Chapter 96 Chinese New Year
The air was cold and the ground was wet. The snow had completely melted and turned into water, making the roads, ridges, fields, and yards muddy everywhere.
By the time the first batch of charcoal in the six earthen kilns outside the yard is burned, it will be Chinese New Year.
This year is a special year. Being away from home cannot stop everyone from wanting to celebrate the Spring Festival.
Lin Zisu was sleeping on the big bed, with one leg raised up, swaying back and forth, looking at her mother with wide eyes, "What?! Today is New Year's Eve?!"
Shen Xianglan tidied up the cabinets in the RV and put them in order so that more things could be put in. "Yeah."
Lin Zisu: "How do you know? Is it the solar calendar or the lunar calendar?"
Shen Xianglan rolled her eyes at her daughter and said, "Of course it's the lunar calendar! It must be calculated according to the lunar calendar here! Your grandma, grandpa, grandpa, and grandma were talking about it a few days ago!"
Lin Zisu crossed her legs and rocked back and forth, "What's there to talk about? I don't have anything I want. I'm just living a lonely life!"
Shen Xianglan slapped her on the leg, "If you shake your legs again, I'll chop them off and feed them to Dahei! Hurry up and get to work!"
Lin Zisu curled her lips, got up and helped her mother!
Since the wooden kang was made two days ago, everyone has been sleeping on it in the house. It is too crowded for so many people to sleep in the RV. There is no other way when traveling outside. If conditions permit, we would definitely like to sleep in a more spacious place.
In the five courtyards, except for the house with the fire pit, all other houses were covered with wooden kangs. Wooden kangs can be made very quickly with just wooden boards and with enough manpower, it can be done in one day.
These two days, a family of four slept in the RV, it was so cool!
It’s convenient to chat and talk without having to hide anything.
Lin Zisu: "Wei Qi Niang gave you a silver bracelet, did you accept it?"
Shen Xianglan: "Take it and keep it for her! When she settles down, she and her daughter will have money to settle down."
Lin Zisu: "Grandpa gave you gold?"
Shen Xianglan turned her head and widened her eyes, lowering her voice, "...did you turn it over?"
Lin Zisu frowned and looked at her mother with amusement, "This is my RV, what am I looking for... The display screen has everything listed."
Shen Xianglan: ?????
Lin Zisu: "We've been alone in the RV for the past two days, and I had nothing to do, so I clicked on the display screen to see if there was anything different from before. Hey, it's really different."
Shen Xianglan: "That's it."
Lin Zisu: "Inside, outside, above, below the RV, a 360-degree panoramic view, nothing can be hidden from me."
Shen Xianglan: "...Shut your mouth tightly."
Lin Zisu: "I'm not a child. If I had known this, I wouldn't have said it... Hehehehehe..."
Shen Xianglan: "...let's go, go to the house to have breakfast."
When the mother and daughter got out of the car, they saw Lin Xianwan holding a tree with one hand and looking through a telescope with the other.
The daily routine is to stand guard, see if there are people on the road, and see if there are any animals around. The teenagers like to stand guard the most, and they can climb trees and play with telescopes.
The mother and daughter entered the fire pit room, where pork and acorn tofu were roasted over the fire.
The big iron pot below is cooking meat bones, the aroma is fragrant~
Lin Zisu took a deep breath. She planned to secretly eat a pack of instant noodles in the dead of night to satisfy her craving.
The room with the fire pit became a kitchen, with several small fires, and it was warm inside. Mrs. Lu was stirring the vegetable porridge in the pot on the other side. When she saw the two people coming in, she smiled and said, "It's just right, we can eat now."
Except for the headman who suggested cooking a big pot of food, everyone ate their own food.
Tonight's dinner is definitely a group meal. We killed a wild boar 8 days ago, and we started stewing the meat and bones this morning.
It was not easy to get some pork, so in addition to eating the pig blood and stewing the meat bones on the same day, the remaining meat bones were specially saved for Chinese New Year.
Lin Zisu sniffed, smelled the aroma of meat, and ate vegetable porridge.
After breakfast, Lin Zisu went to the wooden bed room and stayed there for a while. Several kids were playing on the wooden bed. It was boring, so she went to watch the mule grinding the mill.
