An archaeological team came from the city, and a group of them had to live in the commune, with the militia guarding the area.

Thinking of picking up the slack? There was no chance.

Wen Jiajia couldn’t help but sigh. She was a layperson, how could she not be tempted?

Antiques will only become more valuable in the future. The terracotta figurine the captain held alone was worth more than a million.

For this reason, Wen Jiajia was sad for a while, until Wei Dai’s letter arrived.

—

At the end of October in the south, there was no atmosphere of desolation.

The mountains were still green, as green as ink.

The water was not yet icy. It’s said that the spring river plumbing duck is a prophet, but the autumn river water cold duck is also a prophet. The ducks had been quite lively lately, indicating that the weather was not yet cold.

Wen Jiajia even harvested a wild duck while chasing ducks.

Heaven, the second guarantee of the state, she personally caught it, which made Wen Jiajia panic when she ate it. She also deliberately checked, and it was not a Chinese merganser, so she was somewhat relieved.

Not to mention, wild ducks are truly delicious.

Anyway, it is better than pheasant, especially when stewed with dried bitter oak kueh. The meat is stewed to a tender state, with a layer of oil floating on top, and the soup is so thick and delicious that everyone feels like swallowing their tongues.

The persimmons in the yard at the door were finally ripe. Wen Jiajia had been counting them during this time and knew exactly how many persimmons were on the tree.

“Auntie, can we eat them today?” She asked for the 31st time.

Wen Xuan drooled as she looked at the persimmon tree. Every day, she had to move a small stool and sit at the door to keep an eye on it, fearing that a bird or a naughty boy would come and snatch her persimmons away.

Wen Jiajia patted her on the head and said, “It’s okay, go get the pole, and let sister bring a bamboo basket.”

Persimmon trees are tall and require special poles to pick them.

“Good!”

Wen Xuan jumped up excitedly and rushed into the house, eager to eat the red persimmons.

At this moment, a bicycle came toward Wen’s house.

“Is Wen Jia at home?”

Wen Jiajia was stunned, came to the door, and asked, “Here, what’s wrong?” She recognized the postman by his uniform.

Xiao Tang smiled, “Are you Wen Jia?”

Wen Jiajia nodded.

“I have a letter for you, sign here.” As he spoke, Tang took the letter out of his pocket. It was military, and he personally delivered it.

Wen Jiajia had a guess in her heart, so she hurriedly took it, signed, and couldn’t wait to open it, forgetting about the persimmons.

The letter came from Wei Dai.

[Jiajia,

Forgive me for sending this letter at this moment. It’s November now, and the oranges at home are not ripe. When I was a child, I used to go to your village to steal oranges. The sweetest ones were always on the edge of the big rock in the West Mountain.

How has life been during this time? You like to eat noodles, you can go to the county to find Lao Bai to exchange for some. He is skilled at making noodles, smooth and flexible and not easy to break. I used to eat the beef bone noodles he made, and the taste is unforgettable.

There is good news that the army has finally started construction on the family homes. I was promoted to company commander this week and have the opportunity to get a house. I don’t know if you prefer a building or a bungalow. If it’s a building, don’t worry, my leader is a good person, and I can persuade him.

Jiajia, you don’t know how much I think about you all the time. I regret not taking a picture with you before I left home, so now I can only imagine your face.

The sycamore trees here have only branches left. On your birthday, perhaps the first snow will fall. I guess your home is still as warm as spring, but don’t be careless. If you need charcoal, you can go to the commune distillery to find Feng An, he is my friend.

Jiajia, I would love to hear from you if I can.]

Wen Jiajia’s heart ached as she flipped through the five pages of the letter.

She felt a bit embarrassed; she couldn’t write five pages.

She hadn’t written so much in years.

But her mind was soon drawn to the matter of getting a house, and Wen Jiajia hurriedly ran to her room to get a pen and paper.

“Auntie, auntie! The persimmons!”

Wen Xuan urged anxiously.

Wen Jiajia called from inside the room, “Be good and watch the persimmons, auntie will come to pick them soon.”

She bit the pen and organized her thoughts to write a reply.

The first thing was that she preferred a bungalow.

The buildings of this era were really not appealing. The original owner had grown up in a family home. Her adoptive parents’ family was fine, but other families with many children simply had nowhere to settle.

Countless families had more than ten people living in a room of forty or fifty square meters for three generations. It was already very good to have forty or fifty square meters.

Wen Jiajia folded her hands and calculated.

Wei Dai’s level could get a 50-square-meter house. And there were three people on his side; Wen Chun and Wen Xuan would slowly grow up.

If she really married him, she would definitely have a child, if nothing else.

In this way, a family of five or six living in a 50-square-meter house, even if there was no public restroom at this time, it was too small.

Besides, the current building is a one-story building with many households. Maybe there is a public restroom, and you have to share it with others for washing and toilet needs. Wen Jiajia couldn’t accept that and preferred a bungalow.

Wen Jiajia wrote the words “want a bungalow” three times.

What else could she write?

Wen Jiajia thought about it and told the story of the Fuyang brigade’s discovery of the ancient tomb, proudly mentioning that the ancient tomb had collapsed by itself, and that the tomb robbers had tried to steal the antiquities but were thwarted.

He also said that he had lost his job as a colleague with Daqiang because of the damn tomb robbers, but she was arranged to herd ducks again. After the autumn harvest, her daily job was to herd ducks, and from time to time she could pick up two duck eggs to eat.

