pjbooks Chapter 40 The Young Boy
Chapter 40 The Young Boy
Realizing he had acted rashly, the rather cunning Hong Ye decided to sit on Chen Tuo's lap and use some more tricks on him.
"With your big frame, don't crush me..."
Chen Tuo's rustic complaint once again brought Hong Ye back to reality.
After a careful look, Hong Ye saw Chen Tuo's increasingly handsome face and felt very fortunate.
Fortunately, the Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement was closed down this fall.
If those educated youth from big cities were still here, if the female educated youth from the road and bridge construction section were still here, where would she have had her chance?
"Chen Tuo, would you like me to be a little thinner?"
"It hasn't reached that point yet, and preferences have nothing to do with weight. The source of appreciation is the mutual admiration between interesting souls."
Having cultivated an air of mystery, Chen Tuo suddenly felt like becoming an artsy young man.
Youth is about having fun, so you can't be too conservative, right?
"You're absolutely right. Shall I sing 'Nanshan Nan' for you next?"
Chen Tuo, who originally wanted to go to Hetao to test guns or at least design a sauna, was kept occupied by Hong Ye for most of the afternoon.
Just as he said, the collision of interesting souls is passionate, so passionate that there is no need for a fire to keep warm.
The noise of a few children outside the educated youth settlement disrupted Hong Ye's somewhat unfamiliar enthusiasm.
"These poor kids!"
A complaint, a return from the poet's romanticism to reality, also allowed Chen Tuo to see the true side of Hong Ye.
While it's not unpleasant, it's certainly not appealing either.
"It should be those boys from Sister Lingzi's family. I promised them a long time ago that they could come and eat smoked fish."
After explaining the purpose of the children's visit, Chen Tuo was about to go out to greet them when Hong Ye stopped him.
"Put on your coat!"
"With you here, it's not cold!"
Stroking the blush on Hong Ye's cheek, Chen Tuo, wearing a woolen coat, walked out of the gatehouse.
Outside the educated youth settlement, the four boys from Sun Changkui and Hu Yuling's family, who were already quite impatient, were waiting.
"Uncle Chen, we're here!"
Looking at the four boys arranged in the shape of cell phone signals, Chen Tuo pointed to the shortest one and asked:
"How old is he? Can he eat meat?"
Of the four boys who came, the shortest was only a little over a meter tall.
Looking at the frozen snot on their faces, Chen Tuo wasn't afraid of being eaten to death, but he was worried that they would get sick.
"Little Si has a huge appetite! He can eat two of my mom's big steamed buns!"
Just by listening to the tone of the Sun family boys, you can tell they are mischievous monkeys raised by their grandparents.
"I don't have any noodles here, so the four of you should eat carefully. You can only eat until you're half full, and take the rest home to eat."
After setting rules for the four boys, Chen Tuo turned to Hong Ye and said:
"Hongye, fry the venison. Give each person no more than two ounces. Don't give more, that stuff is too hot to eat."
Unable to test the gun, Chen Tuo was already agitated, so he ate some pan-fried reindeer meat.
If it weren't for Hong Ye pestering him, he would have gone to the river bend to break the ice and catch fish long ago.
Before coming here, Chen Tuo had neither tried the medicinal effects of wild ginseng nor the highly nourishing venison.
He now knows that eating ginseng will cause mania, and eating venison will worsen mania.
If it weren't for the need to deeply trap Hong Ye, I would have already dealt with her several times over.
Hong Ye was frying venison, while Chen Tuo went to the newly built smoked meat room and took ten fish.
As a result, before Hongye's venison was even cooked, the ten smoked fish, which were full of the smell of pine branches, were devoured by the four boys.
"Eat slowly. If you're not full this time, there's always next time. If you eat too much here, will your mom let you come again?"
Fearing that the Sun family boys would overeat, Chen Tuo didn't dare to give them any more smoked fish.
Instead, they dug out a few potatoes that had been forgotten inside a stove made from a gasoline drum.
Although the potatoes were buried deep in the charcoal ash and not burned, they were still roasted into dried potatoes.
