Chapter 91: Going up the mountain to practice dancing

Chapter 91: Going up the mountain to practice dancing

It was six quarters past eight when Qianhuan left the house (about 12: p.m.), and it was almost midnight (about noon) when she arrived at the fork in the road.

Qianhuan lifted the carriage curtain and walked out. Although it was the driver's job to take her back, she felt that it was not easy for him to earn money by driving late at night. Anyway, she had already tipped many people at the brothel today, so she might as well tip the driver as well.

When she rented the car, the boss gave her a discount of five cents, and she regarded this discount as a benefit for the rickshaw driver.

So she took out five cents from her bosom and handed it over: "Ji Feng, these five cents are for you. Thank you for picking me up so late at night."

"Young Master, it is my duty to pick you up and drop you off. I cannot accept the five cents. My boss has already paid me."

Qianhuan forced five copper coins into his hand and said, "This is my extra reward for you. Your driving skills are very good. This money is my reward for you. Just take it. It's late at night. Be careful on your way back."

After saying that, Qianhuan jumped off the carriage and ran into the bamboo forest without looking back.

Ji Feng held the five cents, which was still warm in his hand, and a warm feeling passed through his heart.

Having been a rickshaw driver for so long, no employer had ever tipped him. This was the first time someone praised him and gave him a tip that was more than the wages he earned for a single trip.

Ever since his mother fell ill, the whole family has been supported by him alone. His mother's medical treatment and medicine require a large sum of money. He relies on working as a rickshaw driver to support his family while saving money to buy medicine for his mother.

Unfortunately, he was young and few employers chose him to drive. He always earned less than other drivers. The extra five cents in reward he received today was really too precious to him.

When Qianhuan went there, she was not afraid to take the small path, but when she came back late at night, she was still a little scared because there were no street lights on this ancient road.

But once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back, so she mustered up her courage and ran home as fast as she could.

Fortunately, this mountain road was not particularly far, and she ran to her backyard in a short while.

She walked through the vegetable garden in the backyard and gently pushed open the half-open back door. The wooden door made a creaking sound again. She paused for a moment and found that her parents were not awakened by the sound of the door opening. She then gently bolted the back door, then walked through the main room and slipped into her room.

It was winter, but she was covered in sweat. She wiped the sweat off her body with dry cotton cloth, changed into a clean set of undershirts, and then fell asleep out of exhaustion.

This trip cost her more than one tael of silver, and she had less than two taels of silver left. Fortunately, after participating in the dance competition three days later, she helped Xunfang Pavilion win first place and received a reward of 100 taels of silver.

The next day, the sun had already risen in the sky before Qianhuan lazily got up from bed.

Before, when she went to the city to set up a stall, she had to get up very early every day. Now she can finally sleep until she wakes up naturally.

She got up, dipped a handkerchief in some tea, wiped off the thick eyebrows she had drawn with an eyebrow pencil last night in front of the bronze mirror, then opened the door and left the bedroom.

Her mother was in the main room making a cotton-padded jacket and trousers for her. When she saw her leave the room with sleepy eyes, Liu said to her daughter while sewing clothes: "Qianhuan, mother has warmed up a bowl of porridge and a big pancake for you. Hurry up and wash up and have breakfast."

"Oh, Mom, I get it."

Qian Hua simply washed up, then went to the kitchen and opened the lid of the pot. Sure enough, she saw a bowl of vegetable and rice porridge in the pot, and a large pancake stuck to the edge of the pot.

She chewed a pancake and drank porridge. After eating, she washed the dishes and then picked up the old bamboo basket in the main room and put it on her back.

"Mom, I want to go into the mountains to find some wild vegetables and come back for lunch."

Qianhuan walked towards the back door carrying a bamboo basket on her back and talked to her mother.

"Qianhuan, there aren't many wild vegetables in the mountains this season. Why don't you just not go?"

"Mom, it's okay. I have nothing to do anyway, so I can dig as much as I can."

"Okay, then you be careful and come back early." After giving the instructions, Liu continued to make her clothes with her head down.

