Chapter Thirty-Four: Digging Sweet Potatoes

  In the Lin He's home, in the afternoon Huang let Lin He take Lin Chen and Da Bao out to pick up firewood, they walked for a long time but didn't pick much, there isn't much firewood to pick around here, unless you go to the big mountain to cut wood it's still okay, Da Bao and Lin Chen were running happily, whenever they picked something they had to squat down to look.

  In the fields, some villagers were digging up sweet potatoes. Lin He had also eaten sweet potatoes for several days and thought that steamed sweet potatoes weren't bad, but after eating too many, she felt a bit tired of them. She missed the roasted sweet potatoes and sweet potato chips from her past life.

  Lin He asked Lin Chen, "Chen Er, does our family have sweet potatoes? Others have started digging them up, and ours should be ready to dig up too."

  Lin Chen said, "There's something, the other day mother said she was going to dig these days, I'm afraid it's because something happened at my uncle's house and mother forgot. But what's so good about sweet potatoes? We've been eating them every winter, we're all tired of eating them."

  Lin He smiled and said, "Tomorrow we'll also ask Mother to dig up sweet potatoes. Sister will roast them for you to eat. Roasted sweet potatoes are really delicious."

  Actually, this era is not without roasted sweet potatoes, but there are some. However, the sweet potatoes in Lin Chen's family were always used as staple food, and they never had them roasted. Moreover, roasting takes a long time, and Lin Chen has never had it before. Xiao Bao heard this and asked, "Sister, do roasted sweet potatoes taste good? Tomorrow we'll dig up some sweet potatoes, can you roast some for me to eat?"

  Lin He smiled and patted his head, "You little glutton, as soon as you mention eating, you get excited. Tomorrow ask your mother to dig up sweet potatoes, we'll roast them and eat them. The weather has been nice these past few days, we can make sweet potato chips, how about that?"

  "What's sweet potato chips? Is it delicious?" Little Treasure's big eyes blinked.

  Lin He finally took her younger brother and sister to the edge of the mountain, Lin He looked into the depths of the mountain, although it was already winter, but there were many trees in the mountains with green leaves, Lin He felt that this mountain had a fatal attraction for her.

  She had never seen such mountains in her previous life. In the countryside where Lin He stayed in his previous life, there were also some mountains, but those mountains were already bare and uninteresting by autumn.

  But Lin He felt that the mountain was different at this time, with many things inside that Lin He had never seen before. There were many living creatures, animals and plants, fruits and so on. Lin He thought about it and couldn't help but walk into the mountain. Lin Chen saw his sister walking into the mountain and shouted "Sister, you can't go in!"

  Lin He finally came to his senses, and then took Lin Chen and Da Bao to pick up some firewood on the mountain edge, planning to take it back. Lin He thought that next year he must go into the mountain once, first to figure out how his third uncle went into the mountain and why he didn't come back after going in. No one had gone in to look either, what was going on?

  Three people played for a while, then tied up the small bundle of firewood they had picked with dry grass. Lin He carried the firewood on his back, Lin Chen led Xiaobao, and went home.

  Back home, Er Niu and Da Bao had also returned. Er Niu was talking about how good his family's fields were, saying that with those few mu of land next year, their life would have a direction. Da Bao looked at Lin He and the others as they returned, helping her put down the firewood on her body, asking where they had gone to pick up firewood. Lin Chen quickly replied "We went to the mountain."

  Dabao was startled and said, "You've entered the mountain, how dare you have such big guts? Is the mountain also a place you can enter?"

  Lin He looked at Da Bao's tense appearance and smiled, saying "Big brother, we didn't enter the mountain, we just picked up firewood at the foot of the mountain. If we entered the mountain, we wouldn't have just picked this little bit."

  "After thinking for a moment, he continued to ask, 'What's going on with our Third Uncle? How come he went into the mountains and never came back? What's the story?'"

  "Old Three said, 'Third Uncle was a hunter and often went into the mountains to hunt. He would often bring back wild rabbits, pheasants, and other things. One time, he even brought back a large wild boar. In the village, Third Uncle was considered one of the best hunters. One time, he came back and said that he had seen a bear in the mountains, but it got away from him. The next day, he took his tools again and said he would bring the bear back. If he brought back the bear, our family's life would be better. But he left and never came back.'"

  "Has anyone gone in to look for him since then? Was Third Uncle eaten by the bear or what happened?"

  Dabao continued, "Third Uncle must have been eaten by a bear, who else would go in and look for him?"

  So it is said that whether or not Third Uncle was eaten by the bear, no one knows, and no one has ever seen it with their own eyes. It must be related to the poverty of Linjia Village, where people have no other income, not even ancient simple hunting, they can only plant some fields and live such a life.

  Lin He roughly understood and didn't say much. After a while, he opened his mouth and said to Huang Shi, "Mother, let's go dig sweet potatoes tomorrow, dig some sweet potatoes to make roasted sweet potatoes and sweet potato chips, they're delicious."

  "Huang said, 'Alright, Ben also said that these days he wants to go dig sweet potatoes. If we don't dig them up, I'm afraid the sweet potatoes will rot. Tomorrow your dad is going to the fields, you all follow me to dig sweet potatoes. Roasting sweet potatoes I do know how to do, but what's this 'sweet potato chips' thing? I really don't know. He'er, where have you eaten that before?'"

  Lin He stuck out her tongue and said, "I just saw it in a book, it said it was delicious, and I thought so too."

  Dabao is a bit weird, how did he not know about this thing, but didn't say much. This sister often has strange ideas and didn't say much either, but she was also looking forward to the sweet potato chips.

  The next day, Lin Er Niu went to the fields after breakfast. Actually, there was nothing much to do in the fields now, but Lin Er Niu weeded all the grass around the edge of the field until it was spotless. There wasn't a single weed left in the field. Qin Lao Die followed along and helped out, while Xiao Jun led the ox to graze on one side.

  The Huang family went to their rented field to dig up sweet potatoes, and Lin He didn't even know that they had such a large plot of land for growing sweet potatoes. Now that they've dug them up, there's plenty of sweet potatoes to eat, not to mention making sweet potato chips - just eating them however you like is enough. Sweet potatoes are a very easy thing to grow, and on top of that, they're filling when eaten, so in this era every household grew a lot of sweet potatoes.

  Four people dug for an afternoon, but only dug a small piece of land. The sweet potatoes were not easy to dig, but the yield was still good. After digging a small piece of land, Dabao used a small frame to pick several frames back home. Lin He estimated that if they dug so many sweet potatoes at once, they would be afraid of eating them for a long time and they would rot. So she asked Huang Shi, "Mother, where can we put so many sweet potatoes? If we can't finish eating them, won't they all rot?"

  Huang smiled and said, "Silly child, of course we can't finish so many sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are relatively durable and won't rot quickly. But in previous years, our family didn't have money to buy grain at this time, and every meal was sweet potatoes. We didn't even have enough sweet potatoes to eat, let alone worry about them rotting."

  However, there is some grain at home this year, and He'er doesn't particularly like to eat sweet potatoes. Instead, she's afraid that they won't be able to finish them quickly, and it would be a pity if they can't be stored properly. Lin He knows that in ancient times, people used to store things in underground pits called "diqiang", so she asks him, "Don't we have any diqiang at home?"

  Huang didn't know what a cellar was, Lin He remembered reading about it in a book in his past life and thought it was interesting. He even took the time to look up how cellars were dug out, looks like now is the time to put that knowledge to use.