According to the "National Hemei Rural Basketball Competition (Village Basketball) Competition Rules", each participating team can register 1 team leader, 1 coach and no more than 12 players.
Although the requirements can be relaxed appropriately during the grassroots selection competition, and it is impossible for every village to gather so many people, each team must have one or two substitute players.
Otherwise, players will inevitably be injured or sent off during the fierce game. If there are not 5 people on the field, the game cannot be guaranteed to proceed normally.
Yu Yan tried to explain: "I originally wanted to report the names of Uncle Long and Uncle Pan, but they both refused to provide their ID numbers, saying they didn't want to show up and be embarrassed anymore..."
"Did my father really say that?"
Long Xiaochuan frowned, why is it so difficult to do something? It doesn't matter if his father doesn't support it, but he keeps trying to get in the way...
He decided to go to Long Zaitian to discuss: "Do you think we can do this? If we just borrow your ID cards to sign up, you may not be allowed to play during the game. If you don't want to go, just stay at home and wait for our good news.
"
Long Zaitian was carrying a bamboo basket to harvest honey. He pushed him away and went out: "I said, the Leizhai basketball team will be handed over to you from now on, and we old people will not get involved. If you need people, just go find them...
…There are still a lot of people out there to find.”
There seemed to be something in his words, but Long Xiaochuan didn't hear it and just complained: "It's not that easy. The most difficult thing these days is to recruit people, and recruit useful people."
"Is anything in this world easy? You don't want to endure hardship. You just want to eat good food. You haven't done anything in the past few days since you returned to the village. What can you do if you just play on the court? Get out of the way. I can't do anything.
We don’t have as much free time as you, so we have to make a living.”
"It's not like we don't do anything. Training is still necessary." Long Xiaochuan grabbed him and said, "Let's go to harvest honey. When everyone comes back, we must do something to help the village."
"It's up to you, come on, you young people can't do this kind of life-threatening job."
"How will you know if you don't try? If you don't learn, you will never know it. Every warrior in Lei Village has to pass this hurdle."
Long Xiaochuan was stubborn and grabbed the bamboo basket and carried it on his back.
In Leizhai, only the bravest and most capable people are qualified to become the leader of the entire village, and judging whether they meet the conditions includes tests such as climbing a knife ladder, going into the sea of fire, and cutting honey from the cliff.
There are tricks for climbing up knife ladders and descending into seas of fire, which mainly test your courage; the really dangerous and even fatal ones are high-altitude operations such as cutting cliff honey and mining rock ears.
Young people of Long Xiaochuan's generation have not yet participated in honey harvesting activities, so he gathered members of the basketball team to go to the mountains to experience and learn.
Before the honey harvesting team set off, all the old, young, women and children left behind in the village came to watch Long Zai Tian preside over the mountain god ceremony in a lively manner, and then lined up to send each other off, praying for the safe return of these warriors.
There were 8 people going out on this trip. Long Zaitian, Luo Xiangdong, and Sun Shengli were responsible for leading the team and imparting experience. Five young people, including Long Xiaochuan and Pan Lei, mainly went to the mountains to open their eyes.
The journey up the mountain was particularly arduous. They worked together and carried hemp ropes, rattan ladders, long knives, plastic buckets, anti-bee suits, medicine boxes and food. They had to climb and trek for a whole day to reach the bottom of the cliff where they collect honey.
Leiming Mountain is a typical karst landform with high mountains, dense forests and ravines. There are many surface caves hidden under the vegetation. Once you lose your footing and fall into it, it will be difficult to rescue.
Only experienced mountaineers know the way to the wild beehive. They wear long clothes and long trousers and walk through the forest. Their bodies are covered with thorns and cockleburs, and their faces and necks are scratched by sharp grass blades.
of blood stains.
These hardships are nothing compared to the danger of climbing up a cliff tens or even hundreds of meters high in thick smoke and being attacked by a swarm of bees while hanging in mid-air to harvest honey.
