Dreaming of Lion Rock: Recipe in Hand

Chapter 127 Harvesting Rice

Chunni got up at 4:30 the next morning.

If Lao Ma hadn't set the alarm for this, she would not have been able to get up.

Chunni turned on the light, washed up, and went to the kitchen. She wanted to prepare breakfast before everyone got up.

Breakfast is simple, just steam some rice and stir-fry two vegetables. Usually, people in Shizishan eat porridge and noodles, but now it is busy with farming, porridge and noodles are not enough to satisfy hunger. Everyone cooks dry rice.

The dish of shredded green peppers, potatoes and cold-mixed eggplant was quickly ready.

He Yanqing had taken a special leave to harvest rice, so he did not return to the county town last night and stayed in the guest room. He heard the noises from the kitchen and knew that Chunni had gotten up, so he got up too.

Before five o'clock, Chunni woke up Donglin and Qiuguo who were still in bed, and then went to wake up Xue Shaohong and Liu Chang.

The six of them had breakfast quickly.

At this time, He Yanqing called Liu Chang to go to the old man's house to borrow his rice bucket. It was a big thing and had to be carried by a man.

Chunni took out two baskets, picked up a shoulder pole herself, and gave the other shoulder pole to Qiuguo.

"Second sister, let me choose!" Dong Lin considered himself the only man in the family and always took good care of his sisters.

Qiuguo tied the rope on the basket and inserted the carrying pole into it.

"Forget it. You are so small. If you carry the load now, you may not grow tall in the future."

As she spoke, she deliberately used her hand to compare the height difference between her and Dong Lin.

"No way. Besides, the basket is empty now!"

Chunni completely ignored the bickering between the siblings. This has become a daily routine.

Xue Shaohong was very interested in carrying the basket. She tried to persuade Qiuguo and finally convinced Qiuguo to hand her the shoulder pole.

She also performed a basket-carrying performance in front of everyone.

"Ah!! It seems like being a farmer is pretty easy!"

Chunni silently planned to ask Xue Shaohong to pick out a basket of millet to try later.

Chunni took two sickles and borrowed two more from her uncle's house, then brought her younger brother and sister-in-law to the horizon.

Although it was just past five o'clock, there were already quite a few people standing in the field.

The villagers who followed Chunni to plant dry rice had already planned it out. They would do whatever Chunni's family did. Chunni's family harvested rice, so of course they would also harvest rice!

"Why doesn't the old man collect the goods today?" Dong Lin was very surprised.

"Guoping and Guoan both caught a cold, and my sister-in-law couldn't handle it alone, so my aunt had to stay at home to help. My uncle couldn't harvest the rice alone, so he stayed at home." Qiuguo was at home during the summer vacation, and he had been with Wang Lamei for a long time. They had a very good relationship, and he knew the situation next door very well.

"No wonder, just now the old man wanted to go to the fields with us." Dong Lin muttered, feeling a little regretful@

Chunni slapped Donglin on the head and said: "With the little rice we have, so many people are enough! The old man's family has helped us a lot. After we harvest our own rice, we will go to help the old man harvest tomorrow." Chunni had planned this a long time ago.

"Yes! My eldest brother is not at home, and grandpa is old..." Dong Lin sighed.

Chunni wanted to hit someone again. The old man was only in his forties, in the prime of life, how could he be old?

Forget it, let’s just ignore Dong Lin. This kid may have entered puberty and his ideas are different from theirs!

Chunni took a few quick steps and caught Xue Shaohong who almost fell into the paddy field.

"Slow down, this ridge is hard to walk on."

Xue Shaohong stuck out her tongue, rarely showing her little girl attitude.

"I was afraid that the basket would blow away the rice on both sides, so I tilted it..." This was a good intention.

"No, rice is not that fragile."

The group walked for about ten minutes before finally arriving at the field.

Chunni gave the sickles to He Yanqing, Xue Shaohong and Liu Chang, and kept one for herself.

"let's start!"

He Yanqing had been an educated youth and was very familiar with harvesting rice, so he began to guide Liu Chang.

Chunni took Xue Shaohong and started cutting the other side.

"Hold the scythe like I do."

Xue Shaohong adjusted the way she held the sickle and bent down like Chunni.

