Riding the wind of rebirth

"Yes, do you want clothes or skirts?" a woman chimed in. "We also have wool belts, and the colors of the wool belts are even more vibrant than the colors of the skirts."

"Then let's take a look at them all," Li Laosan said. "Ideally, they should be uncut fabrics, like small blankets or tablecloths."

"Go and get them all," the woman who had praised Zhouzhi earlier said to everyone. It seemed she was in charge here. "See what the guests might like."

The women dispersed, but more little girls gathered around, curiously watching Zhou Zhi and his group.

"There seem to be very few men in the village, huh? Where have they all gone?" Zhou Zhi couldn't help but feel strange seeing that everyone around him was a young girl.

"They've all gone up the mountain to look for bees." The older sister kept twisting fire grass thread in her hands. The thread, which was originally rough and uneven in thickness, became even in thickness after she passed it through her hands, and it didn't stop her from chatting and singing at all.

Xu Anxin also curiously picked up a spool of yarn to try it out, and then obediently put it aside, not wanting to cause trouble for others.

"If there's any wild honey, we can buy some too," Zhou Zhi said. This season is also the time when honey is produced in the mountains, and wild honey is certainly a good thing. After hearing his sister say this, Zhou Zhi thought about buying some.

“The bees we Lisu people raise aren’t the kind that produce honey.” The older sister laughed: “You’re not from us Lisu people, you know about fire grass but you don’t know about raising bees.”

“I’m definitely not. I’m not even Yi; I’m Han.” Zhou Zhi asked, puzzled, “Sisters, you don’t keep bees. What kind of bees are you bees?”

"Wasps, we raise wasps, and we need wasps to eat."

"Wasps...wasps?" Zhou Zhi was startled: "The kind that kills a dog with three stings is called a wasp, sister, are you serious?"

"Oh yeah, it seems like every household here raises them."

"Holy crap... how do you raise that thing?"

"Look over there!" The older sister pointed to the wooden house behind her, and Zhou Zhi then noticed that there were hornet's nests hanging under the beams of the wooden house and under the main branches of the catalpa tree on the side of the house.

Zhou Zhi suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, and the hairs on his body stood on end. He turned his head and opened his mouth to ask his cousin Anxin to carry Tiedan back to the car first, but then he felt that it would be impolite.

"Don't be afraid." The older sister seemed to sense Zhou Zhi's nervousness. "We've been raising them here for hundreds of years. As long as you don't provoke them, they won't hurt you. I'm not lying to you!"

"Hehe... I'll listen to you. It's true that the world is a strange place." Zhou Zhi felt that the woman in front of him was kind and generous, and didn't seem like someone who would lie. Since she said it was safe, then it should be fine. But thinking about it, he still found it strange: "How do you raise these things? We've only ever heard of removing hornet nests outside, but we've never heard of raising hornets."

"Actually, it's not accurate to say 'raising' bees. It's just about finding beehives in the mountains, bringing them back, and hanging them in front of or behind the house. You take the beehives away periodically, leaving only the queen bee."

"As long as the queen bee doesn't leave, the hive will continue to produce offspring, and we can harvest three times a year. The market is good now, and bees are becoming more and more expensive."

That's true. For example, Hailai Ayi's small restaurant wants to buy this. I heard the price is twice that of crucian carp. The Yi people are much more interested in these than in fish.

"Then how did you find the beehive?"

“It’s very simple,” the older sister said readily. “Go catch a grasshopper, and I’ll tell you how to find one.” “I’ll go!” Huang Ruishan was also very curious and turned to run towards the grass by the open dam.

"Be careful!" Zhou Zhi quickly warned, "And watch out, there might be wasps in the grass!"

Finding grasshoppers in the nearby bushes wasn't easy. After searching around, Huang Ruishan returned empty-handed, but with a sausage in his hand: "Strange, I didn't see any grasshoppers. Will this work?"

"The grasshoppers around here have probably all been eaten by wasps," the older sister laughed. "Do you have any meat in here?"

"There's meat in it, this is a sausage."

"As long as there's meat, it's fine." The older sister casually picked a grass stalk, took a piece of ham sausage the size of a grasshopper, strung it on it, and then stuck it into the fire grass rope roll next to her.

A moment later, a wasp flew over and began to gnaw on the sausage.

“Wasps are fierce, but they’re also quite silly,” the older sister said. “They’re the type to lose sight of their own territory.” As she spoke, she bit off a hair, skillfully tied a slipknot at one end, and then attached a piece of white fireweed to the other end.

"Tie this to the wasp, then follow it, and you'll find the hive." Seeing that the wasp was only focused on eating and carrying meat, the older sister seized the opportunity and skillfully tied her hair around the wasp's waist.

"Sister, be careful!" Zhou Zhi was startled.

“The wasps don’t sting at this time,” my sister laughed. “Look, it’s about to bite off a piece, and then it will carry the meat home.”

Sure enough, the wasp quickly gnawed off the meat, then picked it up with its legs and began to fly "home".

With prey in hand, the wasp's agility and flight speed slowed down considerably. Everyone watched as it dragged the unusually light but visually striking fireweed fluff, wobbling as it flew to the eaves and then disappeared into the wasp nest.

"Look, if you follow that wasp like this, you can find the hive."

"That's truly amazing." Everyone watched in awe: "Judging from your actions, how far do men usually have to follow to find the beehive?"

"That's not necessarily true. If you're lucky, it'll be just a few miles, but if you're unlucky, it could be dozens of miles!" At this moment, several families had already come out carrying their own textiles. When they heard Zhou Zhi ask this question, they rushed to answer: "Sometimes the road is too far, so we don't even bring the beehive back. We only bring back the queen bee and the larvae. We can eat the larvae ourselves or sell them for money. We can raise the queen bee and slowly raise another swarm of bees."

Zhou Zhi couldn't help but give a thumbs up: "You Lisu people are really amazing! No wonder you dare to grow cabbages. I was just wondering if your cabbages grew so neatly because you were willing to use pesticides? Turns out the wasps took all the insects away!"

"What a clever little brother!" a woman praised Zhou Zhi. "Bees are delicate too; sometimes we have to find some meat to feed them!"

"Isn't it better to eat the meat ourselves? Why feed it to them just so they can eat bee pupae? Why go through all that trouble?" Old Li San was still puzzled.

“Because not all meat is suitable for human consumption.” Zhou Zhi knew that city kids like Li Laosan wouldn’t understand: “For example, river clams and snails from the fields can be crushed after being caught, or dead poultry can be used to raise wasps.”

"Our motherland's beautiful landscape is truly wondrous at every turn. Stopping to take a look was the right decision," Li Laosan exclaimed. "I've just added another strange and wonderful piece of knowledge to my repertoire!" (End of Chapter)