An orphan girl from a farming family: Everyday farming in the mountains during natural disasters

Xia Qingyue chased after him, "Wait a minute, don't give me so many things, I have food at home."

Han Zhibai suddenly stopped and walked back. She thought he had taken her words to heart, but unexpectedly he went back to get a basket of cherry tomatoes under the eaves.

Han Zhibai, who had his back to her, whispered in annoyance, "I almost forgot about you."

He turned around and said softly, "Let's go, Qingyue."

Xia Qingyue wanted to say something else, but Han Zhibai, who had already walked out of the yard, did not go straight forward, but turned a corner.

Guessing what he was going to do, she ran out.

Han Zhibai was picking peaches with his back to her, selecting the best ones carefully and putting them gently into the basket on the ground.

Looking at his back, Xia Qingyue felt a slight soreness in her nose. She originally thought that he was easy to talk to, but now her thoughts changed a little. Why was he so nice, always thinking of giving her things from his home? He was so nice that it was a little "silly".

She ran forward and held his hand, "Han Zhibai, thank you for your kindness, but don't pick them. I can't carry so many things by myself."

Han Zhibai suddenly remembered this. He looked at everything and his eyes fell on the plum tree. "Pick some more plums. They are small and light."

He picked a few more good quality plums.

Unable to persuade him, she had to let him go, feeling deeply moved.

Because it was late and the rain was a little heavy, we walked out in a hurry and didn't talk much along the way.

After walking out of the dense forest, Xia Qingyue stopped and said, "Just send it here, Han Zhibai, thank you so much today."

"Don't say thank you all the time. I'm very happy to do these things." Han Zhibai put down his things and handed them to her, "Can you do it alone?"

Is he happy?

Xia Qingyue tilted her head to think, and after hearing his question, she stopped thinking about it for the time being. "I often work and exercise, so I'm fine. Don't worry. It's raining heavily, so you guys should go back quickly and be careful on the road."

It was already dark on a rainy day, and if we didn’t hurry back to the tiankeng, it would be completely dark. “We’ll leave first.”

She walked forward with Heihei.

After walking a short distance, her mind unconsciously emerged the scene when she turned around and saw him standing there watching her leave when they parted last time.

Her heart trembled slightly, she slowed down her pace, paused, turned around, and met Han Zhibai's eyes staring at her.

dong dong dong-

Her mind was blank and all she could hear in her ears was the deafening sound of her heartbeat, over and over again.

Sure enough, he still watched her go.

Seeing her looking at him, Han Zhibai was delighted. He couldn't hold it back and said loudly, "Don't forget to come back and pull out the seedlings. You can come anytime!"

She grinned and responded loudly, "Okay!"

After seeing Xia Qingyue off, Han Zhibai felt empty inside, as if a piece of flesh and blood was missing. He was heartbroken. He looked in the direction where she left and made his next decision:

Qingyue, next time we meet, I want to tell you my true feelings.

How would she respond then?

Accept or reject?

Thinking of rejection, a moment of struggle and pain emerged in his eyes. He raised his hand and touched his rapidly beating, hot chest. "No matter what choice you make, I respect you."

If you don't like it, I will quietly hide my feelings in the deepest part of my heart, as long as I can still stay by your side like before.

-

It took almost three hours to get back to the tiankeng. The road was slippery due to the rain, so we was delayed on the way. The sky was as dark as night.

The rain was pouring down and the wind was howling.

After returning home, Xia Qingyue felt a sense of security and belonging. She lit the oil lamp in the dark, and sat down on the stool with a thump. She lowered her eyes to look at the swaying light and shadow on the table, and opened her mouth listlessly:

"I wonder if Han Zhibai and the others got home safely?"

She felt a little weird, with a stuffy feeling in her chest, as if it was clogged with cotton. She raised her hand and pressed her chest.

Logically speaking, she should be happy since she went to the valley today and brought back a lot of food. However, she was not in a good mood at all. She always felt like she had left something important outside.

Unable to figure it out, she could only think of cooking delicious food to comfort herself, so she got up to wash rice and soybeans and cook.

In order to prevent the rice from being eaten up so quickly, she started to add soybeans, peas, peanuts and red beans when cooking rice some time ago.

The fresh tomatoes looked pleasing to the eye, so she washed some and planned to make sour fish soup.

Kill the fish well, separate the meat and bones, add shredded ginger, white wine, and an appropriate amount of salt, mix well, and marinate.

Put cherry tomatoes in a hot pan, mash them with a spatula under high temperature to make a thick juice, add a little pickled pepper, if you have chopped pepper or mountain pepper it will be better, if not, just don't add it.

There were many people outside at this time, so she didn't go looking for the mountain pepper, and it might have been picked by others.

Add appropriate amount of salt and fresh Matsutake mushrooms, pour in a few ladles of water, cover and simmer until the flavor comes out. First add the fish bones and mung bean sprouts as a side dish and cook them, then remove them and put them at the bottom of the bowl, and finally blanch the fish fillets.

The bright red sour soup was attractive in color, and its sour and fragrant taste stimulated her appetite.

After making the sour soup fish, she scooped a bowl of rice, took out a can of canned peaches that she had made at noon from her backpack, and poured two bowls of it, one for her and one for Heihei.

Heihei's dinner also included boiled fish, chicken and duck eggs.

She picked up a piece of food with chopsticks and put it into her mouth with great joy. It tasted just as she had imagined, but she felt like something was missing.

"Would Han Zhibai like to eat sour soup fish?"

In accordance with her principle of not wasting food, she didn't cook much food and ate it all without tasting it. She used a wooden spoon to stir the pink canned peaches in the bowl, which smelled fragrant and tasted cool and delicious.

She said woodenly, "Did he eat the canned food? It seems to taste better after being left out for an afternoon. I wonder if it suits his taste."

BAA Baa baa--

The bleating of the sheep brought the absent-minded Xia Qingyue back to her senses suddenly. She forgot about the sheep and the prey, finished the canned fruit in a few bites, and ran to lead the ewe into the pen where chickens and ducks were originally raised.

Fortunately, the circle had not been removed in time.

After tying up the ewe, she got some grass she had cut from outside for it to eat, found a large bamboo tube, poured some water into it, and placed it next to it.

After it was full, I squeezed some goat milk, boiled some soybean powder, mixed them together, and fed them to the baby rabbits and the mother rabbit after giving birth.

The chickens and ducks are fed with chopped snails and wild grass.

After finishing her work, she felt sore all over, "I'm so tired!"

Now that we have some food at home, we don’t have to go out for the short term.

Relying on that food, Xia Qingyue stayed in the tiankeng for a week. There were only a few small tomatoes left at home, and everything else was gone, which meant she had to go out to find vegetables.

As she was about to go out, she swept away the depressed mood of the past few days, humming happily, with light steps, like a dancing butterfly among the flowers.

She didn’t know if it was because it had been raining for too long, but staring at the dark clouds every day made her mood worse, and she always felt that every day was very long.

After packing up the things she was going to take, she lowered her head and said, "Let's go, Heihei."

She looks happier than Heihei.

"We won't find any food around here, let's go straight to the jungle!"

dense forest.

Xia Qingyue came to the familiar pine forest and looked left and right. There was not a single edible mushroom, and all that was found were poisonous.

"I'm late. Who picked all the mushrooms?"

She thought of Han Zhibai.

"No, there is so much food in the valley, he..."

The sound stopped suddenly.

There was deep confusion in her wide eyes. Just now, she suddenly realized a problem.