A narrow gully runs between the barren mountains and the western mountains, which the Lu family calls Qingzhugou (Green Bamboo Gully).
Carrying a bamboo basket, I walked through Qingzhugou. There was a stream in the gully, and the water source here was abundant. Wangjia Village is located at the confluence of several mountains. Water from each gully converges in the village and flows through the village to the town.
To the left of Qingzhugou is a large bamboo forest. There are many kinds of bamboo here. Lu Yan said that her grandfather and father planted it. Their family made a living by weaving bamboo strips and hunting. The more bamboo, the better. Moreover, different kinds of bamboo have different flexibility and hardness, and different uses.
Winter bamboo shoots rarely sprouted, and were covered by last year's fallen leaves. The three of them climbed high and low and searched through a large bamboo forest before digging up half a basket. Lu Yan discovered small holes at the base of the bamboo. She stood still and listened carefully, and could hear tiny crunching sounds of bamboo being eaten. She was both annoyed and delighted. "There are bamboo rats."
What angered her was that a single bamboo rat could kill a large patch of bamboo, but what she loved was that bamboo rats were also meat. Lu Yan silently swallowed her saliva; she hadn't eaten meat in so long that she almost forgot what it tasted like.
Fish meat is always different from land-based meat.
Lu Yunxing poked at it with a thin bamboo stick, listened quietly for a while, and then said, "He's hiding somewhere else."
The bamboo rats' burrows were interconnected, and none of the three of them had brought buckets. Otherwise, they could have dug the burrow entrances a bit, taken buckets to the stream to fetch water and poured it in. As long as they stayed quietly outside without making a sound, they could have choked the bamboo rats out.
Even before spring arrived, the bamboo forest remained lush and green, blocking out the sun. Broken bamboo stalks lay scattered about under the weight of winter snow, and even on a bright afternoon, only dappled sunlight filtered through the layers of leaves, casting patches of light on the ground. The mountain sloped gently, and the slender and agile Lu siblings nimbly climbed up and down the bamboo grove, adept at finding winter bamboo shoots. Lu Yan, however, was smaller and less strong, digging slowly. Qin Xiaozhou let her search while she dug, but the winter bamboo shoots were buried under the dead leaves, making them difficult to find, and lacking experience, she couldn't find a single one.
Lu Yan has sharp eyesight and found it very quickly. "Sister-in-law, there are several bamboo shoots here."
Qin Xiaozhou struggled to climb down the ravine. In some places, the bamboo grew so densely that she had to go around it, otherwise she would get stuck. "Okay, I'm here."
Qin Xiaozhou dug up a bamboo shoot with two hoes and threw it into his basket. Lu Yan started calling out to people not far away again. Qin Xiaozhou was impatient and answered loudly. Lu Yan found it amusing. The little girl had become a bit bolder and would deliberately call out a few more times. Seeing that her sister-in-law was not angry, she felt that her sister-in-law was actually quite good. She had a good temper, was strong, and hardworking. She was just too fat and not as pretty as Lin Jiajuan's sister.
However, Lin's older sister was not as capable as her sister-in-law; she had never even carried a single bucket of water.
Lu Yunxing listened to the commotion and a smile appeared on his face. He also had a better impression of Qin Xiaozhou. He believed that a wife should be virtuous and that one should not judge a book by its cover. His sister-in-law was not as short-tempered as the rumors said. It seemed that those rumors were just hearsay. "Third sister, even the birds in the forest are noisier than you."
"No, that's not true." Lu Yan said with a grin.
In the mountain gully on a winter afternoon, birds gathered to drink water and preen their feathers, chirping away. Lu Yan asked shyly, "Sister-in-law, do you think I'm noisy too?"
Lu Yan hoped to make a good impression on Qin Xiaozhou since her sister-in-law was new and capable.
Qin Xiaozhou struck the bamboo shoot with his hoe, and it rolled out. He picked it up and tossed it into his basket, laughing heartily, "Swallows are birds too!" He then spontaneously sang, "Little swallows wear flowery clothes, coming here every spring..."
"Oh dear, sister-in-law, you're teasing me." Lu Yan was just a child after all, and she blushed easily after being teased a few times. However, she wasn't angry. Instead, she tried to please her carefully, "Sister-in-law, this song is really nice, and you sang it very well too."
Qin Xiaozhou's voice was strong yet pleasant, "You want to learn too?"
Lu Yan asked hesitantly, "Is it okay?"
Qin Xiaozhou laughed heartily. "Why not?" He taught Lu Yan to sing while working, which was also a good exercise for her lung capacity. Luckily, although the original owner was fat, she was not weak at all.
As the sun moved westward, wisps of smoke rose from the village on the east side. The three of them returned home carrying bamboo baskets and hoes. There were already seven or eight wicker baskets stacked together in the yard. Lu Yunfeng was sweeping up bamboo shavings in the yard. When he saw them return, he picked up the big fish and went to the river to butcher it. The stream behind the house was used only by the Lu family. The Lu family used that stream for washing clothes, vegetables, and drinking water.
Soon the big fish was cleaned and brought back. Wang Lan had already started a fire to boil water, chopped the fish into pieces and put them in, added oil and salt, and covered the pot.
Lu Yan recounted the story of the bamboo rats in vivid detail, and at the end asked, "Brother, did you catch the bamboo rats and keep them at home to eat?"
In the past, there were two strong men in the family who hunted, and they would occasionally eat wild rabbits and pheasants. In the past two years, they have sold all the wild animals they catch, and only fish are kept for food because they are hard to sell.
Gufeng County has many rivers and fish, but the fish have a fishy smell, so few people like to eat them.
Lu Yunfeng took it very seriously. Bamboo rats are very good at eating bamboo roots, and if they are not caught in time, they can wreak havoc on a bamboo forest. Besides, bamboo is the source of materials for weaving these things. He also felt sorry for his younger brother and sister. There was not much meat at yesterday's wedding. Apart from Xiao Si, who got a piece of fat meat, the rest of the Lu family were too embarrassed to compete with the guests. They hadn't eaten meat for a long time. "Okay, we'll keep it for ourselves."
Wang Lan shook her head, "You little glutton."
Qin Xiaozhou peeled two bamboo shoots in the yard, scooped them out of the water vat, washed them in a wooden basin, and then sliced them. She planned to blanch them in boiling water after the fish was cooked, then put them in cold water to cool before stir-frying. Lu Yan came over, her eyes full of admiration, "Sister-in-law, all the bamboo shoot slices you cut are the same thickness! You're amazing!"
The little girl admired whoever was good at working, because working meant there would be food at home. Qin Xiaozhou chuckled, "Because I use a knife a lot."
Practice makes perfect.
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