slack farmer in the wasteland

Chapter 74 Chopping Bamboo

Cang Hai looked at Ping An playing happily with Hutou and Tietou, and always felt that something was blocking him: trouble!
Sitting on a small bench in the kitchen, Cang Hai looked up and saw Hu Shijie was walking towards his house with a cigarette pot dangling from his mouth and a small cloth bag containing shredded tobacco tied to the pot.

Standing up from the small bench, he reached out to fetch a small bench for Hu Shijie, motioning for the old man to sit down.

Hu Shijie waved his hand, and squatted down under the kitchen shed, smoking a cigarette without saying a word, not knowing what he was thinking.

Cang Hai was also worried, so naturally he didn't open his mouth to speak, so the old and the young were relatively silent, and the air was a bit dignified.

After smoking a bag of cigarettes, Hu Shijie finished cracking the pot, put on new tobacco leaves, lit the fire, took a puff and said to Cang Hai: "The old lady took away the money from Ping An."

"I know, Ping An said just now." Cang Hai slightly nodded his head, expressing that he knew about it.

Hu Shijie remained silent for a few more seconds, then looked up at Cang Hai and said: "There is no other way. I am afraid that there is no hope for Ping An to find a wife in this life. Now the old man is Lai An. Now marry It’s not easy to be a woman, let’s just talk about our side, once the dowry is all over the place, there’s nothing in the early 20.

Cang Hai listened, but did not interrupt Hu Shijie's words.

Cang Hai knows this is true, and now it’s really expensive to marry a daughter-in-law here. The bride price must be 40 if it’s not [-]. The small yard in the town where the county seat costs tens of thousands, plus a car, the cost of marrying a daughter-in-law is a lot of pressure for any family.

Hu Shijie continued: "The old woman is right. Lai'an has done it, so they can take care of Ping'an's affairs. Even if Ping'an can't get a wife, Ping'an and his wife can help when they get here."

After hearing this, Cang Hai asked directly: "Grandpa Hu, do you believe this?"

As far as Lai An's temperament is concerned, Hu Mingshan and his wife may not be able to count on it in the future, but they still want to take care of safety?

"...".

Hu Shijie was rendered speechless by Cang Hai's words.

How could Hu Shijie not know what kind of temperament his grandson Lai An has, now he is with Hu Mingshan and his wife, finding a job for him is either too hard or too tiring, or he dislikes that the salary given by him is not high enough and the standard is high If you can't make a living, you can't make a living. Now, most of the year is spent gnawing on the old. Even if you go to work outside, Hu Mingshan and his wife have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. This kind of person has problems supporting himself. You can count on future employment as usual.

But Hu Shijie is hard to say, because both Ping'an and Lai'an are his grandsons, and now they are both at the age of marrying a wife, and Ping'an can't be counted on, so they can only count on Ping'an.

At this time, Li Licheng, who was chopping bamboo, came back with a dozen long bamboos on his shoulders. The bamboo was not thick, that is, it was about the thickness of two fingers. Only the bamboo head and some small branches are left.

The old man carried the bamboo steadily to the kitchen door of Cang Hai's house, tilted his shoulders and put the bamboo on the ground.

"Brother, Haiwazi"

Li Licheng greeted the two of them, then walked to their side, took out the cigarette in his pocket and scattered it around.

"What are you doing, serious?"

Li Licheng actually came here to let Cang Hai take a look. The bundle of bamboo he cut, the old man is so particular, so he came here specially to walk around Cang Hai. In fact, he told Cang Hai that I chopped a dozen bamboos from your house. .

Hu Shijie briefly explained the matter.

Li Licheng curled his lips when he heard this: "Brother, I didn't provoke you. We are not too young. We may fall asleep as soon as we lie down on the bed one night. If there is something wrong with you, what will you do safely? Go to the town and talk to me. The couple live in Mingshan? Even if they want to go, the child will have to pay two dollars for self-defense, right? Also, isn’t it nonsense that you said that Lai An takes care of Ping An? How about taking care of peace when the daughter-in-law has a home?"

Hu Shijie puffed on his cigarette without making a sound.

The old man also knows that this idea is really more utopian than utopia. As the old saying goes, it’s like a three-year-old old man, so he’s going to be like a bear. Who can expect that he can take care of this stupid brother when Hu Mingshan and his wife kick their legs?Let alone Lai'an, even Hu Mingshan and his wife, Hu Shijie, are not at ease.

Hu Shijie didn't seem to want to mention this matter anymore, so he turned around and asked, "What are you cutting bamboo for?"

"I'm going to weave a few baskets for my own use during the rainy season," Li Licheng said.

"Oh, don't tell me I forgot, my bamboo article is also broken, I'll cut some bamboo and make another one later," Hu Shijie said.

Cang Hai saw Hu Shijie looked at himself and said: "Don't ask me, whoever wants to make up what he wants to cut it himself, anyway, as long as I don't dig the root, I have no objection."

