Chapter 65
The sandstorm that lasted for several weeks was over, and when the cloudy curtain before people's eyes was lifted, it had already come from early autumn to late autumn. Liang Xianyue and Ji Mingcen were walking on the mountain road, the grass leaves on the roadside were already withered and yellow, they set off early, the dewdrops on the grass leaves had not yet dried up, and the fabric of their trousers was stained dark as they walked.
Xiao Hei followed closely behind the two, stopping from time to time to look around vigilantly.
This road has been walked by villagers going up the mountain too many times, and the grass on the side of the road has been trampled in a mess. In addition to the traces of branches being dragged, there are many fallen leaves on the mountain road. It was the villagers who dragged a whole tree. Leaves that fell off when I got home.
Liang Xianyue stepped on these leaves, making a rustling sound.
Speaking of which, this is the first time that Xiao Hei has left the vicinity of his home and came to the forest for the first time. He also feels that everything is very novel. From time to time, he sticks his nose into the grass and shakes his head. After a while, he hides in the grass The insects that chirped in the grass jumped out and fell into other grass.
Ji Mingcen broke a branch for Liang Xianyue to make a walking stick. The road they are walking now has been formed and there is no danger. When they reach the depths of the mountain forest, the place covered by fallen leaves is likely to be a deep pothole.
They chatted along the way.
Liang Xianyue said: "I didn't know that you ran into a place so deep in the forest by yourself, otherwise I should have told you in advance. Last year, the wolves in the mountains ran out and killed people in our village, and finally the government sent people to beat them to death." Yes. A very big wolf seems to have run away, and we didn't find its body, so you must be careful when you go up the mountain."
Ji Mingcen shook his head: "I didn't see any big beasts when I came, just looked at I came across a hornet's nest and walked away."
There was probably a wild wolf that hadn't been caught in the back mountain, and people in several nearby villages knew about it, but there was no other way, and they had to go up the mountain to cut firewood. However, I haven't heard anyone say that I have encountered this wolf in such a long time. Maybe everyone's frequent activities in the back mountain drove the wolf back to the deep mountain.
"Is that why you brought it?" Ji Mingcen looked down at Xiao Hei, who held his head up and was full of energy.
Liang Xianyue glanced sadly at Xiao Hei, who raised his head and licked the dew on the bushes and branches by the roadside, how could he bear such a heavy task, he was just a little fool.
"I can't count on it," Liang Xianyue patted her bag and lowered her voice, "I have a gun, so I won't be afraid even if I meet that wolf. Wolves, there is no need to set up so many traps at home this winter."
Liang Xianyue called Xiao Hei over: "I just hope that it can give us an early warning before the wolf appears, and its nose is much smarter than ours."
Walking Walking, Liang Xianyue stopped in front of a huge umbrella-shaped shrub with dense branches and a taupe trunk with a deep luster. There are clusters of black fruits on the high crown of the tree, and the balls and small beads are crowded together.
"Elderberry." Ji Mingcen stood behind Liang Xianyue.
"Yes." Liang Xianyue saw that the elderberries in the lower part of this tall bush had all been picked, and this place was not far from Liangjia Village, and the nearby trees had all been cut down early, leaving only this tree. Elderberry stands here.
Elderberry has many uses. When there were no cigarettes in the past, people in the village smoked dry tobacco with pipes. Many pipes are made of young branches of elderberry. The skin of young branches of elderberry is smooth and straight, and the thickness is uniform. Especially the inner core is almost hollow, which is more suitable for making a pipe. Elderwood pipes turn an oily copper color over time, making them a work of art.
In addition to making pipes, elderberry is also a kind of traditional Chinese medicinal material. Its fruit, root, leaf, and skin all have their own effects, which can cure bruises, fractures, swelling and pain, so it is named elderberry. Liang Xianyue saw that the elderberries in the lower place had all been picked, so he knew that the villagers had brought them home to make medicinal materials.
She also wanted to pick some, but now only the elderberries near the crown of the tree were still there. Liang Xianyue looked left and right, looking for some big stones for stepping on, but there were a few stones, but they were too small to compare To the height she can reach by jumping. Elderberry is also a shrub, without a thick trunk to climb.
