Chapter 63: Chapter 63 Crossing the River
Haha, the name has been changed again. Everyone says that this is the best name, so please continue to support it as you always have!
Knotweed grows on every mountain, and it is also an indispensable thing in the countryside nowadays. It is mainly used to bundle things, such as cutting firewood on the mountain and cutting two pieces of it as rope. In spring, some people pinch the tender leaves on the vine to feed the pigs, and some people with severe toothache dig up a few pieces of knotweed root and hold it in their mouths.
This kind of thing, which even pigs don't like to eat nowadays, is found all over the mountains, and it seems that many health foods have been developed later.
Not long after they started walking, there was a large clump of kudzu at the foot of the mountain. Feng Yiping, who was walking behind them, stopped the two in front of him and said, 'Wait a minute.'
They both turned back and said, "What now?" Feng Hongbing was impatient.
Feng Yiping didn't say anything, picked up a few stones from the ground and threw them at the clump of kudzu. "Hit it a few times first, I'm afraid there are snakes in there.'
This time even Feng Haitao laughed, "That's good, let's catch some and make soup.'
Feng Hongbing shook the spring-loaded knife in his hand – the only sharp object in everyone's luggage – and said to Feng Yiping, 'Yiping, I'm noticing that you're getting more and more timid.'
Feng Yiping didn't argue, but followed behind them anyway. He had no choice; he was naturally afraid of snakes. Whenever he took his son to the zoo, he always avoided the snake enclosure. In the animal world, as soon as he saw a python or the like, he immediately changed the channel.
To repeat, if he were faced with a tiger, he might still pluck up the courage to pet its bottom, but if he saw a snake, he would flee in terror.
I remember that one time, when our son was five years old, he refused to buy a fake snake toy. The snake was made of plastic, but it looked very realistic. Our son liked it very much, so he cried and made a fuss. Zhang Yan, who knew the inside story, watched the show from the side. In the end, he had to discuss it with his son, 'Because Daddy is afraid of this kind of thing, so let's not buy this one, shall we buy something else?'
His son burst into laughter on the spot, shouted to Zhang Yan, 'Mom, mom, dad is afraid of snakes,' and attracted a lot of people, including waiters, at the entrance of the store to laugh at him.
However, although Feng Hongbing and Feng Haitao said it lightly, when they approached the kudzu, they still kicked on it a few times to see if there was any movement inside before bending down to cut it.
After pulling out a lot of it, they finally cut two pieces that were more than ten metres long. Not too old and not too young, Feng Haitao skillfully connected the two pieces together, making a length of more than 30 metres, which was more than enough.
This fresh kudzu has burrs on it that can sting, so Feng Haitao wrapped his trousers around his waist, tied the kudzu to them, and slipped into the water from the edge of the field. It was like having a long tail dragging behind his butt, and in the midst of everyone's laughter, he swam towards the opposite bank.
The water was indeed a little fast, but Feng Haitao was comfortable in the middle. In a few minutes, he easily reached the other side. He didn't need to come over now, but he found a big rock on the other side of the bank, tied the rattan to it, and waved to this side.
Feng Hongbing was the second to go into the water. With his school bag and clothes tied to his back, he swam along the vines to the opposite bank. In no time at all, he too had easily swum to the other side. He stayed there while Feng Haitao swam to the middle of the river, pulled on the vines and stopped there. Feng Wen, who was a slightly poorer swimmer, didn't take his clothes or school bag with him, but swam alone to the other side. When he reached the middle of the river, Feng Haitao took him a few lengths. Next, the other two who could swim were also ferried across by Feng Haitao.
Then Feng Haitao and Feng Hongbing took turns bringing everyone's clothes, bags and shoes to the other side. Finally, the two men each took one hand and helped Feng Yiping and the other person who couldn't swim across the river.
Feng Yiping was the last one across. These few minutes felt very short. Feng Yiping was lying on his back, sandwiched between the two men, unable to move his hands. All he could do was stamp his feet randomly in the water, or rather, hit the water, because he couldn't tread water.
