A large bag of unopened rice, two bags of cornmeal, two bags of flour, a large bag of dried chili peppers, three cured chickens, an unopened ham, two bottles of sesame oil that looked like a gift, a large bag of wild walnuts, half a bag of peanuts, several bottles of local honey, and even a sack of sweet potato vermicelli...
"Hey! They were all gifts from others. What can I do? I'm a priestess." Jiang Xia waved his hand dismissively, telling him to take whatever he wanted to eat and to just throw away anything that was expired or spoiled.
Jiang Xiaoman strongly suspects that if this guy were given an internet connection, he could stay home forever!
Finding so many ingredients unexpectedly makes making a late-night snack much easier. I took out a cured chicken, smelled it—it hadn't spoiled yet—and chopped it into pieces. I soaked it in boiling water, drained it, then heated oil in a pan, added a handful of garlic cloves and sautéed until fragrant. I added the chicken pieces and stir-fried them until they changed color. Then I poured in half a pot of cold water. This way, the chicken broth will be salty, so I won't need to add extra salt when making the dumplings.
Jiang Xiaoman had already plucked all the wild vegetables from the trees by the door when she was making dinner. Since she couldn't make dumplings without side dishes, Jiang Xiaoman had to run to ask Jiang Xia where his vegetable garden was. If it wasn't too far, she could go and pick some vegetable leaves at night with a flashlight, which wouldn't be too dangerous.
“Vegetable garden? I don’t grow vegetables. I buy them from Grandma Jiuhua next door. Go pick some from her garden and put it on your tab. I’ll pay her at the end of the month.”
"You're so lazy!" Jiang Xiaoman glared at him resentfully, then asked where the neighbor's vegetable garden was, and went to pick vegetables by herself with a flashlight.
Jiang Xiaoman picked a bunch of Swiss chard and a small handful of scallions. The chicken soup had also boiled. She quickly lifted the lid, took a large ladle, skimmed off the foam on the surface, removed a piece of firewood, and let the chicken soup simmer slowly. Then she took a large basin, scooped out half a basin of flour, and after thinking for a moment, added a bowl of cornmeal to it.
After all, he only had so much food left at home, and he was afraid of eating Jiangxia out of house and home.
"Aren't you tired of running around? Can't you just move the flour sack to the kitchen?" Jiang Xia, that lazy bum, was complaining about him.
Jiang Xiaoman looked at him speechlessly: "Rice and flour bags can't be kept in the kitchen, they're prone to getting damp and moldy."
He finally realized that Jiang Xia was a complete kitchen novice! If he hadn't accidentally made some money by chasing celebrities, he probably would have starved to death long ago.
The stewed cured chicken soup is different from the fresh one. It smells salty and fragrant. Jiang Xiaoman picked up a piece of chicken to taste and found that the meat was already stewed until tender. She quickly put the dough pieces in, stirred it evenly with a large soup spoon, and sprinkled in the chopped green onions and Swiss chard leaves. No other seasonings were needed.
Jiang Xiaoman had just found an unopened jar of chili sauce in the storage room. She wondered which "believer" had given it to Jiang Xia. She scooped out a bowl to make a side dish. Shantang came back from taking pictures and almost jumped up with joy when she smelled the aroma: "Xiaoman, how did you know I was hungry?"
"Don't flatter yourself! Xiaoman made this for me. Otherwise, do you think you could have photographed so many of my treasures?" Jiang Xia pushed him aside, stopped doing the data, grabbed the largest bowl in the cupboard, filled it with salty chicken soup noodles, and ran to the main room to eat.
While eating, he also gestured to Shan Rong and Jiang Youliang, who were dozing off next to him, to serve themselves. Anyone who didn't know better would think that he had made the pot of noodles.
Jiang Youliang ran to get a bowl of noodles without any expression, and ate it without any taste. On this trip, Shan Rong got what he wanted, but his own dream was completely shattered. The successor shaman seemed even more unreliable than he had imagined. Not only did he not engage in production, but he also did not study the precious notes left by the old shaman, nor did he think about praying for the mountain people. Instead, he spent all his time running up the mountain to get a signal and pray for celebrities!
Alas, the last line of shamanic priests in Langshan will likely come to a complete end with Jiangxia.
