There's no other way; my cousin's family is really struggling. They're still living in an old mud-brick house from decades ago. The only thing that's been renovated is the bathroom with the toilet!
The kitchen roof had several holes, and there wasn't even a rice cooker or an electric kettle. When they had guests over for dinner, they couldn't even find a complete set of drinking glasses... Sigh! No wonder his father remembered him and asked him to help out before he passed away.
After finishing their meal, Jiang Xiaoman took out three packets of fruit candy from her basket and opened a pack of cigarettes. Jiang Youliang gave each of the three people who came to help two packets of cigarettes and a packet of candy, and also brought over some tung oil torches that he usually made from next door.
Seeing the torches, Shanrong couldn't help but sigh again. Their village had long since phased out these torches, and the joint defense patrols had all switched to high-powered flashlights. Sigh, my cousin's place is so backward.
After seeing Jiang Youtian and the other two off, and seeing that it was getting late and that his cousin Shantang had been drinking, Jiang Youliang advised him to stay the night before going down the mountain. Shantang was also a little dizzy. He hadn't expected that the "Monkey Drunk" drink, which tasted sweet like a cocktail, would have such a strong aftereffect.
“We can’t go back now, since drunk driving will land us in jail. So we’ll just let him stay here with me for a couple of days. We’ll stay until the day after tomorrow and then take Xiaoman back with us.”
While Jiang Youliang was seeing someone off, Shan Rong took the opportunity to call Tang Xinlan and explain the situation. Tang Xinlan was quite accommodating; upon hearing that he was a relative, she readily agreed to meet him, and they arranged to meet on Thursday afternoon, which is the day after tomorrow.
Jiang Youliang was incredibly grateful to his newly recognized cousin for being so reliable. He readily agreed and went upstairs to find clean bedding to make their bed. Their bed was made by sawing wood themselves; it had no headboard, and they used a long wooden bench they made themselves for support, with planks on top. The downside was that it wasn't very comfortable to sleep on, but the upside was that they could easily set it up as an extra bed.
Seeing his uncle quickly assemble a bed for the father and son with a few long benches and a dozen planks, Shan Tang's lips twitched twice. He couldn't help but take out his phone and secretly take a picture of the bed, sending it to his wife: "Honey, can I apply for two thousand yuan of pocket money to buy a bed for my cousin?"
However, although the living conditions were a bit poor, my cousin's cooking was still very good.
The next morning, as Shantang came downstairs, she smelled the aroma of sweet potato porridge.
Last night I ate a lot of meat and fish, so it was a bit greasy. Eating something light this morning will be a good way to cleanse my stomach.
Men wash up quickly, and Shantang was about to come over to help her cousin make breakfast after washing her face, but she didn't expect that he had already made it.
Breakfast was a big pot of perfectly cooked sweet potato porridge. On the table, there was a plate of thin, unleavened flatbreads in a bamboo basket. There were also side dishes for wrapping the flatbreads, including freshly stir-fried soybean paste, shredded pickled chili peppers and pickled bamboo shoots, a plate of shredded potatoes, and a dish of cleaned houttuynia cordata. You could wrap whatever you wanted to eat.
This was the first time Shantang had ever eaten houttuynia cordata wrapped in unleavened flatbread. He put in two spoonfuls of fried sauce and some pickled chili peppers, rolled it up, and it was indeed very delicious. It was perfect to eat with sweet potato porridge.
After finishing the meal, Shan Rong couldn't help but urge his cousin to take him to visit the descendants of that old shaman, even though they now use mobile phones for divination, there might still be a lot of old objects in their house.
Jiang Xiaoman hadn't been to the old shaman's house for a long time. Actually, his father used to take him there often when he was a child. But after the old shaman passed away, the newly appointed shaman was idle all day long. Jiang Youliang was worried that his son would go astray, so he stopped taking him there.
The shaman's house is quite far from Jiang Xiaoman's house. If they set off now, they might not arrive by noon. So, after breakfast, Jiang Youliang packed the things and gifts to take with him, while Jiang Xiaoman quickly prepared food for the journey.
First, I kneaded a dough and let it rest. Then, I chopped up the leftover vegetables from breakfast and the leftover meat from last night to make filling. I poured oil into a pan and baked a dozen large, golden-brown pies. The pies were puffy and had a layer of oil seeping out of the crust, making Shantang's mouth water.
Seeing her cousin's craving, Jiang Xiaoman smiled and served him a plateful, asking him to taste it. Shantang took it and took a big bite, jumping up and down from the scalding filling, but he couldn't bear to spit it out. He ate it while inhaling, and finished the huge pie in no time.
"Cousin, your cooking skills are absolutely amazing!"
“Let me tell you, you might as well not do any other business, just set up a stall in our Banligou and sell pies. You’ll definitely make over 100,000 yuan a year.”
