With the Tibetan mastiff guarding the house, Situ Yan didn't even lock the door of the courtyard, and soon the news of Situ Yan's family raising wolves spread throughout Lijia Village. Some people who have a good relationship with Situ Yan's family come to the house to see the Tibetan mastiff.

There was someone who had a bad relationship with Situ Yan's family, so he went to the village and asked the village to find someone to kill the wolf for the village to eliminate the harm.

Cunzheng also deliberately found Situ Yan for this matter, "Girl, why did you raise wolves in your family, this is a beast, if you accidentally hurt someone, you will have to suffer a lawsuit." ”

"Uncle Wangfu, my family is not a wolf, it is a dog called a Tibetan mastiff, but it looks like a wolf, and as long as others don't bully me, it won't bite. I will take care of it, and I will keep it as a caretaker, just like the local dog in the village. ”

"Girl, you can call this thing a child, don't fork it, if it's really a wolf, you can't keep it in the village."

"Uncle Wangfu, the big family that my father used to stay in raised this one, and I can divide it clearly, it's not bad."

"Okay, I'll help you say it here, but you should also take care of it, don't let it come out and scare people. How I look at how it looks like a wolf, it's just that the color doesn't look like it. ”

"Okay, I'll keep it in jail." Situ Yan sent Muramasa away. And that was the end of it.

Every morning, Situ Yan will take the Tibetan mastiff into the mountain, one is to let it find food by itself, and the other is that she has to go into the mountain to collect medicine, with the help of the Tibetan mastiff, Situ Yan will go deep into the mountains every time she enters the mountain, and naturally she has dug up a lot of good things.

The rest of the time the Tibetan mastiff stays in the backyard or basks in the front yard, and the villagers see it fresh for a few days, and see that although the Tibetan mastiff is bigger than the local dog in the village, as long as it is not close, it does not bark and bite, and it is relieved.

Busy to the tenth day of the first month of September, there are two days of frost, after this day, there will be early frost, Situ Yan in order to prevent frost, let Li Dalang set up a firewood pile at the edge of the field early.

After September 12, before dawn on the second day of the frost day, Li Erlang rushed back from outside, he and his eldest brother were guarding the field yesterday, and the sun had not yet come out early this morning, so he found that there was frost, and he hurriedly asked Erlang to come back and tell San Lang that he could light up the firewood pile in the backyard and put smoke to drive away the frost.

When Situ Yan got up to make breakfast, she looked at the hexagonal frost flowers on the windows and roofs, and then looked at the empty bird's nest, and sighed in her heart that late autumn had arrived, and the winter would begin in a few days.

The four brothers of the Li family took care of the things in the field, and she couldn't help when she went, so she made breakfast first, and then fed the Tibetan mastiffs and mules, and then went out to deliver food to Da Lang and Erlang.

Before he walked into the field, he saw a group of people gathered around the ground, and Muramasa was also standing in it, listening to everyone talking about Situ Yan to understand that these people were attracted by smoke.

Situ Yan walked a few steps closely, and before she could speak, she heard Muramasa's voice coming over, "Da Lang, what are you doing setting fire to smoke?" ”

"Uncle Murazheng, it's frosty today, and I still have horse feed beans planted in this field, so I thought about letting the smoke disperse, and I don't know if it can be done, just try, seeing that there will be a harvest in more than half a month, if I freeze to death at this time, then I have been busy for the past few months."

"Can this be done?"

"I'm just trying, I don't know if I can't succeed, even if I don't succeed, it's a big deal to burn more firewood, if I can succeed, I can harvest more beans."

Mura Zheng looked at the bean seedlings in the field, and then at Li Dalang, and saw that no one was paying attention, so he asked in a suppressed voice, "Is this the girl's idea again?" ”

Li Dalang also knew that he couldn't hide it, so he had to nod.