Perhaps the only thing to be thankful for is that Jiangxia has still kept up with this family tradition and hasn't left, unlike the shamans of the mountain families in Banligou, who went off to pray for the wealthy more than a decade ago...
Nothing happened that night. The next morning, Jiang Youliang was worried about the chickens and pigs at home that no one would feed, and his illusions about the new shaman were completely shattered. He was eager to go home.
"I'll go down with you guys, hitch a ride, and rush to buy some fruit." Jiang Xia also picked up the keys and a huge outdoor backpack.
There's absolutely no way he would carry a basket on his back; that's so rustic!
"Buy less, just enough for two days. Last night I threw out a lot of rotten apples, pears and other things from your storage room, and a big pineapple too. You won't eat them!" Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but remind him.
Despite the large size of Langshan, there aren't many fruit-growing areas. Most fruits are wholesaled from outside the mountains and are extremely expensive! Jiang Xiaoman usually brings back bags of fruit from school when she goes home, unlike Jiang Xia who wastes money by rushing to buy fruit at the market.
"Why are you even more long-winded than an old man? Get out of here!" Jiang Xia pushed him aside with a dark face.
Jiang Xiaoman was pushed so hard that she spun around on the spot. When she turned her head, she saw a vast and magnificent sea of clouds in front of her!
"Wow~" Jiang Xiaoman's eyes widened, and she involuntarily raised her phone.
Their home is also in the mountains, but the mountains aren't very high, unlike the area around Jiangxia, which is truly "the summit of mountains." Surrounded by mountains on all sides, the moisture doesn't dissipate easily, making it particularly easy to describe the vast sea of clouds in summer and autumn. The sunrise, the sea of clouds, the birds... the whole scene is so beautiful it's like a fairyland!
Jiang Xiaoman climbed onto the low stone wall of Jiang Xia's house, took a panoramic photo from the top, and jumped down impatiently, grabbing Jiang Xia's arm: "Brother Xia, can I borrow your wireless network card?"
He hurriedly posted the video he had just taken to his personal homepage, only to be mocked by Jiang Xia next to him: "Don't bother! You don't have a drone to shoot it, hardly anyone will see it."
Jiang Xiaoman didn't care about him. He knew that being a self-media creator wasn't as easy as it used to be these past two years. What hadn't netizens seen? However, he didn't intend to suddenly become famous with just a few videos. He just wanted to enrich his videos as much as possible, and he didn't plan to rely on the platform to sell products from the start.
To put it bluntly, the things he'll be selling in the future, whether it's local embroidery or local honey, aren't mainstream products and aren't suitable for live streaming sales on short video platforms. Short videos are just a convenient platform for him to showcase his products to customers. Once the content is uploaded, if customers are interested, he can simply send them a link. Otherwise, it's unrealistic to keep uploading videos; nobody's traffic comes from thin air.
After uploading the video, the group headed down the mountain amidst the clouds and mist. The fog on the mountain was very thick, and the visibility was very low. They walked and stopped frequently. When they reached the bottom of the mountain, Jiang Xiaoman checked her phone and saw that it was almost eleven o'clock.
They couldn't find a village where they parked, but luckily Jiang Xiaoman was prepared. After breakfast, she used yesterday's leftovers to make more than a dozen pancakes. There was no time to ferment the dough, so they made unleavened pancakes, but they were golden brown on both sides and still tasted good even when they were cold.
The fillings were plentiful, including chopped cured meat, pickled chili peppers, and chopped stalks of Swiss chard. Jiang Xiaoman even put some chili sauce in a plastic bag. The group sat in the car, dipping their food in chili sauce and eating the pies until their mouths were greasy. After they were full, everyone else had a large water bottle with them, but Jiang Xia, being single, didn't bring anything.
Jiang Xia: "..." Why do you all carry such big water bottles when you go out?
"No, brother, do you never bring water when you go down the mountain?" Jiang Xiaoman was also a little exasperated.
"I can just drink spring water. Besides, I can buy bottled water in the village," Jiang Xia argued confidently.
"Never mind, you can drink mine." Jiang Xiaoman unscrewed the kettle and let him drink from the spout.
After eating and drinking their fill, the fog in the mountains had dissipated somewhat. Shantang drove Jiang Xia to the intersection closest to the market, where he could catch the bus to the market.
