At that time, the process of making acorn vermicelli by the mountain people was very complicated.

Mother, uncle, and Dachengzi spent more than a day picking up a lot of acorns.

After Sunday, my uncle Wei Hua went back to school.

Mom sat on the ground with a wide mallet as if she was washing clothes on a bluestone slab, and after beating it, the acorn was completely peeled off of her thorny shell coat.

Then the stone trough was replaced, and the second layer of hard shell on the acorn was removed.

The innermost part of the fruit is ground into powder, and it is the raw material for making vermicelli.

Grandpa brought a large bamboo sieve, and worked with my mother to sift through it, and the acorn puree after husking leaked half of the water tank.

Go to the river to wash the puree, filter out the fluttering crushed shells, and enter the fourth step of making vermicelli, the soaking process.

Mom filled the tank with spring water, soaked the mashed acorn puree overnight, and the next day it was ready to grind for flour.

Grandpa held the dry tobacco pouch and put his hands on the grinding frame, going back and forth like an old cow pushing the grinding.

Mom sat on the grinding table, holding a gourd water scoop, and from time to time added water puree to the feed port in the middle of the grinding disc.

The spring water in Dabie Mountain is alkaline, and the locals call it "chopping water".

Soaking acorn puree in spring water not only softens the fruit, but also removes the bitter taste from the acorn pulp, which may be a chemical neutralizing reaction.

In the era when there were no additives, Grandpa Chengzi and their generation of fan craftsmen used such ancient methods.

After a bag of cigarettes, the milky yellow slurry poured down from all sides of the stone mill, gathered in the cracks of the surrounding stone grooves, and finally flowed into the large wooden barrel underneath like a cow giving milk.

Dachengzi and the neighbor's Niu Niu Xiaohua, as well as her brother Huzi, watched the stone mill milk intently, and couldn't wait to come forward and lick it.

This mentality of wanting to try it even though it tastes bitter may be due to children's curiosity.

One morning, this slurry trickled endlessly, filling all the wooden barrels of my grandmother's house.

Next, like grinding tofu, it is filtered, precipitated, and exposed to the sun over and over again to extract the starch in it.

After two or three days, acorn starch, alum, and an appropriate amount of spring water are mixed and beaten into a paste, and the most complicated powder leakage process begins.

Grandpa held a water-scooped bamboo net, grandma lit the fire, and mom kept continuing the dough into the net.

The flour thread is like a noodle in the north, and it is poured into the pot of boiling water below.

Wait for the powder thread in the boiling water to form, like boiled noodles coming to the surface, and it is ready to come out of the pan.

Mom put down the dough, quickly scooped up the scalded vermicelli, poured it into the cold water tank, and then picked up the wooden stick in the tank and stirred it constantly.

"Mom! I'm going to stir it too!"

Dachengzi and a few dolls were watching from the side, and when they saw their mother stirring the wooden stick up and down like a game, they also wanted to come forward and try it.

I don't know if I'm playful, and this step is also a key part of fan production.

If you don't separate the cooling powder lines, it will become a lump of dough, and all the previous work will be wasted.

"Get out of the way, little dead boy, the mound of noodles will fall off and beat you to death!"

Mother Wei Lan was already tired and sweating, and at the critical moment, Chengzi came in unruly, disrupting the original rhythm.

The tiger mother gave Dachengzi a kick mercilessly and kicked him to his grandmother's side.

"Dead girl, where did I provoke you? You kicked him like that!"

Grandma felt sorry for her nephew, stood up from the fire, and scolded her daughter.

With grandma's protection, Dachengzi, who was not in pain, howled.

Cousin Mao Ya scolded him for being a crying child, but he really didn't wronged him.

"The noodles are going to be lumped!" her mother Wei Lan yelled impatiently.

It may be because there are too many pots out of the pot at one time, and the water in the cold water tank has warmed up.

Or I haven't been a fan for a while, and my mother's craft is rusty.

But seeing that she took half a bucket of cold water and poured it into the tank, and then used all the power of the flood to stir it up, she coped with this crisis.

At the end of the day, the yard of my grandmother's house was already full of wooden racks for drying vermicelli.

The color of the vermicelli has also changed from the initial translucent to a faint gold.

The evening breeze in the mountains is coming, and the courtyard is full of the fragrance of fruit powder.

During these days, around the whole process of vermicelli production, the gluttony in Dachengzi's stomach has almost been solved.

I tasted the acorns that had just been plucked from the oak tree, the starch that was ground later, and the powder thread that was dried at the end.

The taste also ranged from bitterness at first, to all kinds of tastes, and then to no taste at the end, but I never tasted the sweetness that Dachengzi wanted.

The experience and pursuit of human taste was the taste of mother's milk at the earliest.

When it grows up a little, it will become sweet, and there are almost no dolls in the world who don't like sweets.

Then the smell of cigarettes, wine, tea, coffee, and women's perfumes.

As you grow, your taste preferences seem to change slightly at each stage.

Just like the whole process of a person's life, old age, sickness and death, joys, sorrows, ups and downs, is a complete life.

There are many sweet ingredients in life, and it is natural to consciously look for some bitter taste.

What we usually call "doing" or self-inflicted guilt may be the embodiment of this subconscious.

Happiness sometimes doesn't have to be sweet, it can also be bitter, astringent, or even sour.

Wei Lan, her mother, who was uncomfortable without working all day, finally stopped and looked like she was back to her parents' home.

Holding a child and a prosperous child wandering in the results of the courtyard, turning over the fans who were drying from time to time, his face was full of relaxed smiles.

Or accompany grandma to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables, go to grandpa's bamboo club and say hello to some uncles and seniors, and go to the neighbors to cheer for homework.

