Chapter 55

The next day, the family began to make steamed buns. They prepared a full steamer of the buns, enough for them to eat for several days. The steamed buns with chili paste tasted very good.

In the end, there was still a lot of flour left. Considering that as no one would stay at home these days, the flour might be eaten by rats, Xu Ran decided to make pancakes with all the leftover.

Xu Ran knew that potherb egg pancakes were both nutritious and delicious.

There were no eggs at home, so Xu Ran took some money out and let Tangtang and Guoguo go to several villagers’ homes to buy some. As for the price, it was usually thirty pence for an egg. In the village, many people sold eggs for money instead of eating by themselves. Since this price was reasonable, of course, everyone was happy to sell eggs to them.

Tangtang and Guoguo were very smart. They knew that they should give priority to those familiar families. Thus, they not only went to the village head’s house to buy eggs, but also brought back some home-made food sent by Daddy Chen.

On the way home, the two kids were walking and munching food. How happy they were.

Now that the eggs were ready, Xu Ran immediately started to make pancakes. He first chopped the wild vegetables into pieces, mixed them into the flour, and then added eggs as well as seasoning to stir them together. Finally, he fried them in the pan.

The pot was too small for him to spread out the dough. Thus the pancake was not very thin, but it was something that Liu Tong, Tangtang and Guoguo had never eaten before, so they all felt very amazed.

In the end, they had to use two large plates to hold the pancakes. At noon, they ate one share of the pancakes with chili paste. As for the other one, Xu Ran planned to send it to others, especially the Wu Mei’s Family. After all, they had to ask them to help take care of their two children.

He also sent some to the village head’s family, who kindly sold the eggs to them.

In the evening, after dinner, Xu Ran and Liu Tong took Tangtang as well as Guoguo to Wu Mei’s house, accompanied by four dogs and a rabbit. During the daytime, they had communicated with Wu Mei in advance, and the money was also given to him. Naturally, Wu Mei would not disagree about it.

It was the first night since Tangtang and Guoguo was young that they wouldn’t sleep with their parents. They both inevitably felt nervous.

The two children were still young. Wu Mei was worried that they would be afraid of being alone, so he specially arranged Dahu to accompany them. In the end, after tossing and turning in bed for a while, they fell asleep.

Here in the bamboo house, however, both Xu Ran and Liu Tong missed their kids so much that they were not able to sleep, “Tongtong,  do you think Tangtang and Guoguo will cry?”

Liu Tong was also worried about this actually. Hearing Xu Ran’s words, he became more worried and directly sat up.

Now it was getting cold at night. As Liu Tong moved, the cold wind blew in. Xu Ran also shivered with cold. He then sat up and held Liu Tong in his arms, “OK, OK, don’t worry. I won’t tease you now. Let’s do something else.”

With that, Xu Ran fell onto the bed with Liu Tong in his arms, and then the wooden bed began to creak under both of them.

Liu Tong got up at dawn the next day. Xu Ran didn’t move so much last night, so Liu Tong was not so tired today. Originally, he was stronger than Xu Ran.

After breakfast was ready, Liu Tong packed up all the solid food. Yesterday, they had prepared the baskets and the bags they would take with them. At the moment, Liu Tong checked everywhere in and out of the house. After daybreak, he went to wake Xu Ran up for breakfast.

After breakfast, they set off with their baskets on their backs.  Liu Tong also brought some tools like bows, arrows and machetes. At first, he wanted to bring a quilt as well, because they were going to spend the cold night in the mountains. But considering that there would be too many things to carry when they came back, he only took with them two thick clothes. They both believed they could light a fire to keep warm at night

The saying that those living on a mountain live off the mountain was never just a talk. However, it was easier to live outside the mountain. But because there were often people coming, most of the edible things had been taken away. They could only go to the higher and deeper mountains where no one went, where they could get more things edible.

Needless to say, they were able to find potatoes here. Although the leaves of its plants were withered now, Xu Ran still saw many of them. There were many herbs here too, as well as peppers that could be used for seasoning.

Seeing all these, Xu Ran was very excited. He wanted to start picking immediately. However, Liu Tong reminded him that he could just pick them when they came back, because at the time being, they had nothing to pack them.

Xu Ran agreed and obediently followed Liu Tong to go deep into the mountains. Along the way, they saw a lot of pheasants and hares. Liu Tong also hunted several of them, so that if they were hungry, they could have barbecue.

Liu Tong led Xu Ran forward until they came to a large open area, where Xu Ran could only see something red all over the mountains.