Who knew that Jiang Xia might have offended some powerful figure (or perhaps too many), because when he got off the bus, he missed a step and twisted his ankle!
Jiang Xiaoman was speechless as she watched Jiang Xia collapse to the ground, his face deathly pale.
"What a disaster!" Jiang Youliang quickly went down to help him up. At this moment, the old man's last bit of hope for the Jiang family's witchcraft was completely shattered.
With this level of skill, they can't even protect themselves, let alone the mountain people.
"What do we do now?" Cousin Shantang was dumbfounded when he saw Jiang Xia sitting on the roadside in pain, clutching her foot.
"Forget it, Brother Xia, why don't you stay in our village for a few days? With your leg like this, you won't be able to climb back up the mountain even if you go back. Even if we find someone to take you up the mountain, it won't be convenient for you to stay alone." After thinking for a while, Jiang Xiaoman called Jiang Baichuan. He remembered that there was an empty classroom at the school. He could clean it up and make do with it for a few days.
Most importantly, the school cafeteria provides meals every day. At worst, Jiang Xia can just pay for the meals. Since we already have Jiang Baichuan as a patient, it doesn't matter if we have another one.
"That's all we can do. If all else fails, we'll find someone in the village to look after me for a few days. I'll pay for it myself." Jiang Xia looked dejected, mainly because it was so embarrassing.
A grown man twisted his ankle just getting off a bus? That's absolutely hilarious!
Even if he could go home, let alone now that he's in this state, he wouldn't want to!
Shan Tang suppressed a laugh and drove all the way to the entrance of Langshan Elementary School. Jiang Xiaoman got out and opened the door. Seeing that the students were all in class, she quickly told Shan Tang to drive the car to the bottom of the school building. Jiang Baichuan was about to scold him and tell him to drive the car out when he heard Jiang Xiaoman quietly beckon him to come and help.
"Uncle Baichuan, I saw you were almost out of salt last time, so my cousin and I went to the supermarket and bought a case of discounted salt, as well as a big bottle of soy sauce and chicken bouillon. Could you come and help me carry it down?"
Alright, since you're a "benefactor," then it's fine.
Jiang Baichuan's anger turned to joy, and he even thanked his nephew on behalf of the students. If it were him, he wouldn't have been willing to buy so many seasonings at once. The school didn't have that kind of budget. He usually saved up money by selling local honey and potatoes to buy firewood, rice, oil, and salt.
Chapter 19
Jiang Baichuan recognized Jiang Xia. Seeing that he had sprained his ankle, he went to the school clinic to get a plaster to apply to his ankle. "This plaster was made by an old Chinese medicine doctor in the village. It's especially effective for sprains and bruises. With such a minor injury, you'll be able to walk again in less than three days after applying it."
Jiang Xia settled into the school. The first thing he did after settling in was to quickly take out his wireless network card and connect to the internet. When Jiang Xiaoman brought him food, he didn't even have time to eat.
"Brother, let's eat first." Jiang Xiaoman also took a bowl of rice and sat down on the edge of the bed to eat.
His father had already rushed home to feed the pigs. They hadn't eaten enough at noon, so they simply borrowed the school kitchen, cooked a few packets of instant noodles, cracked a few eggs, and went to the backyard to pick a handful of cowpea leaves, chopped them up, and put them in. The grown men didn't pick and choose, and slurped down their food until they were full. Jiang Xiaoman was about to go back to Banligou with her cousin Shantang.
"Don't worry about me, let's go! Damn it, someone's smearing our movie star again, I'm going to clean up the square first!"
"Wash what?" Jiang Xiaoman was stunned.
"Washing the square means suppressing all the dirty stuff online... Forget it, you wouldn't understand even if I told you. Just go! Put the dishes there and call Jiang Baichuan to come back and wash them."
Jiang Xiaoman: "..." I'm so sorry, Uncle Baichuan, I actually found him a temporary ancestor.
However, Jiang Xiaoman did not set off immediately. After all, he needed to ask someone for a favor. The socially adept Jiang Xiaoman found a family in the village with many beehives and bought two large bottles of royal jelly from them, which cost him a huge sum of two hundred yuan! He then went to a few other familiar families and managed to collect a bag of dried wild mushrooms and two smoked wild rabbits. Although these items were not particularly valuable, they were still local specialties of Langshan.
