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

Immediately afterwards, Chen Yuzhen came out carrying three stools. She closed the wooden door with her backhand to block the smoke from drifting out.

"Come, Qingyue, eat."

"it is good!"

The wild vegetable soup is made from white cauliflower, also known as Solanum nigrum. It has small white flowers and has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying. The whole plant contains toxic alkaloids and must be cooked thoroughly before eating.

It tastes bitter and cool, and the leaves are soft.

The vegetable soup tastes natural and has no saltiness.

The surface of the roasted rabbit was covered with some charred, dark green stuff that smelled very fragrant.

Li Benfu tore off the rabbit's legs with his hands, and while turning the rabbit over, he revealed something stuffed in its belly.

"Aunt, what is that? I saw it on the surface of the rabbit and in its stomach." Xia Qingyue asked curiously, pointing at the thing.

"It's a kind of fragrant wild vegetable, a little spicy and smells good. We found it outside.

Because there was no salt for seasoning, the food had no taste, and the rabbit meat would not taste good without some seasoning, so I thought of cutting some of it and smearing it on the rabbit.

It seems to be called betel leaf, and it looks a bit like sweet potato leaf. We used to wrap steamed cakes with it in the past.”

Hearing this, Xia Qingyue thought of a spice plant, Pseudobele.

I think it should be the betel leaves that Chen Yuzhen mentioned.

"Qingyue, eat it while it's hot." Li Benfu picked up three rabbit legs with chopsticks and put them in her bowl, and gave two to Heihei.

During the meal, Chen Yuzhen and his wife quickly gave Xia Qingyue the best rabbit meat.

Xia Qingyue was flattered. She said she was full after eating until she was 70% full, and put the rabbit meat from her bowl into their bowls.

It’s true, even without adding salt or other seasonings, the roasted rabbit with false beech leaves tastes good, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with a special aroma.

I'll pick some when I come across them later.

After eating, the three of them sat and chatted.

Li Benfu said: "The water in the river is getting less and less. We are located in the middle and lower part of the river. I looked at it these days and the deepest part of the river is about my thigh root."

“Also, there are a lot more people by the river, some from the cave camp and others.

There are more and more people coming, I'm afraid Tan Xiaozhu and the others are about to take action!"

Chen Yuzhen had a different idea. "There are so many people around the cave now. They should be cautious. If they take action, it might attract the attention of the people around them. So many people disappeared at once. Isn't it a terrible thing?"

A cold light flashed in her eyes. "No matter what their plan is, we are in the dark and they are in the light."

"Uncle, aunt, did you encounter those people when you were out and about?"

Li Benfu said: "I encountered them several times. After a long time, I figured out their general movement range, and we avoided them and ran in the opposite direction.

In addition to refugees from various places, the cave station also has their own people mixed in, so we all avoid people and have no contact with outsiders. "

Xia Qingyue nodded and told the truth about the purpose of her visit today, "Actually, I came here today because I have no water where I am, and I was wondering if I could get some water from the river."

"There is water, but we go to an area with a lot of sand and rocks that people dislike and don't want to go to. The water there is more turbid than elsewhere, and the less water there is, the dirtier it is." Li Benfu's face was full of worry.

"What about the amount of water there?" Xia Qingyue asked.

Chen Yuzhen said: "It's the same as other places in that section of the river. The depth is as high as my knees. There are fish and shrimps in it. We caught some with our nets yesterday.

There were mostly small fish, about ten of them were as long as chopsticks. We planned to catch more and kill them to make dried fish, but unfortunately there was no salt, so they probably wouldn’t last long.”

"Uncle, aunt, did you go to fetch water today? I want to see the water."

"It was beaten. There is also a water tank inside." Li Benfu pointed to the other side of the wooden cage.

There were two jars placed over there, each covered with a wooden lid, and on one of them was a wooden ladle.

"We went to the cave twice more and found some things that could hold water." Li Benfu stood up and walked towards the water tank.

Xia Qingyue followed him to the water tank.

Xia Qingyue opened the water tank and picked up the ladle to scoop some water.

The water is light yellow with some tiny impurities and fine sand floating around.

Compared to the stream water, it is indeed a bit dirtier.

"Uncle, aunt, I have a way to clean up this dirty water."

"What?" Li Benfu asked in surprise.

Chen Yuzhen stood up suddenly, her eyes showing surprise, "Really, Qingyue?"

"Yeah, but I need something."

"Do you have a clean wooden barrel, gauze, charcoal, and some fine sand and coarser gravel?"

"Yes, I'll go find it." Chen Yuzhen turned and went to the cave outside.

"I'll go outside and get some fine sand and gravel." Li Benfu ran outside.

After a while, everything needed was found.

"First, we need to chisel some holes in the bottom of the barrel." Xia Qingyue held the machete in her hand, ready to use the tip of the machete to chisel holes.

The knife was rusty and she was a little worried about whether it would work well.

"Qingyue, can we use this?" Li Benfu found an iron rod that was as thick as a finger and more than fifty centimeters long, one end of which was sharp.

"Of course you can. It's much more convenient to have this. Just use something to hit the barrel hard and a hole will be made!"

"I'm going to hit it with stones. Stay away from me so I don't hurt you." Li Benfu found a stone that was slightly bigger than his palm, pointed the iron rod at the bottom of the barrel, and hit the iron rod hard with the stone.

The stressed iron rod chiseled into the wooden barrel.

Li Benfu was very strong and quickly chiseled a hole.

It is much neater than the one Xia Qingyue carved originally, and the key is that it is fast.

Soon, more than ten holes were drilled in the bottom of the barrel.

Xia Qingyue looked at the iron rod, her eyes sparkling, "Uncle, did you also find this thing from the earth cave?"

"Yes, we searched for a long time last time and found them at the bottom. There are six in total. You can take three back later."

"Two will be enough." She had already thought about how useful it would be to use this iron rod to drill holes in bamboo.

Xia Qingyue followed the steps she took to make a water filter container and put gauze, charcoal and other things into the wooden barrel one by one.

She clapped her hands. "Okay, we need to hang it somewhere a little higher, pour the dirty water in, and put a clean bucket or basin underneath to catch it."

Chen Yuzhen did as she was told.

Li Benfu raised his hand and scratched the back of his head, "Qingyue, can this really make the water clean?

There's sand and gravel in there, won't the water get dirtier if you pour it in?"

Chen Yuzhen said: "If Qingyue says it's okay, then it's okay. We'll know after we wait and see."

While waiting for the water to come out, the three of them sat and chatted, talking about going to the river to fetch water together later.

More than ten minutes later.

"Hey, the water is coming out." Li Benfu ran over to look at the water.