"Okay, be careful, don't go out of the water. Okay, the big guys are all scattered, there's nothing to see. Hurry home and cook, the babies are still hungry at home. ”

When these people turned around, they saw Situ Yan standing behind with a basket on their backs, and the aunts all came up to talk to her, and the village was rushing a few times, and these people were willing to disperse, Situ Yan and the village were saluted, and Li Dalang sent the people away, and then they entered the shack.

"Second brother, when did these people come?"

"We just lit the fire, and they came, and they ran faster than me."

"It seems that there are a lot of people in this village who are staring at our family. In the future, my brothers should be careful in what they do, and don't talk about things at home, don't follow other people's ways. ”

"Xiao Wu rest assured, I reminded the second child early in the morning, it's not bad. What's the backyard like? ”

"It's okay, the third brother and the fourth brother are busy in the field in the morning after getting the letter, and they will have breakfast at home."

"Xiao Wu, you should also hurry home, eat breakfast while it is hot, and don't go into the mountains today."

"Big brother, with the 'snow wolf' following, nothing can happen." Situ Yan likes to go into the mountains, and doesn't like to stay at home to deal with the three aunts and six mothers-in-law in the village. Li Dalang also understood, and after persuading him, he stopped persuading.

San Lang and Shiro were busy with the backyard, and followed Erlang into the mountains to collect firewood, the firewood stored at home in winter was used to drive away frost, and they had to take advantage of this time to pick up more, Xiao Wu was afraid of the cold, and in winter they had to burn the kang day and night, and they were used to it, so they prepared enough firewood at any time.

After the Double Ninth Festival in early September, until the beginning of winter on September 27, three frosts fell in Lijia Village, although the field was driven by smoke, but also lost nearly 10%, fortunately only the soybean seedlings froze to death, and the ten acres of sweet potato seedlings had no effect.

Situ Yan took advantage of the fifteenth day to catch the big gathering to go to the county seat, and there were two sheds outside Xinchang County, and the imperial court ordered the counties to open warehouses to cook porridge to help the victims. Although the light porridge is only distributed once a day, countless victims are still gathered. Li Dalang drove the car, Situ Yan sat in the car, and from time to time he would see the victims who were starving to death on the side of the road. There are even those who fight in order to grab porridge.

"Xiao Wu, it's too chaotic outside, let's not go into the city next time."

"It's okay, this time I went to the county school to talk to Steward Wang, and I'll talk about it after the New Year."

Situ Yan could feel some unfriendly, even jealous glances sweeping over her, maybe they were all old and weak women and children, and they were not far from the gate of the county seat, so no one rushed up to grab their things.

After paying 2 cents to store the mule cart, he carried firewood into the county seat, and first went to the county school to greet the Wang Steward. Situ Yan explained her worries and fears, and the steward Wang couldn't think about it when he heard it, so he let a few people take their things and leave.

Situ Yan greeted the bookstore and embroidery village and rushed to the livestock market first, and spent 500 yuan to buy ten chickens for the "snow wolf" and put them in the ring, in case the snow went into the mountains and could not find food. The chickens at this time are more than twice as expensive as those sold by Situ Yan, but she is not distressed at all for the sake of "Snow Wolf".

The four brothers of the Li family brought pickles and salted eggs to sell in the market. When Situ Yan arrived, the four brothers were standing on the side of the street listlessly, all of them lost their usual spirit, "What's wrong with the brothers?" ”

"Xiao Wu, there are a lot of people on the street today, but no one buys anything, I called a noon, and I sold 5 catties of pickles, and none of the salted eggs were sold."

"It's normal to sell badly, in a famine year, who can still have this spare money at home. Let's not wait, big brother will collect the things, and we will go home first. I'll talk about it when I get home. ”

Several people collected their things and hurried home in the car.

Situ Yan had a hot meal, and when she entered the house, she saw the four brothers sitting on the kang with their heads down, but they had just made up their minds to make more money. But the business that was still making money a few days ago couldn't be sold in the blink of an eye, and a few people were so worried that they couldn't even eat lunch.

"Brothers, don't worry, this won't work, let's think about it again, if we don't eat, we can't think of any other way, people are hungry and faint again."

