Summer thoughts

"Do you want to bake sweet potatoes?" Shi Nian wanted to take Xia Ting "traveling", taking him to the track and field of rural children's childhood, breathing the most natural, freshest and safest air.

"How to bake?"

"Bake it on the spot."

Xia Ting looked curious, "Where's the sweet potato?"As far as he knew, baked sweet potatoes had to be baked in a stove, but there was no stove, and he didn't see any sweet potatoes.

"Do you know where sweet potatoes grow?"

Xia Ting gave up answering this question, seeing Shi Nian's expression of treating him as an idiot, he had the urge to bite him.

"I'll take you to have a look." Right now, when the sweet potatoes are ripe, Shi Nian's family planted them in the front garden, so he found a small hoe and brought Xia Ting there.

"Do you know which one it is?"

Although it has entered autumn, the garden is still full of greenery, not an inch of it has gone green and decadent.Piece by piece, like a long version of frozen tofu, neatly planted with vegetables, all green, this is Xia Ting's biggest recognition interface.

"Read, are these all fruit trees?" There are still a few trees scattered in the garden, all of which are tall and have dense branches and leaves, which should have taken root for a long time.

"Yeah, oranges, peaches, plums, dates, cherries, bayberries, pears." Shi Nian pointed to him one by one, "Is there a lot?"

"Many, so don't you need to buy fruit?"

"Yeah, I couldn't afford it when I was young, and I was afraid that we would be greedy, so my dad planted this early. After a while, when the oranges are ripe, I asked my sister to send them to school. They are sweet oranges. I will send them to you, so that you can be full. "Shi Nian raised his eyebrows high, like a seven-year-old child, and said with a sense of complacency and joy.

"Okay, okay, I'm waiting for your oranges." Xia Ting looked at the tree full of oranges, and a very beautiful picture appeared in his mind. In the evening, the sun was setting, and a little boy less than one meter was standing on the tree. Standing on tiptoes, he still couldn't reach the oranges on the tree, so he could only raise his head, with a blank expression of wanting to eat, and a string of water curtains hung on the corners of his mouth involuntarily. "Haha..." Xia Ting was amused by his imagination.

Shi Nian raised his eyes and gave him another look like an idiot, and continued to cut the sweet potato vine leaves covering the whole field, "Xia Ting, have you ever eaten sweet potato vines?"

"Can this be eaten too?"

"Of course, do you want to try it?"

"Okay, fry it and eat it?"

"Well, then you pick some tender ones and pick them off." Shi Nian pointed at the sweet potato vine leaves that had just been cut to the side.

"I want to dig sweet potatoes." Xia Ting had already held a hoe in his hand, eager to try, just waiting for Shi Nian to cut off the vine leaves.

"Okay, then I'll pick it later. This small piece is almost ready, just play with it." Shi Nian raised his eyelids towards the hoe, and Xia Ting obediently handed it to him. He can only blame himself for being a layman.

"I'll show you a demonstration. It's not as simple as I imagined. You have to ensure that you can't split the sweet potato when you go down with the hoe, but dig it out." Shi Nian picked up the soil, and when he went down with the hoe, he saw the sweet potato.

"Read!"

"Brother, why do you feel that you have never seen the world."

"I have grown up so much, and I have never seen how sweet potatoes are dug out of the ground. It is the first time I know that sweet potato vines can be eaten. With you, I also feel in love for the first time, and I feel another sense of belonging. So you've been showing me the world."

"Then I'll continue to show you a different world." Shi Nian gave him the hoe, "Come on, try it. Even if you dig it, I won't dislike it."

Sweet potato vines are a home-cooked dish with cumbersome procedures. First of all, the most tender ones must be selected from the pile of sweet potato vines. It is not enough to only have a few vines in a dish.After picking the tenderest vines, the most troublesome part comes. You need to remove the skin. For vines as thin as a toothpick, you need to remove the skin as thin as silk, which requires a lot of patience.Since Xia Ting has never eaten, Shi Nian has enough patience.

There was a hint of coolness in the ear, something was hanging on the ear, Xia Ting wanted to touch the unknown object on the ear, but Shi Nian mysteriously blocked it.

"What?" The unknown object was put up by Shi Nian, and Xia Ting followed Shi Nian's instructions.

Shi Nian turned on the phone camera as a mirror, and let Xia Ting see for himself, "This is my token of love to marry you." Shi Nian secretly laughed, and added: "It's so beautiful!"

