck out her tongue, stomped her feet, and threw the Zhi away angrily.
Lin Heng smiled and continued picking walnuts, letting her and Xiongba play around.
"Honey, look at this walnut!"
At this time, Xiulan Touareg suddenly came over with a walnut.
Most wild walnuts are oval and long, but the one Xiulan is holding is round and much larger than ordinary walnuts, with a diameter of more than three to four centimeters, about the same size as Xiaoxia's fist.
"This is a good thing. Go and see if there is any more."
Lin Heng discovered its value at first sight. This is definitely a perfect walnut for play with.
"What's the value?" Xiulan still didn't understand.
Lin Heng told her about the walnuts, and Xiulan was a little shocked: "People in the city really have nothing to do after eating, so they treat these as treasures."
She just thought it was very big and must contain a lot of walnut kernels, but she didn't expect it to have such value.
"That's natural. Rich people have a lot of things to play with."
Lin Heng grinned, then he and Xiulan began to search carefully.
"I found another one."
After a while, Xiulan took another one and handed it to Lin Heng.
"These two are about the same size, which is good. I can hold them and play with them myself."
Lin Heng took the two walnuts in his hands and played with them. They felt pretty good.
The value will be higher after it is sold, but he doesn't want to sell it. It's a good thing to keep for fun or give to others. Some people like to play with this kind of thing.
Lin Heng estimated that one of the branches of the big walnut tree had mutated, which was why it produced such big walnuts.
"No, it turns out that it was produced by this little walnut tree."
After searching for a while, Lin Heng finally found the real one. It was a fruit grown on a small tree as thick as a wrist not far from the big walnut tree.
I didn’t find any walnuts under the big walnut trees, but there were quite a few under the small walnut trees. The walnuts on these small walnut trees were all quite big, but not all of them were round and beautiful.
After picking and choosing, I found eleven good ones, about three centimeters in size.
The two in Lin Heng's hand are absolutely top-quality. Not only are they round, but the patterns on them are also very beautiful. The diameter is about four centimeters, which is big and beautiful.
Xiulan played with the two walnuts for a while and said with a smile, "You know what, it feels pretty good to play like this."
"That's natural."
Lin Heng smiled slightly and put these things away separately.
There was no need to go anywhere else. The two of them had already filled their backpacks by the time they had finished picking walnuts from the big walnut tree, and they even put two snakeskin bags on top of the backpacks.
After finishing all these, Xiulan didn't want to go back like this, so she looked at Lin Heng and said, "Let's go pick some more garlic."
"Can."
Young garlic is also used in winter and will always grow on sunny slopes.
After picking two bunches of hickory nuts, the two of them carried Xiaoxia back with them. There were still some on the way home, but it was not easy to pick them while carrying them.
"Lin Heng, are you guys going to pick wild walnuts?"
When I was almost at the door of my house, I heard a voice in the distance.
Lin Heng looked up and saw that it was Carpenter Liang. He was immediately curious: "Where is Carpenter Liang going?"
"Go to Shimen Village and make a furniture for someone." Carpenter Liang said with a smile, and his attitude towards Lin Heng was very kind.
When he saw Xiaoxia, he took out a wooden carved mouse from his backpack and gave it to her.
Lin Heng looked at him and smiled, "Is that so? Carpenter Liang, are you in a hurry? I have something else I want to talk to you about."
"What's the matter?" Carpenter Liang asked curiously.
Lin Heng said, "The river was flooded before, and I picked up some dark wood. I plan to ask you to make it into furniture."
"Sunken wood?"
Carpenter Liang was stunned and looked surprised. This was a good thing. He had only seen it once or twice in all his years as a carpenter, and Lin Heng actually picked it up.
"Then I have to go and see what it means."
Carpenter Liang said with a smile. He couldn't help swallowing and missed the food at the Lin family.
When he worked for Lin Heng before, he was not a millionaire yet. I’m afraid the food will be better now.
"Then please come."
Lin Heng said with a smile. After thinking about it, he felt that it would be better to make the sunken wood into home furnishings for his own enjoyment first. If he really wanted to sell them in the future, the sunken wood home furnishings would also be worth a lot of money.
With Carpenter Liang, Lin Heng quickly returned home.
“That’s a lot of meat!”
Carpenter Liang was a little shocked when he saw the pork hanging on Lin Henglou's pillow. How many wild boars must have been killed to get this?
"Haha, I killed a few wild boars a few days ago."
Lin Heng said this casually, and then took the carpenter Liang to the second floor to take a look at his dark wood.
Carpenter Liang took a look and nodded in confirmation, "This is indeed dark wood. These red toon trees are the best. They are a beautiful blood red when made into furniture. The rest seem to be camphor trees, but I can't tell them apart for now."
Then he said with envy: "But you are so lucky, this thing is very valuable, and you actually picked it up."
He really admired Lin Heng more and more. This thing looked like rotten wood in the wild, but Lin Heng actually recognized it and picked it up and brought it home. No wonder he could become a millionaire.
Lin Heng laughed and asked, "Haha, I'm lucky. Do you think this can be used to make a set of dining table and chairs?"
Carpenter Liang nodded and said, "It's enough. I suggest you keep the root of the red toon tree and find someone who can carve it. Or make a tea tray or something out of it. It's a waste to cut it into boards to make a dining table."
Lin Heng looked at him and smiled, "That's good. I have a diesel saw at home that can cut the boards very quickly. I'd like to trouble you to come back from Shimen Village and do it for me. I'll pay you one dollar and fifty cents a day."
"Okay." Carpenter Liang agreed happily, smiling happily.
I thought to myself that he was worthy of being the youngest millionaire in Huangtan Town, and he was very generous when spending money.
(End of this chapter)
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