Chapter 91: Chapter 82: Allocation
Shouts from the boys echoed from the tall grass. Guan Ailan and Mo Shuixia stopped their roughhousing. The four older girls told the younger ones to stay in the woods and not run off, then plunged together into the tall, dense thicket. Xiao Man grabbed the wood knife, while Mo Shuixia and the others each gripped a dry branch as they ran toward the sound.
It wasn’t that they had encountered danger. The boys were shouting, "Quick, come here! We’re catching wild rabbits! And pheasants... there are so many!"
It’s impossible for a lot of wild rabbits to gather in one place. They must have stumbled upon a lot of pheasant nests.
In these rarely visited deep mountains, the giant reeds and myrtle bushes grew especially tall and dense, rivaling a sun-blocking jungle canopy. Once inside, looking up revealed only a sliver of blue sky. Underfoot lay a thick carpet of withered grass and dead leaves.
As they drew closer, they heard the continuous whirring of flapping wings. Pheasants weren’t as noisy as domestic chickens; even in moments of extreme danger, they remained silent, intent only on bursting into flight to save their own lives.
Mo Shuixia, running at the front, let out a surprised cry, and Guan Ailan, right behind her, also shouted. A series of THWACKS followed. By the time Xiao Man and Mo Linghui caught up a few steps later, the two of them had already worked together to knock a gray rabbit unconscious. It might have even been dead, given how viciously they had struck it.
Mo Zhiyuan’s shout came from up ahead, "Sis, Sis, did you guys see the rabbits? They ran over from our direction! Two of them, two! One of them is especially fat!"
Mo Linghui said excitedly, "Xiao Man, quick! Let’s get a rabbit too!"
Xiao Man agreed and hurried forward with Mo Linghui.
But they ran all the way until they met up with the three boys and still didn’t see the other rabbit.
It wasn’t a wasted run, though. A few pheasants the boys had been chasing were hiding in the tall grass, and the two girls managed to catch them, capturing two by working together. Mo Shuixia, arriving right after, pounced on and caught another one!
On the other hand, the three boys, who had made a big fuss chasing and trying to surround the game, ended up empty-handed. Besides the twenty-some wild eggs they had collected, they hadn’t caught a single living thing.
The expressions on their three little faces were beyond resentful as they watched their older sisters holding the prey they had discovered first.
The gray rabbit was indeed fat and large, weighing at least seven or eight pounds. The three pheasants combined were another ten pounds, and with twenty-eight wild eggs, their haul was glorious.
Once they had gathered everything and returned to the woods, the younger girls grew incredibly excited at the sight of the pheasants and the wild rabbit. They crowded around, petting them again and again. The rabbit appeared to be dead already. Fortunately, the captured pheasants were all hens and lacked the beautiful long tail feathers of the males. Otherwise, the little girls would have plucked them to death long before they could be eaten.
Hearing the children’s clamor, Grandpa soon returned. When he saw that they had actually managed to hunt together and with such great success, he offered a few words of praise. Xiao Man proudly presented the maple parasite to him. This made Grandpa even happier. He laughed and said, "This is wonderful! You’re all much more capable than your Grandpa, and luckier too! Catching rabbits, grabbing pheasants... and Xiao Man even found some herbs. This stuff is very hard to find, you know!"
When the others heard Grandpa’s validation of Xiao Man, it confirmed she had truly learned how to gather herbs. Everyone looked at her with admiration and envy. Guan Ailan, gnawing on a chestnut she was peeling, scanned the trees above. "I’ll have to keep a sharper eye out from now on. Who knows, I might spot a stalk or two of that herb myself."
Mo Shuixia chuckled. Guan Ailan shot her a glare. "You wanna keep barking? Try me!"
Mo Shuixia shot back, "So I can’t even laugh now? You’re so bossy!"
Xiao Man: ...
’These two... truly like the old folks say, they fight like cats and dogs but insist on always being right next to each other!’
Everyone took out the provisions they had brought—boiled and roasted sweet potatoes and taro—and finished eating. After a drink of water, they left the cloth bags filled with rice pestle chestnuts in a clearing. They tied up the pheasants and placed them with the dead rabbit under an overturned basket, weighing it down with a rock. Then, Grandpa led them all to a nearby ridge to pick wild grapes and figs.
Dense wild grapevines crawled over the rocks of the ridge. Thankfully, the ridge wasn’t too high and was relatively easy to climb. Clusters of wild grapes lay right on the surface of the stone. The semi-ripe ones were a beautiful mix of black, red, and green, while the fully ripe bunches were glossy black and coated in a delicate frost. Being the gluttonous kids they were, everyone immediately started plucking grapes and popping them into their mouths. The ripe mountain grapes were incredibly sweet and refreshing. They had a slight tartness, but it didn’t detract from their delicious flavor at all. They held their own against cultivated grapes, by no means inferior.
Only after eating their fill did they begin to harvest them. Since there was such an abundance, they ignored the semi-ripe ones, picking only the completely black clusters and placing them in their back baskets. They filled three entire baskets.
The figs, which were locally called "scale weights," were cone-shaped and also grew on vines along the rocky ridge. They varied in size; some were as large as an actual scale weight, while others were only the size of a big toe. This wild fruit was an ingredient for making cold jelly, but it could also be eaten raw. You just had to break it open and nibble on the pink pulp inside. ’As for the taste,’ Xiao Man couldn’t quite describe it. In an era with so few snacks, it was considered a delicacy. ’Of course, it would be even better if it could be made into cold jelly.’
They picked so many wild grapes that there was no room for the figs. They had no choice but to pull them down, vines and all, bundle them up, and carry them.
Back in the woods, Grandpa helped everyone organize their harvest. Luckily, they had all brought some burlap and cloth sacks. They cut wooden branches to fashion carrying poles, which the older children used to shoulder the loads. This way, they could take more with them.
Xiao Man filled her back basket to the brim and wanted to carry two more cloth bags on a pole. She knew she could handle it, but Grandpa wouldn’t allow it. In addition to his own back basket, Grandpa was already carrying two sacks on a pole.
The journey up had been easy, but the return trip was a heavy one. Yet, no one complained about being tired. This was their harvest, after all. The sweet thought of persevering, of carrying it all down the mountain to share with their families, was enough to ward off fatigue and inspire boundless strength.
"Going up the mountain is easy, but coming down is hard," as the saying goes. But they made it down eventually. After resting for a while at the foot of the mountain, they made one last push and returned to the courtyard of the Knowledge Youth House.
Since everyone had a share of the goods on Grandpa’s carrying pole, they had to divvy up the haul before everyone could head to their respective homes.
The little ones who couldn’t come up the mountain that morning were already waiting there. Seeing the group return, they immediately ran up to greet them, whooping and hollering with excitement.
The rice pestles, mountain chestnuts, and walnuts mostly went to whoever had gathered them.
The wild grapes and figs were divided into six equal shares, as the dozen or so people on the trip represented six different families. As for the hunted game, the rabbit was split between Mo Shuixia’s and Guan Ailan’s families. Of the three pheasants, the largest one—weighing about three or four pounds—was shared between Qiu Xiaohu and Jiang Xuehua. The remaining two smaller pheasants went to Xiao Man and Mo Linghui, one for each of them.
The three boys divided the wild eggs among themselves.
The distribution wasn’t perfectly equal, but there was no more suitable way to divide the spoils. Besides, everyone unanimously agreed, so that was that.
As for the little ones who had been left behind that morning, they received a share of everything except for the meat, and they were overjoyed and perfectly content.
