Go back to the past to plant trees

"Brother Feng, we've had a good day."

Early that morning, Feng Cheng had just gotten up when he saw Zhao Jinquan riding home at breakneck speed, carrying a pheasant in his hand.

"After letting it go for so many days, we finally caught it once."

Feng Cheng was quite pleased to see the pheasant. Lately, the two of them had been going out occasionally, mainly to see if they could find any wild game to eat.

However, every time he went out with his gun, he returned empty-handed. After wasting about twenty bullets, Feng Cheng became too lazy to go anymore. He wasn't a fisherman who would be excited to go empty-handed every time.

Zhao Jinquan suggested making a few snares to see if they could catch a few. With the idea of ​​trying anything, Feng Cheng let him do it, and to his surprise, they actually caught some.

"Brother Feng, how about a couple of drinks tonight?" Zhao Jinquan asked Feng Cheng with an expectant look.

Since their last drinking session, Feng Cheng hasn't drunk any more. Zhao Jinquan, on the other hand, would occasionally get a drink, but he wasn't really into it and would only have a small bowl before gradually reducing his intake.

Feng Cheng is not addicted to alcohol. He can have a couple of drinks, or he can not drink at all. When there are dishes, friends, or relatives, he doesn't mind having a couple of sips. But if there are no meat or vegetables, then forget it. He is not the kind of person who can drink half a jin of liquor with just soy sauce and stones.

So Zhao Jinquan couldn't find anyone to drink with on this dam, but today he happened to catch this pheasant, so he wanted to have a couple of drinks with Feng Cheng.

"Okay!"

Feng Cheng didn't refuse. He was bored, so having a couple of drinks and chatting would make the time pass faster.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Jinquan's face immediately lit up with a smile. He took the pheasant and went to the kitchen.

This pheasant is already dead. We need to kill it before it starts to smell bad, otherwise it will go bad and we won't be able to eat it.

After killing the animal, put it in a pot and stew it for a while. Don't stew it until it's fully cooked, otherwise it won't have any taste. You can also cook it in the evening without overcooking the meat.

During lunch, Feng Cheng saw the pile of tools and wood that Zhao Jinquan had used to make Chinese chess and suddenly had an idea.

Then he got to work and made more than a dozen wooden dice in less than an hour.

Drinking without playing games is no fun, but I don't know how to play the traditional finger-guessing game here, so I'll just have to come up with something simple.

Liar's Dice is a game that is almost always played at gatherings and drinking parties in later generations. It is simple to play and easy to learn. This was the first drinking game that Feng Cheng encountered in his previous life. Later, he also learned Cantonese guessing games and fish-fishing games, but he played this game the most and played the others less often.

Looking at Feng Cheng's dice, Zhao Jinquan asked with some confusion, "Brother Feng, what are you doing with these dice? Are you going to play a dice game?"

Feng Cheng said mysteriously, "You'll find out tonight. I'll teach you a little drinking game we played when we were in Beijing."

"A drinking game? Isn't it just rock-paper-scissors? Are there other games?"

Zhao Jinquan was a little confused. Why play games while drinking? There wasn't even enough alcohol to go around, why would we need to play games?

Don't they have any drinks to spare? Is there a lot, and they can drink as much as they want without finishing? Are they going to play games?

It's no wonder Zhao Jinquan thought that way. People were too poor these days, and resources were scarce. Everyone would only buy half a jin or a jin of liquor, and that would take several days to finish. They couldn't drink it all in one day.

But everyone's alcohol tolerance is pretty good, basically starting at a pound or more. With just two or three ounces of liquor, they wouldn't even get a slight buzz, so no one would urge them to drink. Because if you did, they would actually drink it all.

Unlike in later times, you can't just ask for as much as you want to drink. Whether it's white wine, red wine, beer, imported or homemade, just tell me, and I can find it for you anytime. I can buy you as much as you can drink.

Therefore, in the days when there was no shortage of alcohol, people's idea was to let others drink more, rather than to let themselves drink more, as is the case now.

Zhao Jinquan couldn't understand this, and Feng Cheng didn't explain. With his salary, drinking three to five jin of alcohol a month wouldn't be a problem. Even though the price of alcohol had increased due to financial difficulties, as long as it wasn't too outrageous, Feng Cheng could still accept it.

