RBCT Chapter 46
Chapter 46
Zhang Jianguo raised his head, his eyes still wet with tears, but his gaze had already sharpened.
"I'll listen to you," he said.
The next day, Chen Zheng and Zhang Jianguo did not mention the pig again.
Old Zhang wrapped the half-eaten poisoned bean cake in oil paper and put it in the cupboard.
They said they were keeping it as evidence, in case it came in handy in the future.
The dead sow wasn't buried; Zhang Laohan put it in a sack, pushed it to town on a cart, and handed it over to the livestock station.
Before leaving, he stood at the gate of the yard for a while, turned around and looked at the half-empty pigsty, his lips moved.
In the end, he only said one sentence: "People born in leap years have it tough."
Chen Zheng always felt that this incident was inextricably linked to his slapping of Wang Laoliu's face with the land deed at the village entrance a few days ago.
But it is precisely at times like these that we must not panic.
He took out the mountain produce he had gathered that day and spread it out on the stone platform in the courtyard, categorizing it one by one.
Three ginseng roots and stems, intact and not broken during digging.
He rinsed off the mud with clean water, laid the slices on a bamboo sieve to dry, and once dried, he sliced and bagged them to send to the county pharmacy.
Three pieces of Polygonum multiflorum, each about the size of a fist, with a pale yellow cross-section, in good condition.
He tied each piece separately with straw rope and hung them on the roof beam of the kitchen where it was ventilated, instructing Zhang Cuihua not to let the smoke from the stove rise directly to her.
There were about twenty pine mushrooms, with more than a dozen in good condition, their caps thick and the edges undamaged.
He divided it into two parts, and strung one part together with thin hemp rope to hang it in a ventilated place to dry in the shade.
Two flowers were saved from the other portion, and Zhang Cuihua was asked to slice them and stir-fry them with eggs at noon.
He served a plate of it to Zhang Jianguo's family.
Chen Rong squatted down beside him and watched him sort through the pieces, holding a piece of tree tongue in his hand and examining it over and over.
Chen Zheng picked it in the wild forest on his way back from the training course.
It's been drying in a bamboo sieve for the past few days, and the edges have shrunk a bit, but it's still in pretty good condition.
Chen Rong is not as good as Chen Zheng in this respect, but he has a good habit.
If they encounter something they don't recognize, they will wrap it in paper and write down the date and the location where they picked it.
There was this note next to the tree tongue, with neat and tidy handwriting.
Oak trees by the roadside, harvested in October.
"Brother, can this be sold for money?" Chen Rong put the tree tongue back on the sieve.
"Yes. The county pharmacy will buy it, and it's more expensive than sand ginseng. But we have to let the shopkeeper check the quality first and confirm the variety before we talk about it."
I'll take Jiawang to the county in a few days and bring him along too.
Chen Rong nodded, keeping this debt in mind.
Over the next few days, Chen Zheng processed the mountain produce while regularly checking on the fishpond.
After the start of autumn, the water temperature drops rapidly, and a thin layer of mist begins to appear on the surface of the pond in the early morning.
The amount of feed has been reduced by nearly one-third.
Zhou Haiming mentioned in a training course that fish will eat less when the water temperature drops below ten degrees Celsius.
Overfeeding can lead to waste and deterioration of the substrate.
He changed the time for feeding materials from early morning to 8 or 9 a.m.
Once the sun warms the water, the fish will become more active.
That afternoon, Chen Zheng took the dried sand ginseng off the bamboo sieve and spread it on the square table in the main room to slice it.
The roots and stems of the sand ginseng were dried in the sun for two days. The outer skin had shrunk, but the inside was still soft.
Slice the slices diagonally with a kitchen knife and lay them on parchment paper. You can see the annual rings on the cross-section.
He divided the sliced ginseng into two portions.
One portion was left for Zhang Cuihua to make soup, and the other portion was wrapped in straw paper and prepared to be sent to the county pharmacy.
Li Quan arrived in the evening.
