The pond was situated at a higher elevation. The original owner’s father, Xia Dasong, had cut thick bamboo, split it in half, and removed the nodes.
Because a single bamboo piece was limited in length, he specifically chose pieces that could be connected together.
Starting from the pond, he assembled a vertical bamboo pipeline. The fields lay on both sides of the water channel, and near the channel the bamboo branched out, forming a Y-shape.
Water flowed toward both sides at the split, reaching the two fields and ending there.
In total, sixteen pieces of bamboo were connected, equivalent to a bamboo water pipe with two outlets.
Since the pond and the fields were at different heights, Xia Dasong also prepared some wooden supports shaped like a Y and inserted them into the ground to hold the bamboo pipe firmly.
This arrangement was both stable and visually pleasing.
After last year’s rice harvest, the bamboo pipe had been stored away in a clearing beside the cave. Xia Qingyue was short and not very strong, so she couldn’t carry an entire bamboo piece far.
She painstakingly dragged them one by one, then placed each on the Y-shaped wooden supports, connecting them together.
Working alone was never convenient—just setting up the supports and assembling the bamboo took her over two hours, leaving her panting and exhausted.
She assembled from the lower part upward. In some places she couldn’t reach, so she had to stand on a stool to finish. When the last bamboo piece was in place, water in the pond immediately started flowing down through the bamboo.
Xia Qingyue followed the flow and noticed some joints were leaking slightly, but it wasn’t serious. Water slowly ran into the dry fields.
The fields covered more than two acres, so the water still needed time to reach everywhere. Taking advantage of the break, Xia Qingyue grabbed a hoe and started clearing the vegetable garden.
The slope at the bottom of the sinkhole was overgrown with weeds and small trees, and the soil was sandy.
She planned to plant hardy crops like pumpkin, sponge gourd, bottle gourd, and grapes. Pear, plum, peach, and orange trees were also planted in several clusters.
They would take time to mature and wouldn’t yield fruit soon, but the earlier they were planted, the sooner she could harvest.
She removed the weeds with roots, mixed in the chicken and duck manure she had collected, turned over the soil, made small holes, and sowed the seeds.
After sowing, she watered them. She then went to the sweet potato field and dug up all the sweet potatoes. Leaving them in the ground risked worms and stunted growth.
She dug everything up, selecting the best for seed and sprouting, while the rest were kept for eating. From a small patch, she filled a basket with sweet potatoes.
Unsurprisingly, about one-third had wormholes.
As dusk fell, the water flow in the fields had mostly stabilized. She moved the bamboo in the pond aside and cut off the water source. Once the bamboo pipe emptied, the water stopped.
Night fell, so plowing would have to wait until tomorrow.
Xia Qingyue fed the chickens and ducks, then started preparing her dinner. She cooked millet porridge and used some pork cracklings to stir-fry wild scallions with simple seasoning. It tasted good.
Pork cracklings were oily and could be stored for a few more days if kept properly. She planned to use some tomorrow to make dumplings.
….
The next morning, Xia Qingyue carried cassava back from the pond in two trips.
On the second trip, around the mid-morning hour, Chen Yuzhen’s family came to dig cassava together.
Seeing some recently dug spots, Chen Yuzhen guessed, “It looks like Qingyue dug here not long ago.”
Li Weisheng said, “Thanks to Qingyue, this cassava is edible. It tastes similar to sweet potatoes. Mom, when you met her yesterday, did you tell her we’re planning to move up the mountain too?”
Chen Yuzhen didn’t even look up while digging, replying, “I told her.”
“Once we all live on the mountain, we’ll have company,” Li Weisheng said with a hopeful smile.
Li Benfu looked at his two sons and said, “Kang, Sheng, later we’ll carry these cassavas into the cave. From today we’ll start moving our household items up, and then bring your maternal family over. If more people come to survive on the mountain, and we run into Dasong’s group, we can see if they’re willing to cooperate. People are stronger together. If they agree, great; if they have concerns, we mustn’t force them.”
Chen Yuzhen added, “That’s right. Our family is big enough not to burden them.”
Xia Qingyue, hidden above behind the dense trees, didn’t listen further and carried her cassava away.
On the way back, she picked some fresh shepherd’s purse leaves. She had brought back over two hundred pounds of cassava, which she spread evenly in a shaded area.
She took out coarse white flour, similar to sand, and ground it in small batches using a stone mortar until fine. Fine flour was available but expensive, so coarse flour was more economical.
She mixed the flour with water and a little salt, kneading until smooth, then set it aside.
She then prepared the fillings: boiled and squeezed shepherd’s purse, chopped finely; pork cracklings patted into small pieces for texture; and wild scallion with egg. She planned to make two types of dumplings.
Using a cleaned wooden stick she found in the storage room, she rolled out the dough. Rolling seemed simple but was actually tricky; she had practiced with her grandmother for a long time before mastering it.
Her dumpling wrappers were appropriately thick and sized.
Sitting by the stove, she folded the dumplings, keeping them simple: a scoop of filling, edges pinched together firmly. As long as no filling leaked, it was fine.
She made two vegetable baskets’ worth of dumplings, cooked some for lunch, and kept another basket for dinner.
When the dumplings boiled, they floated, and the translucent wrappers revealed the yellow filling of scallion and egg, easy to identify. She scooped a bowl into a dark-colored bowl.
The dumplings were steaming hot, and Hei Hei eagerly dug in, eating with delight.
In her memory, Dayuan had no dumplings. Their wheat dishes were simple. Finally tasting the dumplings she had been craving, Xia Qingyue was not disappointed.
The wrappers were chewy, the shepherd’s purse and pork crackling filling rich and tender, and the wild scallion and egg fresh and delicious.
It was so good she ate two full bowls, her belly slightly full.
Overeaten and sleepy, she took a nap. When she woke, she felt full of energy.
She went to the storage room and brought out a manual plowing tool, made of wood and a blade, operated by hand. The blade dug into the soil to break clumps and create furrows.
In her previous life, she had plowed with a cow, but the tools were different, so this required her own effort.
Rolling up her pants and taking off her shoes, she stepped into the warm water.
Holding the tool and adjusting her posture, she pushed forward. At first, her limbs were uncoordinated, but gradually she found a rhythm and became more efficient.
It took her almost three days to plow the two-acre rice field.