Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 96: There is meat, why eat vegetarian food?

It's market day again.

When Yu Qiutang went to the town, he met Lao Qin who was collecting goods. It was the same old question: when would he go to the mountains to get Coriolus versicolor for him? Yu Qiutang smiled and said in the next few days.

Lao Qin mentioned that after talking to Yu Qiutang last time, he told his old customer that someone could get Coriolus versicolor.

The old customer was very happy and said that if the Coriolus polyphylla was of good quality, he would even be willing to pay a higher price, but he had to have it quickly as he had needed it for a long time.

I had no choice but to urge Yu Qiutang again and again.

As a result, Yu Qiutang didn't dare to see him.

It’s not that Yu Qiutang didn’t want to go to the mountains immediately, he just felt that he was not fully prepared and his body had not recovered to a more suitable state.

Just like he told Lao Qin, Coriolus versicolor is at an altitude of two to three thousand meters, where all kinds of wild animals can be found, and there may be the top hunting group: wolves.

It is true that he now has two guns, including Lao Liu's gun, and he also has a crossbow in his hands, but in the wild, not all hunting is by ambush like the last time he hunted roe deer. Many times, it is often a battle of encounter.

In other words, you may be put on the dinner plate by the beast before you even start.

Once you lose the initiative, what can you do even if you have a gun?

Even with a five-six-and-a-half rifle, you can't fire continuously like a machine gun. You need to shoot the bullets in one by one, but you don't need to reload every time.

But the beast is not a fool, standing there quietly waiting for you to kill it. If you miss with one shot, the next shot may already pounce on your face.

He didn't want to just die in the mountains like this.

So in the past half month, he practiced Hongquan very seriously, just like Yu Xiaowei made up for his cultural knowledge, and practiced to improve his endurance and strength stability.

By the way, he became very familiar with the gun given to him by Lao Liu, and his marksmanship improved greatly. The marksmanship hidden deep in his soul in his previous life returned to his young body.

Of course, when he was exercising, he did not forget to pull Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang along.

Since they got the 100 yuan they shared last time, and the 20 yuan they each got from selling the roe deer, they found that they could still get meat by following Yu Qiutang.

After going into the mountains once, at worst you can get 10 to 20 yuan when you come out, which is much more comfortable than working as a laborer or forging iron.

Yu Qiujiang toiled for a month, but sometimes he could only sell for less than 20 yuan. He also had to spend the whole day standing by the furnace and being roasted. In the final analysis, it was all for the sake of making money, so he would make whatever was profitable.

In addition to physical training, Yu Qiutang also built a drying furnace next to Yu Qiujiang's blacksmith shop with the help of Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang in the past half month.

The purpose is to dry the leaves of the tofu shiitake tree.

A few days ago, he went to the mountains to pick tofu shiitake leaves and found that with the arrival of autumn, the leaves of tofu shiitake began to turn yellow, and many even fell directly to the ground and turned into rotten leaves.

This made Yu Qiutang quite worried.

The magical tofu is his most stable source of income at present. As long as he keeps making it, he can earn ten yuan a day.

With steady income, you can have a stable income of 300 yuan a month.

This is equivalent to many people’s annual income.

Without turning hunting into a stable source of income, the cash cow of the magic tofu cannot afford any mistakes.

If he doesn't find a solution quickly, by the end of autumn, all the leaves of the tofu plant will have fallen, and he will no longer be able to provide the magical tofu.

Once the market is lost in winter, he will have to wait for the leaves to mature next year, which will probably have to wait until spring, which means another half a year, and he will lose this good way to make money.

No.

He couldn't just watch the opportunity to make money slip through his fingers.

When he came down from the mountain that day, he kept thinking of a solution.

I accidentally saw a piece of dried tofu leaves that had accidentally fallen into the crack of the stove in the kitchen. If I rubbed it hard, it broke into pieces, but if I didn't rub it, the leaves would remain in the yellow-green dry leaf form.

Inspired by this, Yu Qiutang made some more attempts and found that as long as the tofu leaves were dried quickly in the shade and out of the sun, the green color of the leaves would turn into yellow-green. Then, the tofu made by following the general method of making magical tofu would be basically the same as the original one.

There is no difference in taste.

So, he came up with an idea. Since it can be dried, why not just build a drying building.

By drying the leaves, they can be used all year round, providing him with a continuous source of income.

Just do it.

He quickly decided to build the drying furnace next to Yu Qiujiang's blacksmith furnace, and even on Yu Qiujiang's contracted land.

This place is close to the mountain, so after picking the leaves, you can put them directly into the drying furnace, which is convenient for baking.

