593. Chapter 590 Raising Centipedes


Chapter 590 Raising Centipedes

Although he has found several centipedes, including a very big one, Zhang An still plans to continue looking.

Because he didn’t know whether he could successfully raise them, he tried to find as many as possible. The more the number, the greater the probability. This was inevitable.

After catching all the centipedes under the first stone, Zhang An then picked up the next two stones.

No surprise, there are still goods. There are five strips under the second stone, but they are smaller, only a few centimeters at most. The number of the third stone is not many, only two. , but they are all big items.

Then Zhang An searched for a while, and the results were astonishing. In less than half an hour, he found dozens of them, and the bamboo cage hanging around his waist was already nearly half full.

"Strange, why are there so many centipedes in the bamboo forest now?"

Although he had gained a lot, Zhang An didn't understand very much and said to himself.

Because he had come here to catch centipedes before, but it was too late to find them in one day. It was already good to find twenty or thirty centipedes.

Today he originally planned to go into the mountains to look for it. He came here just to try his luck and see the situation. In fact, he did not have high expectations.

But after arriving here, I found that the insect attracting powder I prepared had not been touched, and the woven cage I brought had not been used, and half of the centipedes in the cage had been caught.

And it has only been half an hour. If we continue to search, I estimate that we can find dozens of kilograms today without any problem.

But this question did not confuse Zhang An for too long, and he realized it.

This is 199, not the village that will be twenty or thirty years from now.

The memory in his mind still remains in later generations, because at that time a dealer came to collect centipedes, so he went into the mountains to look for them.

It is no exaggeration to say that centipedes at that time were made of gold. As long as you could find them, you could basically sell them for two thousand yuan per catty, or even more.

Not many people believed it at first, until someone in the village caught some and tried it, and found that it could really be sold for so much money.

After hearing the news, the villagers no longer hesitated and immediately took the whole family into the mountains to search for centipedes.

Because this price is not only attractive, but can directly knock people out.

If you don’t use too much in a day, you can get half a catty. In a few days, it can equal the income of crops that have been harvested for several years.

Facts have also proved that everyone made a lot of money from this matter. Basically, the people who caught it from the beginning made a lot of money by selling centipedes.

But this good thing did not last long. Under the temptation of money, everyone looked everywhere with high enthusiasm. After more than a week, the harvest dropped vertically.

Because there are so many people going to catch centipedes that some people even stay up all night and look for them all night long.

No matter how many centipedes there are in the mountains, they are still numerous and cannot afford to do this.

Zhang An was also called by his family to catch centipedes at that time. However, after he returned to the village, almost all the centipedes had been caught by everyone. No matter how hard he searched, he found nothing.

Now, centipede dealers have not yet started to go to the countryside, and centipedes have not yet been poisoned by everyone, so they are relatively easy to find.

For things like this, it is not just the centipedes that are caught in one sweep, but also the golden cicadas in the bamboo forest, the nine-scented bugs in the mountains, which are also known as stink bugs, and the bugs in the cracks in the wall. Slugs, also with the arrival of acquisition dealers, the tribe found a devastating blow.

There is also the Polygonatum japonica that can be found everywhere in the mountains. After someone went to the countryside to buy it, it didn't take long before it was difficult to find another one.

It’s just that although Zhang An understands that everything must be done in a proper manner, he can’t say anything.

It is impossible for him to stand up and stop everyone when someone comes to collect these things in the future. This is unrealistic.

No matter who you are, once you do this kind of thing, you will immediately become everyone's enemy, because everyone likes money. There is a saying that destroying people's wealth is like killing their parents.

After all, when Zhang An himself had little money in later generations, didn’t he follow everyone around to catch centipedes and sell them to dealers?

So even though Zhang An knew the future fate of these centipedes, he could only sigh. At most, he would not follow everyone to find them in the future.

When Zhang An came back to his senses, he found that his cage was already full of centipedes, so he simply stopped catching them.

Immediately brought all the centipedes into the space and found a suitable place to put them in.

In order to take care of them, Zhang An also planted some bamboos in the space, and then picked up many stones and put them in to give them a place to hide.

