Chapter 61 Xu Hexiao's Concerns
The day before paying the public grain tax, the brigade began to weigh the grain.
Lin Qi called Xu Hexiao and asked him to go to the cave to find her early in the morning. Xu Hexiao set out before dawn and when he arrived at the cave, there were two wolves and a wild boar lying on the ground outside the cave.
Lin Qi was cooking breakfast in the cave. Xu Hexiao went in without asking any questions. He greeted her and went to find a knife. "You have hunted fourteen wolves in the past few days. Including the two you hunted this morning, the total is sixteen. Are you going to sell all the wolf skins?"
"Sell fourteen of them, keep one for you and one for myself. I have two quilts here, you can take one back." Lin Qi said naturally, not feeling that there was anything wrong with sharing her things with Xu Hexiao.
Xu Hexiao felt warm inside and did not reject her kindness. "A few days ago, I heard from Brother Tan that he was going to get a few cans of milk powder. He sold the wolf skin, so we bought all his milk powder."
With so many wolf skins, even if I buy milk powder, I will still have a considerable amount left.
Lin Qi had no objection, "Okay."
Xu Hexiao took a knife to skin the wolf while Lin Qi continued to cook breakfast.
After breakfast, Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao began to transport the wolves and wild boars out.
When she arrived at the foot of the mountain, someone was already waiting there. The team members seemed to take it as some kind of strange pleasure to come here every morning to wait for Lin Qi to come out of the mountain. Especially the men and children, they came here as soon as they got up every day, looking forward to it, and guessing what Lin Qi would bring out of the mountain today.
"It must be a wolf. She has been carrying wolves for seven consecutive days."
"I guess it's a wolf too. She probably disturbed the wolf's den."
If Lin Qi was here, she would definitely give him a thumbs up. She had really disturbed the wolves. She had driven away the wolves the night before and planned to let them go, but they came back the next day and were getting closer and closer to her planting area. If she had returned an hour later, there would probably not be a single living thing left in her planting area.
If they didn't leave, she would not be polite and would hunt two a day, and she had already hunted fourteen.
"Wow! There are wild boars today!"
The team members were stunned. They preferred wild boars with some fat to wolves with lean meat.
The team members' eyes were all shining, especially those whose turn it was today, they were so happy that they didn't know what to do.
"One pig and two wolves. I have prepared the quantity for tomorrow. Those who go to work tomorrow can get the meat today." Lin Qi said.
After saying that, she turned and went back into the mountains.
As soon as she left, the team members started quarreling.
“The pork was taken first, so the pork should be distributed to those who build houses today.”
"Lin Qi didn't say that."
"How about one pound of pork and one pound of wolf meat? That would be fair."
“........”
When Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao came over, each carrying a wolf, the team leader had already assigned the people who would come to build the house today and tomorrow. One hundred and twenty people a day, no more, the homestead couldn't accommodate them. As for wolf meat and pork, each person got one pound of wolf meat and one pound of pork, which was fair to the maximum extent possible.
The happiest people are the children. Today's pig-killing meal has doubled in size, so they can eat to their heart's content.
These days, there is a pig-killing dinner every day, and the team members eat better than during the Chinese New Year. As for the two pounds of meat that was allocated for building a house here at Lin Qi, most families pickled it, thinking of saving it for visiting relatives during the Chinese New Year or for entertaining guests.
Because they had meat to eat every day, and Lin Qi worked under their noses every day, no one believed the ghost rumor anymore.
This is clearly just a Kung Fu master!
After carrying the wild boar and the wolf out, Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao went back to the mountains, on the pretext of scouting the area and looking for prey.
"Tsk, Lin Qi is really capable, but her vision is not very good. She didn't choose someone as good as you, and chose that person from the "five black categories" instead." Luo Fu sneered.
Luo Qingbai was watching Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao leave. Hearing Luo Fu's words, he turned his head and looked at him, disapprovingly saying, "Xu Hexiao has done you a favor. If he hadn't discovered you, you wouldn't be able to come back. You should be more polite to him."
Luo Fu's face turned even uglier. "Even if he did us a favor, he is still a member of the "five black categories."
Luo Qingbai frowned, "Luo Da and Luo Fei are not so hostile when they mention Xu Hexiao, but you, how come I don't know that you and Xu Hexiao also have a grudge."
"Luo Qingbai, we are talking about you and Lin Qi now, not me." Luo Fu said impatiently. He couldn't figure out why he was hostile to Xu Hexiao. Maybe it was because he saw him carrying a wolf out, or maybe it was because he saw him leaving with Lin Qi -
Even the legitimate team members like them didn’t get the opportunity, so why should Xu Hexiao, a member of the “five black categories”, get it?
"Xu Hexiao and I each have our own abilities. In the end, Lin Qi didn't choose me, and that just means we are not destined to be together." Luo Qingbai said frankly.
Luo Fu snorted coldly and said nothing more.
Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao returned to the mountain, but they were not in a hurry to act. Xu Hexiao first salted the two wolf skins for Lin Qi, while Lin Qi took a bath and lay back on the bed to catch up on sleep. Before going to bed, she reminded Xu Hexiao, "Don't go too far from the cave. The outside is my planting area, and there are many animals inside."
