Hunting 81: Gathering Goods in the Mountains, I Spoil My Ex-Wife to the Extreme

The next day, the sky cleared.

The sky was azure and cloudless; in the depths of winter, it was a rare treat for the weather.

Although the weather was still very cold, only around minus two or three degrees Celsius, Li Yunshan still got up early in the morning.

After boiling a pot of water in the kitchen to brush his teeth and wash his face, Li Yunshan prepared breakfast, and Lin Xiulan also got up.

Yesterday, Lin Xiulan was terrified when she learned that Gao Hongmei and Su Lihua had encountered highway robbers.

After Li Yunshan returned from picking up Gao Hongmei and Su Lihua, Lin Xiulan was relieved to learn that they had not been harmed.

"I made egg noodles, try them and see how they taste."

At the dinner table, Li Yunshan placed a bowl of noodles in front of Lin Xiulan, pulled up a chair for himself, and sat down, looking expectant.

Since Lin Xiulan became pregnant, Li Yunshan specially bought several kilograms of eggs from two elderly women in the village to ensure that Lin Xiulan could eat two eggs every day to supplement her nutrition.

According to Gao Hongmei, Lin Xiulan is now eating for one person but consuming the energy of two, so she needs to get plenty of nutrition.

Although Li Yunshan wanted Lin Xiulan to eat better, preferably with different dishes every day, Guapigou Village couldn't compare to the county town or big cities. Moreover, it was the early 1980s, and resources in China were still quite scarce. Even buying a piece of pork required ration coupons.

Therefore, Li Yunshan could only rack his brains within the limited resources to try his best to make sure that Lin Xiulan ate a different breakfast every day.

Today it's egg noodles, tomorrow it's egg porridge, and the day after tomorrow it's white flour steamed buns and two eggs.

Of course, in addition to breakfast, we also try to include meat in our dinner every day.

After all, Dou Dou is still young, and Lin Xiulan is pregnant. How can they go without meat for every meal?

After Lin Xiulan sat down, she picked up her chopsticks, took a skewer of noodles, tasted it, and nodded: "Delicious, tastes good."

In fact, Li Yunshan's family's current living conditions are much better than Lin Xiulan's life when she was still at her parents' home, or when she fled to Guapigou Village and married Li Yunshan.

Back then, even getting enough to eat was a problem, let alone eating well.

After marrying Li Yunshan and giving birth to Dou Dou, Lin Xiulan was burdened with the responsibility of earning work points to support the family because Li Yunshan had not yet reformed and was idle all day long.

Back then, Lin Xiulan's life was truly difficult.

So now, Lin Xiulan is extremely satisfied with everything she eats: she adds eggs to her noodles and has meat with every dinner.

Even if the taste wasn't quite right, she still thought it was delicious.

After Lin Xiulan finished eating her noodles, Li Yunshan went out.

"Aunt Feng, have you caught all your old hens?"

Li Yunshan arrived at Aunt Feng's house in the village.

"It's all secured, it's all secured."

Upon seeing that it was Li Yunshan, Aunt Feng beamed with joy, her face crinkling with laughter.

As she spoke, Aunt Feng went to the chicken coop and pulled out the old hen that had already been put into the coop: "Yunshan, look at this old hen, isn't its feathers bright and shiny? I weighed it when I caught it yesterday. It's a four-pound old hen. If it weren't for the reasonable price you offered, I wouldn't have been willing to sell it to you."

Li Yunshan took the old hen from Aunt Feng's hand, weighed it in his own hand, and it was indeed about the same as what Aunt Feng had said; the old hen weighed more than four pounds.

He touched the chicken's rear end again and found that the old hen was very plump, with a layer of fat accumulated around its rear end.

These days, people generally lack oil and fat, so when buying pork, they want to choose the cuts with more fat, and the same goes for buying old hens.

Moreover, the chicken fat is so fragrant, much more fragrant than the lard rendered from fatty pork.

Li Yunshan bought this old hen to use for his mother Huang Zhifang's 60th birthday celebration.

He does prefer the chicken to be a little leaner, with less fat, but for his mother's 60th birthday celebration, a slightly fatter hen would be just right.

"Aunt Feng, your old hen is quite good."

After weighing the old hen in his hand for a few moments, Li Yunshan took out a five-yuan bill from his pocket and handed it to Aunt Feng.

"Oh, thank you so much for giving me so much money."

Aunt Feng took the money, her smile widening even more.

The old hen she raised would only be worth four yuan at most if she sold it on the commune's market day, but Li Yunshan was willing to buy it for five yuan.

She figured it out herself. The old hen had laid more than two hundred eggs, each worth one cent. In addition, she sold the old hen to Li Yunshan for five yuan. The old hen alone brought in about thirty yuan in income for her family, which was equivalent to three or four months' worth of work points she earned in the village collective.

"Aunt Feng, you're too kind. It's mainly because you raise this old hen so well that it's worth the price."

Li Yunshan smiled.

"I'll go get a piece of straw rope and tie its two chicken feet together so it doesn't run away."

Aunt Feng put the money in her pocket, then went to find Li Yunshan a straw rope and tied the old hen's leg tightly.

"Thank you, Aunt Feng. I have to go now."

After Aunt Feng had tied up the chicken, Li Yunshan took his leave.

"Okay, if you need to buy more hens in the future, you'll have to take good care of me. I still have five or six hens at home."

Aunt Feng said happily.