After coming out of the bamboo forest, Zhang An was not in a hurry to go home. After putting all his belongings into the space, he walked forward to Sanqing Temple.

He thought he had come, so he took a look at the old man.

When I came to Sanqing Temple, I found that there were only a few people offering incense in the main hall, and there were not as many people as usual.

However, the large incense burner on the desk is full of incense sticks, which shows that many people have come to burn incense recently.

After those people finished offering incense, they donated some money to the merit box and prepared to go down the mountain. Zhang and his party sent them out as before.

"Why are you here today?"

Zhang and his party, who were escorting a few people out, saw Zhang An and asked with a smile.

“I came to Zizhu Forest to find something, so I stopped by to take a look.”

While talking to Zhang and his party, Zhang An squatted on the ground and touched Heizi’s big black head. Dog head.

It was sleeping on its stomach just now, but when it discovered Zhang An was coming, it immediately ran over and circled around Zhang An's feet.

Think about it, when Heizi was sent to the temple before, it was still very small. But now, unknowingly, it has grown to be taller than a human knee, and it has become a mature one. The big dog.

"I see that the rice at the bottom of the mountain is starting to turn yellow. When will your family prepare to harvest the rice?"

Zhang and his party did not ask Zhang An what he was looking for in Zizhu Forest, because he knew that Zhang An If I wanted to say something, I would say it myself without having to speak. Instead, I asked about the autumn harvest at Zhang An's house.

When Zhang An's family harvested crops in the past two years, he would go to help, because the food he ate in the temple was all sent by Zhang An.

He has always advocated taking action personally. If he is not allowed to go, then he will not want the food sent to him by Zhang An.

"Maybe it won't be until the end of the month. Although it has turned red in the past two days, it still looks a little tender. If I raise it for two more days, the rice will taste better."

Other people's rice is yellow, but Zhang An's rice is red, because all the rice they grow is blood rice. The more mature it is, the redder it becomes. When it's time to harvest, it looks like chicken blood. At the entrance of the village, It was very conspicuous in that large field.

No matter who you are, as long as you come to the village entrance, you can see the different cubs at a glance.

Of course, Zhang An’s family is not the only one planting blood rice in Changqing Village this year.

A few uncles, such as Zhang Xinmin, Huang Ming, Zhou Yang and Zhang An, came to ask for some rice seedlings to plant when they were planting rice. However, they are not like the blood rice that is planted in all the fields in Zhang An's family. They only plant part of it, which is basically enough for the family. The extra part is planted with hybrid rice. After all, if it is sold, the yield of normal rice is still high. , relatively cost-effective.

“It feels like not many people came to Guanli today, so it’s rare for you to have some peace and quiet.”

Looking at Guanli, which was slightly quiet at this moment, Zhang An smiled and said, when there are usually many people, the Taoist temple is full of people coming in and out, and even those who come to see a doctor can queue up.

"That's true, but it's not quiet in the morning. Several groups of people came, including several who came to see the doctor."

Zhang Yixing enjoys this kind of quiet time very much, because he has always been a person who likes tranquility, but he still welcomes people who come to offer incense. After all, for Sanqing Temple, strong incense is also a good thing.

It is much better than in the past years when only villagers from the village came to Guanli to offer incense.

Then Zhang and his party ignored Zhang An and walked into the side room minding their own business.

Zhang An followed and took a look, and found that there were large bowls everywhere, and the bowls were filled with tung oil. They were lit on fire, like oil lamps.

On top of the oil lamp, there is a large bowl that is covered with broken bamboo to support it.

After Zhang Yixing came in, he carried the oil drums next to him and added oil one by one.

Even with so many oil lamps lit, the room looked very dim, with black oil smoke everywhere.

After all, it is tung oil that burns. When this thing burns, there is more fumes than other oils, and it is also darker.

After Zhang Jianwen added a circle of tung oil, he did not finish. Instead, he took off the large bowl that was covering the tung oil lamp and scraped the oil soot inside into another bucket.

“Dad, are you planning to make new ink this year?”

At this time, even if Zhang An had never done ink, he still knew what Zhang Yixing was doing.

