Tang Jinyu once again brought home the package his sister had mailed with an expressionless face.
Looking at the two salted fish and the large piece of salted meat inside, Tang Jun said nothing.
Yan Yulian wanted to say something, but after her son glanced at her lightly, she swallowed her words back down.
Tang Jinyu didn’t care what they were thinking. He turned and went back to his room to write a reply to his sister.
After a while, Tang Jun hesitantly knocked on Tang Jinyu’s bedroom door…
Over in Fengcheng, the old man and old woman had also just brought a package home.
Looking at the three salted fish, two bags of milk powder, and one piece of meat on the table, the elderly couple couldn’t help sighing.
“Did this child refuse to eat again? How many fish could she have received in total? Why did she mail all of them to us?”
“That’s right. This child cares about us even more than Hongwei and Hongxiang do.”
“Oh, right. Next time you write to them, you need to tell them to treat their younger sister better.”
“No need. They’ll come back for New Year. You can properly lecture those two then.”
After the autumn harvest in Xiangyang Production Team, it was time to go up the mountains again.
The first trip up the mountain was still a large group. They only entered the outer mountains and didn’t go deeper. The main purpose was to collect mountain goods like mushrooms, hazelnuts, walnuts, and pine nuts.
Of course, whether they encountered prey depended on luck. Every year, some villagers caught pheasants or rabbits, but it was rare.
The little girl, Tang Tang, still followed the educated youths.
This year, she had interacted with the educated youths much more, and in the villagers’ eyes, they seemed to get along fairly well.
The villagers set out with large baskets and small baskets, bringing lunch and water.
The little girl carried her standard small basket, though only she knew what was inside.
The little girl followed the educated youths to one side to knock down walnuts, while the villagers went to another side to gather hazelnuts and pinecones.
Harvesting pinecones was a skilled task. Ordinary people couldn’t do it well, and it was quite dangerous.
Pine nuts were delicious, but harvesting them was not easy.
Pine nuts grew inside pinecones, and pinecones hid at the tops of pine trees.
One needed to climb tall pine trees first, then use a long iron hook to knock the pinecones down from the treetops.
It required skill and was especially physically demanding.
Next, the harvested pinecones had to be spread flat on a thick-bottomed tray and dried under the sun for a day.
After drying, the pinecones would usually open like fish scales. At that point, one could knock them with a stick, and the pine nuts inside would easily fall out.
The villagers were in high spirits.
In just a short while, a thick layer of knocked-down pinecones had already covered the ground.
Some villagers below were already packing them into sacks. Once ten or twenty sacks of various mountain goods were filled, they would arrange for villagers to send them down the mountain.
The educated youths had also gathered quite a few walnuts, filling five or six sacks.
The little girl also found several wild fruit bushes nearby. They had just ripened at this time, and the young educated youth girls gathered together to eat them happily.
Behind the walnut trees, they discovered several Chinese lantern plants, also a kind of fruit.
They had papery husks, and the husks had now turned completely red, showing they were ripe.
They had a unique sweet flavor, and the longer they were stored into winter, the sweeter they became.
Moreover, the leaves of this fruit also had anti-inflammatory and heat-clearing effects.
The young girls picked quite a lot. When they returned, they could string the stalks together and hang them outside the window. In winter, they could pluck one to eat as a snack or soak them in water to drink. Both were nice.
Not only Chinese lantern plants, but bright red chili peppers, golden corn cobs still wrapped in husks, and strings of produce hanging outside windows and under eaves were all unique rural scenery.
They symbolized farmers’ hopes for a prosperous life.
After packing the walnuts, the educated youths planned to move farther in and change locations to continue working.
Just as they stood up and prepared to leave, there was a loud bang.
A gray rabbit, panicking and unable to choose its path, crashed into the walnut tree beside them and fainted on the spot. Even the tree trunk trembled twice.
The little girl’s eyelid twitched.
She quickly withdrew the ability she had just released to check the terrain and hadn’t yet pulled back.
She decisively grabbed the rabbit and threw it into Li Min’s basket.
“You delivered yourself to us.”
Then she grabbed a handful of walnuts and covered it.
The rabbit, which had just woken up only to be knocked unconscious again: “…”
Who did I offend?
She grabbed another handful of wild vegetables from her own basket, which she had planned to bring back to feed the pigs, and covered it too.
The atmosphere suddenly became oddly tense.
When she turned around, a pheasant had just poked its head out from the grass.
The sharp-eyed and quick-handed little girl immediately pounced over, shouting:
“Hurry, come help!”
Li Min carried the basket and didn’t dare move.
Li Hongling quickly rushed over to help.
The other educated youths who reacted also pounced over.
After a chaotic scramble, they finally tied up the pheasant and threw it into Li Hongling’s basket before covering it properly.
The girls looked at one another, all equally disheveled, and couldn’t help bursting into laughter.
After carrying the packed sacks of walnuts over to the villagers, the young educated youths passed a few trees and found another hazelnut tree, planning to take it down.
Li Min and Li Hongling carefully removed their baskets and placed them under the tree, propping them securely with something. They were afraid that if they moved too much while picking hazelnuts, the things inside would be jostled out.
The little girl placed her basket to one side, looked left and right, then quickly climbed up the tree.
The girls below were startled.
“Tang Tang, come down quickly! It’s too dangerous!”
“Come down! We can knock them down from below. It’s dangerous up there!”
“Hold on tightly! It’s so high!”
Their voices were all cautious.
The little girl grinned.
“Be careful down there!”
After saying that, she grabbed the branches and began shaking them hard.
