After coming out of Dr. Zhu's house, Li Ping'an took people directly up the mountain. The road up the mountain was quite gentle. Ji Xiang took little Ruyi and walked slowly without worrying too much about Ruyi falling.
There is almost no firewood to collect on the side of the first hill near Zhutao Village. Hundreds of new people have settled there, not to mention all the firewood and wild vegetables.
Little Ruyi continued walking up the mountain bit by bit, and soon Xiao Ruyi got tired. Li Ping'an simply picked her up and put her on his shoulders to let her ride the horse. Occasionally he saw a yellow gardenia, so he asked Ji Xiang to pick it off.
This thing is a natural food pigment, and it also has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxifying. The bean cake he wants to make needs to be colored with yellow gardenia. The appearance of the bean cake is golden, which is very pleasing.
Finding a place that seemed to have a lot of firewood, Li Pingan put Xiao Ruyi down and asked her and Jixiang to pick up twigs on the ground. He and Zhang Xiaoshan each climbed up the tree with a wood chopper and chopped twigs like monkeys.
Ji Xiang is sensible and arranges the fine firewood he picked up neatly, with one pile, two sticks and three sticks... The pile is almost complete, and a new pile is placed next to it.
This is the firewood she picked up for herself. She will let her elder brother tie up these two piles of thin firewood, and she can carry them home.
Little Ruyi didn't know, so she happily picked up and threw firewood one by one. Seeing that there were more and more firewood, she felt that it was beyond her endurance, so Jixiang quickly called out to Ruyi to stop.
"That's enough, that's enough. Stop picking it up. I won't be able to carry it anymore!"
Little Ruyi paused, blinked, and finally understood what the elder sister meant. She rolled her eyes and continued to pick up twigs. However, she did not throw them on the two neatly stacked firewood, but placed them separately.
Ji Xiang understood immediately, "Do you want to carry firewood too?"
Little Ruyi nodded repeatedly, "The big pot has it, Brother Xiaoshan has it, the eldest sister has it, Ruyi must have it too!"
"No, you are too young. Brother said that children should not carry heavy things, otherwise they will not grow taller!" Ji Xiang objected with a straight face.
Little Ruyi raised her hands to cover her ears. If she doesn't want to listen, I just want to carry firewood!
Jixiang was not used to Ruyi, so he opened Ruyi's hand and said, "If you don't grow taller, you will always be as tall as your big brother's butt. You can smell big brother's farts. Do you still want to grow taller?"
Before Xiao Ruyi said anything, Li Ping'an, who was a few steps away in the tree, didn't want to hear it anymore. He shouted dissatisfied with a dark face: "What are you talking about? I can still grow taller. Please change your excuse!"
Jixiang sticks out his tongue, slightly.
Little Ruyi followed suit and stuck out her tongue, slightly.
Li Ping'an: "I'm still thinking of picking peaches after gathering firewood. If you do this, I won't go!"
When the two sisters heard this, they quickly admitted their mistake.
Li Ping'an was speechless for a while, "Okay, you just sit there and play. Jixiang, you are optimistic about Ruyi. When the elder brother is finished, I will take you to pick peaches."
There are many wild peach trees on the mountain. Some are in full forest, and some are solitary and enjoying themselves. After Li Ping'an finished cutting the firewood, he and Zhang Xiaoshan found a peach tree nearby with Ji Xiang Ruyi. There were not many fruits on the tree. Those that fell on the ground may have been picked by someone. They picked a few that were in good condition and then went to find other peach trees.
As he picked it up, he walked far away without realizing it. A gust of mountain wind blew by, and Jixiang asked in surprise: "What does it smell like?"
"What does it smell like?" Li Ping'an was startled.
Auspicious: "There is fragrance in the wind."
Li Ping'an sniffed, and sure enough, there was a very light fragrance. He almost couldn't smell it even though he smelled it so deliberately. He immediately stared at Ji Xiang as if he had seen a ghost. Is this girl's nose so sensitive?
I subconsciously figured out whether Ji Xiang was born in the year of the dog.
Jixiang felt uncomfortable being stared at by Li Ping'an like this, and quickly said: "Brother, let's go find where the fragrance is coming from, shall we?"
Li Ping'an just put away his gaze and took a look at the sky. It was not too early but not too late, and he agreed, "Then let's go look for it. No matter whether we find it or not, we will go back in a quarter of an hour."
Ji Xiang nodded repeatedly.
"The wind is blowing from the east." Zhang Xiaoshan said.
So he walked to the east, and within a quarter of an hour, he saw a valley with peach trees in it. Li Ping'an's first reaction was a little regretful. If the peach blossoms were in bloom, the scenery here would definitely be picturesque and pleasing to the eye. But it was not bad at this time. He found several laurel trees in bloom in the valley, with small clusters of yellow flowers hanging densely on the branches, contrasting with the spiky green leaves.
"It's the sweet-scented osmanthus that's blooming." Zhang Xiaoshan glanced at Li Ping'an, ready to make a move, "What should I say?"
"What else can I say? Tomorrow we will ask in the county if there are any sweet-scented osmanthus harvesters. If so, we can catch them and sell them for money." Li Ping'an has never made sweet-scented osmanthus cakes. He can probably guess the method, but he hasn't made it yet. However, the main thing is that this thing also existed in this era, but it was not called Osmanthus Cake, but Guanghan Cake. He bought it to eat. The pastry shop made it well, but he was not confident that he could compete with those skillful chefs.
It's better to sell osmanthus directly, something that grows naturally, at zero cost, and without worrying about losing money at all.
Hearing that he could sell it for money, Jixiang was very happy and asked for credit: "Brother, am I very powerful?"
"Yeah, yes, it's very impressive. If it weren't for your nose, we wouldn't have known that these osmanthus trees were blooming for a while." Li Ping'an praised, "If we can sell the osmanthus flowers, my eldest brother will buy you candy. I’ll prepare delicious food for you during the Mid-Autumn Festival.”
Jixiang waved his hand quickly, "No need to buy malt candies. Malt candies are very expensive. Brother, you should use them to buy Third Brother a apprenticeship gift first."
"Children, don't worry too much. You have to believe that the elder brother will only buy you candy when he has spare money. In the past two days, the elder brother didn't have much money, so didn't he buy it?" Li Ping'an freed up a hand to touch it. Touching Jixiang's head, he didn't want Jixiang, who was only five years old, to be so sensible from the bottom of his heart. The more sensible a child is, the more irritating he is.
It's good to be like Xiao Ruyi, who doesn't hide her love for caramel, and is disappointed when she goes to the county town and comes back empty-handed, but she doesn't mess around, and can happily hold and chew a wild peach with a slightly sour taste. long time.
At their age, it's enough for them to know a little bit, but they don't need to be too sensible. At least it should be like this for his younger siblings. To be selfish, he feels that if his younger siblings worry so much at a young age, then he, the eldest brother, has not done a good job, or has not done well enough.
Jixiang tilted his head and thought for a moment, and felt that his elder brother was right, so he was full of expectations, "Brother, you must sell the sweet-scented osmanthus and buy us candy! And don't forget to prepare delicious food for us during the Mid-Autumn Festival! "
"What's delicious?" Xiao Ruyi asked curiously with her eyes wide open.
"Isn't it enough that you have caramel? Don't ask, you can't tell if you ask!"
Xiao Ruyi blinked, "Big~pot~~"
"No more peaches for you!"
"I was wrong, I won't ask!"
"..."