Seeing that she wanted to pick some elderberries, Ji Mingcen took the initiative and said, "I'll hug you to reach you. If you're not tall enough, you can also step on my shoulders."
Liang Xianyue estimated the height, then looked at Ji Mingcen: "Can you hug me? Try it." This is not just a simple hug, Ji Mingcen has to lift Liang Xianyue up to a sufficient height just work.
"Come on." Ji Mingcen bent down, hugged Liang Xianyue's leg and stood up. Liang Xianyue supported his shoulder with one hand to keep his balance. At a small distance, she tried her best to reach out, and her knuckles brushed past the fruit.
Seeing this, Ji Mingcen shook Liang Xianyue's hand upside down. Liang Xianyue's heart trembled suddenly, but fortunately Ji Mingcen's hug was steady enough, and this time it was enough. She broke off two branches of fruit, and directed Ji Mingcen to go elsewhere.
"Two steps to the right, um, a little more to the left."
In the end, Liang Xianyue broke her arms full of elderberry, not only the fruit, she also broke some more branches, the dried stems of elderberry can also be used as medicine. She put these in her carry basket and asked Jiming Cen, "Divide two branches of you. Elderberry can be ground and applied externally to stop bleeding. It can also be used with other herbs to make ointment, which has the effect of promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis." Ji
Mingcen Shaking his head: "This fruit is poisonous, I'm afraid my mother will accidentally eat it, so I won't take it back."
Liang Xianyue was a little surprised: "You know this?" Elderberry is indeed poisonous, and villagers in Liangjia Village will tell their families Children playing on the back mountain should not eat this kind of fruit casually, unexpectedly Ji Mingcen also knew.
"My father likes to explore mountains and forests very much, and sometimes he will take me with him. He taught me many precautions for outdoor activities." Ji Mingcen looked nostalgic.
Liang Xianyue blinked. Ji Mingcen tried his best to come to Ancheng from other cities to look for his mother, but his father was nowhere to be found. Presumably... I heard
Ji Mingcen say: "He died a long time ago, not because of the recent years. I lost contact during a forest expedition abroad."
The expression on his face was not heavy, as if he had already accepted this fact. "Go ahead, there is still a long way to go."
———
They walked through this woodland trampled by countless villagers, and the stumps left on the ground showed that this place was once a forest. In order to obtain as much wood as possible in the past two years, the villagers cut down the trunks almost close to the ground, leaving behind many short stumps. The trunk is hidden in the grass, and if you are not careful, you will trip over it.
There was nothing of value here either, so the two of them just walked along a small path that had already been stepped on. It wasn't until she came to Houshan in person that Liang Xianyue realized how many trees had been cut down in the past two years.
After walking for an hour, Liang Xianyue saw a few sparse small trees here, and some villagers he didn't know were sawing the trees with a saw. After these small trees were sawed off, they took out the ropes they carried with them and tied several trees together and dragged them home.
Going on, the path stepped by the villagers disappeared here, and the two came to a pine forest. In fact, pine trees are more suitable as firewood than other trees. They are rich in oil and easy to ignite. The only disadvantage is that this forest is too far away from Liangjia Village, Liang Xianyue only saw a few tree stumps that were cut down on the edge.
In the pine forest, many trees were dead, and some fell down completely, and the roots that had penetrated into the ground were overturned. There were few traces of the flood, but these trees that fell to one side may be one of them.
The ground in the forest is full of fallen pine cones, each of which is only the size of a walnut. There are no pine nuts in this kind of pine cones. The pine cones that can produce pine nuts are much larger, about the size of a human head, and grow on red pine trees as high as 20 to 30 meters high. The only way to pick them is by hand, so the price is so expensive.
The back mountain is just an ordinary pine tree without pine nuts. However, Liang Xianyue remembered that there were still acorns and hazelnuts in this forest, so she wondered if they could meet them today.
