Return to the small mountain village in 1983

Chapter 86 Xiulan’s Day

"Dad, brother, come and have a drink."

After the food was served, Lin Heng picked up the wine glass and spoke first.

"Come on, drink!"

Father Lin and others also raised their glasses. The dishes tonight were sumptuous and it was a good day for drinking.

The family had a drink, and even Xiulan Lin's mother drank a little rice wine and sugary wine.

Grouse meat is tender and delicious, much better than home-raised chickens.

Lin Heng silently picked some for Xiulan, and then got two boneless pieces to feed to his daughter Xiaoxia.

"Dad, don't look at it and eat it too." Lin Heng gave his father a few more pieces.

"Oh, we are eating, you don't need to pick it up." Father Lin said helplessly, but seeing that Lin Heng had already handed it to him, he had no choice but to accept it.

The same goes for Lin's mother. She has to be served by Xiulan or her sister-in-law, otherwise she basically doesn't eat chicken. The most enjoyable ones on the table are the eldest brother's three sons.

It was like bandits entering the village, one after another and couldn't stop. Father Lin and Mother Lin didn't eat, mainly because they wanted to give it to their grandson.

Mother Lin sometimes even gave the chicken that Xiulan gave her to her grandson to eat. She felt that the child was growing and needed to eat more meat, and it didn't matter whether she ate it or not.

Children don't understand this, they only know how to eat. However, the eldest nephew Lin Wei, who is five years old, understands better. Sometimes when his mother tells him, he takes the initiative to put it in his grandmother's mouth.

Although Lin Heng hunts, he doesn't always gain anything, and his family's living standard has dropped again in the past few days.

That's why he wanted to make money and start business early. Having a stable source of income was the most important thing. Hunting in the mountains itself relied on luck, and it was difficult to rely on it for a long time.

The adults were tipsy, while the children dried up all the delicious vegetables. The grouse pot was turned over and over, and all the meat was gone, leaving only the hot and sour seeds.

Fortunately, what we ate at night was noodles. It was good to eat without vegetables. Lin Heng and others poured the remaining hot and sour seeds into the bowl, without wasting any oil.

The longer we live in this era, the more precious materials become.

After eating, Xiaoxia had fallen asleep in Xiulan's arms.

"Mom and Dad, let's go." Lin Heng said and returned home with Xiulan.

"Originally we wanted to catch cicada monkeys tonight, but we probably won't be able to go now," Xiulan said.

Lin Heng smiled and said, "If you want to go, I can come with you."

"Forget it, it will be the same if we go tomorrow night." Xiulan shook her head.

Lin Heng said nothing, just smiled evilly.

Noticing the evil smile on Lin Heng's face, she suddenly became embarrassed: "Don't think about it, I didn't think about that kind of thing. I'm just worried that it won't be safe at night when you're drunk, and you have to get up early tomorrow to go hiking. .”

Seeing that Lin Heng was still smiling, Xiulan glared at him and threatened, "Will I punish you if you laugh again?"

As she said that, she stretched out her hand towards Lin Heng, as if she was ready to give Lin Heng a real blow on his lower back.

Lin Heng chuckled, took her hand and held it in his: "Whether you want it or not, I did anyway."

Xiulan glared at him and walked quickly to the front, not wanting to talk to such a frivolous person.

Back in the house, Xiulan carried Xiaoxia to the bed in her arms, while Lin Heng took a basin and towel and went to the backyard to take a shower.

On this hot day, taking a cold shower is so comfortable.

"Hey, I must get a swimming pool in the future." Lin Heng said to himself, thinking about being able to play in the swimming pool with his wife, a silly smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

I don’t know what Xiulan looks like in a bikini. I’m afraid she won’t want to wear it in broad daylight. It’s probably not suitable even at home.

After taking a bath, he brought his wife a basin of water into the house.

When Lin Heng went to bed, Xiulan simply wiped herself, put on clean clothes and went to bed.

As soon as she got into bed, Lin Heng couldn't wait to reach out his hand.

"Snapped!"

Xiulan slapped his hand away and asked, pretending to be confused, "What for?"

"What do you think we can do?" Lin Heng chuckled.

Xiulan held his hand again: "Young master, please tell me about your experience in the past two days. The injury on your forehead is not healed yet."

"Okay then." Lin Heng didn't force himself. He hugged his wife and told her about his experience in the past two days.

"Forget it, let's talk about it later."

Not long after, Xiulan said helplessly that she couldn't listen even if she was being pushed by an iron rod.

"Hey, that's good!"

Lin Heng smiled, pulled his wife's head over, and kissed her eagerly.

