CH 6

Chapter 6 – A Firefighter’s Skills (1)

After the children were left without food for a day, they were all very hungry.   She quickly cooked a pot of mushroom soup for them to fill their stomachs and then calculated how much she could earn from the basketful of produce gathered from the mountains.

However, looking at the way the hungry children were eating, Li Jing’er knew that this would not work.  She had to earn more than five taels of silver in the shortest time so that she could find a stable place for the children to stay.

So she thought of catching snakes.

For 8 to 9 years in the early part of her previous life as a firefighter, she had to catch snakes.  In a year, she had to make at least 10 visits to residences, factory buildings, and the mountains to catch snakes.  Most of the snakes were not venomous like pythons and there were also common snakes like red snakes, green bamboo snakes, etc., and she was able to capture all of them.

Because she had caught snakes before, so she was skilled and set up homemade snake traps nearby.  On the first try, a total of 10 snakes were caught, 7 of them were not poisonous while 3 of them were poisonous.

As a result, she earned 7 taels of silver.

After gaining success on the first try, success followed the second and third times.  Her skills in catching snakes got better and better and she became more adept at venturing into the mountains.  The more snakes she caught, her courage grew and she even dared to face the big snakes alone that curled around her ankles.

If anyone is to pass by and sees this, they would think she is courting death!

Soon she saved 30 taels and planned to buy a single-door courtyard house.  She wanted to buy a house to settle down in Shuiyuan Village outside of Yangliu County.

While she was negotiating the price for the house, she went up the mountains once again.  This time, she encountered a huge python with a thick body that could swallow a whole man.  She had no choice but to run into the mountains to avoid a confrontation with the snake.

Unexpectedly, she slipped and fell down a slope.  After rolling down like a ball for a good distance, her fall was finally halted by a thicket and she was knocked unconscious for about half an hour.

When she regained consciousness, the corpse of the huge python was hanging on the mountain wall.  It probably chased after her too hastily and could not stop in time, so it fell.  The python’s belly was cut open by a protruding sharp stone with its intestinal organs hanging out and it was motionless.

When Li Jing’er pushed through the thicket to find a way out she accidentally came upon a cave that seemed to be once inhabited by people.  Inside was a stone bed so huge that ten people could sleep on it.  On the bed were some grain stalks that had rotted and the rags that were strewn on the bed like a mattress were black and emitted a sickening nauseous smell.

Inside were stoves, air vents, simple pots, and pans as well as water tanks and stone urns.  With some cleaning up, the place could be habitable.

Then she went outside the cave to look around again.  What surprised her more was a spring she found not far from the cave and the water was gushing and flowing into a small clear pool.  That meant she need not have to travel too far to collect water.  The water was sweet and cooling and drinking more of the water would help to relieve cough and clear the lungs.

She also discovered two other natural caves within that cave.  One was very cold as if it was keeping a thousand-year-old iceberg inside and anyone who stays in the cave for too long might be frozen into ice.  It was suitable to be used as a refrigerator.

The other cave was extremely dry.  It was so dry that not even a drop of moisture could be found on the ground.  It was suitable to be used as a storage room where food, dry goods, and even smoked meat could be kept.

***☆☆☆***

“Younger Sister, aren’t you suppose to look after Shuangyue?”

Shuangming was very anxious and worried that their little sister who could never keep still would fall off the stone bed.

“Elder Brother, Youngest Sister is asleep and won’t wake up even if you disturb her.”

Shuangyue is just like a pig that only likes to eat and sleep and fight with her over their elder brother.

When Shuangming heard, he grinned.  “That’s good, then we won’t disturb her.”

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“Mother, Elder Brother had warmed up the cake that was made this morning.  We also cooked wild vegetable soup and the snake soup that Mother always cook for us.  Mother, when we grow up, we can help Mother to work.”

Shuangzhen’s eyes were sparkling and showed a look that seemed to be seeking her praise.

“You’re good children, Shuangming and Shuangzhen are Mother’s little sweethearts.”

Ai, she is most vulnerable to the elderly and children!  The concept of respecting the elderly and cherishing the young is deeply rooted in her mind.

Living in the mountains has little effect on Li Jing’er.  She loves this kind of life in the mountains and enjoys having the mountains and nature as neighbors.

When she was Li Shuangjing, the fire department would arrange for field survival training and hold field survival training camps twice a year.  Once a year, there would also be an annual overseas evaluation internship on limb-coordination improvements and on-the-spot response during rescue work.

She loves outdoor sports and goes camping in the mountains whenever she has the time.  Therefore, living in a cave is an opportunity she could never hope to have and she truly regards the stone house as her home.

“Yeah!  I’m a good child!”  Shuangzhen smiled with squinted eyes.

“Mother, I’m a good child too.  I’ll listen to Mother.”  Shuangming who was afraid of being left out hurried forward.

“Alright, you’re good as well.”  She stroked the children’s head one by one to soothe their unease.

