Living on a Mountain with my Husband

Chapter 26: Spicy Food

LongWei and Zimo have been living on the mountain for four days. LongWei's health has greatly improved. He no longer feels any weakness when doing some of the more strenuous activity. He isn't at one hundred percent, but he can comfortably do the work needed around the house without difficulty.

During this time, Zimo and LongWei managed to build up the wall up to two meters tall and strengthened the was base making it more difficult for animals to burrow through it. They've also added a bamboo fence for the chickens to live.

Zimo's greatest joking has been the number of edible plants they've found. With LongWei feeling better they have travelled deeper in the forest and through a bamboo forest.

During these walks Zimo has found, soapberries, hawthorn, green plums and bayberries. He also picked some bamboo shoots from the forest when they cut some bamboo to make the chicken's fence. Zimo naturally set out to dry the soapberries and bayberries and hawthorn. As for the green plums, Zimo decided to make wine. But he wasn't sure, so he gave up and decided not to pick them.

After several days of drying the passion fruit, Longan, and Sichuan peppers were finally dry. Zi Mo, immediately instructed LongWei on how to use the pestle and mortar to crush the spice and made spicy cabbage, yam, and bamboo soup for lunch.

LongWei was still weary of the pepper so he refused to add a lot to the soup. Zimo didn't mind. He knew LongWei would love the spiciness of Sichuan peppers and add more next time.

The soup was made, and the smell immediately stimulated the appetite.

Zimo, wanted to quickly dig in, but LongWei stopped him. He decided to try it himself first, just in case. LongWei took a small spoonful of broth and Bam!

"What is this!? It's hot, but not unpleasant. In fact, it's delicious. The slight tingle on the tongue is comfortable and I feel like I could eat a lot more." LongWei thought as he took another, and then another spoonful of soup.

"Dear, is it delicious?" Zimo looked at LongWei with a toothy smile and his cute little dimples on both cheeks.

"Zimo, you are amazing. You may not be able to cook, but your understanding of plants and flavour is wonderful." LongWei smiled back and praised Zimo.

In the afternoon, LongWei quickly packed up again ready to go back and pick more Sichuan peppers. "It's official, my man is addicted to spicy food. Hehe." Zimo thought as he looked at LongWei.

"Dear, instead of going to find the tree again and again, can we transplant in the yard or at least closer to the house?" Zimo suggested. He had a feeling the would cking and drying the peppers a lot in the future and wanted to streamline the process.

"Hm. That sounds like a good idea. Let's take the small wheelbarrow and bring back the whole trees." LongWei said in agreement.

...

As they headed back from digging up three Sichuan trees they found, LongWei suddenly stopped. He looked towards the right and signalled for Zimo to kneel quietly.

Zimo listened, and began to look towards the right, trying to see what LongWei had found.

LongWei proceeded to notch an arrow and quietly moved forwards. Before Zimo could spot anything.

Swish! Thunk!

LongWei had hit his target. It was small roe deer. LongWei had successfully hit an arrow directly in the heart. Normally, LongWei would try to only disable it. Fresh meat sells for a lot more at the market. However he and Zimo planned to stay on the mountain for two months, so he decided to kill it. He would butcher it himself and feed Zimo a hearty meal full of meat. The remaining meat could also be dried and eaten over the course of the next few months.

...

For dinner, Zimo suggested making a spice rub and salt rub for the deer meat before drying them. Usually when drying meat, it's normal to coat the meat in alt, hand and let dry in the sun. Zimo wanted to also try it with the Sichuan spice. He also remembered a way of smoking meat.

To successfully do this he built a smoke house from bamboo. The structure had room for a fire to the side which allowed only the smoke to pass over to the next side. On this side there was a bamboo structure with mud walls trapping most of the smoke inside, slowly drying the meat, to ensure the meat was properly dried, LongWei managed the smoke and fire for three days. They also dried meat the traditional way in the sun, and ate large amounts of meat.

Not having eaten so much meat before, Zimo felt uncomfortable after two days.

"Zimo, is it very uncomfortable? Lay down and I'll rub your stomach." LongWei grew worried. He understood that Zimo's body was more sensitive than his own. However he didn't realize that eating too much meat would have this effect on him.

"Mm..." Zimo moved closer to LongWei exposing his stomach like a puppy hoping for a belly rub.

LongWei felt distressed, but also amused at how cute Zimo looked when acting coquettish. He wrapped his arms around Zimo and placed a palm over his stomach and rubbed it for him. LongWei had gotten very good and giving Zimo massages. He had done one everyday when giving him his medicine.

"Mmm..." Zimo hummed showing comfort.

Zimo stayed in bed and slept until the late afternoon. During this time, LongWei continued to tend to the fire for the meat that was being smoked, and all the fruit and spices spread out in the yard drying in the sun.

"We've really gathered a lot of food. My little birdy seems to like hoarding food, but I will need to be careful with balancing our diet more. Meat is good but only once a day or two. The chickens have should start laying eggs again soon. The biggest problem is vegetables. The garden was neglected for too long, now we only have a few eggplants, leeks, and cabbage. If we only rely on these we won't have enough for the next month." LongWei contemplated what to do next.

"The best option, would be to go down the mountain and by a large amount of vegetables. Zimo was proficient in drying food, so they could preserve a large amount. The could also try transplanting some or planting the later seasoned plants like cucumbers, melon, carrots,and bean plants. The season for growing them could be done effectively from early summer. The problem is I would need to go down the mountain to gather these things.it's been half a month since we left the Yuan house. The current condition is unknown. The other choice is to go to old man Li's village directly. It's further but we are less likely to see people who know us.

That leaves the question of Zimo. My body has almost completely recovered, but Zimo... we need to use the mule cart and although it takes a longer time, let's take the rivers path again." After LongWei settled his mind he began preparing to leave two days later.

"Dear, I don't mind going down the mountain, but will it be okay? Didn't you any we would stay here for two months?" Zimo asked.

"We need vegetables. Will will go down and buy seeds, and vegetables to plant in the garden." LongWei explained.

"Okay." Zimo liked eating vegetables so he was excited to have more. He really hoped the could get cabbage to make spicy kimchi. It would be very delicious.

LongWei went out hunting. They would need money to buy everything, so he left the house the next morning to go hunting. During this time Zimo stayed home to pack the dried fruits, bayberries and soapberries to sell. It wasn't much, but ever bit counted.

"It's a bit lonely here without LongWei. I've never felt this way before. In the best I could go months without seeing anyone while writing my novels in the apartment alone. But now it hasn't even been a day and I really miss my husband LongWei. We haven't even known each other for very long." Zimo contemplated his current situation. Life since LongWei woke up has been the best he has ever lived in both lifetimes. He never wanted to lose his LongWei.

When LongWei returned, Zimo ran over and jumped into his arms. LongWei was shocked, but happy to see Zimo's beaming smile and dimples. He had also missed Zimo while he was out hunting.