Shantang was too embarrassed to ask the person for the secret recipe for making pies, so he quickly scrambled to encourage them to set up a stall in his village. That way, he could just buy pies from the stall whenever he wanted. Although he handed over all his wages to his wife, he still had some pocket money to buy a few pies.
"You can really earn that much? Then brother, can you save a room for me at home? When I can't make a living anymore, I'll go to your village to sell pancakes." Jiang Xiaoman quite liked his simple-minded cousin. Shan Tang wasn't implying anything about him or looking down on their poverty. He could feel that Shan Tang genuinely felt sorry for them not being able to earn money here.
"Absolutely! Let me tell you, that noodle shop at the entrance of our village, they used to be so poor they couldn't even afford to get married, and they didn't have money to build a house. While everyone else in the village was building houses and setting up guesthouses, they simply couldn't scrape together the money, so they cleared out the first floor and opened a noodle shop. His mother is an excellent noodle maker, and guess what?"
"That little noodle shop of theirs can earn tens of thousands of yuan a month during the peak tourist season in summer! They also contract to provide late-night food delivery for many guesthouses in the village. They probably earn hundreds of thousands of yuan a year just from selling noodles!"
This is the benefit of developing rural tourism. Rural people, as long as they have some skills and aren't lazy, can always find a way to make money. Anyway, Shantang thinks that if his cousin, with his skill in making pies, opened a shop in their village, he would get rich sooner or later!
Author's Note:
Once rural tourism takes off, local people can really benefit. I used to frequently buy braised duck from a stall run by a man in his early twenties. His family was quite poor; when others were developing agritourism, he didn't have the money, so he and his mother made braised duck and other braised dishes and sold them at a stall in the village. During peak tourist season, they even delivered food to hotel rooms. I heard they've made a lot of money in recent years and have even bought a house. Is selling braised dishes really that profitable? Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants between 2021-11-18 12:02:46 and 2021-11-19 11:46:03!
Thank you to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: Ruthless Flower Sprinkler ~ 96 bottles; Wu Wu 78 bottles; Evening Breeze Not Cool 73 bottles; Really Like Tangtang 70 bottles; Qiqi 61 bottles; 57 bottles; 22869259 32 bottles; Lucky Emperor is Me 22 bottles; Yahan, Lulu, Yan, Si Niang, Eva 20 bottles; Mumu 15 bottles; Zizai Wuxiang, Ah, Tianyuan Difang, Hong, Hobbit, Li Qin, This is a Little Apple 10 bottles; Riding a Black White Horse 8 bottles; 23655736 6 bottles; Langlang, Youyou, Meimei Who Wants to Be Happy Every Day, Hefeng 5 bottles; Light as a Swallow 3 bottles; Youth Swaying in Memories 2 bottles;
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Chapter 16
Jiang Xiaoman smiled but didn't say anything. His father was getting old and would need constant care in a few years. He only had two paths to choose from: either earn a large sum of money within a few years so he could take his father to the city to buy a house and start a small business, since medical care in the city was better than in the mountains; or settle down in his hometown and do business there, even if he didn't earn much, being able to stay by his father's side was the most important thing.
When Jiang Xiaoman was abandoned at the market, he was just an infant in swaddling clothes. He had no memory of anything and didn't know who his biological parents were. But from the time he could remember, Jiang Youliang had been carefully raising him. He dressed in rags and saved every penny to buy him sugar-coated fruit. He couldn't bear to eat rice himself, so he would cook a pot of sweet potato porridge, eat the sweet potatoes himself, and scoop out the porridge from the bottom for him to eat... Jiang Youliang was his only relative in the world and his greatest motivation to work hard.
Jiang Xiaoman packed the three finished pies into a plastic bag, then ran to get three large apples, washed them, and put them in her basket. Seeing that her cousins hadn't brought any water cups, she got two new ones, filled them with cooled boiled water, and gave each of them a cup of water.
Because they would be out all day, Jiang Youliang moved the chickens to the pigsty, provided both the pigs and chickens with enough food and water for the day, locked the gate, and the group quickly set off.
Seeing that Jiang Youliang had taken a few pieces of hemp rope and an empty basket, Shan Rong and his son immediately perked up: "Are they going to collect the traps?"
Sure enough! As Jiang Youliang walked, he stopped by the nearby nests and found two pheasants that were caught in the trap.
“There are a lot of pheasants on this hill. Don’t be fooled by the small amount of meat; catching a couple is enough for a meal.” After tying the pheasant’s feet with hemp rope and tossing them into his basket, Jiang Youliang couldn’t help but hum, “I wonder what this little shaman can figure out with his phone! In the old days, our old shamans had to chop off chicken heads to invite the gods.”