Chengzi does not stop, and today's goal is the main peak of Daqingshan, Heishi Village.

Huzi said that there was a temple on the top of the mountain, and there was a large beehive on the stone wall of the temple, which contained honey sweeter than brown sugar.

Nariko is so impressed by bees that he has countless memories of being chased and bitten by wasps, and he also confuses wasps with bees.

But he still couldn't resist the temptation of honey, got on the thief ship of the Huzi brothers and sisters, and is now walking on the way up the mountain.

There are no stone steps, and a barren wild path winds between the ridge and the valley.

From time to time, there was the sound of mountain springs tinkling overhead, and in the blue sky, in addition to a few white clouds, there were two eagles hovering far or near.

Hearing from her mother that the eagle in the mountains can take away the child, Dachengzi suddenly became scared, and hurriedly stepped forward and grabbed Xiaohua's sleeve.

"Chengzi, what are you afraid of?"

Xiaohua Niuniu was changing her teeth, and the gaps of her two front teeth were cutely exposed, and she asked Chengzi with a smile.

"Eagle! My mother said that eagles eat children's eyes!"

Chengzi pointed to the flying eagle in the sky in horror and said to Xiaohua.

"Eagles don't eat children! They eat chickens and rabbits! Your mother teases you!"

"Dachengzi!Niuniu!Let's hurry up! Adults say that there are red-haired savages on this road!"

Huzi was two or three years older than Chengzi and them, and he was carrying a bamboo pole to pound the honeycomb in front.

The vision on both sides slowly widened, and the three little babies had already come to the ridge of the Black Stone Village.

"What does the red-haired savage look like?" Dachengzi had obviously heard the story of the savage, and he was most afraid of the red-haired savage, but he still couldn't help but ask Huzi.

"They have red hair and big mouths, and they look a bit like monkeys!" replied Huzi in front.

"Look at Naruko! The red-haired savage is behind your ass!

The naughty little flower saw that Chengzi was timid and even afraid of the eagle, so she deliberately scared him.

He rolled his eyelids with both hands, turned back to make a devilish look, and ran away grinning.

"Ahh

Dachengzi was really frightened, howled, and caught up with Niuniu, his mind full of the imaginary figure of the red-haired savage.

The three little babies walked up the hill noisily all the way, the ancient temple with stone walls and black tiles was already in front of them, and two monks, one old and one young, were taking care of the autumn grain in the fields next to them.

At that time, the Black Stone Village had not yet been developed, and there were very few pilgrims who usually went up the mountain, and there were only two monks on the hilltop temple, and their usual days were mainly self-sufficient.

"Little benefactor, where are you going?"

The little monk obviously didn't have a long time to become a monk, and he was too lonely at the top of the mountain, and when he saw Dachengzi and them, he was suddenly interested, and he stood on the ground with a hoe and asked with a smile.

"Honey, honey!"

Huzi stared at the little monk a little apprehensively, and said in a slurred voice.

After all, this hive grows on the wall of someone's house, and if the little monk stops it, they will run away in vain.

After hearing this, the little monk put down his hoe, went to his master not far away, muttered a few words with the Buddha in his hand and ran back.

"Come with me! If you smash the pole, the hive will be ruined, and you won't be able to escape! Bees can sting people to death in late autumn!"

The little monk happily walked to the front and walked side by side with Huzi.

Leaving the master's sight, the little monk no longer has the style of a monk, just like the neighbor's big brother.

"I'll cut it for you, little monk, I'll rely on this bit of wild honey to satisfy my hunger now!"

The little monk went back to the temple to get a sickle and a bamboo ladder, and took the three gluttonous babies to the back wall of the temple.

But see a sieve-sized honeycomb coiled over the bluestone wall, golden in color.

Overwhelmed by the years, the wild honey flowed down the wall, leaving a greasy black mark.

The little monk motioned for the three of them to stay away, and he quietly climbed along the bamboo ladder to the vicinity of the hive.

The knife fell, and a bowl-sized piece of nest honey had landed firmly in his hand.

And the dense bee colony on the hive did not move at all.

With Dachengzi's experience of smashing the hornet's nest, the honeycomb should have exploded at this time, and he also hugged his head tightly and made a dodge.

"Honey is coming! Eat it! This thing is more satisfying than dates!"

The little monk was still childlike, and used a sickle to cut the nest honey into four parts, and he and the three children each had a piece.

I didn't want any containers, but sat under the shade of the tree in front of the temple and gobbled it up.

Dachengzi has never eaten such a sweet snack, he is simply drunk, and it seems that this trip to his grandmother's house is not in vain!

After eating the honey, Chengzi also stretched out his tongue and licked the dirty hands stained with honey inside and out, before sitting down satisfied.

"I will often come up to play in the future, and I will collect honey for you to eat!"

The little monk looked back at the master who was working in the distance, and whispered to Chengzi and them.

"Little monk, what do you like, let's go up the mountain and bring it to you!"

Niuniu asked in a milky voice, the little monk's honey-harvesting technique had convinced them.

"I love books, "Red Sun", "Resurrection", "Muslim Funeral", you can't get it!"

The three little babies have calmed down, and the concepts of books and novels have not yet appeared in the dictionary of their lives.

"Clear-hearted!

The old monk over there thought that the little monk was lazy, and was already calling out to him impatiently.

"That's it, come and play!"

The little monk hurriedly agreed, got up from the stone, and ran towards the field next to the bamboo forest.

Later, Wang Jiacheng learned from others that the little monk named Shi Chengxin on the Black Stone Village, formerly known as Chen Xin, had his parents killed in that movement.

When the neighbors saw that Chen Xin was pitiful, they sent him up the mountain to become a monk.

After the reform and opening up, relatives from overseas came back and picked him up.

Since then, there has been no news of him.