Seeing himself in the camera hanging a sweet potato vine that seriously affected his image, Xia Ting didn't take it off reluctantly, but said cooperatively: "Okay, I'll keep it until the day you come to marry me."

"This is a game we used to play when we were young. We kept the leaves of the sweet potato vines, and then carefully broke the sweet potato vines into pieces, connected them with a layer of skin, and hung them on our ears to form earrings."

Xia Ting also made one according to what Shi Nian said, "Nian, this is my token, couple earrings." Hang it on Shi Nian as well. "Come, take a photo." In the photo, the two half-mature boys smiled brightly at the camera. It is unknown whether they are smiling at the earrings or being able to be together.

There is plenty of rain this year, and the sweet potatoes are very big. Shi Nian picked out a few small ones, "The small ones are easy to roast, and we will keep the big ones and roast them in the pot the next day. Let's take them to school."

Shi Nian found a flat place in the garden, surrounded by bricks on three sides, and put barbed wire on it, "Simple, right?" Shi Nian clapped his hands, "Small black house, do you want to go?"

"Go, I like adventure the most."

"Then I'll take it to the mountain."

"Wherever you're going."

The so-called small black room is actually Shi Nian’s family’s firewood room, and it’s not dark. There’s a lot of firewood, which blocks the light coming in from the window. “This place belongs to me. I often come here to sit when I’m angry. Once I fell asleep on the straw pile, and my parents and sister searched the whole village."

"What happened in the end? Did you get beaten up?" Xia Ting gloated a little.

"No, my father didn't say a word, my mother wiped her eyes, my sister gave me a look, and carried me to the dinner table to let me eat first. That night, my sister and I slept..."

Before he finished speaking, "How old are you, and you still sleep with your sister?"

"I slept with my sister until she got married, what happened? I was 7 years old then."

"You can only sleep with me in the future."

Shi Nian continued, "My sister told me that my mother was hoarse while wiping tears while looking for her, and she also said that I was like a sleeping pig, and I didn't hear me shouting so loudly. Report to the family."

"If you know your mistakes, you are a good boy. Then you have to tell me in the future, and I will be anxious."

"Hold the straw, it's convenient to start a fire later." Shi Nian couldn't take his words, so he'd better wait until later.

"Look, when will this be ripe?" The two of them had been around the small fire for half an hour, and they were covered in soot, but the sweet potatoes were still hard.

"Don't worry, or put the sweet potatoes directly into the fire. It's just that the outer skin will be burnt."

"can."

"Then I'll get the chopsticks. Look at the fire, don't touch it, and put some straw when it's about to run out." Shi Nian left quite worried. When he started the fire just now, Xia Ting asked to take care of the fire, and put out some firewood. , the fire went out.

In a garden, the green space is quiet, a young man squats obediently on the open space, and gently blows into the fire with a few small sparks. The black long windbreaker has already touched the wet ground, but he didn't notice it. , because someone asked him to watch the fire before leaving.

"Sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, you are ripe, and the peach blossoms are also withered." Xia Ting said to the sweet potatoes that had just been pulled out of the fire.

"You should be blowing on sweet potatoes now."

"It's okay, after waiting for so long, I'm not in a hurry."

The small sweet potato was burnt with a thick layer, peeled off, the roasted sweet potato aroma came out, and the yellow flesh carried a little moisture, blowing air, taking a bite, it was full of sweetness. "Read, it's delicious."

Shi Nian smiled and narrowed his eyes, "Then these are all for you."

"Look, it would be great if we lived like this for the rest of our lives." Xia Ting took another bite of the sweet baked sweet potato.

"I know sweet potatoes are sweet, but Ting, what if I let you eat them every day?" Shi Nian didn't know whether Xia Ting meant a life of ease or a rural life, no matter which one he was sure of.

On the day of returning to school, Shi's mother went down the mountain early and stewed two chickens, one for each person.Shi Nian said to Xia Ting, "This is called killing a chicken alone, and it is a great tonic."

In addition to being moved, Xia Ting still said: "I need to make up for the loss of energy in the past two days."

Since that night, the two of them have had a good night and spent a lot of money every minute.Every morning when he woke up, Shi Nian felt that his waist was gone, but he still got up to make breakfast for Xia Ting.Although Xia Ting felt sorry for him and asked him to lie down for a while, he didn't listen to the persuasion, because this was his home, Xia Ting was a guest, and three meals were the most basic reception.