The leisurely life of farmers in mountain villages

Chapter 68 Longting Herb Market
Not being able to contact Ma Lili made Wang Shaodong feel a little regretful, but thinking that his uncle would take him to touch crabs tomorrow night, he immediately became happy again.

At seven o'clock the next morning, Wang Shaodong was sleeping soundly, and suddenly felt a chill all over his body. He quickly opened his eyes and found that the blanket covering his body had been lifted off by the uncle next to him.

"Boy, the sun is drying your ass, Emma, ​​so fierce?"

Wang Shaodong rubbed his sleepy eyes, and asked vaguely: "Uncle, why are you so fierce?"

When he followed his uncle's eyes, he realized that he had just had a very rich dream, and then hurriedly pulled the shorts by the bedside and put them on.

"You boy, if you don't want to go to school with a good brain, you have to raise some chickens in this valley. Boy, let me ask you, are you free today?"

While putting on his clothes, Wang Shaodong murmured, "When you are free, Uncle, shall we go catch crabs now?"

"Touching crabs won't be until the evening. If you are free, follow me to the medicinal herb market in Longting Town. When I come back at night, I will take you to touch crabs."

Now the chicken farm is basically on the right track, and then the Wang family hired two women from the village to help. The wages are 15 yuan a day. They are mainly responsible for stuffing and cleaning chicken manure in the cage chicken house. What.Then Wang Fumin and his family were free.

After Wang Shaodong put on his clothes, his shoulders were hooked and his back was entangled with his uncle Zhao Shihai.

"Uncle, what are you going to Longting to sell?"

Longting medicinal material market is a relatively large wholesale distribution center for medicinal materials in the Qilu area. Yimeng scorpion, salvia miltiorrhiza, Xu Changqing, mugwort, scutellaria baicalensis, soil turtle, etc. are all distributed and sold here.

Zhao Shihai would go to Longting every once in a while. As the saying goes, relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the sea to eat the sea, Zhao Shihai is a real person who relies on the mountains to eat the mountains.Almost all of his family's income comes from the mountains. He is a master at catching scorpions, rabbits, and pheasants. At the same time, he knows a lot of herbs in the mountains.

Every year, the herbs that Zhao Shihai dug out from the mountains can also be sold for a lot of money.

"It's a mess, there are some, mainly scorpions."

In 2002, the purchase price of Yimeng Quanscorpion in Longting had reached around 150.

At that time, there were medicinal dealers who collected scorpions in many places in the countryside. They usually collected them from primary and junior high school students and then sold them in the Longting medicinal market.

The scorpions collected in the village usually only cost 120 cents to 2002 cents a piece, depending on the market price.About [-] large scorpions can weigh a catty, so the peddler who collects scorpions earns [-] to [-] cents for each scorpion.In [-], it was a pretty good job.

Those who were in elementary school or junior high school at that time had school leave early in the afternoon and had little homework. After the Waking of Insects, they would go to the mountains to catch scorpions for some pocket money as soon as school was over.

In 2002, if a child had pocket money of 1 yuan a day, it was already considered very happy.

After Wang Shaodong got up, he didn't eat at home, but followed his uncle over Nanshan Mountain to Qingquanling Village.

My uncle's house is at the head of the village, but the gate of his house is locked. My uncle said that Wang Shaodong's aunt has returned to her mother's house.

Zhao Shihai had a three-wheeled agricultural firewood tricycle that he had driven for four or five years. Wang Shaodong saw that the tricycle was full of various herbs, all of which were dug from the mountains by his uncle, and the most abundant one was mugwort.

Artemisia argyi is everywhere in the surrounding mountains. After drying it, some people want it after arriving in Longting, but it is worthless.

In addition, on top of the bundled mugwort, there are more than [-] mosquito nets.

The weather is getting colder. If you don't hurry up and dispose of the mosquito wormwood rope, you will have to wait until next year.

Mosquito rope is an old method passed down from generation to generation by ordinary people in the mountains to deal with mosquitoes. A weed called mosquito wormwood grows in the mountains. After drying, weave it into a thick and long rope, and then light one end. The mosquito wormwood rope will emit a special smell. After the mosquitoes smell this smell, they will run away in fright.

In my memory, before Wang Shaodong's grandparents passed away, the old couple's family would put two mosquito repellent ropes at the door every summer evening, and after lighting them, there would be no mosquitoes all night.

Zhao Shihai locked the door, drove a tricycle, and pulled his nephew Wang Shaodong along the road from Qingquanling to Waitainan City.

Although Tainan City is a county-level city, it has a larger population than Luzhong City, with 21 townships under its jurisdiction.

To the west of Qingquanling Village is a tall and steep mountain range, the mountain is full of bluestones, some tenacious locust trees protrude from the cliff, and there are a few dead tree vines hanging on the cliff. , the entire cliff is bare.

Walking west along the road from Qingquanling less than 100 meters, there is a very narrow pass, commonly known as Qingshiguan.

This Qingshiguan used to only allow one person to pass sideways, but it was widened last year due to road construction, and now it can barely allow a tricycle to pass.

After passing the Qingshi Pass, it is Zhai Town within the boundaries of Tainan City.

Then go south from Zhai Town for about 50 miles, and you will arrive at Longting Town.

Longting Town Herbs Market is a very long street, just as lively as Dazhai Township Daji, but here are all selling herbal medicines.

It was past nine o'clock when we arrived in Longting Town.

Both Wang Shaodong and Zhao Shihai were hungry, so they bought a few steamed buns in the town, asked the steamed bun seller for a bowl of boiled water, and sat on the side of the road to eat.

I have to say that in 2002, most of the food, especially the food made by individuals in the village, was not as serious as it is now.

Take the steamed buns eaten by Wang Shaodong and Zhao Shihai as an example. In 2002, the problem of steamed stuffed buns was not too serious.

The fat powder mixed in the noodles is not too much, and the stuffing will not be flavored with chicken intestines.

Many sellers of soup dumplings with lean meat like to use chicken intestines discarded from slaughterhouses as meat fillings for steamed buns. It is not only cheap, but also tastes much better than pure lean meat.

However, Wang Shaodong knew that in 2002, such cases were not too many.

It is really said that there is a big problem with food, after 2006, as if overnight, all the people around us began to go bad.

After eating the steamed buns, Zhao Shihai parked his tricycle on the edge of a parking lot next to the medicinal material market.As soon as the car stopped, many medicinal materials came up to purchase, look at the types, and negotiate prices.

Wang Shaodong is not a person who likes to be lively, so many people came all of a sudden, and he was taken aback.

Talking about buying and selling is not an easy life. From the opening of the weighing at 09:30 in the morning until the closing of the medicinal material market at 6000 o'clock in the afternoon, Zhao Shihai finally sold out all the goods he brought this time. This time, he sold more than [-] yuan.

Zhao Shihai would come to Longting Medicinal Material Market once a month, so many people here are very familiar with him.

Seeing that the sky was getting dark, Wang Shaodong's thoughts had already gone to the crabs in the Xishan creek that were crawling around in the crevices of the rocks.

(End of this chapter)