A lot of bamboo has been planted, and as long as the bamboo whips in the ground are still there, even if the bamboo is cut down, it will grow back in a short time.

"Okay, I'll go back and chop a few."

After saying that, Hu Shijie stood up, ready to leave.

Li Licheng stood up after seeing it, and said to Cang Hai, "I'm leaving, then he carried the bamboo and followed Hu Shijie, and the two brothers walked back while chatting.

Seeing that the two of them had left, Cang Hai also stood up and went back to the house, took two sharp hatchets and walked out.

"Ping An, stop playing, and go chop bamboo with me," Cang Hai said.

"Hey!" Hearing that, Ping An immediately stood up happily, took the hatchet from Cang Hai's hand, and happily ran down the slope with Tiger Head and Iron Head.

Cang Hai followed behind, looking at Ping An, and thinking about how to help Ping An save the money in the future, but after much deliberation, he felt that this matter was difficult. After all, Yan Meijuan and Hu Mingshan were Ping An's mothers. This outsider is not qualified to speak on other people's money.

After much deliberation, he didn't come up with a good idea, so Cang Hai could only sigh and cut bamboo with peace of mind.

Cang Hai didn’t chop bamboo to weave baskets, and he didn’t know how to weave either. Cang Hai chopped bamboo to make shelves. Some vegetables in the vegetable garden have grown up, such as cucumbers, beans and other vines. Putting up a shelf, not only these things like tomatoes, because the fruit bears a lot, the original plant must not be able to bear such a heavy weight, and the fruit must be supported by the shelf, or when waiting for the fruit, it will be too heavy. The fruit can directly bring the plant down.

Cang Hai and Ping An came to the small bamboo grove. The bamboo species in this small bamboo grove are thin, and they can grow as thick as the wrist at most, and they will not grow any more. As for the species, Cang Hai forgot, because the bamboo species are There are so many bamboos that I can't remember the species, but in Cang Hai's eyes, they are all bamboos.

Standing by the side of the bamboo forest, he took a look, stretched out his hand and pulled out a bamboo. Cang Hai said to Pingan: "Chop some up, almost to the waist, and cut off the top, or it will be wasted."

Cang Hai’s home shelf is not very high, it’s almost two meters high from what he said, and the whole bamboo can’t be used at all, so Cang Hai asked Ping An to cut some more.

"Ok!"

With a hum, Pingan pulled out a bamboo and raised his knife towards the bamboo, only to hear a click, and a bamboo was chopped off by him.

Throwing the chopped bamboo casually behind him, Ping An immediately grabbed another bamboo and chopped hard.

Ping An cut three, and Cang Hai only cut two. He worked hard, and Ping An was much more focused than Cang Hai.After a while, a pile of green bamboos appeared behind the two brothers.

"Second brother, second brother!"

Suddenly Ping An cried out.

Cang Hai stopped what he was doing, turned around and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Second brother, there is a big mouse hole here! Just now a big mouse poked its head." Ping An pointed to a place not far in front of him.

After hearing this, Cang Hai walked over with a hatchet in hand: "Where?"

Following the direction of Ping'an's finger, Cang Hai quickly found a round hole, and there were traces of mice entering and leaving near the hole. At a glance, he knew that it was a new one. Looking at the hole, the mice inside were indeed not bad. Small.

Suddenly having a childlike innocence, Cang Hai said to Ping An: "Get some leaves over here, let's burn the mouse holes."

Hearing that, Ping An immediately smiled and said, "Okay!"

As he said that, he searched for something to start the fire. The thing that started the fire in the small bamboo forest is really easy to find. Even if it was difficult to find last year, it is easy to find now. The bamboo forest that has grown for a year is full of winter sunsets Bamboo leaves, the dead leaves have already dried out at this time, and they are a first-class good thing to use to start a fire.

After a while, Ping An and Cang Hai made a large pile and placed them at the entrance of the mouse hole.

After clearing the dry fallen leaves around, Cang Hai cleared an open space of more than one meter at the entrance of the mouse cave, then piled the recovered leaves at the entrance of the cave, took out his lighter and ignited the dead leaves.When igniting the dead leaves, you have to be careful not to let the leaves really burn, because there will not be much smoke when they really burn. You have to keep the dead leaves in a half-burned state, so that a lot of smoke can be produced.

Waiting for the leaves to smoke, Cang Hai piled the leaves up to the mouse hole, and kept fanning the inside with his hand, so that the smoke from the dead leaves would go all the way into the hole along the hole.

Cang Hai draws smoke, while Ping An stretches his neck to look around, and soon sees a wisp of smoke floating three or four meters away.

"Second brother, there is a hole over there!"

Said Ping An and ran over happily, stretched out his hand, pushed aside the dry grass, and saw another hole of the mouse hole in front of his eyes.

The rats here are very thieves, so it’s no wonder that all the things that can survive here are good at making a living, not only rats and weasels, but people are more resistant than outsiders.

(End of this chapter)