Chapter 20: No Comparison
After mailing the items, Lin Qi was dragged out of the post office by the staff.
When he was leaving the post office, the uncle turned around and said to his colleagues, "Please help me keep an eye on my workstation while I take my niece home for a drink of water."
The serious look on his face made Lin Qi almost mistakenly think that the other person was one of her distant uncles.
After leaving the post office, the uncle took Lin Qidong and turned here and there and entered a quiet alley.
"Little girl, do you have any dried fish and shrimps left? Give some to uncle and I'll exchange them with you." The uncle went straight to the point.
"No." Lin Qi shook her head.
The uncle narrowed his eyes slightly, "Girl, lying is not good. You just mailed 17 kilograms of dried fish and shrimp. Where did these fish and shrimp come from? If you can get them once, you can definitely get them the second time, right?"
Lin Qi pursed her lips and didn't respond.
The uncle took her as a nod and glanced at her backpack again, "What's in it?"
Lin Qi didn't answer. Only then did she withdraw her supernatural power. Her tired body made her a little shaky, and she could only stand by holding on to the wall.
"Girl, are you suffering from hypoglycemia?" The uncle inferred this from her pale face.
Lin Qi nodded, this body did have hypoglycemia.
The uncle hesitated for three seconds and said, "Come to my house and have a bowl of sugar water."
Lin Qi didn't refuse and followed the uncle. After walking a few steps, the uncle's sensitive nose moved, "It smells like fish."
Lin Qi did not deny, "There is fish."
The uncle's eyes lit up, "Let's go! Let's go quickly! Uncle's house is just ahead."
The uncle's house has a separate entrance and yard with only three rooms, but it has a not-so-small yard, so overall it's quite spacious.
The uncle asked Lin Qi to sit under the persimmon tree in the yard, and he went to the room to pour a bowl of water with brown sugar for Lin Qi, "Drink it, there's more after you finish it."
Lin Qi didn't hold back and drank two bowls before saying she had had enough.
"Can I see your backpack?" asked the uncle.
Lin Qi nodded. There was only one fish in it, nothing to be ashamed of. And she had come here with others, so she must do this business.
The uncle bent down and took out the weeds from the backpack. There was only a shallow layer of weeds. When they were taken away, a huge fish weighing more than ten pounds was revealed underneath.
"Wow, there's a big fish in there!" The uncle was surprised. "I haven't seen such a big fish in years. Where did you catch it?"
"In the mountains." Lin Qi replied.
"Sell it to me." The uncle's tone allowed no refusal.
Lin Qi didn't beat around the bush, "How much?"
The uncle thought for a moment and replied, "Pork is 60 cents a pound if you have a ticket. I'll buy your fish, but without a ticket, it's 80 cents a pound. How about that?"
This price is not low.
But Lin Qi didn't want money. It was a rare trip for her to the town, and she wanted to bring some supplies back rather than money. So she said, "I don't want money, I want a clay pot, a sack, or a cloth bag."
Cloth bags, big and small, made of canvas, strong and durable. Gunny bags are bags made of hemp, relatively large, and have a large capacity. Lin Qi saw both of these bags at the post office just now.
The uncle had not expected Lin Qi to make such a request, and these two requests were not difficult for him. Clay pots can be bought in town, no tickets are required, and they are not expensive, only two or three yuan can be bought. As for cloth bags and sacks, they cannot be obtained in other places, but they are not short of them in the post office.
"Okay!" the uncle agreed, "Wait a minute, I'll prepare it for you."
In front of Lin Qi, the uncle locked several rooms in the house and went out.
It was a perfect time to sleep in the hot summer weather. Lin Qi leaned against an old bench and fell asleep before she knew it.
When the uncle pushed the door open, the little girl was sleeping soundly and showed no signs of waking up.
"The girl's vigilance is not good enough." The uncle shook his head.
But as soon as he finished speaking, Lin Qi opened her eyes.
The uncle raised his eyebrows and said, "I take back what I said just now. Come and see when you wake up. This is an earthenware jar, three cloth bags of different sizes, and two large sacks that I exchanged for you."
Lin Qi blinked and remained silent for a while.
The uncle thought she was dissatisfied, and hurriedly explained, "This cloth bag is not cheap. It's a canvas bag. In a small place like ours, you may not be able to buy it even if you want to."
A great disaster has just passed, and now everything is in short supply. Currently, the most commonly used items in Jiahe Commune are bags woven from fine linen.
Lin Qi nodded, stood up and folded the bags one by one and put them into the backpack. After the bags, she put the earthen jars last.
"Here's a steamed bun. It's my treat. Don't forget me, your uncle, next time you have mountain products." The uncle stuffed a steamed bun wrapped in paper into Lin Qi's hand.
"Okay." Lin Qi agreed.
When we came out of my uncle's house, it was already noon.
With no money or ticket, Lin Qi did not stay in the town and returned directly along the same route.
There weren't many people on the road at this time, and Lin Qi walked for several miles alone without seeing anyone. In the last days, she was a loner, and after coming to this world, she kept this habit and didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
So when two sneaky men appeared behind her, she didn't realize they were targeting her.
Until she heard what the other party said.
"This girl is a little skinny, but she's fair and should be very young. Should we drag her into the cornfield?" one of them said.
"The cornfields on the roadside tend to attract people, so go deeper." said another.
Lin Qi: “….”
