Their area of Songshan has a popular Songshan Temple on the main peak, is crowded with people, and is not a deep mountain forest, so there are no ferocious beasts or wolves.
Occasionally, there were pheasants and hares hopping around, but they were quickly hunted by the village hunter Wang and his son up the mountain.
So when walking in the mountains, you can feel at ease and don't have to worry about any wild animals jumping out to scare you.
When they reached a nearby hilltop, they separated for a while and began to search for mountain mushrooms.
That's how picking up mountain fungi is. Everyone has to look at it, so just keep your head down and pick it up.
The sun was shining overhead, but luckily there were trees to block some of the heat. Song Qiu crouched, looking under this tree and down that slope, unaware of the passage of time.
When she was tired, she straightened up and saw that the basket was half full. She planned to take a rest, but when she turned around, there was a mulberry tree on the slope in front, with many red and purple mulberries hanging on it, and she immediately grinned.
Smiled.
As she walked that way, she looked around at Lihua's figure. Seeing that she was still crouching in the area below, she hurriedly called her: "Lihua! Come up and have a rest!"
Zhang Lihua heard the shout and responded. When she saw Song Qiu, she rushed up in a few steps.
"Is this the same mulberry tree we ate from last year? The fruit this year is better than last year." Zhang Lihua put down her basket and sat under the mulberry tree with Song Qiu. They were shaded and could pick mulberries with their hands.
Children in the countryside eat whatever fruit they pick directly into their mouths. They are very particular about washing it before eating less.
Song Qiu was like this when he was a child in his last life. The food in this ancient rural area is all natural and contains no pesticides, so he is not afraid of it.
The two of them picked one piece at a time, and soon their mouths were red and purple, and even their hands were stained a lot.
After eating enough, the two of them put on their backpacks and went down the mountain while picking up mountain mushrooms.
By the time we reached the foot of the mountain, the basket was almost full.
When he got home, Old Yuan had already washed the basket of mushrooms that Song Qiu had picked up in the morning, and was washing clothes in the small river ditch in front of the door.
This small ditch is a tributary of the long river outside the village. The water is quite clear and can only be used for washing clothes, but not for washing vegetables.
Several women in the village were washing clothes here. When they saw Song Qiu and Zhang Lihua coming down the mountain together, with their baskets on their backs filled with mountain mushrooms, they couldn't help but praise them.
"Qiu Yatou and Lihua are still diligent. My Hu Zi, who ran up the mountain for several days without being able to pick up a basket, is just playing with digging out bird's nests and picking fruits!"
This person is Guixiang, Wang Orion's daughter-in-law. The two eldest of their three sons hunt with Wang Orion. Over the course of a year, the three of them can earn a lot of money.
Therefore, the Wang family's life is easy in the village, and they are not short of the money from selling mountain mushrooms.
Everyone knows that when she said this, Old Yuan smiled and said, "What's wrong with digging out bird's nests? There are many people who will retrieve the eggs for you! You are so capable, you are lucky.
All three sons can do it!"
As a mother, who doesn’t like others to praise their children?
At that moment, Guixiang laughed from ear to ear and kept praising Song Qiu.
Seeing you praising me and me praising you, Song Qiu and Zhang Lihua looked at each other and hurriedly slipped into their own yard.
After entering the yard, Song Qiu put down his backpack by the water pressure well and went back to the house to get the big wooden basin and the bucket.
Just like yesterday, Zhang Lihua and I each washed our hands to clean out the mountain fungi.
The two baskets Zhang Lihua picked up in the morning, old Deng, had already been cleaned, and it was not like she was just doing nothing.
Now that Zhang Lihua has washed the mushrooms in her basket, she went out to collect pigweed and came back to feed the pigs.
Song Qiu tidied up the place and put the washed mountain mushrooms into the house together with the ones Old Yuan had washed in the morning.
As for the broken ones, wash them a few more times, boil water, put a few cloves of garlic in the pot, blanch the mountain mushrooms, and spread them out in a basket to dry.
After doing this, she sat on the small stool on the eaves steps and took a rest, watching her grandma holding a sewing basket and taking apart a pair of trousers that could no longer be mended, and used them to sew them into socks to wear.
Old Mrs. Deng next door walked in from the small door with broken steps, walked around the vegetable garden and walked to the middle road, "My younger brothers and sisters are doing needlework!"
Mrs. Yuan hurriedly asked Song Qiu to bring out a small stool and asked Mrs. Deng to sit next to her. Then she smiled and said, "I can't mend these pants. I'll use them to make two pairs of socks."
Old Mrs. Deng nodded, and was chatting with Old Mrs. Yuan. She said, "Your family will host a banquet in the future, how do you follow the gift? Let me ask you, so that we can follow along."
Liu Caigui from the village will buy a box of wine for his daughter the next day, and has already invited every household in the village.
These days, when hosting a banquet, not only relatives must be present, but also people from the same village.
"This is the market for adding boxes of wine. It's still the same as before, with a gift of ten cents and two feet of red cloth." Old Yuan said.
After hearing this, Lao Deng nodded and said, "Okay, give me a call when you eat dinner the day after tomorrow."
Song Qiu sat aside and listened quietly. When she saw old Mrs. Deng getting up and leaving, she came closer to her and asked curiously: "Why does Grandma Deng like to ask you about everything?"
She remembered that Sun Dati's family held a full-moon banquet in the village last month, and Grandma Deng also came to ask about it.
But at that time, she was still waiting in the hospital bed, and she didn't go to the table. This time she could go to the table. The rule was that there were no more than two people in a family, and there were exactly two in their family.
After listening to this, Mr. Yuan couldn't help but smile and said to his granddaughter: "This is how human relationships work. We are all from the same village, so the etiquette is naturally very different. There is a rule, otherwise who will be favoring the other.
It doesn’t look good even if it’s thin. Our family has a good relationship with your Grandpa Zhang’s family, so naturally your Grandma Deng often comes to ask me.”
Song Qiu said oh, indicating that he understood, but he couldn't help but think in his heart that the relationship between his family and the Zhang family was really good.
Otherwise, this family would have formed its own courtyard by enclosing it and would go into other courtyards for nothing. However, the two families were able to leave a door through the middle wall and share a well.
And when she was sick, she borrowed 100 yuan from Grandma Deng to buy medicine.
If you don't have a good relationship, no one will be willing to lend it to you.
But then she thought again, and it seemed that in her memory, the twenty-four families in their Songshan Village seemed to have a pretty good relationship.
No matter how close they are, there has never been any bad blood or quarrel between them.
And if there is any problem, just call and help. This village custom is really good.
She thought that Grandma Deng was such a well-informed and well-spoken old lady, and it would be better if she could treat Lihua and his family equally.
Every family has its own scriptures that are difficult to recite, and it is not easy for her to take care of them.
It was getting dark, so Mr. Yuan made two pairs of socks, put away the sewing basket, and took Song Qiu in a basket to pick some eggplants, peppers, and courgettes in the vegetable garden.
It was a rare trip to the town, so naturally I had to get more things to sell. Whether I could sell them all or not, it was just a matter of carrying it.