After the disaster

Qiu Cheng never expected that Ai Wenhai would agree to sell 1512 to him so easily.

On the way home, he kept thinking about the two people he met that day, Guigui Huang and Ai Wenhai, one black and one white, when he wanted to help Ah Chang find out his identity in the future, should he cross the black road or the white road? ?

No matter which way to go, it doesn't work now, because he is too weak now, and asking them for help is equivalent to actively exposing Ah Chang's existence, and they still don't have the strength to protect themselves.

Outside the Jiayuan community, Qiu Cheng saw a team of plumbers inspecting the pipelines in their area. He guessed that they were not far from the day of water supply, and he couldn't help but feel happy again. He thought that many good things happened today, not only After talking about the house with Ai Wenhai, now even the running water has to be connected.

The people in the community obviously got the news, many old people and women who didn't go out to work came out, surrounded the plumbers and asked this and that, Qiu Cheng greeted a few more familiar ones, and rode a bicycle gone back.

When Ah Chang heard the movement this afternoon, he stretched his neck on the balcony to look at it strangely. Seeing that Qiu Cheng came back on a tricycle, he immediately grinned. Turn around and rush downstairs.

Seeing him coming down, Qiu Cheng was not in a hurry to go back. The two of them took a few sacks from the garage and rode a tricycle to the Xinnan River. There was a lot of wasteland there, and Qiu Cheng planned to dig some soil back there.

Ah Chang squatted on the tricycle and didn't ask where he was going, as long as he was with Qiu Cheng, he was happy wherever he went.

The two were digging mud by the river. Qiu Cheng remembered that their family's fertilizer was not enough recently. In the past, their planting area was small and they could not spend much fertilizer. Now that the planting area is getting larger, the fertilizer seems to be getting more and more Less, Qiu Cheng looked at the weeds on the wasteland by the river, and thought, if the tap water is connected another day, they can use the original time to fetch water to mow the grass, and go back to compost after mowing the grass.

When returning with a load of dirt, I happened to see Aunt Chen leading her grandchildren to catch insects on the ground. The big girl saw Qiu Cheng and the others from a distance and shouted, "Uncle Qiu!"

"Hey." Qiu Cheng smiled at her.

Aunt Chen's two sons and daughters are already married, and now two young couples live with the old man. During the day, the four young people go out to find work, and Aunt Chen takes care of the children at home. The older girl is her granddaughter. A younger boy is a nephew, but both children call Aunt Chen grandma.

"What is this carrying, such a big truck?" Aunt Chen in the field also straightened up to talk to Qiu Cheng at this time.

"It's nothing, it's just a load of soil, and I plan to plant some sweet potatoes on the roof." Qiu Cheng knew that people in the community had a lot of guesses about him, Ah Chang, and the fifteenth floor of their building. I can't help it, the more you hide and tuck them, the more curious they become, so when you deal with these people, you just choose some unimportant things, hoping to satisfy the curiosity of these neighbors a little bit.

"Growing sweet potatoes on the roof is better than our field. At least there won't be bugs crawling around in your field. The floors are so high that even if they have wings, they may not be able to fly up. Oops, Now I am terrified of catching bugs every day." Ever since she was so troubled by the sticky bugs last time, Aunt Chen has been completely afraid of these bugs, and they come to the ground every day, not daring to neglect them for a day.

"Catch the worms and go back to feed the voles. Are your voles growing well?" Qiu Cheng was sitting on the tricycle, talking to Aunt Chen with a smile on his face.

"Hey, hello!" Speaking of this, Aunt Chen clapped her hands, not to mention how happy she was: "It looks great, every day this bug feeds it, and it looks slick!"

"That's good. I'll go back first. There is still work at home." Qiu Cheng said and planned to leave.

"Hey, wait, I want to ask you something. Didn't you say you want to grow sweet potatoes? Where did you buy the seeds? I plan to grow some too." Seeing that Qiu Cheng was about to leave, Aunt Chen asked quickly.

"It's next to the vegetable market. I went to see it today. It's their seed store. You can see it in a few minutes." Qiu Cheng replied.

"Is it expensive? How much is it per catty?" Aunt Chen asked again.

"A catty and a half of cornmeal, it was out of stock when I went there today, let me make an order." Qiu Cheng also knew everything.

"I want a catty and a half of cornmeal." Aunt Chen felt a little distressed.

"If you don't grow much, you can take it from me." Qiu Cheng has a good impression of Aunt Chen. He has good ears now. Sometimes he works upstairs, and someone downstairs says what happened to their house , he could still hear a few sporadic words, but Aunt Chen didn't say anything good.

"No, no, I'll ask them first. There should be others who want to plant them. We'll go buy them together." Aunt Chen repeatedly declined, and then waved Qiu Cheng to go back if he had something to do: "Go back, go back , the top floor is good, just moving the soil is enough for both of you."

Now that she said so, Qiu Cheng didn't give in much, said goodbye to Aunt Chen, and rode away on a tricycle.

Back home, Qiu Cheng and the others went to work on the 1504th floor after a short rest. The walls and ceilings of [-] had already been fitted with mirrors, and the only thing left to do was to cover the wooden frames with soil.

The two of them nailed the shelves for a few hours in 1504, and when the sun went down, they went to water and fertilize the various places where they had planted farms, and went to see the goats and fish ponds, feeding water and grass. for the grass.