He was riding that old-fashioned bicycle with a burlap sack strapped to the back seat. He was covered in sweat, and his shirt was soaked and clung to his body.
He took the sack off the back seat, placed it in Chen Zheng's yard, and squatted down to untie the sack.
The sack contained a dozen or so grass carp, each weighing around a pound, in good condition with intact scales.
However, there are obvious white spots on the gill covers.
"Ah Zheng, can you take a look at this for me?"
The grass carp in several fishponds in our village have developed white spots, just like the gill fungus I had last year.
Technician Zhou forbade the use of lime, saying it would only worsen the condition.
But if we don't sprinkle lime, we can't just watch the fish die one by one, can we?
Chen Zheng squatted down, picked up a grass carp, and carefully examined it by prying open its gill cover.
The white spots are indeed inside the gills, not on the body surface.
Typical symptoms of branchial fungal infection.
He thought for a moment, then stood up and took out the book "Freshwater Fish Farming Technology" that Zhao Deming had given him from inside the house.
Turn to the page on fish disease prevention and control.
The blank space next to it was filled with notes of several key points that Haiming had mentioned in the training course last week.
"Gill fungus cannot be treated with lime; instead, it can be treated by soaking in salt water or with methylene blue solution."
The latter is more effective, but it's not easily available in rural areas.
"The drug Zhou mentioned, methylene blue, should be available at the county aquatic products company."
But it's definitely too late to buy it now. Try using saline solution first.
Take the sick fish out and keep it separately. Add salt to the water and soak it for an hour or so, then put it back in clean water.
There is a risk of cross-infection from other ponds, so the inlets and outlets must be tightly closed to prevent water from infected ponds from flowing into other ponds.
Li Quan squatted down next to Chen Zheng, listening attentively and nodding occasionally.
Chen Zheng noticed that he took out a crumpled little notebook from his pocket and wrote down all the key points.
"There's one more thing." Chen Zheng stood up, patting the fishy smell off his hands.
"Do the fish ponds in your village use the same irrigation canal for both the inlet and outlet?"
The water from the diseased pond was drained and immediately flowed into the fishpond downstream.
If one pond becomes infected, the entire canal will be polluted.
This is the main reason why your fish diseases recur every year.
Li Quan was stunned.
He opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything for a long time before finally saying, "Yes, yes, that's exactly right!"
In our village, all of the dozen or so fishponds share the same irrigation canal, with water entering and exiting through the same canal.
Last year, the fish in my pond turned belly up, and the fish in Old Zhao's pond downstream also turned belly up.
I initially thought it was contagious, but it turns out I had simply discharged contaminated water into his water inlet!
"Block the outlet of the diseased pond."
Dig a temporary drainage ditch to divert the diseased water to the low-lying areas where no fish are raised.
The sick fish should be taken out and treated separately, and then put back in after they are cured.
The bottom of the irrigation ditch needs to be cleaned, the silt removed, and lime sprinkled on it for disinfection.
Lime is ineffective against gill fungi, but it is effective against other pathogens.
Li Quan carefully wrote these words down in his notebook.
Then he looked at Chen Zheng with a sincere look in his eyes.
He thanked Azheng and said he would do it that way when he got back.
He also said that if this method worked, all the fish farmers in their village would have to regard Chen Zheng as their benefactor.
As he was leaving, he turned back and added a sentence.
Director Fang had already told him about the land in Lijiawan; the young man holding the land deed was Chen Zheng.
The land their family owned was also the original ancestral property of the Zhou family.
His father had the Zhou family's land sale receipts, and the two families' records matched.
He said he would voluntarily vacate the land after the autumn corn harvest, and he would accept any price difference he was owed.
Chen Zheng saw Li Quan off; it was already dark by then.
The sand ginseng slices in the yard were brought inside, and the chickens were all put back in their coops.
The rumbling sound of oxcart wheels rolling on the dry mud road could be heard from the village road.
He stood at the gate of the courtyard, watching the dirt road in the direction of Lijiawan gradually disappear, a sense of certainty in his heart.
Another land deed, and the outcome should be forthcoming soon.