The mountain road here is not easy to walk, the terrain is rugged, and huge rocks are often blocked. Xiao Hei yelled at a tree twice, and a small animal ran past on the branch. Liang Xianyue saw its big tail flashing past, and guessed it should be a squirrel.
"Xiao Hei." She called Xiao Hei over. Xiao Hei had not been trained as a hound, so he didn't know what not to bark when facing prey. But Liang Xianyue didn't have this plan either, she just hoped that Xiao Hei would report for herself when other animals approached them.
In the grass at the foot, there are a few white flowers that are already on the verge of decay, and they are trampled by Xiao Hei, who doesn't know how to pity and cherish jade. In the past, a lot of mushrooms would grow in the back mountain every summer and early autumn. I went up the mountain to pick mushrooms People flocked here, and then went down the mountain with baskets full of mushrooms. I don't know if it's too dry this year. I haven't heard anyone say that there are mushrooms coming out.
Ji Mingcen said to Liang Xianyue: "Through this pine forest, you will not be far from the hawthorn tree." The
two of them continued on their way with a dog, but the hawthorn was not found, and they saw the wild hazelnuts that had fallen all over the ground. There was only one hazelnut tree, but it was very large, and it was surrounded by fallen hazelnuts on one side. Liang Xianyue bent down to pick one up, pushed aside the thorn balls on the outside, and saw that there was a big wormhole in the hazelnut inside, which was eaten by moths. Picking up another one, it was a very plump hazelnut.
Ji Mingcen climbed to a tree and broke off a long branch. He cut off the excess branch with a knife, and the two of them took turns beating the hazelnuts on the tree. After a while, the ground was covered with more balls of hazelnut thorns.
Fearing that they would not be able to return home before dark, the hazelnuts had no time to remove the outer thorns, so they were put into baskets.
Hitting hazelnuts is a very strenuous job. After Liang Xianyue picked up all the hazelnuts on the ground and put them into the basket, she felt a little hungry. She glanced at her watch, and it was indeed time for lunch.
"I brought something to eat, let's find a place to sit down and have lunch."
Ji Mingcen found a big exposed rock, and swept the dust and stones on it with a pine branch that fell next to it, and the two sat down together.
"I brought it too." Ji Mingcen took out a stack of pancakes from his bag.
Liang Xianyue brought rice balls, each about the size of a fist, with seaweed, chicken floss that was successfully tried a few days ago, pickled radish pickled by Zhen Min, and finally mixed with salad dressing. It is easy to carry and delicious. Ji Mingcen's was much simpler. He made pancakes by himself, seasoned with a little salt, sprinkled with black sesame seeds, and nothing else.
Liang Xianyue gave him a rice ball and took some pancakes for him to eat. Although the ingredients of the pancakes were simple, the taste was not bad. Ji Mingcen isn't very good at cooking, but he kneads noodles pretty well.
There was no fire on the mountain, so the two of them ate some cold food hastily. Meat floss rice balls are delicious even when they are cold. They have both the softness of rice and the salty aroma of meat floss, and the crispy sour radish dotted with them lightens the taste buds, even if this is a meal in the wild , not worse than eating at home. On the bright side, they are having a picnic in the mountains!
After eating, the two of them did not go straight to the hawthorn tree, but first finished what Ji Mingcen had come up the mountain to do. He has set some traps here, and now he is looking for them one by one.
He said that he made a total of five traps, and marked them on the side. Some of the marks could not be found. In the end, only four traps were found, two of which had prey in them, and the remaining two were empty. No signs of animal struggle.
"It should be a pheasant," Ji Mingcen guessed, "My trap can't trap a pheasant, at most I can catch some rabbits."
The two traps that caught the prey did exactly what he said, and caught two rabbits. One of them, if they come later, I'm afraid this rabbit will also run away.
Liang Xianyue looked at an extraordinarily fat rabbit and asked in confusion: "Why is it so fat?"
Ji Mingcen turned over the rabbit's belly and raised his brows slightly: "It seems to be pregnant."
"You can take this pregnant rabbit with you." Go back and raise them," Liang Xianyue pondered, "I have a big empty iron cage at home, and a few rabbits are enough."
