Return to the small mountain village in 1983

Xiulan looked towards where Xiongba was, and her eyes widened immediately: "Oh my God, where did you catch him?"

"That's amazing! You really gave me a big surprise!" Lin Heng walked towards Xiongba happily.

Xiongba had disappeared for a while, and suddenly appeared with a wild boar in his mouth.

"Woooo!!"

Xiongba put the badger down, looked at Lin Heng with his head held high and called out.

Lin Heng scratched it, patted its head, and said excitedly, "You are becoming more and more useful. I will make you a big meal when I get back."

The badger on the ground only had bite marks on its neck, which were obviously caused by Xiongba himself.

"It's still hot. It must have been caught by Xiongba. Xiongba is so awesome."

Xiulan touched the wild boar and praised Xiongba again. A wild boar was nothing to them now, but Xiongba was very powerful for hunting alone.

"Ouch!!"

Xiongba was very happy. He hugged Lin Heng and Xiulan's legs with his front paws and acted coquettishly back and forth.

"Okay, okay, I'll give you food now." Lin Heng took out the last two scallion pancakes from his backpack and fed them all to it.

"Ouch!!"

Xiongba was immediately happy when he got the reward and started eating voraciously.

Lin Heng dug a hole in the ground, put a plastic bag in it, then took out a dagger and drained the blood of the badger. The meat would be unpalatable if it was not bled.

"This badger is very fat, maybe 25 kilograms."

After letting the blood out, Xiulan picked it up, weighed it and said.

"Almost." Lin Heng nodded with a smile. The badger is quite delicious, and the meat has the unique flavor of the badger.

"Should we continue picking mushrooms?" Xiulan asked again. It was not easy to move with such a heavy object.

"Go ahead and pick them up. It's okay. They're not very heavy. I'll carry them." Lin Heng nodded. He wanted to pick up more Hericium erinaceus.

This thing is also a very good tonic. It can be dried and used to make soup or cook.

"But let's go and check out your yam first. If it's easy to dig, we'll dig it." Lin Heng threw the badger on the ground and let it continue to bleed.

"It looks like the vine that's as thick as a finger should be able to be taken out." Xiulan said as she walked.

Lin Heng followed her and walked over quickly, and found that the vine was indeed thick. If all of it was dug out, more than ten kilograms of yam could be dug out.

He started digging with the hoe, and after digging twenty centimeters he saw yams as thick as Xiulan's wrist.

"This place is okay. If there are no stones, we should be able to dig out a section." Lin Heng nodded.

It is unrealistic to dig them all out, as this large yam can grow to a depth of two or three meters underground.

"I'll dig for a while!"

Lin Heng dug half a meter. Xiulan wiped the sweat off his face, put on gloves and took the hoe.

The two of them dug alternately, sweating all over. It was more tiring than climbing a mountain, but they were both happy to have this bite of food.

Don't be in a hurry. Just sit down and rest for a while when you are tired, and then continue working.

"Almost done. If we can dig 70 to 80 centimeters, that's good enough. Let's break the rest off."

Lin Heng looked at Xiulan who was scooping soil and said that digging deeper would be a huge project.

"No, the yam seems to have turned. There is a stone underneath it." Xiulan dug the soil and looked up.

"Let me see!"

Lin Heng was stunned, and immediately lay down to check it himself. He looked at him and dug a little more, then looked up in surprise: "This yam can be dug out. There seems to be a big rock underneath. It grows diagonally."

It is much easier to dig along the slope of the hillside than to just drill deep into the soil.

"Then dig them all out!" Xiulan decided immediately.

Lin Heng nodded, took the medicine hoe and started to clean up. He quickly cleared a deep trench. The soil above one meter on the mountain was easy to dig and not too difficult.

As the two of them cleaned it, the yam gradually revealed its true form, which was thicker and had a diameter of about five centimeters.

The two men dug for an hour and a half, and dug a two-meter-long and one-meter-deep trench along the hillside before they were able to dig out all the yams.

"Oh my god, I'm so tired. I can finally pick up the goods." Lin Heng wiped the sweat off his shoulder, bent down and picked up the yam little by little. A large yam that was two and a half meters long was taken out intact.

Putting the yam aside, both of them took a good rest and drank some water.

While they were digging yam, Xiongba sneaked out to play twice and came back again.

"It's worth it. We can definitely get ten kilograms of yam, maybe twelve or thirteen kilograms."

Xiulan touched the yam and said with a smile that although it took nearly two hours, it was worth it.

Lin Heng also nodded. He just regretted that he didn’t have a mobile phone now, otherwise he would definitely take a video and post it online to show off.

He continued to rest, and Xiulan took his tempered steel dagger and cut the yam into small pieces of 20 cm in length and put them into the bag.