The rice in the house in 1507 was growing well. After a few days of work, the rice seedlings that had been planted began to tiller. It looked green and lush, and the harvest would definitely not be too bad.

Qiu Cheng and the others rolled up their trouser legs and walked into the paddy field, pulled out the weeds in the paddy field, came out of the field with one foot in the mud, walked in from the door, brought a kettle in, and added water to the field. Rice consumes a lot of water, and such a small paddy field can be drained dry by one carelessness.

After finishing their work, they still went to the roof to move the two chicks downstairs which had been in the sun for a day.These two chickens have grown stronger these days, and they have a very good appetite. They can eat whatever they catch, and Qiu Cheng doesn't dare to open them up to feed them, for fear that they will be like goldfish, and they will strangle him to death if they are not careful.

Back on the fourteenth floor, Qiu Cheng carefully prepared two baskets of fertile soil. He planted a pack of peanut seeds he just bought today, and the dozen or so soybean seeds he had bought for rice earlier. I plan to transplant them to 1504 after they grow into seedlings.

Qiu Cheng has now been able to better grasp the growth speed of the crops in the spirit gathering array. Generally, the seeds grow slowly when they are first buried in the ground, and the growth speed will speed up after they germinate.

The advantage of raising seedlings is that it can provide sprouts with a more fertile growth environment, and good sprouts can bring them more harvest.On the other hand, in this process, some seeds that cannot germinate can also be eliminated to improve land utilization.

What's more, the process of raising seedlings doesn't need to take up too much space. For example, Qiu Cheng and the others can start raising seedlings before 1504 is set up.

While Qiu Cheng was processing the seeds, Ah Chang had already watered and fertilized the terrace, and picked a basket of ripe fruits, the most of which were tomatoes. The last batch of tomatoes had not been completely eliminated. The tomatoes have also begun to bear fruit, there are still a lot of peppers, and there are two loofahs.

As for the bitter gourds hanging by the wall, Ah Chang didn’t touch them. He didn’t like to eat them, and Qiu Cheng didn’t like them very much either. It is used to keep seeds and sell them in the future.

"Let's pick a pumpkin today." At this time, Qiu Cheng also moved the two wooden baskets with seeds buried on the terrace. After looking at them, there was really no place to put them, so he had to block them in the aisle. The day after tomorrow, I pulled out those old tomatoes and peppers, and then this place will be vacated.

"Are you old enough?" Ah Chang said as he leaned over to look at the pumpkins. In order to prevent the vigorously growing pumpkin vines from blocking the sunlight of other crops, Qiu Cheng specially built a shelf to let them grow on the shelf. The pumpkins on the vines were also hung up by Qiu Cheng with net bags.

"It's almost there." Qiu Cheng cut off the oldest one with a knife, untied the net bag, and carried the pumpkin into the house.

"Is this delicious?" Ah Chang asked after him.

"Delicious." Qiu Cheng carried the pumpkin into the kitchen to wash it, then brought out the chopping board and kitchen knife, put the things on the coffee table, and sat on the sofa to peel the pumpkin. The skin of this old pumpkin was thick and hard. , It takes some effort to peel it off.

"Fragrant!" As soon as the pumpkin skin was peeled off, Ah Chang smelled a unique fragrance, which he liked.

"Taste it." Qiu Cheng said and cut a piece of pumpkin with the skin removed for him.

Ah Chang took the piece of pumpkin meat, without thinking about it, put it in his mouth and took a bite, chewed a few mouthfuls and swallowed it, then stared at the pumpkin in Qiu Cheng's hand with some unfulfilled interest, and then Qiu Cheng Cheng cut another slice for him.

The pumpkin they planted is not a particularly large variety. This pumpkin weighs about three catties. Qiu Cheng peeled and sliced ​​it and steamed it in a pot. Dig and eat.

Qiu Cheng added a little more cornmeal to the rest and kneaded it well. Originally, he wanted to make it into a steamed cornbread shape and eat it. Later, because it was too soft, he added more cornmeal and was afraid that the taste would be too hard, so he searched for it. Two steaming trays came out, and gauze was spread on the steaming trays, and then the dough with a pumpkin was divided into two, spread out on the gauze to form a flat round cake, and steamed in the pan.

The two of them just sat on the sofa. There was a large bowl of steamed old pumpkin on the tea table. You scooped and I dug and ate. An old TV series was playing on the TV, and steaming steamed on the stove next to it. Water vapor, did Qiu Cheng turn his head to look at the fire?

It was indeed the right choice not to add more cornmeal. In the end, the two big pancakes in the pot steamed out soft and sticky, with a strong pumpkin fragrance, which was much better than the corn pancakes they usually ate.

Qiu Cheng and Ah Chang ate one that night, and they planned to take the remaining one with them when they went out to touch snails tomorrow.

The next morning, Qiu Cheng and the others went to the river to fetch enough water for the day, and after finishing their family affairs, they went out early.

Wearing shorts and dragging, with a bucket in his hand, and a lot of delicious food in the bag, facing the morning breeze in early summer, Ah Chang saw that everything was beautiful this day. He decided to touch a lot of snails, so that Qiu Cheng knew that he was not just good-looking.