One person watched the mule turning in circles, while another poured acorn kernels into the mill, and a wooden barrel underneath caught the slurry.
I was bored so I went to look for the dogs. I walked around 5 yards but didn't see a single dog.
She ran to the earthen kiln outside the yard to look for them, and her cousin Lin Youshou told her that all the dogs had gone up the mountain.
The men went up the mountain to chop firewood, and the women went up the mountain to pick acorns.
Suddenly she was the only one with nothing to do, so Lin Zisu ran to find her mother.
Shen Xianglan was looking for her. "Where have you been? I can't find you anywhere. Come and help me!"
Lin Zisu: "What?"
Shen Xianglan: "Your grandpa has caught a cold."
"Oh." Lin Zisu walked into the yard where the men lived, took off her shoes and got on the wooden kang. Before fleeing, her fat grandfather was not so dark, but slim.
Lin Zisu: "Grandpa, you've lost a lot of weight! Your big belly is gone..."
Old Lady Ye burst out laughing, "Hahaha...blessings and disasters go hand in hand."
Old Man Shen: . . . . .
Shen Xianglan: "Lin, Zi, Su."
Lin Zisu: "I'm here to ease my grandpa's mood!"
Shen Xianglan: "Stop being poor!"
Everyone was busy here and there, and the sky gradually darkened.
There were three large courtyards connected, and six of them were burning in a row. On the fires were large iron pots, bubbling with gurgling sounds.
Wild boar meat bones, cabbage, radish, acorn tofu, and the frozen mushrooms found in the mountains today, scientific name: Oyster mushroom.
In the ravine, a large "flower" of frozen mushrooms stands on a broken tree stump. The cap of frozen mushrooms is fan-shaped or semicircular, with a smooth surface and mostly grayish white or light brown in color. Its gills are fine and even, like the lines of a folding fan, extending from the edge of the cap to the center. Their stems are usually relatively thick, supporting the entire mushroom body, and a "flower" is a large handful of mushrooms.
He picked a large flower and it felt heavy in his hand. Lin Youcai estimated that it weighed about 3 or 4 kilograms.
Later, he found two large "flowers" on other tree stumps, filling his backpack to the brim. He gained more than ten kilograms of mushrooms from hunting in the wild.
It was such a pleasant surprise that Lin Youcai was overjoyed. Everyone else didn’t know whether they could eat it or not, but he knew!
When I lived in the countryside in my previous life, I picked it in the mountains in winter. They called it frozen mushroom. This kind of mushroom likes a humid environment.
Frozen mushrooms are sold in supermarkets and vegetable markets. Many of them are artificially cultivated and are very common mushrooms.
After the frozen mushrooms were cooked, Lin Youcai was the first one to pick one up and eat it. He chewed it and found that it was indeed frozen mushrooms.
Lin Zisu was busy eating, and after finishing the dishes she had a bowl of soup. After drinking the delicious soup, her body warmed up from the inside out.
Everyone sat around the fire, chatting and laughing while eating the New Year's Eve dinner, talking about the difficulties of the journey and how they hoped to find a good place to settle down next year.
After dinner, Lin Zisu touched Dahei and listened to the speeches of Lin Lizheng, Dad, Master Zhao, Uncle Tao... and others.
The four months of fleeing were difficult, and now it was the beginning of a new year with new plans... Lin Zisu felt drowsy after hearing this.
Lin Zisu was so sleepy that she could hardly open her eyes. She was going to go back to the RV to wash up and go to bed. Her grandma, grandpa, and two aunts stuffed money into her pockets to ward off evil spirits. Her grandpa, grandma, three aunts, and aunt also stuffed money into her pockets to ward off evil spirits.
Lin Xianwen's pockets were also stuffed with money given by his grandparents, uncles and aunts as gifts for evil spirits.
Lin Youcai and Shen Xianglan were also busy giving money to their nephews and nieces to ward off evil spirits.
The money for warding off evil spirits for children from the Lin, Shen, and Shi families is the same, 6 copper coins, which symbolize good luck, smooth sailing, and peace.
Everyone talked and laughed until 12 o'clock in the morning. Although there were no firecrackers or fireworks, and the New Year's Eve dinner was very ordinary, they welcomed the new year.