Ji Mingcen looked at the somewhat bulky rabbit and thought about the feasibility of this suggestion: "Then we have to save more grass for rabbits to eat now."
He poured out all the hazelnuts in his pan, put the two rabbits in, and put the lid on firmly. Liang Xianyue put his hazelnuts into the bag that Ji Mingcen carried with him.
Neither of the two had raised rabbits before, and they didn't know if they could feed them. They exchanged ideas on how to raise rabbits in their memory.
Liang Xianyue said: "I remember that hay is the best food for rabbits, but fresh grass is easy to get sick. Now I can cut the grass and go back to make hay. I can feed it for a winter and then raise it." "I don't think the rabbit will live long
. It was just born, and it will be raised outside first, and then moved back into the house when the weather gets cold."
Ji Mingcen's back basket kept moving, and Liang Xianyue was afraid that the rabbit would run out, so he wanted to say that he should not go looking for the hawthorn at all, and go back quickly.
Ji Mingcen tied the lid of the back basket to the basket with the rope he had prepared long ago, so he didn't have to worry about the rabbit running out from the top of the lid, "It's okay, the hawthorn tree is not far from here.
" Very interested, since Ji Mingcen caught the rabbit out just now, he has been curiously looking at it, his eyes have become a little sharper, it seems that these few rabbits have inspired its hunting instinct.
The two rabbits were very nervous because of its approach, and their three-petal mouths kept moving. Liang Xianyue was afraid that Xiao Hei's impulsiveness would hurt the two rabbits. These two rabbits were likely to be kept, especially the pregnant one. Rabbits, if they can reproduce smoothly after giving birth to a baby rabbit, maybe there will be another meat dish on the table. Liang Xianyue kept Xiao Hei by her side until the rabbit was put into the basket, and Xiao Hei still glanced there from time to time.
On the way to find the hawthorn tree, Liang Xianyue met another oak tree. Acorns and hazelnuts look a bit alike, both are round. It's just that the acorns don't have the burrs and leaves that are wrapped around the hazelnuts. There is a round cap at the base of the acorn, like a hat.
Liang Xianyue took the time to pick some acorns. Raw acorns do not taste as good as hazelnuts. This is because hazelnuts contain more protein and fat, so they taste extra delicious. The content of starch in acorns accounts for more. The most common way is to grind acorns into acorn powder. From this, the method of using acorn powder to make tofu has also been derived.
Liang Xianyue and Ji Mingcen picked up a lot of acorns and planned to take them back to taste. If you can successfully make acorn tofu, you can also have an extra dish to change your appetite.
After picking the acorns, they went to the hawthorn tree without stopping. It takes about two or three hours to walk home from here on the mountain road. If you don't hurry up now, I'm afraid you won't be able to get home before it gets completely dark.
Liang Xianyue hurried forward, Xiao Hei suddenly stopped, staring at the bushes on one side. This time it seemed to have remembered Liang Xianyue's teaching, and it stopped making noise when it met its prey. Liang Xianyue was nervous at first, it can be seen that the bushes are so short, it seems that there is no room for any large beasts, it should be some rabbits and squirrels, which attracted Xiao Hei's attention.
Sure enough, Liang Xianyue took another step forward, the fallen leaves under his feet made a small sound, and a pheasant flew out of the bushes in front of him. This kind of pheasant can fly very high, flapping its wings and trying to escape . Its plumage is showy, with a ring of red feathers around its neck, and its tail feathers glow a metallic indigo in the sun.
The pheasant flew away quickly, and Xiao Hei didn't dare to run far without Liang Xianyue's order, so he could only stand there and watch the pheasant fly away.
"This chicken just looks good, but it's really thin and the meat is unpalatable." Liang Xianyue said from the side.
When I was young, pheasants often ate corn seeds wrapped in pesticides by mistake and died in the fillet. Before planting corn, the seeds should be stained with pesticides specially developed to prevent rats. It has no effect on the corn itself, but other small animals are easily poisoned if they eat it. The elders in the village found poisoned pheasants in the fields, and they would bring them home. The children in the family liked the tail feathers of pheasants very much. They pulled them out and cleaned them. The children could play with them all day.