His father originally wanted to send some wild tea from his home, but his uncle Shanrong persuaded him against it. He had heard that Shangtang Village had started introducing the ancient tea from Hongnigou a few years ago, and that their tea was definitely better than theirs.
After buying the items, it was already quite late, so Shantang quickly started the car and hurried back to Banligou. It was almost dark by then.
At this point, it must be said that modern technology is much more effective than ancient rituals and witchcraft. On the way back, Shan Rong called his wife. When they arrived home, Shan Rong's wife had already prepared the meal, and his daughter-in-law had also tidied up a room for Jiang Xiaoman. The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had a good impression of this newly recognized relative.
There's no way around it, Jiang Xiaoman's appearance really fits the aesthetic standards of contemporary women (regardless of age).
Unlike the thin and dark-skinned Jiang Youliang, Jiang Xiaoman is not short. At 178 cm tall, he is considered tall among the mountain people. Although his skin is not particularly fair, he has a refined and scholarly air because he has been studying all his life. On the contrary, he is warm and friendly. Unlike some children who feel superior after studying and refuse to admit that they are from the countryside, Jiang Xiaoman always greets people with a smile and addresses them as "aunt" and "cousin". He is always very friendly when he interacts with people.
Anyway, when Jiang Xiaoman arrived at the Shan family's house, he was greeted with a hot meal and a guest room with all the new sheets and blankets.
"Auntie, cousin-in-law, we're all family, just eat whatever you want, why are there so many dishes?" Jiang Xiaoman was truly stunned to see a whole stewed pork hock on the table.
Such a large pork hock would cost tens of yuan at a pork stall. Ordinary families there wouldn't even be able to afford to eat this during the Chinese New Year.
"What good food is there? It's all your uncle's fault for calling too late. I had to ask the restaurant next door to grab a pork hock. If he had called in the morning, I could have gone to the market in town and you could have had stewed mutton tonight." Shanrong's wife glared at the old man resentfully.
"No way! If I had known that my uncle was calling to ask you to prepare dinner, I would have hidden his phone." Jiang Xiaoman said, sitting down with a smile. "But since I've already done it, I'll shamelessly eat it! Next time my aunt and uncle come to my house for dinner, I'll let you try my stewed pork hock."
Jiang Xiaoman's generous and open-minded behavior immediately pleased his aunt. She personally picked up a large piece of stewed pork hock for him and then took a separate bowl and served him a bowl of wild mushroom stewed with eggs. Wild mushrooms in the mountains are at their freshest and most delicious this season. After picking them, washing them, blanching them, and then tearing them into pieces to stew with eggs, you only need to add a little salt, chopped green onions, and sesame oil to make them so delicious that you'll want to swallow your tongue!
This stuff has to be eaten while it's hot. Jiang Xiaoman had stewed it at home before, so she immediately picked up a spoon and started eating it in big bites. While eating, she was sending compliments to her aunt: "Auntie, it's such a waste that you don't open a restaurant with your skills! You can't taste any muddy or fishy smell in these wild mushrooms!"
In the time it takes to eat a meal, Shan Rong's wife went from being called "cousin's wife" to "aunt." The old lady smiled so much that her eyes narrowed, and she stopped eating her own meal to focus on serving food to Jiang Xiaoman.
Jiang Xiaoman can cook himself. He can talk about whether a dish is good or not, and why it is good. He not only praises it, but he will also occasionally point out how to make a dish taste different. The old man and the young man get more and more into conversation. If Shan Rong's wife didn't have to put her grandson to bed at night, the two of them would probably have continued to chat.
After dinner, my cousin-in-law had to go to her night shift. Now that there are more tourists in the village, it's inevitable that people will need to contact the village at night. So now the village officials have to take turns working the night shift. Tonight, it was my cousin-in-law's turn to work the night shift with another village official. The night shift is from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day. However, those who work the night shift can take a day off the following day.
Shan Tang was exhausted from driving all day, so after dinner he went upstairs to sleep. Jiang Xiaoman never liked to trouble others, and seeing that the Shan family had things to do, he also made an excuse that he was too tired today and wanted to go to sleep early. He took his pajamas, went to the shared bathroom to take a shower, and then went back to his room.