"Okay. I understand." Qianhuan had already walked a long way at this time. She walked through the vegetable fields towards the back mountain, turned back and responded loudly to Liu.

When she reached the top of the mountain, she found a flat open space and began to do warm-up exercises under the shade of a large, lush tree.

Although the original owner's body had never practiced dancing, she did stretching exercises every night in the past few months. In addition, the original owner's body was very flexible, so her body flexibility has now been fully opened up.

After finishing the warm-up exercises, she picked up a branch from the ground, used it as a dance fan, and softly sang "Human Fireworks". As the music sounded, Qianhuan's hands and feet also began to dance.

"A man later passed through Jiangnan, and the mist and rain locked him in melancholy.

I heard the black boat paddle gently, but I didn't know what to think

The sound of flutes and drums on the painted boats breaks one's heart

Whose wall has plum blossoms? They are fragrant...

A firework in the world, you once bloomed

Carve a few people in my heart and live alone from now on

The flowers in the south of the Yangtze River have withered, how can I consider it again?

It's a pity that good times are few and far between, and no one seems to be telling me

You hold up a paper umbrella and look back at the thousand-year-old Wuyi Lane

I ask you how long your black hair is, can it measure the beauty of the world?

Who says that drinking a glass of wine in a foreign land can make you forget the worldly affairs?

"I lean on the railing and count the lonely sails, tears streaming down my face"

Her beautiful singing voice floated in the empty valley.

It took her two quarters of an hour to choreograph the entire dance, and then she began to practice the entire dance while singing softly.

After dancing for about half an hour, she felt it was enough and started looking for wild vegetables to dig.

There were indeed no wild vegetables in the mountains at this season. She searched for a long time and finally found a small piece of shepherd's purse. She put all the shepherd's purse into the bamboo basket.

Suddenly she saw many brown small particles on the pile of fallen leaves on the mountain in front of her. She felt that they looked especially like the chestnuts she and her grandmother picked on the mountain behind her home in modern times.

She walked closer and saw that they were indeed chestnuts, covering a large area on the ground. Moreover, the chestnuts here were much larger than those she had picked up in modern times. She was ecstatic.

The appearance of chestnut is similar to that of chinensis, but it is much smaller than chinensis. It is a pocket version of chinensis.

Some of the chestnuts she picked up in modern times were about the size of a green pea, and the slightly larger ones were about the size of a broad bean, but the chestnuts here were almost as big as macadamia nuts.

Nowadays, every November, many people go up the mountain to pick chestnuts. Because there are so many people picking, she and her grandmother can only pick up five or six kilograms or seven or eight kilograms each in an afternoon. (Note: The scientific name of chestnuts is Castanopsis sclerophylla. People who live in the mountains should know it. Children in the plains and cities probably haven't eaten it.)

And it is obvious that the chestnuts on the ground have not been picked by anyone. I don’t know whether people of that era did not know that they were edible, or no one discovered this patch of bitter oak trees.

Because chestnuts are very bitter and astringent when eaten directly after peeling, they are not tasty when eaten directly, so they are picked up and made into tofu at home. This is a purely wild, ecologically processed green food.

It is very simple to make tofu with chestnuts, and the chestnut tofu is very delicious, much better than white tofu made from soybeans.

She quickly squatted down and picked up all the chestnuts that had fallen on the dead branches and leaves and threw them into the bamboo basket. By the time it was almost lunchtime, her bamboo basket was already half full, but she had not yet picked up all the chestnuts in this area.

She could only remember this place secretly, planning to go back to have lunch and come back to pick it up in the afternoon.

When she came back from the back mountain, Liu's meal had already been prepared. Seeing that her daughter had not come back yet, Liu was about to go to the mountain to look for her. When she saw her walking home with a bamboo basket on her back, Liu immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

She trotted over to greet her daughter: "Why are you back so late?"

"I found a large area of ​​chestnuts on the mountain. I was so engrossed in picking them that I came back late. Mom, you don't have to worry about me. When I was at the old house, I often went up the mountain alone to look for pig food."