Traveling through the mountains and farming

After coming out of the second branch of the Li family, Lin Wan asked Uncle Li if she could borrow a machete from his family, saying that she wanted to cut some bamboo to weave some daily necessities.

Uncle Li readily agreed to Lin Wan's request and took them back to get the knife.

Lin Wan led the two little ones and followed Uncle Li towards his home. At the same time, she was recalling everything that Grandma Luo had told her about Uncle Li's family.

When their family came here to escape famine 20 years ago, only Grandpa Li and his wife were left, as well as their one-year-old eldest grandson Li Chonghao, their eighteen-year-old second son Li Changyi and his wife Wang, their ten-year-old youngest son Li Changli and their eight-year-old youngest daughter Li Rou.

After settling down, the children grew up and started their own families. Except for the youngest daughter Li Rou who has married out, the family now has twelve people.

"Come in. Your cousins ​​are all out working at this time. Only your great aunt is at home. I'll ask her to get you a machete." Uncle Li pushed open the gate and interrupted Lin Wan's thoughts.

"Thank you, great uncle!" Lin Wan hurriedly thanked him.

As soon as they entered the door, they saw Aunt Li carrying bowls and chopsticks and walking towards the dining table in the yard. She smiled and said to them:

"Children, come here and have some breakfast first. There is only wild vegetable porridge at home, so you can just make do with it."

After putting the food away, Aunt Li turned around and led Lin Wan and the others to the square table.

"Gulu...Gulu..."

Li Chongle lowered his head embarrassedly and touched his belly, trying to ease the embarrassment caused by the growling stomach.

He hadn't eaten last night and had come out early in the morning to ask for help. Afterwards, everyone was busy dividing the property, and he was already too hungry. When he smelled the fragrance of the porridge, his stomach growled involuntarily.

"Sister-in-law, I'm not hungry yet. Let's go home and eat later." He moved his eyes away from the dining table and said in a whisper.

He remembered that his eldest brother had told him when he was at home that his great-uncle's family had to support many people and their life was not easy. His eldest brother told him and his sister not to take anything given by his great-uncle's family, especially food.

After their eldest brother passed away, they often didn't have enough food or warm clothes, but he and his sister didn't come to bother their great-uncle at that time.

Lin Wan smiled and said softly: "You can eat here first, because it will take time for us to go back and cook."

Seeing that Li Chongle was still hesitant, she half-knelt down, touched his head distressedly, and continued:

"We'll return some food to our great-aunt this afternoon, and think of it as borrowing it from them. Do you think this is okay?"

After hearing this, Li Chongle nodded in response.

"Xiao Ke, come eat with your brother. I'll go look for your great aunt." Lin Wan turned her head and said to Li Ke.

After instructing Li Ke, she got up and went into the main room to ask Aunt Li for the machete.

"Great-aunt, is there a carpenter in our village? I want to buy some buckets, wooden basins and the like."

"Yes, Old Man Wang and his two sons do some carpentry work at home when they are not busy with farming. I'll take you over to get to know the place later." Aunt Li handed the machete to Lin Wan, along with a burlap bag and two bunches of vegetables.

"There's only half a bushel of rice and some vegetables here. Don't think it's too little. It's just enough for you to deal with it in an emergency. Don't blame us for not being able to help much. Please take care of the two children in the future." Aunt Li said with a look of guilt.

Just now in the room, the old man told her in detail about the division of the second branch of the family property, asked her to pay more attention to and help Lin Wan in the future, and also told her his opinion of Lin Wan.

I feel that Lin Wan is a girl with strong opinions and a calm personality. Maybe she can really stand out and take good care of Li Chongle and his sister.

"No need. We still have half a bag of rice at home, enough for us to eat for the next few days. I will go to the market to buy some in a few days." Lin Wan said with a smile, and stretched out her hand to push the bag of rice and vegetables over.

In order to avoid the embarrassment of pushing and shoving, Lin Wan only took the knife from Aunt Li, turned around and shouted outside to Li Chongle and his sister to get ready to go home.

Hearing his sister-in-law's call, Li Chongle immediately pulled his sister to meet her.

As soon as the three of them walked out of the yard, Aunt Li caught up with them carrying a cloth bag and took them to Old Man Wang's house.

Old man Wang has three sons. The eldest son works as a carpenter with him, the second son is good at various bamboo weaving, and the youngest son was conscripted into the army in the same batch as Li Chongwen.

Except for the busy farming season, they would usually make some daily necessities at home and sell them at the market. The small items such as wooden barrels and basins that Lin Wan needed were in stock, while wooden tables and bamboo chairs had to be reserved in advance.

Finally, Lin Wan bought a large wooden basin, two wooden washbasins, two bamboo baskets, and three wooden barrels, spending a total of forty-four coins. She also ordered a wooden table and four bamboo chairs, and would pay for them after they were made.

Lin Wan thought that money had to be spent carefully, and for now she would focus on necessities. As for things like beds and wardrobes, she would consider purchasing them after she made money in the future.

She had it figured out: two wooden washbasins, one for washing and one for the kitchen;

The big wooden tub is used for bathing the two siblings and washing clothes at home;

One barrel for her own use, and the other two for the kitchen;

Two baskets are convenient for picking things when going out.