At this point, she seemed to have opened some floodgates. Her thoughts surged, and she kept writing until she filled three pages in one go.

Wen Jiajia hesitated for a moment, folded the letter, put it in a drawer, and decided to send it to the county seat when she had time.

“Auntie, let’s beat the persimmons!”

Wen Xuan, the glutton, was urging again.

“Oops, here, here,” Wen Jiajia hurriedly ran out, swallowing her saliva. She also wanted to eat persimmons.

The persimmons were an old variety, all the size of their fists, even bigger than their fists.

Not all of them were ripe, and some were still orange. But it didn’t matter. Persimmons, when covered, would ripen.

If you kept them on the tree, sooner or later they’d be pecked by birds. Those birds were very greedy; they never finished what they started, and a persimmon would have many bites pecked out of it, which was super wasteful.

Wen Jiajia raised her head, pointed a pole with a net pocket at the persimmon, and turned it slightly. The persimmon fell into the net pocket.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan were so happy that they clapped their hands and carefully took the persimmons out of the net pocket and put them on the table.

Wen Jiajia didn’t stop and continued to pick persimmons.

The children who were playing outside saw the persimmon tree in the courtyard of Wen’s house swaying and instantly ran in the direction of Wen’s house.

They knew that the Wen family was going to pick persimmons.

“Don’t eat them, they’re ours!”

Wen Xuan looked at the people at the door, very angry, like a puppy guarding its home, rushing out to bare her teeth.

Her eyes were bulging with tears, and tears were about to come out.

One, two, three, four, five…

The children at the door, she couldn’t count them on her fingers. Wen Xuan was instantly angry. If they took the persimmons, she, her sister, and her aunt wouldn’t be able to eat any.

“Xuanxuan, come in.” Wen Jiajia called out to her, “Come in.”

Not to mention anything else, the villagers really took care of the three orphaned girls of the Wen family during this time, so it was reasonable for Wen Jiajia to let these children go home with some persimmons.

She collected most of the persimmons from the tree and filled the wooden tables in the yard.

Wen Jiajia pinched and inspected them again.

She put the half-ripe ones in the bamboo basket to ripen, and they could be eaten after a few days.

In fact, these stiff persimmons were more durable than the new varieties of persimmons from decades later. It wasn’t a problem to leave them for four or five days.

As for the ripe persimmons left on the table, Wen Jiajia distributed them to the onlookers.

“Half a persimmon per person. Is there more?” Wen Jiajia said, “I’ll give one to each of you if you line up.”

When there’s food, the children behave very well.

There were no snacks these days, and the wild fruits in the mountains were the snacks of rural children.

It’s just that most of those fruits were sour, and even if they were sweet, they were very small. Snacks like Wenjia persimmons were already considered excellent.

“Thank you, Sister Jiajia!”

“Thank you, Auntie.”

“Thank you, Auntie…”

It’s good that these kids were in nursery school; at least they knew to say thank you.

Even if each person only got half a persimmon, they took away six big red persimmons from the Wen family.

Wen Xuan watched from the sidelines, and when she saw there were still a lot on the table, she was relieved.

In the end, Wen Jiajia gave Wen Chun and Wen Xuan each half a persimmon: “Our persimmons are big, and one whole one will give you diarrhea if you eat it.”

Although Wen Chun and Wen Xuan were greedy, they were not overly so. It was good to be able to eat half of one.

The ripening of Wenjia persimmons was a signal, and one after another, many fruits in the village ripened.

After the autumn harvest, the children ushered in their harvest.

The hairy peaches in the mountains, the oranges all over the hills, the strange-looking bends, and the sweet and silky wild lychees.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan were having fun and followed a group of children to the foot of the mountain to play every day.

Perhaps the wild fruit was tempting, or the three-year-old’s brain capacity wasn’t so large, and Wen Jiajia’s advice not to eat wild fruit was soon forgotten.

Of course, they didn’t forget their aunt at home. Every day, they never returned empty-handed, which meant Wen Jiajia saw a lot of wild fruits.

These mountains were truly a treasure.

Baba seeds, wild grapes, and hairy chestnuts.

Wen Jiajia received a handful of hairy chestnuts brought back by Wen Chun and Wen Xuan one day and put them in the pot to cook. What did they taste like when cooked? Tsk, glutinous, sweet, better than all the chestnuts and hazelnuts she had ever eaten.

How could she teach Wen Chun and Wen Xuan a lesson?

When you accept food from others, you have to be polite and grateful.

Wen Jiajia carried a bamboo basket on her back, brought a small shovel, and went up the mountain to pick up chestnuts.

The hairy chestnut was in the West Mountain, and there was a huge orange forest in the West Mountain.

Although it was slack farming season, it didn’t mean there was no work to do.

If you wanted to earn a lot of work points, you went to the river dam. There were also people who picked oranges here.

After the oranges were harvested, some of them had to be sent to the supply and marketing cooperatives of the various communes, and the other part to the county seat.

Truckloads of oranges were sent out, and stacks of banknotes were put into the account.

So the most beautiful voice sounded from the radio that had not been opened for 10,000 years—

“At two o’clock in the afternoon, the commune ministry was in session.”

What’s the meeting about? Everyone knew it was the money-sharing conference.

The annual year-end dividend had finally begun.

Wen Jiajia glanced at the calendar. This day was the beginning of winter.

After the beginning of winter, everything withers, and winter begins on this day.

She gathered her coat and looked up at the clear sky, not feeling the breath of winter.