When Ye Yaodong brought the two little boats over like treasures and told them they could float them on the water for fun, they stopped working.
They all ran off in an instant!
Mother Ye rolled her eyes at him. "Always messing around. Now everyone's gone, you can peel these."
"There aren't that many left anyway. Fine, I'll peel them."
"Already in your twenties, and you still haven't grown up. Leading them around fooling about..."
After a bit of grumbling, Mother Ye went inside and brought out a knife and cutting board to chop up the bamboo shoots, then sprinkle them with salt and boil them.
Once they were cooked, she would take them out and put them in a basket, weigh them down to press the water out, then set them out to dry.
They had no refrigerator in those days, so drying the bamboo shoots was their only way to preserve them. Otherwise, it would have been better to cook them, pack them into individual portions, and freeze them, ready to thaw and stir-fry whenever they wanted.
"Dig up some more when you go up the mountain later. They won't spoil once they're dried."
"Got it. I'll send A-Yuan and Chenghu to look for them."
After peeling the rest of the shoots, Ye Yaodong left the branches for his mother to bundle up, then called Lin Guangyuan and Ye Chenghu to head up the mountain again. Those two were his trusty helpers!
But Ye Chengyang was left behind again, crying his heart out at home. Luckily, there were loquats and plums to stop his mouth before he could get more than a couple of wails out.
That afternoon, once Ye Yaodong had cut nearly enough branches, he handed them over to his father. He really couldn't stand the