This place is also far away from the villagers. Except for buying farm tools, people generally don't come here, so they don't find out where the leaves of his tofu shiitake mushroom come from.

Ever since Chen Meidi tried every means to get the news but to no avail a few days ago, Yu Qiutang's awareness of confidentiality has increased a lot. He told Yu Xiaowei not to reveal the news even if he was beaten to death. Only Yu Qiujiang and Wang Haofeng knew that he had picked this leaf.

But this was his own way of making money, and both of them tacitly kept silent.

After all, they also knew that Yu Qiutang took them hunting together, helped a lot, and provided them with enough meat.

They are all honest people and are not greedy.

As for the construction of the drying furnace, it is quite simple.

Yu Qiutang has a familiar craft.

In the past life, it was popular to grow flue-cured tobacco here for several years as the main cash crop in Rongcheng.

At that time, almost every household had a tobacco curing stove at the door. In fact, it was a vertical building like a bunker, with a fire channel built underneath and rows of racks for placing tobacco on top.

After the tobacco is hung, the door of the tobacco curing furnace will be tightly sealed. In the small house next to it, hot air will be continuously allowed to enter the fire channel just like burning a boiler. The temperature in the tobacco curing furnace will be raised, and slowly, the tobacco will be baked from tender leaves to golden dry leaves.

Yu Qiutang had experience in building tobacco flue-curing furnaces, so setting up a drying furnace was a piece of cake for him. With the help of Yu Qiujiang and Wang Haofeng, the drying furnace was set up in just one week.

All that’s left is to use a low fire to slowly dry the inside, and then add the tofu shiitake leaves.

After the construction was completed, Yu Qiutang walked around the nearby places where tofu ash trees might grow for several days in a row and drew a "tofu ash tree map". Once the tofu ash was dried in the drying furnace, he would start to speed up his pace and collect all the leaves he could.

After a few more days, the late apricots on the apricot trees began to fall to the ground, and it was finally time to harvest corn.

This year the solar term was a little later, so the corn harvest was delayed by nearly half a month. In the past, the corn would have been harvested by this time and people would start digging the corn stubble in the field.

Yu Qiutang took his two children and joined the corn harvesting team.

He and Lao Qin agreed that after the corn was harvested and they cleaned up here a little, they would go into the mountains to help him get Coriolus fungus.

By the way, I also told Lao Qin that this matter can't be rushed. The color of Coriolus versicolor also depends on the time. Generally, after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the color of Coriolus versicolor will gradually darken, and the quality will be better at this time. Lao Qin was skeptical and strongly suspected that Yu Qiutang didn't want to go right away, so he found a lot of words.

He also said that he felt sorry for his mulberry branches, as he had lent them to Yu Qiutang for so long that they must have become rusty, but he hadn't seen any of the mulberry yellow residue that Yu Qiutang had promised him.

In this regard, Yu Qiutang could only tell him that good things come to those who wait.

More haste less speed.

If this thing is so easy to get, then why is it so scarce and so expensive? Wouldn't it be available everywhere on the street?

Only then did Lao Qin believe him temporarily.
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Today happens to be the weekend. In the morning, after Yu Qiutang and his two children finished their usual exercises, Yu Qiutang asked them to change into long-sleeved clothes and prepare to harvest corn with their father.

When it comes to harvesting corn, it is the most difficult of all farm tasks, no doubt about it.

Due to the special terrain of the village, a lot of the land here is long and narrow, making it very difficult to work with.

Take Old Yu’s land for example. The two mu and three fen of land is a total of more than 1,000 square meters, but it is more than 210 meters long and about five or six meters wide.

What's worse is that there are not roads at both ends of the field. There is a high ridge on one side, so the corn cannot be transported from both ends separately, and can only be transported from one end.

The result is that the road is on the east side of the cornfield, and the corn grown on the west side needs to be transported to the east side in baskets and bags across the entire length of the cornfield, and then pulled back home on a cart.

Anyone who has harvested corn knows that it is simply a torture.

August and September are the times when the autumn heat is prevalent. The slightest movement will make you sweat. Walking in a cornfield with a basket on your back, the corn leaves will cut your face and body.

To survive a day's work is like being cut countless times by a thin knife.

When I go back to wash at night, once my body touches water, I feel such torture. Anyone who has experienced it knows it.

But such is the life of a farmer.

There is no way to improve it except to work hard.

Yu Dejin, Chen Meidi, Yu Qiushi who was dragged here for training very reluctantly, and Yu Qiutang and his two uncles and nephews.

Wang Chunhua said she was staying at home to watch the house and cook, and no one said anything. Her laziness was not something that happened in just one or two days, and everyone had become accustomed to it.

