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

With a rustling sound, a brown figure emerged from the grass. Its body was covered with keratin scales and was about one meter long. It crawled quickly in the opposite direction of Xia Qingyue and the others.

Xia Qingyue whispered, "It's a pangolin."

Li Benfu did not relax and remained vigilant throughout the journey.

After walking for about half an hour, the two arrived at the earth cave. It was already dawn.

The hole was in a patch of growing weeds, some of which were sun-dried to death and some of which were half-dead.

The hole was not conspicuous under the cover of numerous grass leaves, and Li Benfu searched for more than ten minutes before he found it.

It was a cave entrance with a diameter of about four or five meters. It became wider as it went down. It was pitch black at the bottom and it was impossible to see how deep it was.

"I can't see how deep it is down there. Qingyue, wait here for a moment. I'll go find some vines to use as ropes." Li Benfu ran to the other side.

Xia Qingyue stayed where she was, looking for something to tie the vines to secure them. After searching for a while, she finally locked onto a tree more than thirty meters away.

After a while, Li Benfu found some vines. Fortunately, he brought a lot of them, so he tied them up one by one.

Afraid that it wasn't enough, Xia Qingyue tied the rope she collected last night to the end.

"It's daybreak. I'll go down and take a look first. I'll call you when it's safe. Don't come down before I say something." Li Benfu said to Xia Qingyue as he tied the rope around his waist.

He grabbed the rope, pushed against the wall of the cave, and went down.

Xia Qingyue stood at the edge of the cave and looked down. She could vaguely see various wooden objects, broken pottery jars and pots, and messy broken pottery pieces all over the ground.

After five minutes, Li Benfu's voice came from below, "Qingyue, come down."

Xia Qingyue pulled the rope up, held it and said to Heihei, "You stay up there and watch over the rope, okay?"

She really didn't feel safe going down without Heihei watching from above. If someone came and broke the rope or pulled it up, she would be doomed.

"Mmmm." Heihei hummed a few times, as if he understood.

Xia Qingyue tied the rope around her waist and went down like Li Benfu, and the whole process went smoothly.

She landed steadily, her feet stepping on the uneven ground, and there was a crackling sound from underneath. She looked down and a look of regret appeared in her eyes.

What bad luck, by chance, I stepped on a porcelain bowl and broke it.

"Qingyue, come here quickly, there are pots and pans, pottery jars, backpacks and shoulder poles here!"

"Hey, here we come!"

Xia Qingyue went over excitedly, her eyes fixed on the piles of sundries that had formed like small mountains, including wooden barrels, basins, cabinets, dustpans, stools and other miscellaneous household items.

Some of them are not damaged too much and can still be used, but most of them are tattered and unusable.

When she arrived, Li Benfu dug out two old iron pots that were a bit flattened and dented, four wooden barrels, six wooden basins, three shoulder poles, and several bowls, dishes, and baskets.

"There are some pottery jars and pots over there. Let's go and see if there are any good ones." Li Benfu walked to the front and searched carefully among a pile of broken pottery pieces.

Xia Qingyue went to look on the other side, and she found a lot of useful linen clothes, straw mats, quilts, hemp ropes, sacks and so on from the mess.

She doesn't need clothes for the time being, so she doesn't want to collect them, but she can collect some ropes and sacks.

Li Benfu saw it and picked out some good clothes, pants and mats.

After searching for a while, the two finally found five pottery jars, two large and three small, that were not damaged so badly that they would not affect their usability.

There are four ceramic pots, of similar style, some large and some small.

They accidentally found some seeds, all scattered, including vegetable seeds, fruit seeds, grain seeds, sorghum seeds and other seeds.

Li Benfu and Xia Qingyue saw the seeds as if they were treasures. They picked them up one by one and put them in the bowl.

Some seeds fell into the soil and sprouted and grew, including peppers, eggplants and pumpkins. Due to the influence of the environment, they did not grow very well, but some still produced fruit.

Li Benfu excitedly dug them out and prepared to take them back to plant.

The earth cave was quite large, about 40 square meters. Xia Qingyue saw a large patch of green plants growing in the dark area diagonally in front of her, so she walked over curiously.

After seeing it clearly, she exclaimed in surprise: "Uncle, come here quickly, there are so many sweet potatoes here!"

"There are sweet potatoes here?" Li Benfu ran over doubtfully. When he saw there were really sweet potatoes, he rubbed his eyes and smiled, "There really are some!"

She said, "I guess those people threw down rotten sweet potatoes and other debris, and they fell into the soil and sprouted and grew."

"Yes, it's a good thing, how could it be thrown away." Li Benfu was very happy. He found a wooden stick and started to pry and dig the sweet potatoes.

Xia Qingyue also found a stick and joined in.

The two followed the vine to the head and dug out sweet potatoes each.

The sweet potato is as big as a fist, a little small, but a fly leg is still meat!

"Digging like this is too slow. Why don't we come back tomorrow with some convenient tools?"

Li Benfu thought of Chen Yuzhen in the cave. He was worried about his wife being alone outside for too long. He nodded and said, "After digging the sweet potatoes, we can bring the vines back for cuttings and planting."

Xia Qingyue had thought about it, but she was worried about how to keep the animals alive in the hot weather without enough water.

After searching for so long, Xia Qingyue did not find any iron products like knives. She said regretfully: "It's a pity that there are no knives or anything like that!"

"Let's look for more. Maybe there is something missing. They should have collected the iron and taken it back to the furnace for re-making." Li Benfu did not give up and started looking for it bit by bit.

Later, he actually found three rusty machetes, two kitchen knives and two machetes.

Xia Qingyue also found three worn sickles, a complete large bowl and a small bowl from the pile of broken porcelain pieces on the other side.

Elsewhere she found three bows, only one of which was usable; the deer tendons had been cut off from the other two.

I found some sharpened wooden arrows near the bow.

"Uncle, come and see if these things can be used?"

Li Benfu came over. When he saw the bow and wooden arrows, his expression changed slightly. "We made these before, for hunting and defense!"

He was deeply touched, his eyes quickly turned red, and he took the bow and arrow and stroked it gently.

Xia Qingyue looked up at the sky. The sun had come out. "It's almost time to go back."

Li Benfu nodded.

They put whatever they found into a usable backpack.

Xia Qingyue climbed up first, and Li Benfu stayed below to put the things into a backpack or basket, tied it to the rope, and let her pull it up.

After pulling it more than ten times, I finally finished it.

Xia Qingyue was so tired that she was out of breath. She saw Li Benfu climbing up holding the rope and hurried to help.

Seeing that it was getting late, the two of them hurried to divide the things.

In the end, Xia Qingyue got a full basket of things and was carrying two large wooden barrels that were filled to the brim.

Li Benfu carried a backpack and a pair of baskets.

They packed in everything they could, but there was still a lot of stuff left over.