The little girl’s monstrous strength wasn’t just for show.
Immediately, hazelnuts rained down with crackling sounds beneath the tree.
The young educated youths no longer had time to call out to her. They hurriedly picked them up, wanting to fill the sacks quickly so Tang Tang could come down sooner.
The little girl also secretly collected quite a lot from above.
She didn’t particularly love eating them, but she loved stockpiling.
She always felt they would be useful someday.
Whatever she encountered, she stockpiled.
Lin Guanghui, who had just returned home to rest, was sent by his mother to meet them.
The moment he arrived, he saw the little girl sliding down from a tree several dozen meters tall…
That skill was not ordinary.
The large group returned fully loaded.
There were so many mountain goods, and since this was only the first mountain harvest, the villagers basically wouldn’t keep them.
During famine years, these things could indeed fill the stomach, but now they were goods that could be exchanged for money.
Exchanging them for money came first.
Besides, autumn was still long, and they would go up the mountain several more times.
There was no rush to keep things for themselves.
Lin Guanghui privately asked the little girl about it.
The little girl clearly stated that she would accept anything.
So Lin Guanghui took the initiative to act as her representative.
The next day, he specially returned to the factory and drove out a truck, saying he was purchasing for a certain work unit.
The price was the same as in town, and the villagers didn’t even need to deliver the goods to town themselves.
That evening, he came back and settled payment with the villagers.
When the villagers saw that a work unit needed the goods and was even collecting them at their homes, they simply went up the mountains for several consecutive days and thoroughly gathered everything.
Looking at the piles of mountain goods in her space, stacked like small mountains, the little girl was overjoyed.
Her hamster nature was getting more and more serious.
Li Min and Li Hongling carried the two prey animals back to the educated youth station and discussed how to cook them.
Based on their understanding of Educated Youth Tang, since the little girl had given the prey to them back then, she wouldn’t accept them even if they sent the meat over.
So instead, they might as well cook everything and invite the little girl and the male educated youths to eat together.
During this period, both Educated Youth Tang and the male educated youths had helped them a lot.
If they sent the prey to the male educated youths, they probably couldn’t cook anything delicious anyway.
It would be better to invite everyone over and let them eat their fill.
After discussing, they decided to stew rabbit with potatoes, stew the small pheasant with mushrooms, add plenty of mushrooms and potatoes, and cook a pot of rice.
They would treat it as improving their own meals too.
Besides, the meat had come for free.
What was there to be dissatisfied about when they only needed to contribute some rice and grain?
These girls truly weren’t petty or harsh.
Besides, they had just received their grain distribution, so everyone was feeling generous.
That evening, Li Hongling, who had the best cooking skills, took charge of the kitchen.
Twelve educated youths sat around one table.
The little girl had to admit that Li Hongling’s cooking skills were truly good.
The braised rabbit meat was bright in color, soft, sticky, and delicious. Even the potatoes had absorbed plenty of flavor.
The chicken stewed with mushrooms had also simmered for a long time, and the mushrooms were full of fresh chicken aroma.
Paired with fragrant rice, the twelve of them ate with indescribable satisfaction.
A few days later, the educated youths planned to go to town and mail things home.
The little girl followed them.
After arriving in town, they separated.
She wanted to bring something to Jiang Tao.
Walking down the street, she noticed there were quite a lot of people today.
It was the day when supply grain was distributed.
A long line had formed at the entrance of the street office.
The little girl glanced over.
On the grain side, there was cornmeal and sorghum rice.
On the vegetable side, there were cabbages, radishes, and—oh—several boards of tofu.
This was the monthly supply, and the amount was limited.
Now everyone had to rely on quick hands to grab it. If they failed, they would have to go to the supply cooperative and spend money and coupons to buy more.
No wonder everyone was so anxious.
The little girl had never understood why some people insisted on having an urban household registration even without jobs.
Were they supposed to live on only twenty or thirty jin of grain and a few jin of vegetables every month?
If one had hands and feet, wasn’t farming some land better?
Just as she was thinking this, she heard people discussing nearby.
“The sorghum rice in front is gone.”
“What? Gone again? How many months has the supply grain been insufficient now?”
“That’s right. It isn’t even fine grain. How can there still not be enough? Didn’t the countryside harvest grain?”
“Exactly. The grain was harvested. It’s already been over a month.”
“Sigh, how are we supposed to live like this? This bit of cornmeal won’t last until next month’s distribution. How can eating this fill anyone up? How are we supposed to work?”
“That’s right. If it isn’t enough, we have to buy more from the supply cooperative. My husband still has to mail half his wages back home. The rest isn’t even enough to buy grain.”
“Sigh. Let’s go back and ask if any relatives have extra grain and whether we can exchange for some.”
“They only gave three cabbages…”
“Yeah. At least they gave six radishes. Go back and buy some salt to pickle them into salted vegetables. That way they can last a bit longer.”
“Right. Let’s go, let’s go.”
The little girl personally experienced the tension of food shortages and felt helpless.
She became a little gloomy.
On the way back, she ran into the two foolish brothers who had just met up.
Seeing that the little girl’s mood was off, the elder-brother-like Jiang Tao glanced in the direction she had come from.
“Did you go watch the supply grain distribution?”
The little girl answered gloomily:
“Mm.”
Jiang Tao understood this situation very well.
It had already been happening for several months.
“Sister, I know about this situation. It’s been going on for almost half a year. I’ve asked around. It’s happening all over the country. The grain harvest in the south was poor, and overall supplies aren’t enough. They can only prioritize important regions first. Other cities can’t eat their fill. This isn’t a problem we can solve.”