Siheyuan: Sizhu starts blindly and takes a new path

When you have hope and goals in life, no matter how difficult the life is, you won’t feel it’s hard, you will just feel like it’s gone in a flash.

Time quickly came to the end of April. During this period, Sha Zhu accepted Liu Lan as his second apprentice. When Fatty found out, he got angry behind his back.

After get off work every afternoon, Sha Zhu would go to Fengze Garden for training, and his relationship with his fellow apprentices became better and better. Once, he even met Nie Shuai who was treating him to a meal at Fengze Garden. Master Sun asked Sha Zhu to stir-fry a dish called Zaoliu Sanbai, and although he didn't receive any special comments, he didn't receive any criticism either, which showed that he had reached a certain level.

After Qin Huairu's suggestion, she would occasionally get some wild vegetables from her hometown to send to Doctor Li at the factory hospital. The relationship between the two quickly heated up, and they were almost like half-sisters.

Yu Li's family encountered some bad things. A lot of rumors about Sha Zhu spread near her home: Yu family's future son-in-law Sha Zhu was a scoundrel who took advantage of the public, had an unclear relationship with the widow in the same courtyard, and loved to beat people. The Yu family married Yu Li to Sha Zhu because he had four rooms.

After hearing these rumors, Yu's father was furious. If it was before the engagement, Yu's father would definitely break up Yu Li and Sha Zhu no matter how good their relationship was. His tongue could kill people. Now that the matter has been settled, Yu's father knows whether these rumors are true or not. He can't use these words to break off the engagement. If Sha Zhu makes a fuss, Yu Li will really not be able to get married in the future.

Yu Li said to her father, "We should understand our own affairs. Why are the rumors spreading now? They just want to ruin the wedding. This matter is either directed at me or Zhuzi, but since the rumors are spreading near our home, they are directed at Zhuzi. In a few days, when Zhuzi is promoted to the seventh-level cook and the canteen squad leader, we will see what the rumors say."

After Yu Li comforted her parents, she told Sha Zhu about it. As soon as Sha Zhu heard it, he could roughly guess who was causing the trouble. There were only three people: Xu Damao, Qin Huairu, and Yi Ye. These three people were arranged in order of likelihood.

Yu Li also told Sha Zhu what she said to comfort her parents, and Sha Zhu gave Yu Li a thumbs up. The only way to solve this problem is for Sha Zhu to get promoted. Nothing else works. He can't catch Xu Damao or others and ask them to explain to everyone. First, without evidence or handle, Xu Damao and others will not give in; second, people who listen to rumors are more willing to believe bad information from others.

Seeing that Xu Damao was in a good mood these days and looked quite proud, Lou Xiao'e asked him what was wrong. Xu Damao said nothing but was just happy to himself.

Team leader Zheng Xi from the Security Department ran into Sha Zhu who was leaving get off work at the factory gate: "Zhu Zi, I heard that you've been in some trouble recently. Someone was spreading bad things about you near your girlfriend's house."

Sha Zhu was surprised: "Brother Zheng, how did you know?"

"A team member in my class lives near Yuli's house. He told me. Can you guess who spread the word?"

"It could be Xu Damao."

"Xu Damao, is he the projectionist from the Propaganda Department?"

"Yes. He and I are neighbors in the same yard, and we had some conflicts before."

"He is not a good person to harm others just because of a conflict. I will find a chance to deal with him."

"No, he's a mean guy. There's no need to offend him and make him hate you."

"I'm afraid of him, grandma. We have weapons in our hands." Squad Leader Zheng patted the holster on his waist and said, "Besides, I can put a sack on him so that he won't know who hit him."

"He's not an enemy, and it won't rise to the level of touching your waist. Besides, I need to practice my cooking skills during this period of time. In a few days, I will have the assessment to upgrade to level seven. After I finish the exam, I will have my own ways to deal with him. His little chicken won't need your big knife." Sha Zhu knew clearly about Xu Damao's abilities.

"Okay, if you need anything, just tell me, brother. Don't be polite." Squad Leader Zheng patted Sha Zhu's arm.

"No problem. I will never be polite if I need you." Sha Zhu suddenly remembered something. "Brother Zheng, can you get some more meat recently? I'm getting married in a few days and I want to give some meat to my father-in-law's family. You know that the monthly supply is not enough."

"Okay, we've eaten all the meat. Let's go to the mountains together in a few days to see if we can get some more." Squad Leader Zheng agreed.

The steel rolling mill is not qualified to conduct assessment for cooks, and the grade assessment work is jointly guided and arranged by the Municipal Personnel Bureau and the Labor Bureau.

