Chapter 140

　　Li Feng had dug some before, sold some in the county, and eaten some himself. Now they were all gone.

Daxiang didn’t know, as he rarely dug bamboo shoots.

“There are only those bamboo groves, so we’ll just search them one by one.”

　　Li Feng said he was a useless man.

Dàqiáng protested, “Do you know where the bamboo shoots are?”

Li Feng knew, but he asked on purpose.

Dàqiáng: “…”

　　The two of them argued all the way as they walked deeper into the forest.

　　Lu Liu wasn’t embarrassed. He was worried about the man. That was normal.

Moreover, he wasn’t being clingy today. He wasn’t thinking about anything else, just hoping that Li Feng would be safe and sound.

Not being able to embarrass him, Yao Fulang felt bored and started chatting with him about other things.

He had come over today to help with the work.

　　As long as Daqiang could go into the mountains with him, even if it was just to walk around the mountain pass as a test, he would be satisfied.

Lu Liu went inside to get the key and opened the door to the small shop.

Li Feng had unloaded all the goods here, right in the middle of the room.

　　Lu Liu took one of Li Feng’s thin jackets and put it on, then put on a straw hat. He first hung his unwashed clothes on the goods, took a bamboo pole, and hung a straw brush on it to remove the dust and cobwebs from the beams.

Yao Fulang, whose head was uncovered, did not stay with him and asked, “Do you want to boil some hot water?”

　　Lu Liu felt awkward asking him to do it, so he just told him to sit and play for a while.

Yao Fulang heard this and knew he wanted hot water, so he went to the kitchen to boil some.

When he entered the kitchen, he was startled by the mountain of firewood piled inside.

“Is your family planning to cut down all the trees on the mountain?”

　　Lu Liu said no: “He’s been saving it up little by little. There’s just the two of us, so it looks like a lot.”

Yao Fulang frowned: “Then my husband is too lazy. My hands are covered in frostbite. When he comes back tonight, I’m going to scold him.”

　　Lu Liu joked back, “Beat him so he can’t get off the bed!”

　　Everyone was at home today, so Lu Liu looked at the sun and took out the cured meat to dry.

　　Lu Liu noted this down, thinking that next time he went to the carpenter’s house, he would ask the old carpenter to make a few long scoops.

He had seen them at the oil shop before; one scoop was two ounces. The customers had no complaints.

　　After finishing cleaning and sweeping the small shop, he quickly moved the bath tub outside, threw in the clothes he had used to cover the dust, crushed a handful of soap beans, and then worked with Yao Fulang to bring out hot water to soak the clothes.

Setting that aside for now, the two worked together to sort the goods.

　　Rice and flour were placed in one pile, soy sauce and oil in another, dried goods in another, and wine in a separate pile.

Upon entering, rice, flour, and soy sauce were on the left, dried goods on the right, and wine in the center.

The long table was not yet finished, so they made do with this arrangement for now.

　　Lu Liu found it unsightly, so he moved an old table from inside the house and carried it to the small shop with Yao Fulang.

At least with a table, customers would know where to stand when they entered.

When they bought something and needed to pay, the goods could be placed on the table instead of on the ground.

　　Yao Fulang watched him work and finally saw him as a small business owner. He said, “I’ll make you a money basket someday, and you can carry it on your back to collect money.”

　　Lu Liu couldn’t laugh anymore.

Yao Fulang: “…”

Young people can’t take a joke.

With both men away from home, Yao Fulang helped with a lot of physical labor. At noon, Lu Liu invited him to stay for lunch.

Yao Fulang didn’t want to eat for free, so he went home and brought some mushrooms.

　　At noon, he soaked the mushrooms, sliced them, and stir-fried them with vegetables. The flavor was fresh and delicious, no worse than meat dishes.

Lu Liu had rarely eaten mushrooms before, but he finished all the vegetables in the soup bowl at noon.

In the afternoon, he first washed his clothes. Yao Fulang didn’t help him wash them, as they were Li Feng’s clothes, and it wasn’t appropriate to help. Instead, he went to help him boil water.

　　Boiling water was simple; he just had to occasionally add some firewood, and the rest of the time he chatted idly in the courtyard.

　　Yao Fulang listened with an expression that was more surprised than anything else.

He was someone who grew up in the village and had seen many brides and grooms who had married into their community. Those who truly treated dogs like their own children were few and far between.

He must love dogs, otherwise he wouldn’t let Hua Niu run around with him and still feed and care for her well.

　　Therefore, he felt even more fond of Lu Liu and asked him, “Where’s the fur? I’ll spin it for you.”

This was an easy task, so Lu Liu thought for a moment and went back into the house to get the dog fur.

He searched everywhere but couldn’t find the spinning wheel.

He went out into the courtyard, frowned in confusion, and said, “How could it be missing?”

　　These were everyday items.

Yao Fulang didn’t even want to laugh at him anymore: “What kind of spindle does your family need?”

That made sense.

Yao Fulang went home to fetch his own spindle and helped him process the dog hair.

　　The work took a long time, and by the time Lu Liu had hung up the clothes, the sun had already set.

　　He was truly relaxed, flipping through the book with Lu Liu and pointing things out to him: “This is good, this is deep. My sister-in-law said that this is how you can conceive a child.”

Lu Liu’s face turned bright red as he listened. After Yao Fulang left, he went back to his room to put the book away, staring at it for a while before patting his flushed cheeks and coming out to prepare dinner.

　　Li Feng wanted to eat steamed cured meat, so he arranged it for him.

　　It was his first attempt, and there wasn’t much meat, so Lu Liu made two palm-sized stuffed buns. Li Feng’s palm-sized buns.

In the evening, he cooked a firewood meal, steamed the cured meat, and boiled a pot of congee.

There were still some mushrooms left over from lunch, so he stir-fried them for Li Feng to eat.

　　He pre-treated the tofu, added some oil to the pan, and fried it over low heat, then placed it on a plate. It could be used for cooking later.

His older brother told him that some wealthy families in the county fried tofu in oil, removing all the moisture until it became golden brown tofu puffs.

Lu Yang had never tasted it and couldn’t describe the flavor.

　　Lu Liu had never eaten it either, and had never even seen it, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about it and feeling hungry.

He looked at the tofu in the pan and thought to himself that he would definitely not be able to bring himself to deep-fry the whole block of tofu. Next time he made another dish, he would cut the tofu into smaller pieces, such as cubes, and put these small tofu cubes in the oil at the bottom of the pan, which would be enough to fry.

　　He’d fry two pieces to try, and if they were good, he’d give one to Dafeng.

　　They didn’t bring a cart when they left in the morning, so when they got to the mountains, they used whatever materials were nearby, tying some branches together to make a makeshift cart.

There wasn’t much on the cart. The two of them had shot a few mountain chickens and dug up a rabbit burrow. There were also about ten pounds of bamboo shoots.

Li Feng had something in his backpack and asked Lu Liu to take it and eat it.

　　Lu Liu was shorter than him, so the backpack hung behind his leather coat. He had to tiptoe to reach it.

“Persimmons!” he exclaimed with delight.