……

After taking the old hen home, Li Yunshan tied a rattan basket to the back of his bicycle, pushed the bicycle outside, and rode it towards Xiangyang Commune.

Upon arriving at Xiangyang Commune, he went straight to the supply and marketing cooperative.

Today is not market day in Xiangyang Commune, so there aren't many people buying things at the supply and marketing cooperative.

Li Yunshan bought two jin of brown sugar, five jin of pork, two bottles of wine, two bundles of longevity noodles, a jar of honey, two jin of steamed egg cakes, two bottles of face cream, and a navy blue cotton-padded jacket for his mother at the supply and marketing cooperative.

After paying, he carried the items he bought out of the supply and marketing cooperative, then put the brown sugar, pork, and other items into the wicker basket on the back of his bicycle, and rode the bicycle towards Guapigou Village.

"Father, why are you only coming back now? I can't wait to celebrate Grandma's birthday."

When Li Yunshan returned home, Lin Xiulan had already changed into a new outfit. She was wearing a thick, high-necked yellow sweater underneath a dark blue cotton-padded jacket, and a hair tie had tied her long, smooth black hair into a ponytail.

DouDou was also wearing a brand new, thick cotton-padded jacket, her hair was tied into two small braids, she wore new cotton shoes, and a red pom-pom cotton hat on her head.

Seeing that Li Yunshan had finally returned, Dou Dou pouted and frowned.

"Didn't Dad go to the supply and marketing cooperative early this morning to buy Grandma's birthday present?"

Li Yunshan smiled and explained, then put the tied-up hen on the back of the bicycle, and the family of three headed to his elder brother Li Yunshi's house.

When we arrived at my elder brother Li Yunshi's house, there was already a Forever brand bicycle parked in the yard.

Upon seeing the bicycle, Li Yunshan knew that his fourth sister, Li Yunlan, had arrived.

"Third brother, sister-in-law, you're here."

Just then, a woman who looked seven or eight parts like Li Yunmei opened the door to the main room and came out.

Li Yunshan smiled when he saw her: "Fourth Sister, when did you arrive?"

"I left home early this morning and arrived less than half an hour ago."

Li Yunlan said with a smile.

"Far beyond?"

Li Yunshan glanced around and, not seeing his brother-in-law Wang Yuanchao, asked.

"He had something to do at work and couldn't come."

Li Yunlan gave a forced smile, as if she had something difficult to say but didn't want to tell Li Yunshan.

Li Yunshan gave his fourth sister, Li Yunlan, a deep look, and a memory from his previous life flashed through his mind.

In her previous life, after the fourth sister, Li Yunlan, got married, her husband was an employee of the forestry station, while she was just a country girl, so she was not well received by her husband's family.

When Li Yunlan was pregnant with her first child, her mother-in-law was overjoyed and was certain that it would be a son. However, when her fourth sister, Li Yunlan, gave birth to a daughter after ten months of pregnancy, her mother-in-law was very disgusted.

My brother-in-law, Wang Yuanchao, is indecisive. His mother constantly berates his fourth sister for giving birth to a girl, calling her a worthless burden and a useless hen. He remains silent and doesn't dare to utter a single word.

Fourth sister Li Yunlan couldn't stand her mother-in-law's veiled insults, so she argued with her, and the two got into a huge fight.

Later, due to her brother-in-law's mother's meddling, the fourth sister divorced Wang Yuanchao and raised her child alone.

Of course, Wang Yuanchao didn't fare much better. After divorcing his fourth sister, Li Yunlan, he remarried, but he couldn't conceive for several years.

At the time, it was said that the fourth sister's former mother-in-law used the same old excuse, scolding her new daughter-in-law for not being able to lay eggs. However, when the daughter-in-law went to the hospital for a checkup, she found that she was perfectly healthy, while Wang Yuanchao was diagnosed with infertility.

Finally, after being divorced by his second wife, Wang Yuanchao remembered to try to win back his fourth sister, Li Yunlan.

But by then, the fourth sister, Li Yunlan, had remarried. Her husband treated her very well and regarded her daughter from her previous marriage as his own. She also gave birth to a big, healthy boy as her second child.

Wang Yuanchao only then thought of trying to salvage the situation, but it was too late!

"Don't shoulder everything alone."

Although he knew that Fourth Sister and Wang Yuanchao wouldn't end up together, they weren't getting a divorce yet, so Li Yunshan didn't say much.

We can't just encourage our fourth sister, Li Yunlan, to get a divorce because he has lived two lives and has memories of his previous life.

However, as a supporter of his own sister, Li Yunshan felt it was still acceptable.

So he patted his fourth sister, Li Yunlan, on the shoulder.

"Yes." Li Yunlan nodded, then said, "Third Brother, I heard from Mother that Sister-in-law Xiulan is pregnant, is that true?"

"right."

Li Yunshan nodded, parked the bicycle, and pointed to the things in the wicker basket: "Fourth Sister, could you please help me take all these things inside?"

As he spoke, he took out the pork, wine, longevity noodles, and other items one by one from the wicker basket and handed them to Li Yunlan.

When Li Yunshan saw what Li Yunshan handed him, his eyes widened: "Oh my, Third Brother, we all know you've made a fortune, but I didn't expect you to have prepared so many things."

"These are all for Mom, food, clothes, and other necessities. I used to be a good-for-nothing, not doing anything productive, which made Mom worry herself sick. Now I've learned my lesson and earned some money, so buying these things to show my filial piety is what I, as a son, should do."