My village can't be like this

Chapter 685: Searching for Golden Cicada Flowers

During this May Day holiday, the children in the village started a craze to look for beetles.

Because if they find a beetle with a good-looking appearance and it is noticed by the kids who come to the village to play with their friends, they will spend money to buy it from them.

As far as Zhang An knows, many people are willing to spend one to five yuan to buy good-looking beetles from naughty kids.

Those who are extremely lucky can even sell a rhinoceros beetle for ten dollars if they find one.

The lucky person is none other than Ermao standing in front of Zhang An.

This guy caught a lot of beetles a few days ago, including two rhinoceros beetles. He sold the largest one for ten yuan, and the other smaller one for five yuan.

Maybe this money is nothing to those city people, and to those city children, it may just be pocket money for one or two days.

But for those naughty kids in the village who have never known what pocket money is since childhood, it is definitely a huge sum of money.

After all, apart from the New Year's money, the adults in their family rarely give them pocket money at other times. Maybe if they do a good job at home, the adults in the family will be happy and give them a few cents occasionally. And they can't use it to buy snacks, only pencils, notebooks or erasers.

But even so, after getting the money, I would often be asked by adults where I spent the money.

So the naughty kids cherish this opportunity very much, and during the holidays, they go out in groups every day to look for beetles.

Especially the kid Ermao. Although he has earned a huge sum of more than ten yuan, he is still not satisfied. He will take his friends out to look for beetles every day.

Because the first day this child got the money, his mother questioned him when he got home, and then all the huge sum of money was confiscated. Now he is on the same starting line as the other children.

After Zhang An found out, he didn't know whether to say that the child was lucky or unlucky.

However, he would not feel pity for the naughty kids in the village, because this has always been the tradition. You know, he went through the same thing when he was a child.

"So did you find a lot of this in the bamboo forest?"

After Zhang An finished reading it, he picked up the golden cicada flowers and asked the naughty kids.

"There must be more, Uncle An. We found these in one place. We haven't looked for them elsewhere yet."

Every time this happened, the naughty kids felt that Zhang An was treating them like adults, so they tried their best to act like little adults and respond to Zhang An.

"Then keep looking. If you can find any, you can exchange them for fifty cents each."

Zhang An thought about it and decided not to go look for it himself, but let these naughty kids do whatever they want.

There should always be golden cicada flowers in the purple bamboo forest, but not many people in the village know about this thing.

So all this time, Zhang An had never heard of anyone in the village going there specifically to look for this thing.

But even if he could find them, the number wouldn't be too many. After all, there weren't many of them, so he was too lazy to wander around in the purple bamboo forest.

Because they found it first and then came to remind him, Zhang An left this matter to these naughty kids.

This can be considered as returning a favor. Let them do what they want, and then I can spend some money to buy it from those naughty kids.

This way, as an uncle, I can give them some benefits. The money is not too much anyway.

"Okay, then Uncle An, let's go find him now."

When they heard that one coin could only be exchanged for fifty cents, the naughty kids immediately became very happy.

Even though we could sell more beetles a few days ago, we don’t accept just any kind of beetles. We only accept those that look good.

But this strange insect that can bloom is different. No matter whether it is good or bad, it can be exchanged for money, which is a guarantee.

Although these naughty kids are still young, their hearts are very clear and bright.

"Then Ermao, aren't we going to go look for the golden beetle?"

Some younger children felt reluctant to let Ermao go when they heard him say he wanted to go look for the strange insect flower instead of the beetle.

"No, no, no, all the beetles have been caught. You see, we didn't find any just now, and there are not many people in the village now. Even if we find one, we may not be able to sell it. It's better to go and help Uncle An find this."

Ermao is worthy of being the leader of this class. In front of his group of little followers, he speaks very logically and clearly about the rules.

"Okay, let's go find this together."

Younger children certainly cannot think so much, but they always trust the older brothers who take them out to play.

After making the decision, Ermao took his followers and rushed to the purple bamboo forest in a hurry.