Jiang Xiaoman followed behind, speechless. No matter what her father did, he never forgot to connect it with that "ungrateful" little priest, and then repeatedly complained about it.
Where can you still behead a chicken to invite gods these days? A few years ago, when the bird flu broke out, you couldn't find a single live chicken in the city. I heard that there were checkpoints set up at major intersections to block people from entering the city illegally, and they would detain both the person and the chicken!
Want to go into town to sell chickens? Sure! Slaughter them first! It's said that the old shaman beheads chickens to appease the gods, but he has to behead live chickens. I wonder if the gods would eat frozen chicken heads, sigh!
The mountains around Langshan are high and the forests are dense, with villages separated by several mountains. After walking for a while, they could barely see the road ahead. Fortunately, all four of them were mountain people, so they picked up their machetes and cleared a path as they walked. After a while, Jiang Youliang suddenly stopped, listened for a moment, and immediately looked annoyed.
"Damn it! The water over there has risen, we definitely can't get across, we'll have to climb over this mountain."
Shan Tang looked up at the mountain beside her and her heart sank.
After traversing mountains and valleys, it was almost 3 PM when they finally arrived at the old shaman's village. Turning back at this point was impossible, as darkness would fall halfway through, and walking in the deep forest at night was practically suicide.
Although it's called a village, there are only a few families living on this mountain, and they are all stone houses. Many of the houses look like they haven't been lived in for many years. The cracks in the stones are full of weeds and a succulent plant called creeping sedum, which looks a bit eerie from a distance.
Jiang Youliang led them straight to the shaman's house, but to their surprise, the door was locked tight.
"Are you looking for Jiangxia? He went up to the mountaintop to go online." An old lady next door kindly gave them directions. "It's over there on that mountain. That's the only place around here where you can get internet access."
Jiang Xiaoman: "..." Good heavens! This place is even more remote than his home!
It wasn't far up from here, so Jiang Xiaoman volunteered to find someone so her father could rest for a while.
“You don’t know Jiang Xia, so I’ll go.” Jiang Youliang stood up.
“What’s there to be afraid of if we don’t know him? He’s probably the only person on that hill, and he even climbed up there specifically to go online. It’s not hard to find him.” Jiang Xiaoman picked up her machete and went out.
While his son went to find someone, Jiang Youliang told Shan Rong and his son about the young priestess.
"The old shaman had four children, named according to the seasons. The eldest, Jiang Chun, was a girl who married out when she grew up. The second child was Jiang Xia."
"What about the other two? Do they also live with Jiang Xia?"
"No way! It was a terrible thing to say. That year, our area suffered a severe drought. The old shaman went up the mountain to pray for rain, but no sooner had he left than a pack of wolves came down from the mountain and wreaked havoc on the village."
"His wife and children were gone. The old priest vomited blood for several days in a row, and he died in less than a year! Fortunately, Jiang Xia went into the mountains with his father to pray for rain, which saved the old priest's bloodline. Alas!"
"Then according to you, it's no wonder that the little priest didn't learn his father's skills. He was probably still young at the time, and his father didn't have time to teach his son all his skills before he passed away."
"Absolutely!" Jiang Youliang couldn't help but slap his thigh in anger as he spoke of this. "What's wrong with God? He lived a good life all those days of killing and arson. The old priest had never done a bad thing in his life, so how did he suffer such a terrible disaster?"
If the old priest's wife and children hadn't died tragically, how could he have been so traumatized that he passed away so young? If he hadn't died so young, he would have passed on all his skills to Jiang Xia. Why would Jiang Xia be so clueless and have to resort to using a mobile phone for divination?
"Alas! Everything is fate!" Shan Rong couldn't help but sigh. He felt even more aggrieved than Jiang Youliang. "Our Shan family used to have a clan shaman. Later, with the reform and opening up, he went to the city to tell fortunes and do feng shui for rich people. I heard that he made a lot of money with a big boss and the whole family moved to the big city."
Now it was Jiang Youliang's turn to be speechless.
The two cousins were "speechless, tears streaming down their faces" when Jiang Xiaoman successfully found the legendary little shaman on the mountain.
There was nothing he could do; it wasn't that he was lucky, but rather that this person was too conspicuous standing there. Perhaps to get closer to the signal tower, Jiang Xia climbed onto a large rock, raising his arms high like a human lightning rod. Jiang Xiaoman was terrified!
Thank goodness there was no thunder! If a sudden clap of lightning had struck, the old priest's family line would have ended!
"Excuse me, are you Jiang Xia?"
"Shut up!" Jiang Xia, standing on the big rock, stopped him with a tense expression. The next second, he suddenly started frantically tapping on his phone screen. Jiang Xiaoman was startled and almost thought he was having an epileptic seizure.
