"Child, these are not sweet oranges. Sister-in-law Lian is right without a doubt. These oranges that even the village kids won't pick, once planted in the ground, they just consu the nutrients." Sister-in-law Lian spoke as she was about to chop down those few orange trees with a firewood knife.
The few orange trees planted at the edge of the field were also well-nourished by the water and soil of Ge Village, destined to a life worse than death. On their rugged and knotted branches were many ant holes, and whether they could survive the winter was still unknown.
"Sister-in-law Lian, you have to believe . I saw it in my grandfather's agricultural book. The fruit from these trees isn't sweet because the planting and pruning thods are wrong. Take a look, is there a way to get rid of the ant nests," Xiao Xian insisted, inspired by those few mutated white pear trees.
The white pears transford from a two-year-old wild pear with poor taste into a top-quality pear variety of forty-nine years, all seemingly because they were watered with Xiao Xian's face-basin water. Xiao Xian watered them several tis thereafter, but other than the treetop buds growing greener, there were no further changes. Forty-nine years was the limit; Xiao Xian's space elent was Iron-grade, so those pear trees could not surpass the fifty-year Copper-grade threshold. However, that was already enough to transform the pear and orange trees.
The location of those few orange trees was quite good, close to the field ridge, not affecting the normal planting of rice. Xiao Xian was too busy to take care of them this year, but after the rice harvest, he could take the ti to tend to them thoroughly.
Sister-in-law Lian trusted him when she heard it was from Mr. Zhu's book. She imdiately got dozens of eggshells from the villagers, baked them dry on the stove, and spread them under the orange trees.
The next day, Xiao Xian went to check and found fewer eggshells. Digging into the ant hole, he found a nest full of dead adult ants. Sister-in-law Lian had smoked out the remaining insects with wet straw by the tree for half a day.
People living in the mountains had years of experience dealing with snakes, insects, rodents, and ants. Xiao Xian watched in amazent, not expecting Sister-in-law Lian to have this skill.
"Xiao Xian, the ants are cleared, and the grass is almost clean. Let's dig up a few clumps of grass and burn so rice straw ash to fertilize the fields. Those are ssy jobs; you don't have to lend a hand. Sister-in-law Lian will find so familiar helpers in the village, and it'll be done in a couple of days," Sister-in-law Lian started planning the next steps after eliminating the ant nests. The thods she spoke of were ancient Chinese farming techniques that have lasted hundreds or thousands of years, which were sure to be foolproof.
"Sister-in-law Lian, you want to use rice straw ash? That's not good; burning the straw ash releases smoky miasma that's bad for health. Just a while ago, you were coughing; rember to take ho a few white pears to stew and soothe the throat. I don't need any rice straw ash on my land, only the alfalfa grass freshly dug from the field edge, roots and all, to be returned to the soil," Xiao Xian was suggesting the most common soil enrichnt thod used by the Yunteng Sect. Although burning straw is common practice in China, it has a low utilization rate and has long ceased abroad. It's only still popular in backward rural China.
"Filling the soil with weeds, wouldn't that just lead them to grow back? That would be troubleso co next spring," Sister-in-law Lian grew more skeptical as she listened. She couldn't let Xiao Xian do as he pleased. According to village rules, using village land required handing over a third of the harvest. If they weren't able to have a good harvest next year, they'd have to pay extra. Despite Xiao Xian's playful insistence, he firmly prevented Sister-in-law Lian from burning the rice straw heaps.
Sister-in-law Lian returned and relayed Xiao Xian's thods to Zhu Shijun, but the old man thought Xiao Xian was just playing around and didn't take it seriously. A six-year-old harvesting a bumper crop of rice would certainly be an oddity. He simply told Sister-in-law Lian there was no need to follow Xiao Xian's advice.
However, Xiao Xian had dismissed the straw stacks as insufficiently fertile, but Zhu Shijun had put them to use. He collected several clumps of unwanted straw left in the fields, chopped them into three or four sections with a firewood cleaver, then buried them in the soil behind the house. After waiting through a winter, the rotten straw would beco the best material for fertilizing the fields. The mountains had already entered late autumn, with temperatures dropping colder every day, and there was no chance to plant more rice this year.
A few days later, led by Sister-in-law Jin, several pig-raising households in the village slaughtered five or six pigs. On the day they killed the pigs, Sister-in-law Lian was called early in the morning to help. The village's butcher was Liu Huzi, who hoisted the pigs up and with one thrust of the knife, the pigs stopped breathing before they could even grunt. Basins of pig blood were collected, and the village children were delighted. The won heated water to scald the pig skin, boiled pig heads, and were busy for several days.
During the busy days of Sister-in-law Lian, a sneaky little figure appeared every day in the plots of land at the entrance of the village. The alfalfa roots that had been piled up on the side of the fields but not yet dealt with were stacked back. Xiao Xian noticed many alfalfa plants had already gone to seed. She had no interest in watching the grueso scene of slaughtering pigs; it could kill her appetite for pork just by seeing the blood.
Zhu Shijun wasn't at ho much these days, as the village chief had co several tis, and it seed the two were discussing so matters. Xiao Xian found a pair of scissors by the stove and sharpened them on a whetstone before going to work on the orange trees, trying to help them survive the winter.
After moving the grass, Xiao Xian did not use her face-washing water this ti. She still had seed leaves from the sugarcane seedling, and after soaking the leaves, she watered her plot evenly with the water. The seed leaves had faded slightly after the soaking.
At night, the households at the head of the village heard a "gurgling" sound of bubbling ferntation, but no one pursued the source of the noise.
After the pigs were slaughtered, the bamboo poles for drying clothes suddenly beca scarce in the village. Xiao Xian's family was the first to set up a bamboo pole rack at their doorstep.
Zhu Shijun bought fifty pounds of pork, which Sister-in-law Lian then cut into slices, two to three centiters thick and about ten centiters long. Each piece of at had a perfect ratio of seventy percent fat to thirty percent lean, chosen from the portions where fat and lean were well-distributed on the pig. The at was soaked for a day in soy sauce mixed with chili and star anise, then threaded with straw ropes and hung to dry on a sunny, breezy day for a whole week. The drying process attracted the village's cats and dogs, which circled the at rack every day.
A few days later, when the soy sauce at was taken down, it had shrunk to two-thirds of its original size and turned a dark red color. Bringing it to the nose, the strong aroma of the soy sauce had perated deeply into the at, making one's mouth water just by looking at it.
That afternoon, when the soy sauce at was collected, Zhu Shijun took a dozen pieces of at, called for the village chief, and announced he would take Xiao Xian to Miao Village to apologize. Xiao Xian had long forgotten about this matter, and upon hearing, she sulked all afternoon with a gloomy face. How could her grandfather still rember this affair several months later?
In fact, Zhu Shijun had also forgotten about the matter; it was brought up by the village chief of Ge Village.
Reviews
All reviews (0)