"Hmm~"

As the saying goes, a breakup is better than a wedding. Even if it lasts only two days, for young couples, it will take a fierce battle to relieve the pain of lovesickness.

After releasing their energy to their heart's content, the two of them cuddled up together, whispering with their chests against their backs.

When she heard that Lin Hengda rescued Old Tian from the swamp at night, Xiulan couldn't help but shrink into his arms: "It's too dangerous. You must be careful when hunting, and pay attention to your own safety when rescuing others."

"Don't worry, I cherish my life, but I can't bear to leave you and my daughter." Lin Heng smiled and patted Xiulan on the back.

"Yeah." Xiulan nodded, her tone a little delicate: "What about today, what did you do?"

"I was just picking dendrobium. The injury on my forehead was caused by accidental contact." Lin Heng said casually, not wanting to tell his wife that he fell seven or eight meters.

"No, tell me carefully, don't lie to me." But Xiulan also noticed something was wrong.

"It's nothing, really." Lin Heng said with a smile.

"The more you say this, the more wrong it becomes. Something very thrilling must have happened to Dendrobium Caishi. Did you almost fall?"

The faint moonlight shone in from the window, Xiulan turned around and stared into Lin Heng's eyes.

"It's okay. There's a rope, so nothing happened." Lin Heng hugged his wife and said with a smile.

Xiulan glared at him: "I knew it, don't go to the cliff to collect medicine next time, it's too dangerous."

"I'm not going, just let go..." Before Lin Heng could finish his words, Xiulan actually kissed him.

After a deep kiss, Xiulan ended the kiss breathlessly. She put her hands around Lin Heng's neck, looked at him and whispered softly: "You are not allowed to pick dendrobium anymore, or I will really ignore you."

She was too afraid of losing Lin Heng. She was particularly worried every time Lin Heng went out. Although dendrobium is valuable, she hopes that her husband will be safe.

"Okay, I won't do it anymore." Lin Heng was helpless, and he couldn't resist his wife's trump card.

Xiulan was still uneasy and whispered: "As long as you don't do such dangerous things again, you can do whatever you want when you go home."

When Lin Heng heard this, he didn't show his usual evil smile, but instead felt a little heavy.

He hugged Xiulan tightly and promised, "Don't worry, I guess it will be difficult for me to meet her again."

……

Early the next morning, Xiulan got up at dawn to prepare food for Lin Heng to eat on the mountain. When Lin Heng got up, she had already prepared everything and brought it to the table.

Lin Heng washed his face, sat on the bench and started eating, feeling the deep love.

Xiulan didn't eat. She took the dendrobium and Ganoderma lucidum picked by Lin Heng out to dry in the yard, as well as some common Chinese medicinal materials such as honeysuckle and cordyceps that she had picked everywhere in the past two days.

She would hardly let herself be idle. Lin Heng would go up the mountain, and she would take her daughter to herd sheep and collect herbs and fungi near the village.

"I'm leaving!" After finishing the food and packing the food made by Xiulan, Lin Heng put the basket on his back and said.

"Be safe, my daughter and I are waiting for you at home." Xiulan warned.

"Don't worry." Lin Heng waved his hand and walked out.

"Wang Wang~~"

Xiong Ba called Lin Heng twice, saying that he also wanted to go out with him.

"You should take Xiongba with you. It's safer. It can give an early warning." Xiulan looked at Xiongba and said.

Lin Heng took a look at Xiongba. After more than a month of growth, he was no longer the puppy he was before. He was now about the same size as a medium-sized dog like a rural big yellow dog.

But being born extraordinary, it can still grow much longer, and it can only be considered mature when it reaches the level of a large dog.

"Then let's go." Lin Heng thought for a while, walked over and untied the dog's leash.

"Wang Wang!"

Xiong Ba excitedly jumped on Lin Heng, but after being dodged by Lin Heng, he circled around him and took off happily.

Mighty and majestic, it runs like a tiger, its ears are erect, its mouth is slightly open, its eyes are sharp and energetic, and it has the style of a German Shepherd. It is initially worthy of the name Xiongba.

"go!"

After calling out, Lin Heng took it off and Xiulan arrived at the gate of the yard.

After Lin Heng left, she locked the door to the yard and took the ground corn to the back hill to feed the chickens. In order to get the ground corn, she pulled some grass from the side and fed it to the chickens and ducks.

After the chickens and ducks were fed, she took the lamb out and found a place with grass to tie it up temporarily.

After returning to the yard and feeding Lin Heng the fry, she took out some honeysuckle vines she had cut yesterday and sat in the pavilion picking honeysuckle.