This kind of yam has a soft and glutinous texture and becomes soft once boiled in wine.

"Let's go. We'll look for mushrooms for another hour, and then we'll go back." Lin Heng looked at his watch and said, it was already half past three, and there was not much time left.

"it is good!"

Xiulan nodded and agreed. Lin Heng carried the badger on his back, and she carried the yams and mushrooms.

After another hour of searching, I still didn't find many mushrooms. I only found three fist-sized Hericium erinaceus and about a pound of Oyster mushrooms, but I couldn't find any other mushrooms, such as Enoki mushrooms.

They did find two big yams, but they no longer had any interest in digging them up. The last yam had already exhausted them to death.

As for medicinal herbs, he found a small piece of Polygonatum sibiricum, but he didn't even try to dig it up.

"Let's go back. I wonder what the big brother and the others have gained." Lin Heng looked around and said with emotion.

"I just heard a gunshot, but I don't know if anyone was hit." Xiulan said as she walked.

As they were talking, the two of them and the dog walked down. On the way back, they were lucky enough to find three more clusters of enoki mushrooms, which weighed about two kilograms in total.

This thing likes to grow on dead trees and is often blocked by grass.

When they arrived at Baishigou, they found that their eldest brother and sister-in-law had not come yet.

"Wash your hands and wait a moment, they should be here soon." Lin Heng said as he walked to the edge of the stream.

Xiulan nodded. They put their things down, washed their hands and faces, dusted themselves off, and then wandered around in the woods, getting themselves all dirty.

After washing, as his elder brother and the others had not come yet, Lin Heng found a large bluestone to lean against. The stone, which had been heated by the sun at noon, was very warm.

Xiulan sat next to him and laid her head on Lin Heng's legs. She was tired from digging yam.

"Do you want to go and see the place where you dug black truffles before?" Xiulan rested her head on Lin Heng's legs, looking up at him and asked.

Lin Heng thought for a while and shook his head: "Forget it, it's not on the way today, let's go another day."

He was already tired enough today and didn't want to run anymore.

"Let's go back the same way and go to the area where Gastrodia elata grows that I marked two years ago." Lin Heng said, touching Xiulan's face.

"That's fine." Xiulan agreed and turned her gaze to the sky. It was a different feeling to look up at the sky like this.

Lin Heng was a little hungry, so he peeled and ate the wild kiwis he picked up on the mountain, one for each of his wives.

They stayed here for about twenty minutes, and finally saw a dog running down first, and then the eldest brother and his wife came out.

"You came down so early, it seems we are late." Lin Yue said with a smile when he saw Lin Heng.

Liu Juan walked over and smiled as she said, "We first caught two golden chickens, and just now we were delayed because we were digging yam. We dug about 20 kilograms of yam, picked up 5 or 6 kilograms of Hericium erinaceus, and 2 kilograms of other mushrooms. How about you, how was your harvest?"

"Sister-in-law, our harvest is slightly better than yours." Xiulan said with a smile. In fact, if it weren't for the wild hog badger, they would definitely not be able to compare, but they didn't expect that Lin Heng didn't even take any hunting tools, but Xiongba still caught a wild hog badger.

"More than us, so you are not ordinary."

Liu Juan was a little stunned, then she quickly walked over to Lin Heng to take a look. When she saw the badger in the backpack, her mouth suddenly opened wide and her eyeballs seemed to fall to the ground.

"No...no, didn't you bring bows and shotguns? How did you kill the badger?" Liu Juan asked sharply. This was totally against common sense.

When Lin Yue heard what his wife said, he quickly walked over. He was stunned at first when he saw the wild hog badger, then he looked at Xiong Ba in horror and said, "Could it be that Xiong Ba caught another wild hog badger?"

"Yes, we didn't know how it caught it. We saw it coming back with a badger." Lin Heng nodded with a smile.

Lin Yue sighed immediately: "Xiongba is still amazing, he is such a good dog."

"The dog caught it itself, so this Xiongba is really awesome." Liu Juan didn't know what to say for a moment. This dog is so lucky.

Hao Yun is also the descendant of Xiongba, so why doesn’t he have the same ability as Xiongba?

"We also dug up a yam that was two and a half meters long, which probably weighed ten kilograms, and there was nothing else." Lin Heng added.

"Two meters and five long, that's amazing. It must have grown on the stone surface, right?" Liu Juan asked. He felt that Lin Heng and his friends were really lucky.

Xiulan replied: "Not really, we still have to dig more than one meter deep."

"That's much easier to dig than usual. We had to dig seven or eight yam trees to get this much out of twenty kilograms of yam." Liu Juan sighed.