“But there’s one thing you have to remember.  Do whatever you can but you’re not to touch anything hot, not to carry anything too heavy, keep away from hot soup and hot water and……..”

“……..If you’re scalded on the hands or any parts of the body, you should rinse, soak and cover the wound before using water from the gushing spring to pour on it.”  The two children completed the sentence in unison.

Li Jing’er nodded and was satisfied with the children’s successful education.

“Mother doesn’t want you to get hurt.  In the future, wait for Mother to come home and cook.  You’re still young.”

“We want to help.”  Shuangming pursed his lips.  He did not like to be treated as a child.  He was the only boy in the family and wanted to protect his mother and sisters.

Shuangming who had forgotten his past regarded Li Jing’er who treated him well as his biological mother and regarded Shuangzhen and Shuangyue as his biological sisters.  They were a family without a father.

“Yes…..help…..don’t want Mother to get tired.”  Shuangzhen was learning to talk.  Her words were sweet and she was thinking that she was old enough to help her mother.

The two children had gone through suffering.  One was abandoned by her parents and was very fearful that no one would want her.  She was very attached to Li Jing’er, always following her around, and felt very insecure.  The other had a high fever for several days and drank a lot of bitter medicine.  Although his memories were gone, he could still vaguely remember the hard times living in a dilapidated house.

In the past year, they went through a lot of experiences, from being scorned to settling down and the mentality of the two children had changed drastically.

It is said that children of poor families will learn to take care of the family very early.

The four of them, the mother and the three children, were indeed poor.  At that time, they were so poor that they only had 4 coins left and could not even afford to rent a room and the four of them had to share a piece of flatbread.  So Li Jing’er was forced to leave the children behind and went up the mountains to catch snakes to support the family.

When they left Minjiang County, it was midsummer and by the time they arrived in Yangliu County, it was already late autumn.  This part of the journey took them three months on foot and along the way, several children joined them.  Even grown men could not endure the hardship of sleeping in the open air, let alone the group of children who had yet to reach the height of the waist.

Those who had experienced hardships knew to cherish, understand and appreciate one’s good fortune.

Fortunately, autumn is the harvest season.  Even if it was a little late and approaching winter, the mountains that were not affected by the drought and floods were full of edible wild fruits and vegetables and the ground was covered with fallen chestnuts.  There were also little animals scurrying around busily gathering food to prepare for winter.

When Li Jing’er went up the mountain, she carried the child on her back with the bamboo basket in her hand and led the two older children to pick up chestnuts and walnuts.  Then she left the child she was carrying on the ground and climbed up the trees to pick persimmons, sour pears, and other fruits.  After filling up the bamboo basket, she tied the child in front of her then carried the bamboo basket on her back, and holding one child in each hand, she took them back to the cave.

On the way back, she saw a beehive and was afraid that the children would be stung.  So when the children were sleeping in the afternoon, she secretly prepared some hay to smoke the bees.  She was good at removing beehives and being a firefighter, it was a required basic skill.

Generally speaking, firefighters are only required to fight the fire to save people and put out fires.  But modern society regarded them as omnipotent superhumans.  Other than catching bees and snakes, they even have to help to retrieve keys that had fallen into the drains, help to free people’s feet that were caught in escalators, assist the elderly who are immobile, and even have to be on standby when a couple quarrels just in case they set fire to the house due to a disagreement……….

After going through all sorts of emergencies, Li Jing’er was trained to be calm and it helped to sharpen her skill and ability in doing all sorts of things.  Perhaps it could be said that she is not an expert but it is enough for her to deal with daily life.

Before the arrival of winter, she had already turned the cave into a stone house and made several trips to move necessities such as white rice, white flour, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, etc. into the mountain home.

She also stored up a lot of firewood and bought two quilts and some fabrics with the silver taels she earned from selling the snakes.  Whenever she was free, she would hurriedly make some clothes so that they could have a change of clothing.

She was well aware of the biting cold in winter.  Just depending on the cotton-padded jacket alone would not keep them warm and if the jacket gets wet accidentally, it would not be easy to dry and would become very heavy.

Therefore, she went to the village and collected duck feathers, goose feathers, and wool and then stuffed them into the jackets that were supposed to be filled with cotton.

The feathers were not much but it was still enough to fill her jacket and the jackets of the children and there was still some leftover that could only be made into a small square cushion suitable for the youngest child, Shuangyue, to use.

Earlier on when she found the place, there were several unused stone urns inside the cave.  With the thought that leaving the stone urns unused was a waste, she bought 40 to 50 heads of Chinese cabbage from a farmer in the village at the foot of the mountain.  At the same time, she also bought some common vegetables like cowpeas, cucumbers, radishes, eggplants, mustard greens, etc., and then made some Korean-style kimchi and Japanese-style rice bran pickles.

Later when the mountains become inaccessible, the children could still feed on the preserved vegetables.

She did not buy any chili peppers as there were many in the mountain and made two kinds of kimchi, spicy and non-spicy, to satisfy the tastebuds and also supplement the nutrition of the vegetables.