Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

"I just feel sorry for you spending all day in the mountains. If you didn't have to come back to eat every night, you would almost become an old man in the mountains." Seeing that he didn't agree, Zhou Guo thought that after the things at home were settled, he would follow him into the mountains and go hunting by himself.

"What's wrong with the mountains? There's everything there." The old man sat down and saw a bowl of river shrimp in front of her. The river shrimp were larger than usual. "Where did you get these shrimps?"

"Caught in the river." Zhou Guo lit a fire, brushed oil on the stone slab, poured the shrimps on when the oil was hot. With a hiss, the fresh shrimps jumped up on the stone slab and changed color in a short while. She bent over, added the chopped wild onions, and used chopsticks as a spatula to stir-fry.

The red shrimps, green onions, and sizzling fat whetted people's appetites. Finally, sprinkle a few grains of salt and serve. As she served the food, she said, "Master, this is for your wine. Shrimp is the best for wine."

The old man looked at the dish with nostalgia in his eyes, "I haven't eaten this fried river shrimp for many years. I ate it when I was young, and I remember that it tasted really good."

Zhou Guo felt something was wrong when she heard it. Turning back, she realized that he was probably recalling the past again. As he got older, he could recall more things. She didn't know if she would be like this when she got older.

When it was getting dark, everyone finished their work.

After a day's hard work, everyone washed their hands and walked to the pot to take a look. Sure enough, there was another half pot of meat, and they immediately became excited.

"We are in for a treat with so many dishes!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm hungry."

Zhou Xing and a few others took bowls to serve rice to people. Each person took a bowl of rice and sat down around the pot.

In light of the lesson learned at noon, Zhou Guo filled two pots with dishes in the evening, took a small ceramic pot and filled it with dishes, and his family cordoned off an area to eat together.

Zhou Dacang and Zhou Gu were there to accompany him.

The old man looked at so many people and was reluctant to take out his wine gourd. He thought he would pour a bowl of wine and drink it slowly after the people left. If so many people each took half a bowl, his pot of wine would be gone. His apprentice specially poured it for him, so he couldn't let others get it for free.

Seeing him eating a bowl of rice, Zhou Guo said, "Master, wait a minute. I'll get your wine gourd out."

"Hey hey hey, I don't want to drink. Let's eat." The old man hurriedly grabbed her.

Everyone was curious, "What happened to you today? Don't you want to drink? Are you feeling uncomfortable?"

Li knew the old man's concerns and said nothing. This wine is expensive. A pound of wine costs half a guan. It would be a lot for so many people to have one bowl each. It's better to save it for the old man to drink a full bowl. She said, "Forget it, if you don't want to drink it, then don't drink it. You can't eat this every day. It's good to skip it once in a while."

The old man nodded repeatedly.

Zhou Guo looked around, then at her mother, and saw her mother pointing at the crowd over there. Then she realized something and sat down again. She couldn't help but laugh. She felt that her master was like a child guarding his food. He would keep any good thing to himself and would not dare to take it out easily. She brought out the bowl of dried shrimps that she had kept specially for drinking.

"Hey, there are dried shrimps?" Li said in surprise as she looked at the bowl of dried shrimps that looked very good.

Zhou Xing smiled and said, "This is what Guoguo caught from the river specifically to serve as a snack for you, sir."

The old man said quickly, "Try it all, try it all. How can I eat this good thing alone? Eat it all."

No one moved their chopsticks. "Sir, you should eat it yourself. None of us can eat this. It smells bad."

The old man picked one up for the youngest Li Lai. Li Lai put it in his mouth and then immediately spat it out. It was obvious that he couldn't get used to it either.

Zhou Guo said with a smile: "Master, let's eat it together. They don't like it."

She picked up one. If this shrimp was a little longer, it would be very delicious. Unfortunately, it seemed that it couldn't grow bigger. She put it in her mouth. It was salty, fragrant and delicious, with the scent of wild onions. It was delicious.

But the others just couldn't stand the taste, so the two of them had no choice but to eat it themselves.

The old man ate with chopsticks, nodding as he ate. He finished most of the river shrimps in his bowl of rice and did not eat the second bowl of rice. He remembered to save some for drinking.

Without any wine to drink, the workers ate very quickly and finished their meal in no time.

It was not dark yet and everyone was not in a hurry to go home. Seeing that the piece of wasteland next to Zhou Guo's house had not been dug yet, several people went back to the house to get hoes. Those who did not have a big hoe took a small hoe, and the least well-off took a machete. They swarmed into the field and started digging.

Li quickly stepped forward and said, "Oh, how can this be so embarrassing? Let us do it ourselves. This piece of land is not that big. We can do it ourselves. We have troubled you for a whole day. Go back and have a rest."

"It's okay. We have a lot of people. We can dig it out with a few hoes each. You don't have to go back and dig it out one hoe at a time. It's still early now, so it will be done quickly. We have nothing to do when we go back, so we're just sitting there doing nothing anyway."

Zhou Guo found it funny, this guy was trying too hard, the meat meal that the master promised was really tempting.

Zhou Dacang and his friends felt embarrassed to just rest, so they stood up and went to help. It was impossible for them to just sit there and do nothing while others were digging the ground for them.

Everyone in the Zhou family stepped forward and helped pick up the dug grass and tree roots, shook off the mud on them, and threw them away.

There was no hoe at home, so Zhou Guo relied on his strength, squatted down and pulled out the roots one by one. Fortunately, there were no big trees on this piece of land, so it didn't take much effort to pull them out.

In the eyes of others, it is just like pulling grass. People have expressed their envy countless times. If their family can also have such a person, then they can save even the cow. This person is much more useful than a cow. He can understand human language and walk as he is told.

Zhou Guo buried her head in her work. She had been talking about this piece of land for many days but never had the time to work on it. Now that so many people had volunteered to help with the work, she had to take this opportunity to clean the land and pick out all the roots, grass, stones and so on.

The Zhou family members all worked together. With more people, the work was done very quickly. By the time it was completely dark, they had dug out all the land.

The people who helped with the work went back in a noisy manner, planning to come back tomorrow.

The Zhou family was still picking up grass roots, tree roots and stones from the ground with torches. They picked until the moon came out, rising from the edge of the mountain to mid-air. They had almost finished picking up all the grass roots, tree roots and stones from the ground.

Li said, "Okay, you've been tired all day, go to sleep, you still have to work another day tomorrow."

Zhou Guo walked into the yard and looked at the four upright walls in front of him. There was not even a beam on the wall and there were several big holes on it. The room was brightly lit by the moonlight. He didn't know how he would sleep tonight. When he opened his eyes, he saw the bright moon.

"Sister-in-law, I'd better sleep in the shed. At least there is a roof in the shed." Zhou Dacang looked at the shed, which had simple walls on three sides.

Li said, "There are a lot of mosquitoes outside."