Chapter 20

Carrying baskets with them, Xu Ran set out with the group of children. Outside there, however, he did not know which direction to go better, so he asked, “Dahu, where can we get pigweeds?”

“I know, I know. Come with me. I’ll show you the way,” Dahu ran to the front, wanting to take them to find greenfeed for pigs.

Outside, the children ran around like wild horses without reins. Even Tangtang and Guoguo were so attracted that they could not help but join them. Fortunately, there was no one on the road at the moment, so there was no need to worry that they would bump into some pedestrians. Thus Xu Ran just let them be.

In his heart, Xu Ran was silently calculating how much pigweed he needed to get this time. Besides Wu Mei, there were still two other families that he needed to help. It seemed that he had to do a lot of work this afternoon.

The place Dahu took them to was behind the mountain, which blocked the sunshine. It was a barren land with many wild grass. Xu Ran even saw many wild vegetables. He couldn’t control the other kids, so he just told Tangtang and Guoguo to look after them.

Xu Ran had no intention of letting the children work with him, but the children were quite sensible. They all worked around Xu Ran to find the greenfeed for pigs.

Xu Ran worked very quickly. After all, he had practiced this when he was young. Although he had changed his body, he still remembered the working technique.

He even picked out the edible wild vegetables and put them aside.

Xu Ran also saw houttuynia cordata, which was good for people’s appetite. Both its leaves and roots were edible, but now that its leaves were old and the roots were almost the same. Xu Ran cut the leaves as pigweeds. As for the roots, Xu Ran called Tangtang, “Tangtang, come here.”

Tangtang was looking for pigweeds. Hearing Xu Ran calling him, he immediately ran over while wiping his sweat, “Dad, yes?”

“Tangtang, go back with Dahu and get a hoe here. I have found something for us to eat for dinner.”

Although Tangtang didn’t know what his dad was talking about, he still ran to find Dahu and then came back with him carrying a hoe.

In order to get some time to dig cordate houttuynia, Xu Ran sped up his work on the pigweeds. They had carried here two baskets. Xu Ran figured that only two baskets of pigs’ greenfeed was not enough for three families. However, he did not care so much. He first tried to fill up the two baskets, then went on to cut another large amount of pigweeds and put them aside. He thought that if they could not carry them back, they could wait until Liu Tong came back in the evening to carry the rest.

By the time he got three full baskets of greenfeed for pigs, it had taken him totally three hours, and his hands were aching stiff.

However, Xu Ran didn’t say anything in front of the children.

He took the hoe that Tangtang and Dahu had got for him and began to dig cordate houttuynia. He asked the older children to pick them up next to him while he just focused on digging.

“Tangtang, Dahu, you are going to pick up the tender ones. As for the tough ones, just throw them into the pile of pigweeds, okay?”

“Got it, dad.”

“Yes, Uncle Xu, I got it.”

The two children replied in a crisp voice.

By the time they got a lot of cordate houttuynia, the sun had already set. However, in summer, it was getting dark later. Even if the sun set, it would take a while before it would get dark.

However, they didn’t bring anything to carry cordate houttuynia. Therefore, Xu Ran looked for some longer grass and tied them up one by one. Then he asked each of the children to carry a bunch of cordate houttuynia, while he himself was carrying a basket full of pigweeds.

Xu Ran was worried about whether the left pigweeds there would be taken away by someone else, so Guoguo volunteered to stay to keep watch on them

Xu Ran thought that as long as he came back quickly, everything would be fine, so he agreed and left Liu Qing’s dog for Guoguo’s company.