Rebirth in Famine: She Thrives by Lucky Space

Wang Menglin stood behind the couple Li Yungui and suddenly felt like crying.

Their family had never taken photos before. Never once, couldn’t remember if her mother had ever organized it, she probably had, but it was swept away by a few words from that man.

Li Xue also took a photo with the couple Li Yungui, and each of the three boys had one too.

Thus, ten photos were taken. The family portrait needed to be printed in large size. The rest would be printed in standard sizes.

Such a number of photos cost nearly twenty yuan.

Qu Xiaoli felt pained to spend the money, and Wang Menglin didn’t rush to pay. It was the elder’s sentiment.

The family got on the tractor, and Wang Menglin sat next to Qu Xiaoli, ”Mom, don’t feel bad, years later when you look at these photos, you’ll feel it was worth it.”

”Yes, I know.” Anyway, the money was already spent, so Qu Xiaoli didn’t think about it anymore.

Back home, Li Yungui settled the accounts and then went to give Jiang Xinyu the money.

Seeing the chestnuts in their yard, he wondered if it was time to organize everyone to go up the mountain soon?

”Village Chief Li, these were picked in the deep mountains. There are many chestnuts that have fallen in the places we usually go to too.”

”Xiao Wei, Old Yang. Do you both have guns?”

Old Yang smiled at Li Yungui.

”The factory is about to move, and in the coming days, I plan to organize everyone to go up the mountain, but I’m worried we won’t have enough men, which isn’t safe. So, could you bring guns?”

Old Yang smiled, nodded, ”Alright, but it’s not enough to rely solely on the two of us.”

”I know, we’re not going into the deep mountains, just to the places we go every year to pick the fruits.”

”No problem. Let us know when it’s set.”

Jiang Xinyu gave Li Yungui half a bag of chestnuts to take back. ”Manjiang is leaving. Let my sister-in-law fry them up for the road to snack on.”

”Alright, thank you, Teacher Jiang.”

”No need for thanks. By the way, I made tofu today, Village Chief Li, please take some back.”

In these small matters, Li Yungui never refused; if someone made tofu, they would send some over, it’s local custom.

”Mom, why don’t we go up the mountain again tomorrow? There are still many chestnuts.”

”Feifei, there are already enough chestnuts. Even if we gather more, we can’t peel them all,” Wei Kaiyun quickly advised his daughter.

”Dad, I still want to go see.”

The two boys looked resentfully at their sister and mother, feeling abandoned.

Eventually, the mother and daughter decided to go again tomorrow. Wei Kaiyun tried to dissuade them but was ruthlessly turned down.

The next morning, the mother and daughter went up the mountain again, this time into the deep mountains, Jiang Xinyu also discovered pepper trees and picked a lot. Feifei found some Radix Isatidis, fish mint, and picked many persimmons; the last two baskets had already been made into dried persimmons. This time, they planned to make more for the winter when there’s no fruit.

They directly packed them in bags and stored them away. With such assurance, the mother and daughter ventured further.

”Mom, there are so many good things here. Look, isn’t that yam?”

”Yes, that year I also found yams behind our house, we didn’t starve because of it.”

”Let’s pick more yam beans, and when we go back, I’ll make candied skewers for you. Yam beans aren’t sour, they’re soft and very tasty.”

They couldn’t manage to dig up yams, thinking about letting Wei Kaiyun come over tomorrow to handle it; then they could eat yam and red date porridge in winter.

”Feifei, I know of a jujube tree, with thin skin, small pits, and lots of flesh, let’s go pick from it.”

Mother and daughter went directly in the direction from Jiang Xinyu’s memory and took a long time to find the jujube tree.

They wanted to pick them all, since no one would come, if left until snow it would be wasted. Mother and daughter divided the work, and altogether collected five bags of red dates, which made them happy.

The apples on the apple tree were small, but tasty, and the mother and daughter didn’t overlook them.

”Feifei, let’s go back.”

They got a log raft, mainly for show.

Wei Kaiyun was still waiting at the foot of the mountain for the mother and daughter, and looking at them dragging high bags over, felt helpless, but seeing their smiling faces, decided it was fine since they were happy.

This time, they brought back red dates and apples; only the apples were heavy, so it wasn’t very tiring.

”Dad, we found yams, let’s go together tomorrow, you handle digging, I want yam and red date porridge.”

Wei Kaiyun smiled and nodded. He remembered when he first met Jiang Xinyu, having had yams at her house.

After Wei Kaiyun left, the mother and daughter pulled out five bags of persimmons and the remaining apples.

They had another great harvest today, Shi Jing and Jianbin couldn’t sit still, ”Mom, tomorrow we want to go too.”

”Alright, tomorrow we’ll all go, we found yams on the mountain, let’s dig more.”

Shang Zhenkun heard about the yams and was a bit tempted.

But being older, he found climbing the mountain too tiring, and in the end didn’t plan to go along.

Their yard was six or seven acres, all the cement surface was covered with the harvest from these two trips.

Zhao Xiaoli, Jing Chu, and Zhang Qiu’e were responsible for peeling. Then Shang Zhenkun tied fish lines with wire to string the peeled persimmons together.

They hung directly under the eaves, in lines that looked especially nice.

Feifei went to find Lu Tiezhu, and the two boys went together, carrying half a bag of chestnuts and half a bag of red dates.

Lu Tiezhu agreed to make some small knives for Feifei, making chestnut peeling much quicker.

The next day, the family of five carried baskets up the mountain, heading straight for the yams.

A large area of them, Jiang Xinyu taught Wei Kaiyun how to dig.

The whole family gathered there, these wild yams were extremely difficult to dig, hardly whole, but they were satisfied.

”Mom, my hands itch.”

”It’s alright, yam juices and the surface prickles do make hands itch. Come, I’ll pour water for you, wash and it’ll be fine soon.”

They managed two full baskets and three bags.

”Dad, shall we take a look around?”

Wei Kaiyun shook his head, ”Cannot do that, tomorrow Uncle Yang, the four of us will come, then take you two deep inside.”

”Are we going back now?”

”Yes, let’s go back, Shi Xian wouldn’t be calm.”

The three thought of their restless little brother and stopped planning to stay longer.

Wei Kaiyun guessed right; when they returned home, they saw Shi Xian teary-eyed looking at them with a particularly woeful expression.

Jiang Xinyu directed Wei Kaiyun to put all the yams into the cellar for better preservation, leaving one basket, letting the boys take it over to Lu Tiezhu.