After a year of peaceful life, she underestimated the safety of this world.
Seeing the two people getting closer and closer, Lin Qi could even smell the sour odor coming from them.
The two people behind her looked at each other and nodded. One, two, three, do it!
thump!
The two people who were supposed to pounce on Lin Qi fell to the ground together at this moment.
"You grabbed my leg?"
"I was just about to ask you, was it me who tripped?"
"No."
"What is that?"
The two turned their heads and looked back. Then, they saw a terrifying scene that they would never forget in their lifetime—the thin vines seemed to have consciousness, like a spirit snake, crawling from their feet, all the way to their waists, and drilling into their clothes—
ah! ! !
Cries of terror echoed through the mountains.
Lin Qi rubbed her ears, but continued walking forward without stopping or looking back.
She didn't have enough energy left, so the vines couldn't kill the two men, they would just suffer some physical pain, or at most some mental torture.
When Lin Qi returned to the educated youth point, the sun was still some distance away from setting.
There was no one in the educated youth site, and the kitchen stove was empty, with nothing on it.
They didn't come back at noon?
Lin Qi touched her sunken belly and went straight out to the vegetable field behind the educated youth center. The vegetable field had been opened and the seeds had been sown. However, Lin Qi's target was not the vegetables, but the taro and sweet potato seedlings at the edge of the vegetable field.
Ten minutes later.
Lin Qi's wooden barrel was filled with sweet potatoes and taro. The sweet potatoes and taro were of uniform size, each about the size of an adult man's fist.
Lin Qi separated them, put the sweet potatoes in one clay pot and the taro in another, and cooked them in both pots.
By the time the taro and sweet potatoes were cooked, the others had returned.
Lin Qi looked at Mo Mingyang, Ming Kangjian and Gan Tian who were walking towards them and frowned. Why did they look so embarrassed?
Gan Tian's hair was a mess, like a bird's nest, and her clothes were scratched in several places.
Mo Mingyang and Ming Kangjian had scratches on their faces, arms and backs of their hands, not to mention their clothes, which were even more torn than Gan Tian's.
What happened?
"Don't mention it. We had terrible luck today." Ming Kangjian took the initiative to say, "We went to the mountains with the children from the village and found a lot of wild fruits. But we ran into a king cobra behind us. When it ran away, most of the fruits fell off."
"Not only did most of the wild fruits fall, we were also injured, and even our clothes were torn." Mo Mingyang looked like he had suffered a great loss.
"The most important thing is that the wild fruits we picked are not sweet." Gan Tian said depressedly.
"It's not that they're not sweet, it's just not as sweet as the ones you picked, Lin Qi." Ming Kangjian said as he took out a few wild fruits from his backpack and gave them to Lin Qi.
Lin Qi took them but didn't eat them. She put them in the bowl and said, "Eat taro and sweet potato."
"Where did the taro and sweet potato come from?" Mo Mingyang ran to the clay jar and, not afraid of the heat, lifted the lid with his hands.
The aroma of taro and sweet potato wafted out with the steam, and the sound of swallowing saliva could be heard one after another.
The four of them didn't have time to talk. They reached into the clay pot one by one, shouting that it was hot, but they didn't let go. They quickly peeled the taro and sweet potato and put them into their mouths without even blowing on them.
"Well, it's a good time--" Mo Mingyang said vaguely, his eyes were moist and he almost cried.
Lin Qi ate a sweet potato and a taro, and only slowed down after her stomach was half full.
The others were faster than her. She ate two while they had already eaten four.
"Lin Qi, you haven't told us where these taro and sweet potatoes come from?" Ming Kangjian asked. He felt uneasy about the unknown origins of so many sweet potatoes and taro.
"Yeah, where did it come from?" It was too delicious. Mo Mingyang felt that if the taro and sweet potato were so delicious, he would be willing to eat them every day.
"We exchanged it for fish and shrimp on the way," said Lin Qi.
"On the way to town, you exchanged them with your dried fish and shrimp? But didn't you say you would send those fish and shrimp back home?" Ming Kangjian questioned her words.
"Exchange half and mail the other half." Lin Qi said.
"Her fish and shrimp weigh nearly 20 kilograms, half of which is enough to exchange for these sweet potatoes and taro." Gan Tian said, "So, we have eaten a lot of your food these days." Taro and sweet potatoes can be used as staple food. Seven people can eat 20 to 30 kilograms for one meal. In addition, there are wild vegetables and fish and shrimp, these two kinds of food, they eat almost every day.
At first they said that he was a burden, but he turned out not to be a burden. Instead, those of them with healthy limbs took advantage of him.
Thinking of this, Gan Tian's face couldn't help but turn red and hot.
"We all live together, why should we make such clear distinctions?" Mo Mingyang curled his lips, not caring.
Ming Kangjian glanced at him and said, "It's not so clear, why don't you take out your malted milk and share it with everyone."
Mo Mingyang choked, "How can they be the same? My malted milk is so precious, how can it be compared to these whole grains!"
Lin Qi ate her coarse grains silently and did not participate in the discussion.
Whether it’s sweet potatoes or taro, bringing it once or twice is enough, but it will be difficult to explain the third time.
Fortunately, she had a clay pot, so if she wanted to eat it, she could cook it herself in the mountains.
Mo Mingyang didn't know that this might be the last time he would eat such delicious coarse grains.
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