After walking for a long time, I arrived at the first destination. I could see four or five golden honeycombs hanging in the depression of the mountain dozens of meters above the ground. They were all large disks with a diameter of nearly two meters. At first glance, from a distance
Much like corn tortillas.
Luo Xiangdong directed the young people to light a fire at the bottom of the cliff, threw some wet firewood into it, and thick smoke immediately billowed up to the top.
After the bees became dull after encountering the thick smoke, Long Zaitian put on protective clothing with a gauze mask, tied a hemp rope, a long knife and a plastic bucket around his waist, and prepared to climb the rattan ladder.
He called his son to him: "The rules of our ancestors are to leave a last message before going up the ladder to heaven..."
"Bah, bah, bah, don't talk nonsense. If you don't have confidence, I'll do it!"
"Just watch it carefully down there. There are a lot of things to learn. I know in my heart that nothing will happen to you this time with the blessing of the mountain god. I just want to say that the level of your basketball team is not very good. If you want to win,
Yucun is still far away. If that doesn't work, just go and find your brother-in-law. It'll be okay as long as he's here."
"Isn't there no news about my uncle? Where can I find him?"
"Then it depends on your ability."
Long Zaitian began to climb up without looking back.
After arriving at the beehive, he first lit mugwort, paralyzed the bees with thick smoke, and then used vine branches and leaves to gently drive away the bees.
Wherever the branches and leaves touched, tens of thousands of bumblebees were as restless as the waves, flapping their wings together and making a huge buzzing sound that made people's scalp numb.
Long Xiaochuan shouted with concern from below: "Be careful."
A small part of the bee swarm was disturbed and rushed downwards with a bang.
"Big Butt"'s face changed suddenly with fright, and he screamed and ran away with his head in his arms. Others also wanted to run away, but Sun Shengli whispered to stop him: "Don't panic, pull up the rope and ladder!"
The seniors just added two handfuls of fresh leaves to the fire, and the thick smoke blocked the attack of the bumblebees.
Long Zaitian above was also affected. His body was covered with bumblebees, and they were as densely packed as if he were wearing a thick sweater. Fortunately, he was experienced and did not fight or struggle.
The bumblebees made a fuss for a while, and then gradually returned to calm under the influence of the smoke. Only then did he pull out a one-meter-long waist knife to cut the hive.
There are only pollen and bee pupae in those big tortilla-like golden disks. After cutting them off, they are allowed to fall down, leaving Luo Xiangdong and others to clean them up. He is only responsible for finding the honey stored in the upper part of the hive.
He put a large piece of beeswax with honey into a plastic bucket and slowly sent it down with a rope. The plastic bucket weighing dozens of kilograms had to be lowered slowly with his hands. The whole process was hung on the rattan ladder, all by his legs.
and waist and abdominal strength support.
The dragon harvested about two barrels of honey in the field and then stopped, leaving one-third of the honey for the group of bumblebees to rest and recuperate, so that they could harvest it again in the second half of the year.
If too little honey is left, the bees will migrate due to famine, and the gain will outweigh the loss.
It was getting dark, so he came down to rest. He spent half a day on the road today, disturbed the bees and was delayed for a while. In the end, he only cut one hive and got two buckets of honey.
They stayed in the mountains that night, cutting down a few banana trees to build temporary shacks for shelter, and ate dry food around the fire to satisfy their hunger.
Long Zaitian settles accounts for young people. Today he collected two barrels of about 40 kilograms of wild honey with beeswax. After cleaning, one barrel can be sold for more than 1,000 yuan. With bee pupae and other ancillary products, he can earn about 2,500 yuan.
Yuan.
"We can harvest 200 kilograms of honey this time, and we can earn almost more than 15,000 yuan. As long as we work hard and are willing to endure hardships, the mountains will not leave us hungry."
The elders all nodded in agreement,
But Long Xiaochuan was indignant: "No, is this how you have been trading for so many years? Do you know how much authentic wild honey can be sold online? You have suffered a big loss!"