"Wait a minute, take this with you, too. Don't just keep digging with your hands. If your nails get scratched, you'll get hurt. Also, remember to watch out for snakes and centipedes."

Zhang An called Ermaohai and the others to stop, then took out his own small medicine hoe for digging herbs and asked them to take it with them.

If they were asked to go home and get a hoe, they would probably be scolded by the adults in their family.

A hoe these days is not a casual item, and adults would not let their children take it out to play with it.

If you lose it, it will cost you at least ten dollars to buy a new one.

Even if it is not lost but just damaged by digging, it will take some time to repair it.

"Okay, Uncle An, let's go."

The two boys took the small medicine hoe given by Zhang An as cunningly as if they were receiving an imperial sword.

In recent years, more and more families in the village have bought televisions, and Journey to the West has become a must-see TV program for naughty kids.

Each of them was exactly the same age as the monkeys, and they all liked the way that Monkey King moved and spoke.

Because of this, they were often beaten by the adults at home, who told them that they were not serious.

Watching them skipping away, Zhang An couldn't help but smile and shook his head.

At this time, he thought of the Monkey King who had not appeared for a long time. He didn't know where this guy had gone or how he was doing in the mountains.

However, based on his understanding of that naughty monkey, he thought that he would not have a bad life. He might even have become the leader of a monkey group.

Then, Zhang An remembered the mountain donkey he saw in the mountains yesterday.

I originally wanted to call Zhu Yuliang to let him know, but in the end I forgot about it.

So Zhang An took out his cell phone and prepared to dial.

As soon as he dialed the first number, Zhang An hung up and dialed another one.

Because the number he dialed just now was Zhu Yuliang's office phone number, which he had always called before.

But it’s still the May Day holiday, and Lao Zhu must not be at work, so I can only call Lao Zhu’s home.

"Hey, who are you looking for?"

The call was connected, but the voice on the other end was that of a young girl.

Zhang An thought about it and decided that this should be the daughter that Lao Zhu had been talking about.

After all, he knew both Mr. and Mrs. Zhu, but he had never met his daughter who was still in college.

"Hello, I'm looking for Uncle Zhu."

In front of someone else's daughter, one must give the other person some respect, so Zhang An did not directly call him Lao Zhu.

"Okay, wait a moment, I'll go and help you shout."

Lao Zhu's daughter was quite polite. She didn't ask any questions and just helped to call people.

After a while, Zhu Yuliang came over and answered the phone.

"Old Zhu, it's me, Zhang An." Before Old Zhu could speak, Zhang An spoke first.

"Oh, it's you. I was wondering who it was. Tell me, what do you want from me?"

Old Zhu didn't beat around the bush and asked very directly.

After all, he was already accustomed to Zhang An's habit of never coming to visit someone unless there was something important.

Generally speaking, if there is nothing going on, this person will definitely not take the initiative to call him.

"I just want to ask you, are there many mountain donkeys in our area?"

Before, Zhang An seemed to have heard Zhuang Shuying say that the county had just conducted a statistics on the wild animals in its area in the past two years, and the results were already out.

However, he seldom goes to the Forestry Bureau, so he doesn't know the statistical results.

But as the leader, Lao Zhu must be very clear about this. After all, he has to report to his superiors frequently, and these are all real report contents.

"As for the mountain donkey, well, let me think about it."

When Zhu Yuliang suddenly heard Zhang An asking this question, he was not prepared and could not remember it for a moment.

"I remember now. We haven't found any in our mountains so far. It's still unknown whether there are any. But there are very few of them. Even in the two protected areas in the province, there are not many. Why are you asking about this suddenly?"

After a while, Zhu Yuliang remembered the general idea and told Zhang An.

He felt a little strange that Zhang An suddenly asked about this.

But he didn't think about it in a bad way. After all, they had known each other for so long, and he knew that there were some things Zhang An would never touch.