“Hmm, the paint you and I came back from last time has almost been mixed with tung oil. It’s time to start making some preparations, but if you want to make new ink, you have to wait for several months. , I have to burn all the tung oil."

While talking to Zhang An, Zhang Yixing continued to collect oil soot, and his movements were very skillful.

“How much soot can be produced by burning so many barrels of tung oil?”

Zhang An turned his head and looked at the door. There were several barrels there, all filled with tung oil.

“The paint and tung oil this time are better, and it is estimated that it can burn seven or eight kilograms.”

Zhang Yixing smiled slightly, expressing his appreciation for the earthen paint and tung oil cut back this time. Tung Oil is very satisfied.

"Hey, it's only seven or eight kilograms. I think these barrels of oil add up to at least more than a hundred kilograms."

After Zhang An heard this, his eyes immediately widened. More than a hundred kilograms of oil is burned to produce only a few kilograms of ash. The cost cannot be said to be small.

"Haha, this is already a lot. If the oil is not good, there may not be so much, otherwise you think one ounce of gold and one ounce of ink are just a joke."

Zhang Yi Xing shook his head slightly and said to Zhang An.

“I thought it was just talk, but I didn’t expect it to be like this. No wonder the ancients in the past gave pens, inks, papers and inkstones as their first choice as gifts. It doesn’t matter whether they are needed or not, but they are really expensive.”

It was only now that Zhang An realized that he was the frog in the well. In the past, he would be very happy when he watched those ancient figures on TV and received pens, inks, paper and inkstones from others.

At that time, he thought it was because the writing style was popular among the ancients and everyone liked these things. But he didn’t realize that they didn’t like these things. They clearly liked money.

“Haha, you can’t say that. There are good and bad inks. The kind of ink you mentioned contains the best spices and even gold powder, but generally not many people are like this. "It's for writing."

Zhang Yixing didn't refute, just smiled and explained.

"By the way, didn't we say we were going to add some musk before? I'll send some over when I get back."

When it came to the top spices, Zhang An thought about what he had told the old man before. , when making ink, you have to add musk to it.

Musk must be the best spice. He doesn’t have anything else in his hand, but it can’t be said that there is not much musk. There are so many fragrant deer in the space, and he basically takes musk every once in a while.

“There’s no rush, wait until I finish burning the tung oil, at least until next year, we’ll talk about it then.”

Knowing that Zhang An's side had a lot of musk, Zhang and his party had nothing to be reluctant to part with.

Later, Zhang An waited for half a day in Sanqing, and someone came again to offer incense.

Zhang An didn’t stay any longer and took the opportunity to go down the mountain and go home.

In the next few days, Zhang An kept paying attention to the centipede in the space.

In the first few days, these centipedes grew very obviously, basically the same every day.

Especially the very small centipede cubs, which grow very quickly, while the largest ones grow more slowly. The centipedes he caught now are basically about the same size.

It’s just that after it grows to a certain level, it seems that no obvious changes are seen.

However, with the experience of those saplings before, Zhang An also knew that they had grown to a threshold. There was no rush, so he could only wait slowly.

Of course, growth will lead to other behaviors. The centipedes he caught in the space were both male and female, and they would naturally reproduce normally.

The small bamboo forest he created to raise centipedes has now produced many centipedes, more than in the purple bamboo forest, and they are densely packed all over the ground.

If he hadn't made restrictions, these centipedes would probably crawl around in the space.

The leisurely days always pass quickly. The rice in the fields that originally needed to be cultivated for a few more days also changed day by day. Within a few days, it turned completely golden.

All golden yellow is the color of harvest. This is absolutely true.

Standing at the bridge, you can see at a glance that the fields are all golden. After last year’s bad harvest, the farmers cherish this harvest even more, with smiles of satisfaction on their faces.

It was only the end of September, and every household in the village began to go out to harvest rice in the fields.

In fact, the weather in September and October is much more stable than that in May and June, and it will not change suddenly and cause heavy rain.

Everyone is so active in grabbing the goods because they know that the National Day is coming. According to the experience of previous years, this will be a difficult opportunity.

Especially knowing that this year’s National Day, city residents will have a seven-day holiday, they are simply happier than they would be on their own.

(End of this chapter)

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