The river was indeed very fast, and every now and then they were washed off course. At this time, Feng Haitao reached out and pulled Ge Teng, but he couldn't be bothered with the river splashing up and getting Feng Yiping all over his face, and inevitably drinking a few mouthfuls.
Once they finally made it across the river and were back on solid ground, Feng Yiping let out a sigh of relief, and then one by one, they looked at each other, and everyone laughed.
Feng Wen said to Feng Yiping, 'Just say you did it all at once many times. Look, everyone is fine.'
Feng Haitao said, "It still works. Compared to before, today is much easier.'
Feng Hongbing also said, "Yes, don't look at it as just pulling a few times, it really saves some effort. I think we can do it this way in the future.'
With what they said, there was no need for Feng Yiping to refute Feng Wen again. He got dressed and saw a few adults not far above in the field, wearing straw raincoats and conical hats, busy working in the field. They must have seen this scene by the river, but they didn't say anything and come over to help.
Feng Yiping couldn't help but sigh. Nowadays in the countryside, not only are these children of theirs carefree and afraid of nothing, the adults are also carefree and don't worry about anything at all.
These rural children are really raised in a very carefree manner.
No one has lived in the house for the past six months, and the windows are tightly shut. It's stuffy, and with the hot weather, as soon as you enter the house, you'll be covered in sweat in no time. Dust is really everywhere, and there is a thin layer of it on the table and the stove.
It's not a problem to have rain leak in, but there are two places that are worse: the kitchen and the main room. The leak in the main room has been going on for a long time, and there's a puddle of water in the pit on the floor.
Feng Yiping focused on the barn built in the kitchen. The barn was built in the corner of the kitchen, with a funnel-shaped opening at the bottom, where a wooden board was inserted. When it was time to use it, a sack was placed under the funnel, the wooden board was lifted, and the grain flowed out.
Fortunately, the barn was not exposed to rain from top to bottom, and no rats made holes in it.
The barn was always the most important place in the house. If Feng Yiping had a fixation with the house, then Feng Zhenchang, who was a landlord and often went hungry during the special period after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when he was growing up, had a strong fixation with food.
From the year Feng Yiping was in third grade, the year the house was built, the barn has always been full of grain. Every autumn, the family would harvest a maximum of one dan of rice from the grain, which was enough for a few meals of freshly cooked rice, mainly porridge.
The taste of rice cooked with newly harvested millet is not much different from that of rice cooked with old stock, but the porridge made with fresh rice definitely tastes different from that made with old stock. Only the new rice milled in the month after the millet was harvested has a natural flavour and a light fragrance when making porridge! It was the taste of nature, or the taste of harvest. In short, that taste was something Feng Yiping could never get from the Northeastern rice he later bought for more than ten yuan a catty.
After eating the load of new rice, the well-dried grain was added to the barn, and the rice eaten later was all the old grain from the previous year stored underneath the barn. Year after year, they ate the grain harvested last year this year, and the grain harvested this year next year.
Feng Zhenchang's second cousin had followed his master as a stonemason from a young age and had not done much farming, so he was very puzzled. One time, he came up to Feng Zhenchang and asked, 'Why is it arranged this way, always eating old grain? Wouldn't it be better to buy the grain left over from last year once this year's grain is harvested?'
Feng Zhenchang said while smoking at the time, 'We have worked hard all year, and the biggest harvest is this barn of grain. Now that grain prices are so low, I don't want to sell it.'
Mei Qiuping told her brother not to say anymore at the time. She knew the reason. Some things cannot be measured by money. That full barn of grain, 30,000 to 40,000 kilograms, when converted to money, is less than 2,000 yuan, which is not enough for many people to eat a meal.
But it was the greatest achievement of the year for the farmer. Looking at the full granary, Feng Zhenchang not only found a sense of accomplishment, but also a sense of stability and motivation.
So the most important thing for Feng Yiping to do when he returned this time was to check on the granary. If the granary was fine, then nothing major had happened.