Liang Xianyue saw with her own eyes that the plucked pheasant was almost skinny, not at all like the fat and strong chickens raised at home. I heard from the adults that the meat of these pheasants is not tasty, it is thin and woody, and it is not good to eat.
After this little episode, Ji Mingcen led Liang Xianyue to find the hawthorn tree he had picked. Some of the lower hawthorns have been removed, which is obviously more sparse than that at the top of the tree. If no one else found this hawthorn tree, Ji Mingcen should have picked it last time.
Liang Xianyue looked at the heavy red hawthorns on the treetops, eager to try: "I'll climb up to pick them."
She stepped on the trunk to pick up the hawthorns on the tall treetops, wiped them on her clothes after picking them, and put them in her mouth first. taste it. This hawthorn is not particularly sour. It should have received the baptism of the sun on the branch. It grows big and red, but there are a lot of cores inside. The hawthorn tasted good, Liang Xianyue ate another one, his sour face twisted up, and he salivated crazily, he couldn't eat it anymore, so he quietly threw the remaining half down the tree trunk.
This hawthorn tree is not very tall, and it cannot withstand two people standing on the trunk at the same time. So Liang Xianyue picked a big bag of hawthorns by herself, and asked Ji Mingcen if he wanted to pick some too.
"I can't eat too sour ones, the ones at home are enough." Ji Mingcen still remembers Liang Xianyue's expression of being sour just now, and he picked hawthorns at the beginning just to bring them back for Yang Shulan to watch and play, if Liang Xianyue hadn't given them away He didn't know how to eat those hawthorns at home.
"Okay!" Liang Xianyue jumped down from the tree, and Ji Mingcen was so frightened that he quickly reached out to help him.
"It's okay. I used to climb trees when I was a child. I was very flexible. It's fine to jump off at this height." Liang Xianyue happily held a large bag of hawthorns. The basket was filled with elderberries, acorns and hazelnuts. The harvest was full. Man, this trip to Houshan is really worthwhile, but the journey back and forth is a bit long.
On the way back, except for Ji Mingcen who stopped from time to time to cut some grass that rabbits could eat, the two of them didn't stop any longer, they just walked down the mountain, and finally saw Liangjia Village at the foot of the mountain when the sky was dark.
Even though it is only a little bit before dark, there is no trace of lights in Liangjia Village. The houses stand upright, and together they are like a gray tortoise silently lying on the ground. Only a little smoke from the kitchen proves that there are people living in this village, which made Liang Xianyue feel sour when he saw it.
————
Before saying goodbye to Ji Mingcen, Liang Xianyue told him: "If the rabbit really gave birth, you must tell me." I don't know if raising rabbits is easier than raising chickens. Chickens also eat corn and occasionally some grass. There are no protein-rich things to add to meals and I don't like to lay eggs. It would be much easier for rabbits to eat only hay.
"Okay, I'll definitely ask you to come and see it," Ji Mingcen promised.
The two parted at the entrance of the original small supermarket. After Liang Xianyue returned home, he first brought the basket full of hawthorns, acorns, hazelnuts and elderberries to Zhen Min. Zhen Min asked him if he went up the mountain today. , is there any danger.
Liang Xianyue shook her head: "I didn't see any beasts, but Ji Mingcen caught two rabbits with a trap."
Zhen Min put away the hawthorn: "That's good." She looked at Hazel with the thorn ball outside, and called Liang Kang Come out and peel.
Liang Kangshi came over with the radio, he was injured some time ago and had nothing to do, Liang Xianyue gave him the radio to relieve his boredom. Now he has developed the habit of listening to the radio frequently, but now the radio almost no longer broadcasts the specific news of each province and city, and most of them are research reports on abnormal natural disasters.
[Recently, volcanoes erupted on many uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean, setting off small tsunamis. Since the middle of this month, many active volcanoes around the world have been in a highly unstable state, and earthquakes have occurred frequently on the top of the mountain. Combined with the recent earthquakes that have affected the largest earthquake in history, there are various signs that the global geological activities will usher in an active period...]