"Just leave more than ten centimeters of rice stalks." As soon as she finished speaking, Chunni skillfully cut off a nest of rice.

Xue Shaohong cut according to Chunni's example, but failed to cut it through.

"Hahahaha." Dong Lin laughed unceremoniously when he saw this.

Chunni glared at Donglin, and the latter's laughter stopped abruptly.

She turned around and began to teach Xue Shaohong carefully.

"Like this, place the sickle at an angle, hold the rice stalk with your left hand, and pull it like this."

Xue Shaohong was not stupid to begin with, and he succeeded in no time by imitating Chunni's movements.

"Wow, wow, I did it, hahahaha!" Xue Shaohong's joy could be heard throughout Lion Rock.

"Put the cut rice like this so that it will be easier to hold when threshing later." Chunni taught carefully and Xue Shaohong learned seriously, and soon, the rice ears were piled up.

Chunni's progress is not as good as He Yanqing and others, and they have already distanced themselves from them.

After finishing the harvest, Liu Chang couldn't help pounding his waist and sighed: "I hoe the field at noon, and my sweat drips down to the ground. Who knows that every grain of rice on the table is the result of hard work? The ancients were right!"

"Puchi." Qiu Guo originally came over to ask her brother-in-law if he wanted to drink some water, but when she heard Liu Chang's sigh, she laughed out loud.

Only the brother and sister who came here to experience rural life would feel the hardship. The villagers of Shizishan looked at the heavy rice ears with joy, not the hardship. They wished that such hardship could last for a few more days!

He Yanqing felt thirsty, so he reached out to take the bowl and drank it all in one gulp. The water was just the right amount of cool, and salt was added to it. He gave his sister-in-law an appreciative look.

Liu Chang was also thirsty, but he still looked at his dirty hands, hesitated for a while, and then followed He Yanqing's example and drank the bowl in one gulp.

"Comfortable!" he couldn't help but sigh. This mud shouldn't be dirty, right? He thought to himself.

"Qiuguo, this sickle is for you." He Yanqing rested for a while and then prepared to thresh the grain. Of course, the sickle was given to the older Qiuguo.

"Okay." Qiu Guo didn't refuse, took the sickle, rolled up his trousers and went to the field. His movements were much more familiar than Liu Chang's brother and sister.

Here, Chunni and her partner had also finished harvesting a section of rice. She drank some water, and then gave her sickle to Donglin. She hurried to the rice barrel.

Dong Lin took the sickle calmly and started cutting the crops.

"Dong Lin, you can also harvest rice!" Xue Shaohong was shocked.

Dong Lin raised his head, looking like he was saying, "Don't look down on me."

“I knew how to circumcise when I was six!”

"Awesome!" Xue Shaohong couldn't help but give him a thumbs up.

Xue Shaohong was surprised by this. As the saying goes, children from poor families grow up early. In Shizishan, even children of four or five years old would go to the fields to pick up wheat and rice ears. Older children, six or seven years old, would help their younger brothers and sisters to find mushrooms, pick up bamboo leaves to start a fire, and pick up dry firewood. There were even six or seven-year-olds who cooked on the stove. If the stove was not high enough, they could use a stool as a cushion.

There are many people like Dong Lin.

After Xue Shaohong finished sighing, she took a sickle and watched Chunni and the other person threshing the grain. She was very interested in this.

There were no foot-operated threshers like those of later generations, so everything was done manually.

Doctor He took off his clothes. He looked gentle and refined, but he actually had muscles. Unlike those fitness coaches in later generations who were all tendon-like, He Yanqing's muscles were smooth, which was the result of farm work, and it was very natural.

He just casually threw his clothes on the pile of straw beside him, picked up a handful of rice ears and threw them at the edge of the rice bucket, and the rice was scattered everywhere.

"I finally understand why you are surrounding yourself with this cloth." Liu Chang said thoughtfully.

"Hehe." Chunni didn't say anything. She was also going to start threshing.

"Tsk tsk, you have to bend over to cut rice. The more times you bend over, the more your waist feels sore. Well, this is more fun than cutting rice." Liu Chang put the sickle on the rice stalks and grabbed the rice ears, eager to try.

Chunni decisively gave up her seat.

Xue Shaohong watched for a while and felt that harvesting rice was more suitable for him, so he went back to harvest rice.