The four boys from the Sun family weren't picky eaters, but before the venison was even cooked, the potatoes had already disappeared.
"Alright! If you eat the venison, get the hell out of here! I'll give you ten smoked fish to take home. If you dare eat them on the way, don't ever come back here again!"
After watching the four boys wolf down their food and still look like they hadn't had enough, Chen Tuo was really worried that they would overeat.
He's not afraid of eating.
It's just that he can still go to the Hetao region to catch fish.
With his connection to Sun Changkui and Hu Yuling, even if he couldn't catch any fish, he wouldn't starve to death in Songling due to lack of food.
After bringing back the remaining ten smoked fish, before Chen Tuo could even find something to put them in, the four boys from the Sun family stuffed the smoked fish into their pockets.
"You f***ing..."
At this moment, Chen Tuo finally understood why Wu Laowai kept calling him "little bastard" and "I'm fucking stupid."
When you encounter these mischievous kids, you really can't let them run wild.
It seems that the way he sees the Sun family boy is exactly the same as how Wu Laowai sees himself.
Wu Laowai may not be a good person, and neither is Chen Tuo.
But when faced with the four sons of the Sun family, he didn't care at all about his own food rations.
"I'm going to continue catching fish tonight. You guys go home and tell them that as long as you don't overeat, don't worry about whether your parents let you come or not. Just come after school tomorrow afternoon!"
Watching the four boys, who were only a little over 30, stuff the pan-fried venison that Hong Ye had given them into their mouths.
Chen Tuo also predicted the reactions of Sun Changkui and Hu Yuling.
He wasn't from this era, and he felt no sense of urgency about food rationing.
He simply went fishing when there was no food, and when he couldn't catch any fish, he got a new hunting rifle so he could hunt.
Whether or not we can catch any prey is a matter for later.
His experience as a beast of burden taught him that if there was no food, he should buy it; if there was no money, he should earn it.
After the four Sun boys had fled, Chen Tuo sighed, "These half-grown boys have eaten their father alive!"
"It's alright, they won't get sick from overeating. Section Chief Sun and Sister Lingzi are just like me, they never skimp on the kids' food!"
Seeing that Chen Tuo was watching the four half-grown boys running around like crazy, as acquaintances of Sun Changkui and Hu Yuling.
Hong Ye then introduced the Sun family's situation to Chen Tuo.
In Sun Changkui's family, it wasn't just the couple who were earning money.
The two old men in the Sun family were blacksmiths in town.
Even so, four people couldn't satisfy the appetites of six bastards.
According to Hong Ye, Songling, located at the source of the Nenjiang River, is on the northern edge of the Great Northern Wilderness, and the rationed grain came from the reclamation corps at the foot of the mountain.
Although there would be a surplus in the allocation, it was only grain; meat and cooking oil were scarce.
Although the Songling Forestry Bureau goes to Hulunbuir every year to obtain beef and mutton, the quantity is still limited.
Whole grains are the staple food, and cabbage, potatoes, and radishes are the main vegetables.
This dietary ratio, combined with the seven-month-long winter in the Upper Khingan Mountains, caused even teenagers to develop large bellies.
If you don't eat more, you'll not only feel cold, but you'll also be very susceptible to frostbite.
"Humans should treat themselves well. It's so nice to be chubby, soft and bouncy."
Hong Ye was trying to explain her figure in her words, but unexpectedly, Chen Tuo teased her.
"How do you know it's soft and bouncy? You naughty thing..."
Chen Tuo gave her a hint, and Hong Ye decided not to leave. But as soon as she turned around, she was told to leave.
"I reckon Old Wu will be here, so you'd better head back before it gets dark!"
Chen Tuo estimated that not only Wu Laowai would come, but the Sun couple would also come.
According to Hong Ye, the four boys from the Sun family made a huge mess at the educated youth settlement, and the Sun couple would have been embarrassed if they hadn't come over to greet them.
Food rationing is the bottom line for survival in the Xingan Mountains.
Twenty smoked fish would weigh at least seven or eight pounds, if not ten. Some families in Songling might not eat that much meat for a month or two, or even several months...