Regardless of their personalities, Yu Dejin and Chen Meidi were very hardworking. Yu Qiutang and the two children were also able to endure hardships. However, Yu Qiushi kept complaining, not understanding why he was forced to do this kind of work this year when he had never had to do it before.

He kept mumbling, and Yu Dejin kicked him on the butt, and he finally shut up.

After arriving at the field, Chen Meidi and Yu Dejin were responsible for picking the corn, while the remaining four people carried it outside.

Yu Qiutang asked Yu Xiaoyun to put the things into the bags. She didn't have much strength and it would be a waste of time to carry them.

Yu Qiushi and Yu Xiaowei carried their belongings in small bags, but he carried two large baskets, each of which could hold as much as Yu Xiaowei and his companions four or five times.

Yu Xiaowei was no longer surprised by Yu Qiutang's strength, but Yu Qiushi didn't feel anything at first. But when he sat down to rest one day, he saw Yu Xiaoyun putting countless corn cobs into two baskets. Only then did he realize how awesome his brother was.

He is about the same age as Yu Xiaowei, and Yu Xiaowei's bag is bigger than his. He looks very easy every time he walks, and he doesn't need to rest halfway. But he needs to rest at least two or three times when walking from inside to outside.

This caused his self-esteem to suffer a great deal.

I also tried to walk out in one breath, but failed the challenge. Instead, I fell flat on my face and my face was almost cut by the raised corn stubble.

Finally, he had no choice but to admit that he had become the weakest man in this family.

Normally, this kind of work of breaking corn must be done quickly but transported slowly, but with the added bonus of Yu Qiutang, Yu Dejin and Chen Meidi found that they could actually match Yu Qiutang's speed, and they were too embarrassed to take a break in the middle.

In this way, after one morning, three quarters of the more than two acres of corn were consumed, leaving only a small half.

Yu Dejin and Chen Meidi were also tired, so they decided not to break the corn cobs today. After pulling the corn cobs back with a cart, they would peel them and hang them up at night. They would break the rest tomorrow morning when it was cooler.

Yu Qiutang naturally had no objection.

He has good endurance and this kind of work is actually nothing for him, but my father is old and he really can't stand the high-intensity work.

He asked Yu Dejin and Chen Meidi to go back and rest first, and left the transportation by the cart to them.

When Yu Qiushi saw his parents were leaving, he wanted to sneak away with them, but Yu Qiutang grabbed him and told him to just stay and experience life.

This time Chen Meidi did not object. She just glanced at her son and went back with her husband.

Helpless Yu Qiushi wanted to beg for mercy again, but Yu Qiutang would not tolerate him. He would not miss any of what he was supposed to do. When he saw him being lazy, he would pull his ears. Yu Qiushi wanted to resist at first, but when he saw Yu Qiutang actually lifted up the entire cart and was ready to hit him, he immediately wilted.

This……

Can I call someone?

Why would you bully me? I'm just a child.

With the strong man Yu Qiutang, it was quite fast to move the corn from the field back home.

He simply found some long and hard wooden boards and inserted them next to the cart, raising the height of the cart's compartment, making it seem like a high-compartment cart.

In this way, the amount of transportation each time is three times the original amount.

As a result, they only took four times to complete the task, which would have taken more than ten times.

Not to mention the neighbors on the road who were very surprised when they saw it, even Chen Meidi was so shocked that she was speechless when she saw Yu Qiutang and his three children coming back with corn cobs that were piled up like a mountain and almost burst the tires.

The children didn't know the weight of the corn, but she knew.

An ordinary cart can carry more than 200 kilograms, but this one can carry 600 to 700 kilograms.

Although the three children were pushing from behind, everyone knew that the strength they could exert was quite limited, and it was mainly Yu Qiutang who was pulling from the front.

What's even more terrifying is that on the way home, they had to go over a slope. Even if they were pulling an empty car, it would take some effort. So how did Yu Qiutang get up there pulling such a heavy vehicle?

It's totally unimaginable.

Originally, they were thinking of waiting for Yu Qiutang and the children to finish before eating together, so they were not in a hurry to mix the rice. But it ended so suddenly and quickly, which really caught them off guard.

Chen Meidi asked Yu Qiushi to call Yu Qiutang, the two children, and Chunmei to have dinner together, saying that Wang Chunhua had prepared the meal.

Yu Qiutang refused without hesitation.

Working together is a historical issue, but eating together is not necessary.

The fact that he didn't openly conflict with Chen Meidi showed that he was magnanimous, and there was no need for him to have dinner with them.

He can eat meat every meal, but can Chen Meidi and the others do that? Why do they give up the meat and eat vegetarian food instead?

(End of this chapter)