When her daughter Xiaoxia woke up, she made a pickled cabbage soup and had breakfast with her daughter.

"Come on, let's go herd the lambs!"

After eating, Xiulan hugged her daughter and said. "Herding sheep!" Xiaoxia is no longer afraid of the lambs, and still has to hold the rope by herself.

The mother and daughter took the lamb to the wheat field. The wheat was all yellow. She had to help cut the wheat today. Although Lin Heng often did not go to the field to help, she was there every day and was almost never idle.

"Lin Heng has left?" Mother Lin asked with a smile when she saw Xiulan coming over.

"Well, we've already gone up the mountain." Xiulan responded with a smile.

After chatting for a while, the family began to cut the wheat. The sister-in-law's second son Lin Tao helped look after his younger brother Xiaoxia and the sheep, while the adults cut the wheat with sickles.

The Lin family planted a total of eight acres of wheat. There was no modern fertilizer and the seeds were left home. The yield per mu was less than [-] kilograms.

The grain produced every year is enough to feed 11 people in his family.

They had to work very hard these two days. They had to harvest and thresh all the wheat. This was an extremely tiring job.

After a whole day of harvesting wheat, my waist no longer belongs to me.

Four women cut the wheat and two men carried it, cutting two acres of land in one morning.

When she went home at noon, Xiulan was still carrying a basket of pigweed, which she had harvested while cutting wheat.

"I'll carry it. Just hold Xiaoxia." Mother Lin snatched the basket away.

Xiulan smiled slightly: "You're not overweight, Mom."

"It's the same for me even though I'm not heavy. I told you to rest, but you still packed a basket of pigweed on your back. How can I tell Lin Heng when I'm exhausted?" Mother Lin said helplessly, Xiulan worked too neatly. She couldn't even keep up.

"No." Xiulan said with a smile.

When she got home, she wanted to help with cooking, but Mother Lin sternly refused and told her to rest.

Xiulan had no choice but to take her daughter to rest in the main room, but she was still making wheat straw while resting.

She peeled off the outer husks of the wheat stalks and cut them into uniform lengths of twenty centimeters, which were used to weave straw hats.

Wet four wheat straws with water, press and weave them into three-centimeter-wide strips, and then connect the strips with threads to make a very delicate straw hat.

Every year, she makes straw hats out of wheat straw. In addition to using them at home, she also sells them for thirty cents a piece, which is very popular in the village.

"Xiulan, please teach me again. I learned it last year, but I forgot a little bit this year." Sister-in-law Liu Juan came over and said with a smile.

Weaving straw hats is a skill that Xiulan brought over from her natal family. Now the Lin family has learned it and not only sells it in the village, but sometimes also sells it in the market.

But they are not as elaborate as Xiulan's. My sister-in-law Liu Juan often forgets that she has to ask her for advice every year.

"Okay." Xiulan smiled and whispered to her sister-in-law how to make it up.

Xiaoxia was holding a wheat straw and looking at her mother, handing one over to her before she finished using it.

"Crench!"

The courtyard door opened, and Liu Lan, who had a pockmarked face, walked in from the outside with a smile.

"Xiulan, I knew you would definitely be able to knit straw hats. I'm here to order two hats, or thirty cents, right?" Liu Lan asked with a smile.

Xiulan shook her head: "The price of straw hats in town has increased to [-] cents this year. One here costs [-] cents. It takes me a long time to knit a hat."

"Yes, then I will also order two. I will give you a deposit of two cents first, and give it to me first when it is finished." Liu Lan smiled and handed Xiulan two cents.

She was a little disappointed. She originally thought that Xiulan didn't know about the increase in the price of straw hats. She wanted to come in early and get it for thirty cents to get a bargain, but it turned out that people already knew about it.

"Okay, sit down and have a drink of water." Xiulan took the money and said politely.

"No, no, I'm going back." Liu Lan shook her head, not wanting to stay and eat.

Not long after Liu Lan left, other women in the village also arrived one after another. They all wanted to buy the straw hat at a low price because Xiulan didn't know the price of straw hats had increased.

As a result, I didn't get the purchase at the low price, so I gave the deposit first.

Xiulan hadn't finished her hat yet, so she received a deposit of [-] cents.

"These people are really shameless. Hand-made hats take much more effort than those produced in other factories.

We are better than the ones in the factory, and they are a lot bigger. Even if they are even a dime cheaper, they are not profitable in the first place, and they are still trying to take advantage. "

Liu Juan said angrily.

"I think we should sell it for [-] cents, and people will still buy it on the street." Caiyun also said angrily.