"Hahaha! I finally got it!" Jiang Xia jumped a few times on the big rock while holding his phone, his narrow eyes practically gleaming with excitement. After a few jumps, he remembered that there was someone standing next to him. His face stiffened, and then he jumped off the rock as if nothing had happened.
"Fortune telling or invoking the gods? Let me make this clear first, I don't tell fortunes of life and death, marriage, or wealth and prosperity." Jiang Xia slightly raised his chin, seemingly looking down on Jiang Xiaoman.
At such a young age, why do you have to believe in feudal superstitions when you could be doing anything else?
"Wait! We're not here for divination or to consult the gods; we're here to visit relatives," Jiang Xiaoman explained, her face darkening.
"What?!" Jiang Xia picked at her ear, staring at him in shock. She scrutinized him for a long time but couldn't recall the old man having any relatives...
"Actually, they're not really relatives. My dad and your dad knew each other when they were young, so we'd say they were friends. Have you ever heard your dad mention Jiang Youliang from Langshan Township?"
"Jiang Youliang? Oh! I remember now! You're the one who picked up a lucky doll at the market, right? You're Jiang Xiaoman, aren't you?" Jiang Xia stared at him with curiosity for a moment, then began to complain about his father with some disappointment—
"Old man, you're still not quite there yet. What kind of lucky doll are you talking about? I bet the whole outfit you're wearing doesn't even cost a hundred yuan."
"He's so poor himself, yet he claims to be bringing blessings to the village! That old man just knows how to use such words to fool those ignorant villagers! Your father has definitely been deceived! Is he still making offerings to my father every year?"
Well! This is a shaman who despises the poor and loves the rich.
Luckily, this person wasn't a relative, otherwise Jiang Xiaoman would have been furious. How could someone be so sarcastic upon first meeting someone?
However, since she was already there, and it seemed she might have to stay the night, it wouldn't be good to start a fight as soon as they met. After thinking about it, Jiang Xiaoman decided to try a different approach to communicate with him—
"You'd better come back with me right away. My dad caught two wild pheasants for you. We need to kill them and bleed them quickly, or they won't taste good."
Jiang Xia's eyes lit up at the mention of food, "You can cook?"
"Yes, yes, yes! I've even learned how to cook elaborate dishes for banquets." Jiang Xiaoman said, taking the initiative to pick up his basket, and unknowingly took control of the conversation. "When I came up here, I saw a lot of mushrooms in the woods. Let's hurry up and pick some before it gets dark, otherwise, will we be able to eat the pheasant tonight without mushrooms as a side dish?"
That's true!
Jiang Xia was startled and couldn't help but follow.
Jiang Xiaoman's lips curled up slightly, and she casually asked him what he was doing standing on the big rock holding his phone. He guessed that he was probably trying to snag some limited edition items, because he had previously helped his roommates snag limited edition sneakers from a major brand in collaboration with a sports star.
However, it's very difficult to get one. That time, a classmate mobilized all the boys on his floor to help him try to get one, but they still couldn't get one.
"You know Jiang Yuan, right? Next month is his 20th anniversary in the industry. Jiang Yuan is so nice; he paid for his own birthday party and invited two hundred fans to attend. The tickets only cost one yuan!"
"Do you know that just now, more than 50 million fans were vying for these 200 tickets!"
"Did you manage to snag one?" Jiang Xiaoman asked knowingly.
"Of course I got it, hahaha! To get the ticket, I even dug out the old man's notes, practiced for a month, set up a formation here, fasted and bathed for three days in advance, and even bought a big pig's head to worship the gods!"
Jiang Xiaoman: "..." Well, you really paid a huge price!
Jiang Xia was in a good mood, probably because she had managed to snag tickets to her idol's birthday party. She even knelt down to help Jiang Xiaoman pick mushrooms, but this was quickly met with disdain from the exasperated Jiang Xiaoman.
"Brother Xia, you have to remove the mud and grass from under the mushrooms before throwing them in, otherwise we'll have to spend half a day picking them when we get home."
"Nonsense! That's why I've never liked mushrooms..." Jiang Xia reluctantly tossed away a small mushroom in his hand.
"It's not that I don't like eating them, it's that I don't like picking them..." Jiang Xiaoman muttered to herself, and sped up her mushroom picking.
Jiang Xiaoman didn't want to eat too much since it was just for one meal. Seeing that it was enough for them, she quickly picked up her basket and followed Jiang Xia down the mountain. When they returned to the village, only the last rays of sunset remained on the horizon. Under the cover of the dark forest, the old stone houses in the village looked even more eerie.
Seeing several people squatting at the door, and not knowing how long they had been waiting for him, Jiang Xia felt a little embarrassed. He quickly took out his key to open the door, then went to the door and brought back some dried corn stalks to boil water for them.