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

Heihei was lying there, gasping for air with his bloody mouth open, as if he was tired from doing some heavy work. There were two bloody pheasants beside him.

Seeing Xia Qingyue coming back, Heihei's dog face softened visibly.

"Heihei, you are so awesome."

Xia Qingyue knew that the pheasant was caught by Heihei. In the past, whenever the original owner's father went hunting, he would always follow him.

Over time, Heihei's hunting ability was developed.

She looked at the pheasants. Each one had its head cut off and was completely dead.

"Let's go home!"

With Heihei around, Xia Qingyue is not afraid of getting lost on the mountain road. She just needs to follow it.

There was a basket of bamboo shoots in the bamboo forest, so I went to the bamboo forest first.

A basket of bamboo shoots weighed at least fifty kilograms. Xia Qingyue had to grab a bamboo pole to gain leverage to carry it, but she felt a little dizzy when she stood up.

The way back seemed to be a shortcut, different from the way we came in the morning. This way was shorter but farther away from the bamboo forest.

In fact, there was no road at all. There were knee-high weeds everywhere, and one had to step here and there to walk.

Along the way, Xia Qingyue looked around curiously. She heard the gurgling of water. Following the sound, she saw a stream directly opposite and lush trees on the bank.

"It's the willow tree!"

Willow buds have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

"Heihei, wait a minute, let's go over and pick some willow buds."

The willow branches are drooping, full of tender green new buds.

Xia Qingyue picked a few bunches and put them in the vegetable basket. It is better to use fresh ones, so there is no need to pick so many. She can come back tomorrow after she uses them up.

The scenery here was very beautiful. She stopped to look. As her eyes moved, a dry tree trunk not far away caught her attention.

It's a circle of gray stuff growing at the base of the tree trunk.

Looks like oyster mushroom.

Xia Qingyue ran over to take a look, and sure enough, it was oyster mushrooms.

The tree has been dry for many years and is completely dry.

There were broken logs scattered on the ground around, some of which had oyster mushrooms growing on them, and some of which had wood ear mushrooms growing on them, and it seemed like there were quite a lot of them.

Xia Qingyue was very happy, because she knew that there were abundant mountain products in the mountains in spring.

Knowing that there are mountain products here, Xia Qingyue said that she was not in a hurry and would go back to get some food first, and come back after she had enough energy.

The man and the dog returned to the entrance outside the tiankeng and found the cave door. Xia Qingyue pressed lightly and the cave door opened.

The first thing she did when she entered was to close the door.

Xia Qingyue didn't want outsiders to discover this place. If possible, she wanted to live an ordinary life here and try not to leave the mountain for the rest of her life.

It is unrealistic to not leave the mountains at all. As for the current situation, we can find food in the mountains, but there is no rice, flour or oil, and there is not much salt left. We cannot live without salt.

So Xia Qingyue planned to wait for a while before going down the mountain to buy some daily necessities on the street, and only go down the mountain again when she couldn't wait any longer.

Xia Qingyue put the things down and started a fire to boil a pot of water.

She stuffed a whole piece of firewood directly into the stove and sat beside it to process the bamboo shoots. She removed the tail with a knife, held the thick end with her left hand, and used the knife in her right hand to cut the bamboo shoot skin from top to bottom. Then she put down the knife and used both hands to break it to both sides along the cut, and the bamboo shoot skin came off in one go.

After she had cooked the bamboo shoots, which weighed about thirty pounds, and the water had boiled, she poured the bamboo shoots in to cook. The big iron pot was just big enough to hold them all.

While it was cooking, she went to the pond to fetch some water and poured it into a large wooden basin.

Pour the blanched bamboo shoots into a wooden basin and soak them.

Then boil another pot of water to pluck the pheasant's feathers.

While waiting for the water to boil, Xia Qingyue took a hoe and went to the field. She wanted to see if there were any sweet potatoes.

You can't just eat vegetables without any staple food.

After digging a few times with the hoe, luckily there were sweet potatoes, slightly bigger than a fist. She didn't dig too many, just enough to last for two days.

After removing the feathers from the pheasant with hot water, Xia Qingyue had the foresight to sharpen the rusty iron knife and used it to chop the pheasant into pieces. She wanted to stew the pheasant with mushrooms.

There is no need to blanch fresh pheasants, just wash away the blood.

Since there was no oil, she cut off the chicken fat, threw it into the pot to refine the oil, and then poured in the chicken and stir-fried it.

All of a sudden, the meat smells delicious.

Xia Qingyue swallowed her saliva while frying. When it was almost done, she added some mushrooms and water, covered the lid and simmered it.

She cooked vegetables in the front stove and steamed sweet potatoes in a pot in the back stove.

There was still a pheasant that she was reluctant to kill and wanted to save for eating tomorrow. The weather was not hot yet, so she should be able to let it go.

While stewing the chicken, Xia Qingyue found the salt jar. The coarse salt was in blocks, enough for her to eat for a week.

She dipped her index finger in a little coarse salt to taste it. The moment it entered her mouth, her brows furrowed and her face wrinkled into a bitter one.

Oh my god, it tastes so bitter.

Dawan’s domestically produced refined salt is delicate, tastes good, has few impurities, and is snow-white. The only drawback is that it is expensive.

If conditions permit, Xia Qingyue really wants to buy refined salt. She really can't get used to eating coarse salt.

There was not enough coarse salt in the jar and it could not be refined. She thought about buying more when she went down the mountain and purifying it into fine salt.

Thinking of this, she remembered that before the original owner's mother passed away, she gave all the family's money to the original owner, which was placed in a green sachet.

Searching the original owner's memory, Xia Qingyue found that she could not find the sachet. She didn't know where she had put it, let alone how much money was inside it.

"It seems that the original owner didn't even look at the money inside."

She entered the cave and started searching every room, first the room of the original owner's parents, then the room of the original owner. She searched everywhere but couldn't find the room.

Fortunately, God was kind to her. She found the sachet in a corner of the utility room. It had been forgotten for too long and was covered with a layer of dust, making it look gray.

Holding the sachet, Xia Qingyue came to the place where the original owner's parents were buried, which was one side under the sinkhole. The terrain there was relatively flat, and it was not exposed to the scorching sun or rain. It was a good place.

She knelt in front of the small mound, kowtowed three times with a heavy heart, then opened the sachet and slowly poured the contents into her palm.

The first thing that came out was two pieces of silver.

Two taels!

There was still some money in the sachet, making a jingling sound. She guessed that it was copper coins, and it felt like there were quite a few of them.

She squatted down, poured the copper coins on the ground, and counted out three hundred and seventy coins.

The total amount is two taels and three hundred and seventy coins.

This amount was not small in ancient times.

The original owner's father used to go out hunting often, saving up the prey and taking it down the mountain to sell, and using the money he earned to buy some daily necessities and bring them back.

Before the original owner's family moved to the mountain to live, they sold their three acres of land, leaving only one acre of land and a thatched house as a retreat. Xia Qingyue guessed that part of the more than two taels of silver came from the sale of the land.

She put the money back into the sachet, thinking to herself that she should find some medicinal herbs to exchange for money in the future. Wild vegetables and fruits could also be found by villagers in the village, and the competition was fierce. It would be easier to sell some medicinal herbs and make more money.

She put the sachet back into the room where she was sleeping and hid it. She went to the utility room and found some seeds while looking for the sachet, but she didn't look at them in detail.