Dashan Orchard 1988

Chapter 18 Crossing Gouer Mountain

It’s the beginning of the fourth lunar month.

The week passed in a blink of an eye.

With the help of his second sister-in-law, Li Muyang can concentrate on digging Cordyceps sinensis in Xishan without any worries. Although it is a bit hard to get up early and stay late, the harvest is also full.

It may be that he has gradually mastered the rhythm of digging Cordyceps, or it may be that as time goes by, Cordyceps gradually begins to emerge from the ground in large areas, and Li Muyang's harvest increases day by day.

From 19 cords on the first day, it had reached 43 cords on the seventh day, and his total cordyceps had reached a full 260 cords.

Even if one stick is counted as 3 cents, it is 78 yuan.

It's a huge fortune.

His cans and bottles are full.

It happened to be raining today and there was no way to go to the mountains. Li Muyang decided to sell the cordyceps first with the bottle in hand.

At present, Cordyceps has not yet started here, and his Cordyceps is the only one.

It's a rare commodity, and the price should be higher.

If after everyone went digging, the medicinal material supply and marketing center in the town would know the news, and they would definitely take the opportunity to slightly suppress the price, and he would lose money.

Things are sold for money, and Li Muyang feels relieved when the money is in his hands.

"Mom, I'm going to town. I'll buy you tofu to eat when you come back."

Li Muyang prepared everything for his mother and went out carrying the canvas bag.

Lijia Village is six or seven miles away from the town. It would take an average person three to ten minutes to walk. Li Muyang's legs are very strong. He doesn't take the main road and climbs over halfway up the mountain. It only takes twenty minutes to get there.

His family was very poor and did not own a bicycle, so he had to rely on his legs for everything.

The rain outside was neither heavy nor light, and Li Muyang didn't have a raincoat, let alone an umbrella. He folded a snakeskin bag into a poncho, put it on his head and went out.

The direction of Qingquan Town was south of Wangjiacun. He didn't need to go to Taoshan. Instead, he climbed a small hill that could hardly be called a mountain. People called this mountain Gou'er Mountain.

Because the shape of the mountain looks like a dog.

There is also a beautiful legend in the mountain. It is said that an old man raised a dog. Later, the old man's children went to war and died on the battlefield. The old man went to the battlefield and asked the dog to wait at the door of his house before leaving.

As a result, the old man also died on the battlefield and never came back, but the dog waited until death and finally turned into this small dog mountain.

Strangely enough, many dogs in the village are very fierce and bark very hard, but when they come to Gou'er Mountain, they become quite quiet, and sometimes they even whimper in a low voice, as if they are crying silently.

It's amazing.

So people built a small Dog Temple in Gou'er Mountain.

They don’t particularly offer incense or worship, but every time they pass by the temple gate, people can’t help but rub their dogs’ heads, and their eyes become a little more tender.

The feelings for dogs in the mountains are beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.

It can look after the house and the courtyard at home, fight wild beasts when going out, and protect its owner in critical moments.

Basically they are wolf dogs like Langqing.

They are almost stupidly loyal, and they only really care about one master in their lives.

Even if the owner's family didn't take care of it since childhood, it wouldn't really take it seriously.

When Li Muyang passed by the Gou'er Temple, he stopped, pulled out the weeds next to the Gou'er Temple, gently clasped his hands at the Gou'er statue, stood silently for a moment, and then continued forward.

He also raised a very obedient wolf Qing in his previous life.

Very loyal and very obedient.

It was a puppy abandoned by a man in the village.

When he first came back, the dog was only about the size of a palm. He was very kind to the dog, almost saving food from his own mouth to feed the dog.Lang Qing was originally a meat eater, but in this era, he couldn't care less about it, and was slowly raised by Li Muyang's "coarse food".

He looks majestic, reddish-brown all over, with only a blue-black pattern on his back.

The villagers said that this was not a purebred wolf, but a cross between a wolf and a domestic dog. It was not worth keeping and it was just a waste of food.

But Li Muyang raised it after obtaining Lin Xiuli's consent.

Later, there was a mudslide in the mountains. When the dog dragged Li Muyang's youngest son out of the house, he happened to reach the door. The house collapsed, and half of his body was crushed in the rubble.

Li Lin was fine, the dog was crushed to death on the spot.

Li Muyang's whole family was very sad, especially Li Muyang. For a while, he even had hallucinations. The dog was still not dead, lying under the eaves. As long as he called, it would run into the house and wag its tail.

Li Muyang disliked his younger son Li Lin for a long time in his previous life, just for this reason.

Whenever he saw Li Lin, he seemed to see the pitiful and sad look in the dog's eyes at the moment it was crushed to death.

It is said that dogs can understand human nature after being raised for a long time. Li Muyang felt that his dog was like this. What they lost was not just a dog, but more like a family member.

In his previous life, Li Muyang would silently come to Gou'er Mountain to sit for a while every year on the day of Lang Qing's death, and would place a meat bone in front of Gou'er Temple.

Such was his character.

As long as someone is kind to him...or a dog, he will always remember it in his heart.

When you receive the grace of dripping water, you should repay it with a spring.

Gou Zi sacrificed his life in order to save his child. He had no way of repaying this kindness. He could only keep Gou Zi in his heart silently and never forget it.

Today, when he walked through the Dog Temple, he no longer had sad eyes, but a look of joy.

He knew that the dog in this life had not yet been born, and he would go and find it after it was born.

You must be better to it in this life.

Not only can we have meat every day, but we can at least provide some big bones every now and then.

Based on the kindness he received from his previous life, he would not be able to repay him even if he had to eat bones for a lifetime.

Gou'er Mountain is a dirt mountain. There are no very tall trees on the mountain, and there are mainly some thorn-like creatures.

This includes some good stuff too.

For example, wild wolfberry, wild jujube, etc.

Wild wolfberry is still a very common thing in this era, but at this time people did not have health awareness, so they did not take it seriously.

If it grows in fields, it will be pulled out as a very annoying weed.

But in later generations, as the number of wolfberries in thermos cups increased, artificially grown wolfberries became popular, and the value of wild wolfberries was gradually discovered, and the price also increased, soaring to surprising levels.

In addition to wild wolfberry, another plant covered with thorns is wild wild jujube.

Wild jujube and wild jujube are not the same thing.

Some people in later generations always like to compare the two things, but in fact they are two different wild fruits.

Wild jujubes are wild jujubes. Compared with the jujubes that people eat daily, wild jujubes are slightly smaller and mature earlier. They do not taste as sweet as the improved and cultivated jujubes.

The jujube is a very small red fruit that tastes sour. The skin and flesh are very thin, and there is very little that can be eaten.

Before it dries, it can still be crumbled a little. Once it dries, it looks like dried longan, with only a layer of skin remaining around the big core. Only children who really have nothing to eat will pick it up and eat it.

You won’t have a great experience, you’ll just feel lonely eating.

(End of this chapter)