After saying a few words, they went to wash their faces and hands. After washing, everyone returned the same way carrying their things. It was dusk now and the sunset glow had already appeared.

At six o'clock, they just arrived at the beam on the Shuijinggou side. Lin Heng looked at his elder brother and said, "Let's go and dig the sky. There are some in the forest below. I marked them in May and June."

"It's not far, let's put our things together." Lin Yue said.

"It's just a few dozen meters below the road." Lin Heng said. Gastrodia elata does not have any plants above the ground. It only grows flower stems in May and June. If the location is not marked at that time, the back door will be lost.

Lin Heng led the three people down to the forest quickly. Although it had been a year or two, he still found the original mark easily: "It's here, it's all around, you guys try digging."

"Hey, I've already dug one out. It looks like a sweet potato." Lin Yue laughed in surprise at the side.

"There are really a lot. I also found a lot here." Xiulan was also surprised.

Lin Heng took a knife and started digging. Soon he dug out some potatoes under a tree. Some of them were as big as small sweet potatoes, and their yellow skin looked very beautiful.

There are more small ones, but they usually only dig out the big ones and keep the small ones.

It took them more than ten minutes to dig up a big pile. Lin Heng and Xiulan dug about three or four pounds together, and his elder brother and sister-in-law were so quick that they dug more than five pounds.

"Let's go, there shouldn't be any big ones." Lin Yue said after digging for a while.

Liu Juan looked at the half bag of Gastrodia elata and said happily, "I didn't expect that this seemingly dry and barren place would actually have so many Gastrodia elata. If it wasn't for Lin Heng saying it, I wouldn't have believed it."

"Sometimes this is how it is. If you don't see it with your own eyes, you'll miss it." Lin Heng nodded.

When they got on the path, his elder brother said he would give him more, but he refused. He thought that it was enough to just take a little of it back and eat it. Too much could not be a meal. After all, it was bitter in itself.

"You don't have to cook tonight. Mom will definitely prepare it. Come and eat with us, and help kill the badger." Lin Heng said when they were about to return home.

"Okay, let's go home, take a shower, change clothes and come over." Liu Juan agreed with a smile.

They returned to the house, pushed open the gate and walked in. They heard the sound of children running. As soon as they walked past the stone screen, the three children hugged their legs and kept calling "Mom and Dad".

After not seeing each other for a day, they missed them so much that they hugged each of the children before going into the house.

Father Lin was making tea in the room, and Mother Lin was already in the kitchen preparing dinner.

"How did you harvest?" Father Lin came out and asked.

"Xiongba has done a great job. He caught a wild hog badger weighing more than 20 kilograms from somewhere. We mainly dug up a 2.5-meter-long yam, and also got some mushrooms, gastrodia and other things."

"Xiongba is so powerful!!" Upon hearing this, Lin's father quickly walked over to check. After seeing the badger in Lin Heng's backpack, he shook his head in amazement.

"Xiongba is the smartest and most powerful dog, I know." Xiaoxia raised her little hand and said, Xiongba seemed to understand and came over to lick her little hand, making Xiaoxia giggle.

"I'll prove it too!" Lu Ming Du Heng imitated his sister.

"That's amazing. Let's make it quick and fry a dish of it tonight." Lin's mother came out of the house, looked at it and said.

"Dad, I'll leave it to you now. Let's go take a shower first and wash off our stinky sweat." Lin Heng said as he put his things down.

"Then you go, I'll do it." Father Lin nodded with a smile.

The two of them took two electric kettles of hot water and a bucket of cold water to my bedroom. Lin Heng was washing faster than before so he came out to help first, while Xiulan continued to wash slowly.

When he came out, Lin's father had already boiled a pot of water to cook the badger. The badger's skin had been bitten several times by Xiongba, so they simply didn't peel the skin, but just scalded it and plucked out the hair.

"Son, how do you use your pressure cooker? I don't know how. I got some ribs but I haven't cooked them yet." Lin's mother said in the kitchen.

"That's perfect. I'll stew the Hericium erinaceus and yam." Lin Heng said as he walked into the kitchen, took out his mother's thawed spareribs and put them into the pressure cooker. These ribs came from pigs that ate acorns and pasture, so they didn't need to be blanched. Just skim off the foam when the time comes.

After getting the spare ribs, he washed and crushed a Hericium erinaceus and put it in the ribs. He then added a Gastrodia elata, a few red dates, a piece of Codonopsis pilosula, and two young corns frozen in the freezer. Then he covered the child and stewed it directly under high pressure.

This kind of wild yam will become so soft and sticky that you can't pick it up with chopsticks after just ten minutes of boiling, and it will only become a paste if you put it in a pressure cooker. (End of this chapter)