In order to let the chickens adapt to the eating habits in Songbai Mountain in the future, Wang Shaodong decided to catch some small insects for the chickens to eat.

The centipede experiment was a success, and the chicks had a strong natural affection for the bugs. The newly hatched chicks will use their yellow and tender little paws to shave around on the ground to find small insects to eat.

After the sting, a lot of small insects began to appear in the soil, and when the stones were opened, scorpions, centipedes, grasshoppers, turtles, rat women, earthworms, etc., began to come out and move.

When Wang Shaodong was a child before, every year after the sting, the most longed-for thing was to go to the mountains to catch scorpions.

Yimeng whole scorpion is the best Chinese medicinal material, and some people in the Longting medicinal material market will open stalls to buy, and some people will go to the countryside to buy in the village. When Wang Shaodong was in elementary school, the price of a female scorpion could be sold for about one dime to three cents. A diligent third-grade elementary school student, starting from the sting, until Kuailixia, a total of two months, can catch a hundred big female scorpions, and can sell them for twenty yuan.

In the nineties, twenty dollars was a lot of money for a teenager. When there was a material exchange meeting in Chengzipo Town, the ticket for the song and dance hall was only five yuan, and the ticket for the circus was only two yuan. For two yuan, you can buy an air pistol that fights BB bullets, and for five yuan, you can even give a drink to relatives and friends who are married.

However, in the 21st century, as the money becomes more and more hairy, and the purchase price of scorpions is still the same, and the new children are becoming more and more pampered, so there are fewer and fewer children who come to the mountains to catch scorpions.

There is another reason, in the nineties, every winter, there are still a lot of people who go to the mountains to pick up firewood, and then in the spring of the new year, the hay, sour jujube trees, thorn strips and other things on the mountain are cut, and the whole mountain looks bare, and the parents of the children do not see that there is any danger, so they will allow the children to go to the mountains to play while catching scorpions to earn pocket money.

From the second grade of primary school to high school, Wang Shaodong would catch 100 scorpions every year in exchange for 20 or 30 yuan of pocket money.

But now, in 2003, this traditional children's playground that looks very fun is in danger of being lost.

By 2003, wealthy families were giving their children a few dollars at a time, and earning twenty or thirty yuan in two months was no longer very attractive to children.

There are many ways for children in the mountains to earn pocket money, and catching scorpions in the mountains is just one of them. There is a large steel mill in Gangcheng County, so there are many steel-related industrial chains in the whole Gangcheng County, such as scrap iron collection stations in every village. Therefore, picking up scrap iron in the garbage heap is also one of the ways for children in each village to earn pocket money. Luzhong City is the country's famous pepper production area, every year to autumn, the mountain pepper needs to hire a lot of manpower to pick, the labor cost of picking a pound of pepper is five cents, skilled pepper workers can pick more than 30 pounds of pepper a day, basically can be equivalent to the income of a day of construction. And like a teenager, who makes seven or eight pounds a day, he also has an income of four or five yuan, which is much more efficient than catching scorpions.

In addition, picking coke on the railway, approving sorbet from the ice cream shop in Dazhai Village to sell it in the village in the summer, digging herbs such as Bupleurum chinensis, Polygonum multiflorum, mugwort and so on to sell are also the means used by the children to earn pocket money when Wang Shaodong was young.

Wang Shaodong and Zheng Hui left a note for Zheng Tao, and then took two large empty plastic bottles and went up the mountain.

On the way, they found small insects from under the stones, whether they were turtle insects or silkworms, they did not refuse to come, and they all used tweezers to clip them into plastic bottles.

Zheng Tao slept until twelve o'clock at noon, got up and looked, found a note on the dining table, and picked it up to read.

"Zheng Tao, your brother and I went to the mountains to catch insects, remember to add water to the chickens. ”

During the day, the weather is warmer, just use the electric heater to keep the temperature of the coop warm, and then the stove only needs to add more coal, suppress the fire, and then hook it at night.

After reading the note, Zheng Tao hurriedly went to the chicken coop to look, and saw that the water in the drinking bucket was about to bottom out, Zheng Tao hurriedly carried the bucket into the chicken coop to fill the water.

"Really, they went to the mountains to catch some bugs, and they didn't know how to wake me up before leaving. ”

Zheng Tao complained to himself while busy filling the drinking bucket.

"Hey, Zheng Tao, why are you alone? What about your brother and Dongzi?"

Zheng Tao was busy pouring water, when he suddenly heard the corner of the plastic sheet being lifted, and then a head poked in from the outside. When he looked up, it turned out to be Wang Shaodong's mother.

"Oh, auntie, my brother Dongzi and my brother went to the mountains to catch insects. ”

Zhao Shiling frowned: "Catch insects?" Your brother Dongzi's heart is really big enough, there are 500 chicks here, and it hasn't been two weeks yet, so you have the heart to say that you want to catch insects?"

Zheng Tao filled all the drinking buckets with water, and then walked out of the chicken coop more than an hour before the feeding time.

"Auntie, why are you here?"

After Zheng Tao came out of the chicken coop, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at Zhao Shiling and asked.

"Are you going to give the chicks an epidemic tonight, and your uncle asked me to come up and ask if I want to help?"

"Oh, this matter, Brother Dongzi said it a long time ago, this matter is enough for the two of us, and we don't need your help. Auntie, let's not be in here, Re, let's go to the other side of the room and talk. ”

Zhao Shiling nodded, and also felt that it was too hot in the chicken coop.

After arriving at Wang Shaodong's dormitory next door, Zheng Tao saw that there were a lot of potatoes next to the board at the door, and on the square table where they usually eat, there were plastic bags of pancakes and more than a dozen steamed buns on the baggage.

"Auntie, I Dongzi brother said, in the future, we will go down to get it ourselves when we have no food, the mountain is far away, and it is too hard for you to send it over. ”

"Zheng Tao, Zheng Tao, you can talk more than your Dongzi brother. ”

Zhao Shiling saw that her son's dormitory was a little messy, so she started to clean up without saying a word, and Zheng Tao saw that he was busy and helped clean up.

The two of them were packing up, and suddenly heard Wang Shaodong's voice outside.

"Zheng Tao, Zheng Tao, have you added water to the drinking bucket of the chickens?"

When Zheng Tao heard this, he heard that Wang Shaodong was coming, so he hurriedly greeted him and said: "Brother Dongzi, I added it, come quickly, your aunt is here." ”

When Wang Shaodong heard this, he hurriedly entered the house.

Zhao Shiling frowned when he looked at a large plastic bottle in the hands of his son and Zheng Hui who followed behind him, and everyone had a bottle full of insects.

There were too many insects on the mountain, and it was only two or three hours of work, and Wang Shaodong and the others caught a pound of all kinds of insects.

"You, you, son, I'm really worried that Brother Zheng Hui and Zheng Tao will be damaged by you, and you will raise ** when you raise chickens, why do you still run to catch insects?"

Zhao Shiling cleaned up the room after dividing it by two, Wang Shaodong sat down happily, and then poured the spoils of himself and Zheng Hui into the basin.

"Mother, you don't understand, these insects caught by me and Zheng Hui are fed to chickens. ”

"If you don't feed so much feed, what are you doing with all this foreign effort?"

Zhao Shiling obviously didn't have much understanding of her son's grand plan, and then Wang Shaodong didn't bother to explain, and after a few perfunctory words sent his mother away, he hurriedly discussed with Zheng Hui and Zheng Tao how to deal with these little bugs.