"How much is a lot?" Xu Hexiao was really curious.
Lin Qi was silent for a few seconds. "You can climb up the big rock in front of the cave, stand there, and look around quietly. Maybe you can spot some animals."
These days, she would stimulate the growth of plants to feed these animals every day. These animals ate her plants and grew rapidly. After eating, they would reproduce. In a while, the number of these animals would probably double again.
This was not the first time that Xu Hexiao had heard Lin Qi mention her planting area and the animals she raised. However, in his opinion, planting in the wild was as unreliable as raising animals in the wild. If it really worked, the people from the Anliang Brigade would have grown things in the mountains and forests long ago.
They had to fertilize, weed, chase away birds and catch mice, but even so, they could not harvest much food in a year. If they planted randomly in the mountains, they would probably be eaten by insects and mice at night just as the seeds were covered in soil during the day.
As for raising animals, they were originally wild animals, coming and going without a trace, so they were destined to be uncaught. Moreover, in Xu Hexiao's opinion, the things Lin Qi planted could not grow at all, so how could they be raised?
However, what Xu Hexiao couldn't understand was that Lin Qi was very sure. From her words and her tone, it was not difficult to draw a conclusion - there were indeed many animals in her planting area.
Xu Hexiao climbed up the towering stone out of curiosity, stood on the stone, and looked towards the so-called planting area of Lin Qi. He was dumbfounded when he saw it.
Fields of corn, peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes are green and are beginning to mature.
There are several scattered vegetable plots, lush and green. Judging from their appearance and color, there are no less than a dozen varieties of vegetables alone.
There were also various kinds of melons in every corner, such as pumpkin, wax gourd, loofah, cucumber... and some he couldn't name. These melons were several times larger than those he had seen before.
Finally, there are the fruit trees. Almost all the fruit trees in the entire mountain forest are here. Some have borne fruit, while others have not.
When were these fruits and vegetables planted? Can their growth ignore the laws of the seasons? Was this vast planting area created by Lin Qi alone?
Xu Hexiao had a lot of questions in his mind, and he couldn't wait to find Lin Qi to answer them, but he couldn't bear to leave. If the vast expanse of melons, vegetables and crops shocked him, then the animals that were munching on corn, peanuts, pumpkins and other things were no less impressive.
He saw flocks of pheasants, at least hundreds of them; he saw wild rabbits, which dug holes in the vegetable fields and ran into the holes when they were full; he also saw musk deer, which not only ate grass and leaves, but also leaves of crops, vegetables, and various melons; there were also various birds, which built many nests in the trees, chirping and making a lively scene.
But of all the animals, the most eye-catching were the eighteen wild boars and the nine wild goats.
Xu Hexiao couldn't suppress the shock in his heart for a long time and stood on the stone for two hours. When Lin Qi came out, he saw the other party sitting in a daze on the stone.
"Are you scared?" Lin Qi asked.
Xu Hexiao nodded. "I was shocked. It's too unreal."
Lin Qi didn't care, "You'll get used to it after seeing it so many times."
"It's not safe here. If someone finds out..." Xu Hexiao was not thinking about how Lin Qi did it at this moment. He was thinking about what consequences would come to Lin Qi if someone found out about this place.
Lin Qi also fell into deep thought. The three to five-meter-wide and two to three-meter-high thorn and bush belt could not completely block other people's sight. You could still see this place from the mountain. Even if you couldn't see the small animals, you could see wild boars and goats.
She could make the plants in the planting area taller and larger to block the view from the mountain. She could also make the thorn bushes and shrubs denser, wider, and taller so that the sound inside the planting area could not be transmitted to the outside. However, it would be better to have a housekeeper or something that was intimidating to serve as a warning.
"How about raising a tiger?"
"How about raising a wolf-dog?"
Lin Qi and Xu Hexiao spoke at the same time, and it was obvious that they wanted to go together. However, Lin Qi was bolder and spoke like a tiger.
Xu Hexiao's mouth twitched. "After being here for so many days, have you seen the shadow of the tiger?"
"Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There have been tigers in Yao County." The more Lin Qi thought about it, the more she felt that raising tigers was feasible. "If a tiger roars nearby, the people in the team will definitely not dare to come to this forest again."
"But tigers will also scare the animals in the planting area." Xu Hexiao reminded, "It would be better to have a wolf dog and teach it to howl like a wolf from a young age. If it howls a few times, the people from the brigade will not dare to come."
Lin Qi's eyes lit up, "This is a good idea. But where can I get a wolfhound?"
"Ask Brother Tan. He should have a solution." Xu Hexiao said, "But if you want to raise a wolfhound, you'd better not leave the wolf skin in the cave."
"Okay, we won't keep the wolf skin. I will eliminate the nearby wolf pack tonight, and I will try not to kill wolves in the future." Lin Qi said.
Xu Hexiao was shocked. "You're going to take care of a group of wolves tonight?"
"Not just one group. I plan to kill all the adult wolves in the pack and drive away the underage ones," Lin Qi explained.
Xu Hexiao's shock was not reduced at all. "How many adult wolves are there in the pack? Kill them all?"
Lin Qi recalled carefully, "I have killed half of them before, and now there are about 15 or 16 left."
Xu Hexiao: “….”
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