However, to his surprise, when he returned to his room, he found a clean glass and a plate of fruit thoughtfully placed on the table, and a thermos filled with boiling water on the floor.
After drying her hair and pouring herself a glass of water, Jiang Xiaoman turned on her fully charged phone and habitually opened her favorite video app. As soon as she opened it, she saw that the "Fans" and "Interactions" columns in the background were both marked with yellow "99+".
"Holy crap!!!" Jiang Xiaoman was so scared she almost fell off the bed.
What's going on? Didn't he just post a "sea of clouds" that Jiang Xia already criticized as "completely unoriginal" today? How did that go viral?
Jiang Xiaoman quickly opened the video app's backend and saw that the cloud sea video he updated today had over 700,000 views. Clicking on the video, he saw over 190,000 likes and over 50,000 comments. Most importantly, his number of followers had finally increased from over 100 to over 7,000. Although it hadn't broken 10,000 yet, it was already a big step forward!
I happily clicked on the video, only to see a bunch of netizens frantically asking where this place was. While the sea of clouds might not be comparable to the famous Huangshan sea of clouds, it certainly had at least seven-tenths of that ethereal beauty. Many hikers and adventurers who enjoy trekking or challenging themselves in remote areas, seeing he wasn't replying to the comments, simply sent him private messages asking for his location. Others asked if he was a guide, wanting to pay him to take them hiking and see the sea of clouds…
In short, there were all sorts of opinions. Jiang Xiaoman replied to each private message and answered several highly-rated questions in the comments section. After being busy for a long time, she closed the video account and saw that her WeChat was also flooded with messages from many classmates. They probably all saw his cloud sea video. Everyone was denouncing him for secretly keeping such a good place to himself and not telling them. Even the class monitor tagged him in the class group and said that they should arrange to go hiking and see the cloud sea here for their graduation trip.
Forget about that. Even if all the beds in their village were given up, there still wouldn't be enough for all the students in their class.
Jiang Xiaoman replied to a few close classmates with a dark expression, and then chatted privately with the class monitor for a while. His main concern was returning to his hometown early to see if he could lead the villagers in doing something, so—
"I'll go back to school next week to get my things from my dorm. Call me beforehand when we're taking graduation photos and having our farewell dinner."
"You really aren't planning to participate in campus recruitment? Xiaoman, I think with your personality, you'd definitely be a top salesperson if you went into sales! Why don't you give it a try?" The class monitor, knowing his family situation, couldn't help but try to persuade him.
Starting a business back in your hometown is not an easy task. Let's not even talk about poor students like Jiang Xiaoman. In previous years, many people who returned to their hometowns with millions of yuan to start businesses all lost everything. Agricultural investment is large and the return on investment is slow. Without tens of millions of yuan in assets, you simply cannot compete with large-scale agricultural companies.
"I'll give it a try first. It won't cost me anything, I'll just see if we can sell the local specialties from my hometown. If business isn't good back home, I'll ask you guys for help finding me a job." Jiang Xiaoman didn't stand on ceremony with the class monitor. Ever since he started receiving the poverty subsidy in his freshman year, who in the class didn't know about his family's situation?
He knew the class monitor meant well, worried that he would miss out on campus recruitment if he returned to his hometown to start a business. If the business failed, he would definitely not get as many benefits as those offered by campus recruitment when he went to participate in job fairs.
However, Jiang Xiaoman's family situation is not just about being poor. His father, Jiang Youliang, is getting old. He knows that if he goes out to work now, he will definitely not be able to take care of the family. He will be lucky to be able to come back once a year.
He couldn't abandon his father.
Seeing that he couldn't persuade him, the class monitor could only sigh inwardly, then smiled and told him not to hold back, and to share any good food or fun things from his hometown in the group chat first. For example, last year, he played a game, and when he checked his WeChat Moments, Jiang Xiaoman's honey was already sold out...
"Don't worry, I definitely won't let you rich guys get away with this." Jiang Xiaoman felt a warmth in his heart. He felt that the old shaman was right about one thing: he was born with good fortune. Although he was abandoned by his biological parents at birth, he was lucky enough to meet his father. When he was a child, all the grandmothers and aunts in the village helped him make clothes and shoes. When he grew up and went to school, his teachers and classmates also took good care of him.