Traveling through the mountains and farming

After dinner, Lin Wan poured the picked soapberries into a winnowing basket and placed it outside the cave to dry.

He also put the set of cups, plates and ceramic bowls that Li Ke had made in the morning into the cupboard.

She saw that the success rate of firing the pottery this time was over 80%, probably because the blanks were dried properly in the shade.

Before she left the house in the morning, she had told Li Ke to wait for her to come back to open the kiln and take out the pottery to avoid getting burned. The child not only took it out by himself, but also washed it and put it on the table waiting for her to come back to see the results.

Thinking back to when I saw these pottery pieces when I got home just now, Li Ke's slightly smug expression seemed to be saying, "See, I'm awesome!"

She also asked for praise, saying that when she was washing the pottery at the sink, everyone who saw it praised the beautiful set of white pottery and said they all wanted to have a set.

Seeing that there were still some pottery blanks left at home that had not been fired, she, feeling overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment, took the lead in firing the last kiln and was now squatting in front of the earthen kiln watching over the fire.

It looks like we can finish firing all the pottery we made yesterday this afternoon.

Lin Wan was staring at the pickled wild boar meat, preparing to start making bacon.

Li Chongle came over with a hemp rope and asked, "Sister-in-law, do we need to string these wild boar meats together and hang them out to dry?"

Hearing Li Chongle's question, Lin Wan remembered that the bacon here is made by marinating it first, then drying it in the sun for a day or two, and then hanging it above the kitchen stove.

"No, we'll make smoked bacon."

Li Chongle asked curiously: "How to make smoked bacon?"

Lin Wan recalled the process of smoking bacon that she had seen before and said:

"If I remember correctly, let's choose an open space and build a simple bacon rack. Then we can find some cypress branches, light them and let them slowly smoke. We can use the smoke to smoke the meat."

"Baizhi, shall we go look outside now?"

"Let's use arborvitae. We happen to have some at home. It's enough for today. I'll go pick some more tomorrow."

When Lin Wan and her friends were out picking and cutting grass a few days ago, they saw cypress trees. She broke quite a few of them at the time, thinking that she could make shampoo after finding soap beans and soapberries.

She seemed to remember that Platycladus orientalis was a cypress tree. She had never smoked bacon before. She had only seen her mother smoke it with rice, but it was not as delicious as the one her grandmother smoked with cypress branches.

They quickly divided the work. Li Chongle used hemp rope to string the marinated wild boar meat, while Lin Wan went to find an open space to set up a place to smoke the bacon.

The conditions were poor, so we had to use local materials and build a simple rack with bamboo poles and thick branches.

Lin Wan took a lot of effort to set up the rack, and prepared to go in and get the wild boar meat, then hang it up and start smoking it.

Then I saw Li Chongle coming out carrying wild boar meat.

Then the two of them hung the wild boar meat on the pole together.

Looking at the simple rack full of wild boar meat in front of her, Lin Wan was really worried that it would be burned.

She deliberately built the shelf very high to avoid getting burned.

Without iron rods and wires, it would be very difficult to smoke bacon, so Li Chongle had to do the hard work and watch the fire.

Li Chongle looked serious and patted his chest to promise that he would complete the task.

In fact, there is still one step left. You need to use something to surround the rack so that the smoke can gather better and the smoking effect will be better.

She remembered that her grandmother's house was built with bricks, and her mother's was built with cardboard boxes, but there was none of that here.

"Oh, what can I use to surround this shelf?" Lin Wan murmured to herself.

Li Chongle heard her mumbling and continued, "My second cousin and his family still have some wooden planks left from building their house. You can give it a try."

Lin Wan was delighted, "This is a good idea, let's go get it quickly."

The two men hurried to where the wooden boards were stored, picked out a few boards of suitable size and moved them back.

They dug some shallow pits, embedded the wooden boards in them, and used large stones to help fix them around the racks, trying to leave as much space as possible to avoid burning the wooden boards.

Finally, a small opening is left for adding cypress branches.

Everything was ready. Lin Wan placed the charcoal in the stove underneath and put cypress branches on top.

After a while, thick smoke was produced and trapped in the space surrounded by wooden boards.

Li Chongle watched the fire carefully from the side and added some cypress branches at the right time.

Because his sister-in-law warned him not to let the fire get too big to avoid burning the bamboo poles, hemp ropes and wooden boards, Li Chongle watched over it for the entire afternoon, and even had to ask a friend to help watch it for a while when he went to the toilet.

After Lin Wan finished the preliminary preparations for smoking the meat, she went into the house to fry the chestnuts and then cooked dinner.

When she came out to call the two siblings to eat, she found that Li Ke had already opened the earthen kiln, took out the pottery inside and was washing it.

Not far away, Li Chongle, a very honest child, kept staring at the smoked meat rack.

Lin Wan shook her head helplessly and shouted, "Xiao Le, put out the fire. No more fumigation today."

To prevent any accidents, she decided to simply put out the fire and continue tomorrow.

Then she went over and put out the fire with Li Chongle and took the bacon home.

Afterwards, Lin Wan went out again, preparing to go to Doctor Zhong's house to invite him and Lin Jing to dinner.

Lin Jing now follows Doctor Zhong to learn all the time. Doctor Zhong often praises Lin Jing in front of her, saying that this child has a good understanding and will become a talented person in the future.

She happened to meet Luo Dashan and his team who had just returned from setting a trap at the outer cave entrance, so she asked Li Changli and his team who had led the exploration whether they had returned.

Hearing that he had not returned yet, Lin Wan couldn't help but worry, as he had been out for two hours.

~

In fact, Li Changli and his team were on their way back with news and gains.

At first, they chose the wrong direction to explore. They explored westward from where they had seen the traces before, but found nothing suspicious, and then turned eastward.

Not long after they walked, they discovered traces of human activities, so they followed these traces and groped their way forward.

The further you go, the clearer and more obvious the traces become.

Li Changli's vigilance increased, and he signaled everyone to slow down and keep quiet.

Soon, shouts from several people were heard from the front.

Li Changli raised his hand to signal everyone to stop, and everyone held their breath and listened carefully.

It seemed that several people were fighting fiercely with a wild boar.

Li Changli quietly approached and saw an extremely strong wild boar with shiny black fur and fangs as sharp as knives, rushing towards several people angrily.

Those people were holding simple weapons, including sticks and hatchets. They dodged and tried to fight back, but seemed to be unable to do so.

After seeing the face of one of them clearly, Li Changli recognized him as their He Lizheng.

Li Changli immediately asked Li Chongwu to go up and help.

Li Chongwu rushed forward without hesitation, waving the hatchet in his hand, and quickly knocked the wild boar down.

He Lizheng, who got a chance to catch his breath, realized that someone was helping them.

When he saw clearly that it was Li Changli who came out, he realized that they were acquaintances, and he immediately started greeting Li Changli and the others.

"Changli, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, we would be in such a mess today."

Li Changli smiled and responded: "You're welcome, Li Zheng. Why are you here?"

"Well, this is a long story. It's all for survival, but I was forced step by step into this miserable state now."

Li Changli frowned and asked, "Li Zheng, what's going on?"

He Lizheng sighed, "Our food supply is running low, so we thought we could try our luck and find some food. But who knew we would run into this ferocious wild boar?"