The big wooden basin was carried by the two siblings, and two baskets, each containing a wooden barrel and a wooden washbasin, were carried on the backs of Lin Wan and Aunt Li respectively. Lin Wan carried the remaining wooden barrel, while Aunt Li, being a good person, helped to carry them back to the thatched hut.

After arriving home, Aunt Li secretly left the small bag of rice and vegetables in the wooden barrel and left.

~

Since Lin Wan came here, she has not had time to take a close look at the place where she will live in the future.

Their thatched houses are the farthest from the village entrance and are located at the innermost part of the village. Going deeper into the village is the forest.

The thatched house is built on a south-facing slope and is semi-enclosed on the west side by naturally grown bamboo, forming an open front yard space in front of the house.

A hundred meters to the east, there is a spring flowing naturally down from the mountain, forming a small puddle. This is good as it saves them from fetching water from the village well or stream.

There are three rooms in total. One is the entrance hall, the one on the left is the bedroom where you lie down when you wake up in the morning, and the one on the right is the kitchen, which only has a simple wood stove.

The backyard is a large area of ​​wild grass covered with trees half a person's height. The grass connects to the back mountain, where you can see large tracts of bamboo forest.

While Lin Wan was observing the surroundings, Li Chongle and his sister had already started cleaning the house.

Li Chongle was waving a broom to beat the spider webs, and Li Ke followed behind him. After her brother finished beating the spider webs in one room, she started to clean the house.

They moved in too late yesterday and only had time to make the beds. They didn't have time to clean the house and the yard.

The two children's sensible behavior deeply touched Lin Wan.

Although she was inexplicably thrown by God into a backward countryside in an ancient alien world, fortunately she was not alone and had two children to accompany her.

The reality did not allow Lin Wan to continue to be sad. She calmed herself down, went into the house, picked up a machete, and prepared to go to the west side of the yard to cut a bamboo.

"Sister-in-law, stop busying yourself and go lie down on the bed." Li Chongle saw Lin Wan getting things to work, and hurried over to stop her.

Because he had just seen his sister-in-law moving things with great effort, she was sweating and panting. His sister-in-law was still very weak and needed to rest, otherwise she would collapse again.

"I'm fine now. I'm just cutting bamboo and weaving baskets in the yard. It's not hard work. I'll take you to get something delicious later." Lin Wan comforted.

Seeing that he could not convince his sister-in-law, Li Chongle worked even harder, hoping to finish the cleaning as soon as possible so that he could help his sister-in-law.

Lin Wan picked three bamboos of different sizes from the edge of the yard.

She first broke the bamboo that was as thick as a girl's arm into strips, then broke it into bamboo strips, and finally began to weave a fish basket.

After she had finished making the fish basket, she began to make the shrimp scoop net.

She cut the bamboo, which was as thick as a thumb, into three pieces, each a little over a foot long, and tied them into triangles with hemp rope.

The framework was now complete, leaving only the net bag, which she planned to replace with linen. She took out an old shirt from her original bag.

"Oh~" She couldn't help but sigh. Without scissors, it was impossible to cut.

He glanced at the only tool next to him: a machete.

She could only use the machete and her primitive hand strength to tear the shirt into the size and shape she wanted.

Then use several torn strips of cloth to carefully tie the linen and the triangular frame, and a shrimp scoop net is ready.

After making the fish basket and shrimp scoop net, she didn't rest either.

Because they didn’t have any bowls or chopsticks to eat from, they had to make some quickly.

The bowls and chopsticks they used to eat porridge in the morning were brought by Aunt Luo.

Then, Lin Wan cut the thick bamboo into several bamboo tubes.

Since she had no saw, she could only try her best to use a knife to flatten the bottom of the bamboo tube little by little, and then peel off the outer skin of the bamboo tube to make it into the shape of a bowl. She did this several times in a row.

At this time, Li Chongle and Li Ke had finished cleaning the house and were preparing to clean the yard. They saw the baskets woven by their sister-in-law and ran over to watch with curiosity.

"Sister-in-law, what is this basket used for?" Li Ke asked in a slightly baby voice.

"Yulou, you guys take a rest first. I'll take you to get food after I sharpen the bamboo knife and chopsticks." Lin Wan answered while sharpening the bamboo knife.

Li Chongle next to him asked, "Is this for scooping fish? It's different from the fish basket I saw before!"

"Let's go to the river to try out the effect later."

Then Li Chongle picked up the shrimp scoop net and asked curiously, "Sister-in-law, is this also for fishing?"

"Shrimp fishing."

Li Chongle looked at the two tools in front of him that were completely different from what he usually saw, and couldn't help but wonder whether they would be able to get food later.

Lin Wan had no idea what the little guy was thinking and was still busy sharpening chopsticks.

Alas~ My family is so poor that we don’t have anything. Later I will have to scrape and clean the wooden board I picked up from the roadside and use it as a chopping board. Together with the bamboo knife and the clay pot, these three simple cooking sets will be complete.

Whether you can eat delicious food today depends on this basket and scoop net.