At most, I would be excited to see the prey and catch a couple to take home to satisfy my desire as a keeper.

"Nothing. When I went into the mountains yesterday, I saw an adult mountain donkey. It didn't look like it came from somewhere else. I thought I had never seen such a thing in all these years, so I came to tell you about it. Don't let those blind guys find it and beat it to death. That would be a pity."

After hearing what Zhu Yuliang said, Zhang An finally understood why so few people had seen this thing over the years.

Even though Mr. Huang, who once said he had met him, had only met him once.

It turns out that the number of these things is really too small.

"Really? Where did you see it?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuliang even spoke a little louder unconsciously.

"Really? It was right over there at Qinggangpo. I wasn't too close at the time, but I'm sure I wasn't seeing things. If I hadn't brought my camera, I would have taken a picture of it right there."

After coming back yesterday, Zhang An regretted not bringing his camera with him.

Even if you don’t take pictures of these things, you can take pictures of your own people.

"Then I will report this to my superiors after I get to work tomorrow. They should send someone down to investigate, but I may need your help to lead the way."

Zhu Yuliang didn't know where Qinggangpo was, but that didn't stop him from trusting Zhang An, and he made a decision immediately.

"Is it really necessary to go through so much trouble?"

When Zhang An heard that he had to lead people into the mountains to look for it, he immediately felt a little overwhelmed.

He didn't mind going into the mountains by himself, but he was not willing to lead a group of professional experts.

"It is necessary. How can it be unnecessary? If we knew clearly that there were some here before, we wouldn't have to go through so much trouble with a smaller amount. But the most important thing is to create something from nothing. No matter how much trouble we have, it is not too much."

Zhu Yuliang almost told Zhang An the word "political achievements" directly.

Now is the time to pay attention to this aspect. No matter what species it is, having it is one thing and not having it is another.

If there is, it doesn’t matter whether the quantity is more or less.

But if it didn't exist before and was suddenly discovered, the process from nothing to something is worth describing in detail.

After all, once this thing is confirmed, it means allocated funds and results.

"Okay, we'll talk about it then."

Zhang An felt a little regretful for a moment. If he had known that Zhu Yuliang would take it so seriously, he would not have bothered to say anything more.

When he hung up the phone, Xiao Siqi had already woken up from his nap.

"Dad, wash it."

Xiao Siqi rubbed his blurry eyes and came out to find Zhang An.

Today, he is no longer the naughty boy who didn’t like to wash his face.

"Okay, I'll wash Qiqi right away. Mom, is she still not up?"

Zhang An picked up his son and sat him on his arms, then went into the house to wash his face.

"Mom is lazy."

Little Siqi yawned loudly and then said only three words.

"Shh, don't say that. If your mom hears it, your butt will be in trouble again."

Upon hearing this, Zhang An quickly silenced the little guy, knowing that the mouth can cause trouble.

In the afternoon, the naughty kids who went to the purple bamboo forest to look for golden cicada flowers came back in a mighty group.

"Uncle An, we are back."

They all looked very excited, like generals who had won a battle.

"Then let me see what you have gained."

When Zhang An saw them like this, he knew that they must have gained something.

"Hey, this is what I found."

Ermao chuckled and was the first to hand over the golden cicada flowers he had found, exactly five, no more, no less.

"Uncle An, look, I have one too."

"Uncle An, I'm here."

. . . . . .

The other little kids, big and small, all rushed to take out the golden cicada flowers they had found.

As if afraid that if it was too late, Zhang An would say no.

The older children had three or four, and even the youngest, who was still wiping his nose, could take one out.

"Hey, not bad, wait for me to get the money for you."

Zhang An raised his eyes, he didn't expect to find so many for these naughty kids.

He roughly counted them and estimated that there were about twenty or thirty in total.

When the naughty kid heard that Zhang An was going to get the money, he immediately jumped up for joy.

Little Siqi next to him didn't understand what was going on, but that didn't stop him from being able to have fun with these older brothers.

(End of this chapter)