In the afternoon, the two worked in the nursery for a while, and then went to the vegetable garden.

The pumpkins and winter melons in the vegetable garden have been planted for two months, and the seedlings have already started bearing fruit. Although they are not big and there are not many of them, Feng Cheng is already very satisfied with them.

In May, Feng Cheng and Zhao Jinquan planted four rows of sweet potatoes. Mainly because Zhao Jinquan's mother had given them a lot of sweet potato vines, Feng Cheng planted them all out of consideration for the principle of not wasting them.

Sweet potatoes can be harvested around mid-October, just in time for winter. Harvesting the sweet potatoes also allows us to store the vines. This is a way to preserve vegetables for the winter here: remove the leaves from the vines, leaving only the tender stems, dry them, and store them away. They can be used to cook vegetables in the winter.

With pumpkin, sweet potato, radish, winter melon, cabbage, mustard greens, and the supplies provided by the bureau, Feng Cheng figured he would have a very comfortable winter.

Although conditions here are poor, conditions are not much better anywhere else in China these days, which makes life in Bashang seem not so bad.

"Jin Quan, do you think your team will have a better harvest this year?"

When Feng Cheng returned from the vegetable garden, he chatted with Zhao Jinquan.

Zhao Jinquan said, "It should be a little better, but it won't be much better. The higher-ups have allocated too much, and the little left is just enough for the family to eat."

"I see!" Feng Cheng said with a hint of regret, "I was just saying that if you need a lot of grain, I'll go and see if I can buy some this winter."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Jinquan stopped abruptly, looking at Feng Cheng with great surprise, "Brother Feng, don't you go down to the dam in winter?"

Feng Cheng shook his head, "No, I'm going to expand the nursery next year, and I need to store the seeds in the snow on the dam during the winter."

“Spend the whole winter in Bashang? Brother Feng, winters here are tough. You don’t necessarily have to store seeds in Bashang, the county town would be fine too!” Zhao Jinquan advised. He was a local and knew how difficult winters were here. He thought Feng Cheng definitely wouldn’t be able to hold on.

"What, you want to go down the dam?"

Zhao Jinquan said without hesitation, "Of course I want to. There's nothing here in Bashang, and it's boring. I can still go home occasionally and go to the county town, but in winter, it's completely inaccessible. It's all white, and you can't find the road or tell which way to go. You can't go anywhere. If nothing happens, it's fine, but if something does happen, you won't even know where to run."

“But going down to the dam means you have to work. It’s not like you can stay at home, lying in bed all day, leisurely day after day. Once you’re down to the dam, you have to work. You get paid. There’s work to do at the bureau’s nursery and forest farm. You don’t think that once you’re down to the dam you can just lie on the kang (heated brick bed) all day and go to the canteen for meals at a certain time, do you?”

"In the dead of winter, with cold winds and snow, are you willing to go to work?"

"Forehead…"

Zhao Jinquan was speechless for a moment.

Feng Cheng said, “I know it’s better down below the dam than up above it, but down below the dam has its advantages and disadvantages. Up above the dam, although conditions are harsh, it’s free, nobody cares, and there’s not much to do, so you can just stay put. It’s different down below the dam. I’m okay, I’m a technician, so I’ll probably just be busy in the nursery. But you’re different. Unless you don’t want this job, you have to listen to whatever they tell you to do.”

This is also why Feng Cheng didn't want to go down to the dam. Winter on the dam is bad and harsh, but it has one advantage: he is free, no one cares about him, and he doesn't have to do anything. All he has to do is store the seeds in the snow and check on the nursery, except for snow.

But going down to the dam is a different story. Don't think that you don't need to work just because you're hibernating. In later generations, people had to work even when they hibernating, let alone now. Feng Cheng knew one thing: there was no shortage of work, it was just a matter of how urgent it was. If you were idle, then the work would be urgent; if you were busy, then you could skip the work.

Therefore, Feng Cheng was reluctant to go down to the dam, because if he did, he would have to go out to work in temperatures of minus 20 or 30 degrees Celsius, which was unbearable for anyone.

“Then I won’t go down either. I’ll stay with you, Brother Feng, on the dam!” Zhao Jinquan immediately changed his attitude. Although the dam was boring, at least he didn’t have to work and could relax. Moreover, he could occasionally go home to play.