"But Xiao Wu, the most profitable thing for our family is to make these foods, but I see that the people in and outside the city are all disaster victims, how can anyone want to buy these." Li Sanlang observed carefully and also saw where the problem was.

"It's not that the food is not easy to sell, but we sell it too expensive, but if we sell it cheaply, we don't make money, and the horse beans and sweet potatoes in the ground are harvested, and I think again." Brothers don't need to worry, at least there is no shortage of winter food at home. Eat quickly, don't let it get cold. ”

After eating, Situ Yan took the "snow wolf" into the mountains to forage for food and pick chrysanthemums, these days the chrysanthemums bloomed just right, Situ Yan found a large field of wild chrysanthemums when he entered the mountains yesterday.

Li Dalang knew that it was useless to be in a hurry, since the little sister said that there was a way, then they would go to the ground to get busy with peace of mind. At the beginning of October, the horse beans and sweet potatoes in the field were almost grown, Situ Yan saw that the weather was getting colder and colder, and seeing that it was going to snow, there was no time to wait for the crops to be fully ripe. What should be said should be dried and stored has been put away. 90 acres of horse feed beans, frost reduced yield by 25 acres, and because it was harvested a few days early, only 52 stones were harvested. The 10 acres of sweet potatoes were harvested with an average of 800 catties per mu, and the sweet potato leaves were submerged into pickles, and 10 jars of 20 catties were loaded.

200 catties of horse beans (soybeans), 1,000 catties of sweet potatoes, and three jars of pickles made of sweet potato leaves, all of which were put into the ring. And Li Dalang thought that all the things he had collected were piled up in the upside-down room.

One acre of cabbage is 2,000 catties, 300 are left, and the rest is stained with 7 jars of sauerkraut in 100 catties of stoneware jars. 700 radishes were harvested from two acres, Situ Yan left 100 and piled them together with cabbage in the stove room of the inverted house, and the rest were all dried into salted radish strips, and the dried 600 catties of salted radish strips were all collected into the ring.

It was not until the fifth day after the light snow on October 11 that it was finished, although there were dogs, Xiaoyanger (due to the large number of victims near the county seat, considering the safety of students, so the county school was temporarily suspended), and Xiaoyanger's brother Li Guisheng helped, Situ Yan was still so tired that her back hurt and she didn't even have the strength to lift her arms.

I paid a few people on a daily basis, and of course I had to shirk and thank you. Situ Yan has always been a brother who settles accounts, and several people have to accept it when they see that they can't push it off. Situ Yan rested for a day, then went to pick all the sunflowers, screened and dried the melon seeds, and bagged them away.

After October 15, snowflakes fell in the sky, and the women left behind in the village could no longer sit still, so they all gathered in the courtyard of the village house, "Uncle Zheng of the village, I have been gone for a month and a half, and I don't know what the situation is, it is snowing again, I want to go and see." ”

"yes, I want to go see it and send some food to eat."

"That's right, Uncle Zheng of his village, you can take us to have a look! My baby is also in service, and I have nothing in my heart. ”

The village was troubled by the quarrel of these women, and waved his hand to let everyone calm down first, "Don't make any noise, you can't say it one by one, you say it one by one, let me listen to whom." ”

"Your thoughts, I understand, today is a little late, early tomorrow morning, I want to follow myself to the village entrance to wait, I will drive you to the car, but I am ugly in the head, if the official is not allowed to see, you don't make trouble, don't see the head of the house, but eat the board, offend the official. Be careful of the little shoes that these officials give you at home. ”

These village women have never seen any official errands, and when they heard that they wanted to eat the board, they were a little hesitant, but there were still those who were bold and decided to go tomorrow. Aunt A Niu, Aunt Four, Liangzi Niang, Aunt Gen, Aunt San, Aunt Quan, etc., and even Li Sanzhu's daughter-in-law all followed. After this calculation, an ox cart could not be pulled down at all, and Muramasa went to Situ Yan's house to discuss borrowing a mule cart.