"There's nothing we can do. The wheat straw we use is not as soft as that produced by other people's machines. Forty cents is already a good deal."

Xiulan shook her head and said that she also felt that this was not profitable.

But if you have nothing to do, you can earn a little bit. You can't wait at home for Lin Heng to hunt and raise her.

She decided to stop selling straw hats after Lin Heng learned how to make soap, and would specialize in making soap for sale.

"Sister-in-law Xiulan, how on earth did you get deceived by my second brother? You can do everything, but he couldn't do anything before."

Caiyun looked at Xiulan and asked curiously.

Xiulan smiled: "I was not deceived, I volunteered."

She was indeed a flower in their village back then, and she was pursued by many people. The rough guys in the village would pass by her door several times a day with excuses, but they would not even dare to say hello.

When Lin Heng saw her selling tofu, he took the initiative to chat with her. He found out that she was not married yet he was sending flowers and reading poems.

He was interesting, cultured and personable, so she was deeply attracted to him.

She actually found out about Lin Heng's idleness before he got married, otherwise she wouldn't have gone from Nanping County to their Lushui County.

After getting to know Lin Heng carefully, she felt that she could change Lin Heng, because he was just a little ambitious and wanted to make a lot of money, and didn't want to make a small amount of money doing farm work. This was not a big problem.

Of course, this also has something to do with beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

She thought it was okay after she got married. Although Lin Heng was always wandering around and not working, he never beat her, nor did he go crazy with alcohol. He would go home from time to time and bring her some small gifts.

This made her feel that this day was not bad, not too bad, at most she was a little tired and miserable.

Looking at those men who coaxed and lied to them before getting married, and then beat their wives at every turn and became drunk and crazy after marriage, she felt that she was not married to the wrong person. At least this man really loved her.

Although Lin Heng still wanted to make a lot of money all day long, he never made it, which made his family live a very difficult life.

But fortunately, he finally woke up recently. Xiulan felt that she might have understood his dilemma, was moved by him, and finally decided to start down-to-earth.

Now, she can proudly say that she did not marry the wrong person. She is still looking forward to returning to her parents' home with Lin Heng during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In fact, Lin Heng had always wanted to get rich and make his family rich in his previous life. At that time, he realized that farming had no future and that only by going out could he make money.

It's just because you have a high eye but a low hand, you can't see your own abilities clearly, and you are too arrogant and arrogant, which leads to the ultimate bitter consequences.

But after experiencing hardships and understanding how capable he was, he still accumulated wealth bit by bit and had a net worth of millions.

It's just that the price he paid for it was a bit high.

The main reason is that there is no capital. A child from a rich family can spend as much as he wants and it doesn't matter how many times he loses. If he has no capital and loses once, he will be doomed.

Dare to toss sometimes is not a bad thing, many people who have become rich are this group of people who dare to toss.

"It is my second brother's blessing to marry you, my sister-in-law."

Caiyun looked at her sister-in-law and said helplessly.

"It's time to eat. Clean the table."

Mother Lin shouted from the kitchen.

"Come right away." Caiyun said and stood up quickly.

After dinner, the sun was too strong at noon, so everyone rested indoors. They waited until the sun was no longer so strong at three o'clock before going uphill.

After Xiulan had eaten, she continued to knit straw hats without resting.

She could feel Lin Heng's determination to make money and make a fortune. He used to wander around and dream about things, but now that he has learned bow and arrow, he is down-to-earth hunting and making money and doing business.

She remembered that Lin Heng was afraid of heights before, but he went to the cliffs to collect dendrobium.

Naturally, she can't rest at home. If she earns more money, if her husband loses money by selling mulberry, she will have enough money for her family to continue living.

"Xiulan, you go and take a rest. Lin Heng has made so much money now, there is no need for you to be so tired."

Liu Juan felt that Xiulan was working too hard. Being a daughter-in-law with her put her under great pressure.

"It's okay. I'm not used to sleeping at noon. Sitting is also a rest."

Xiulan said with a smile.

"Then let's try to knit the straw hats at noon." Although Liu Juan's waist hurt, she decided not to rest.

"Okay." Xiulan nodded, sitting there in a daze while making up her mind.

"Sister-in-law Xiulan, what are you thinking about?"

Caiyun helped her mother clear away the dishes, then came over and patted Xiulan.

"It's nothing."

Xiulan blinked.

In fact, she was thinking about Lin Heng. She felt that watching the starry sky together that day felt so special, and she wanted to find a chance to watch it with him again next time.

　I have revised this chapter again and again, but I still feel that I am not satisfied with it. I will send it out first and then revise it later.

　　
  　
  (End of this chapter)