In this era, there are no particularly high requirements for low-level cooks such as factory cooks. As long as you cook better than an ordinary housewife, the assessor will let you pass. What is important is whether the factory has applied for you to come for the assessment.

The assessment content is to stir-fry two dishes, one meat and one vegetable. At present, the difficulties have not been overcome yet, so two vegetable dishes are stir-fried, one is shredded potatoes, and the other is stir-fried vegetables. One tests the knife skills, and the other tests the control of the heat.

These are all very easy for Sha Zhu, who can cook dishes without any problems in Fengze Garden. After serving the finished product to the judges, they were very surprised that there was such a talent in the steel mill and that he should work in a restaurant. Therefore, the judges gave full marks for all indicators, and Sha Zhu was awarded the title of seventh-level cook.

The judges announced loudly: "Congratulations to Comrade He Yuzhu for becoming a Level 7 cook. I hope you will continue to work hard and serve the people better."

"Got it. I'll try my best." Sha Zhu answered with his chest puffed out.

When squad leader Zheng got off work on Saturday, he stopped Sha Zhu again and asked him to wait at the factory gate at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. Sha Zhu knew that he was going to be taken into the mountains, so he asked if he needed to prepare anything. Squad leader Zheng asked him to bring some stir-fried dishes to comfort his brothers.

Sha Zhu went straight to Chaoyang Vegetable Market after leaving the factory and bought celery and lettuce. He originally wanted to buy meat, but his meat coupons were at home.

I soaked the soybeans when I got home, and then I picked up the Selected Works of Mao Zedong that I bought from the bookstore a few days ago and started reading. I fell asleep while reading. I am really not a bookworm.

The next morning, I made some stir-fried Chinese mustard greens with soybeans, and also fried some celery and lettuce, and baked a dozen multi-grain pancakes. That should be enough to satisfy Squad Leader Zheng and his colleagues.

When Sha Zhu arrived at the factory gate, everyone was already there. Six people were crowded in a broken jeep. It took more than three hours to drive there and change drivers twice before arriving at Yesanpo.

After getting off the car, the people from the security squad had been there once and were familiar with the road. They led Sha Zhutui and walked into the mountains for another half an hour. Only then did Squad Leader Zheng start to have his men set some traps in the grass and on tree branches.

Sha Zhu had never hunted before, he was just here to join in the fun. Team Leader Zheng asked him to come, firstly, because he wanted him to have more contact with his brothers, and secondly, so that he could do a little more to avoid a repeat of the last time when someone raised complaints.

Sha Zhu doesn't know how to hunt, but he knows about wild vegetables. In the morning, he carries a bag of food and a bamboo basket, preparing to dig some wild vegetables and mushrooms with the team.

Along the way, Sha Zhu saw an elm tree, which was already full of elm seeds. This is a good thing. It is delicious to wash it and steam it with some noodles. It is sweet even when you eat it right after picking it. Others looked down on it, saying that they came to eat meat and vegetables. Sha Zhu knew his own family and he didn't have a gun, so he just picked the fruits and ate vegetarian food. If there was more meat later, he would share it. If there was not much, he would buy some with his own money.

So Sha Zhu told squad leader Zheng that he was picking elm seeds here. Squad leader Zheng gave him a dagger for self-defense, and the others followed squad leader Zheng to the deeper mountains.

Sha Zhu didn't climb the tree first, but found a kind of red wild fruit behind the elm tree. It looked a bit like a date, growing in clusters and tasting very sweet.

There were many fruits on one side of this wild fruit tree, but no fruits on the other side. There seemed to be traces of animals gnawing on the fruitless side. When Sha Zhu saw this, he realized that this date-like tree must have been visited by other animals, and it might come again. So he only picked some and left the rest for those animals. If there were any small ones that he could catch, he would try it then.

Sha Zhu looked at the elm tree, the elm seeds on the tree were waving to him, thinking that he could pick the elm seeds on the tree and avoid being discovered by animals. So he tightened his pants, buttoned up his clothes, and started climbing the tree. Thanks to his good physical fitness from wrestling when he was a child, he climbed up the branches holding the trunk and broke off the twigs to collect the elm seeds.

While he was busy, an animal came out of the forest and headed towards him. It had two fangs on its mouth and brown and black striped hair.

This is a wild boar. The main reason we come up the mountain is to hunt it.

Sha Zhu was happy, thinking that he had walked into a trap. Sha Zhu excitedly shouted "wild boar" and wanted to inform squad leader Zhao and the others, but he forgot that squad leader Zheng had walked a long way.

The wild boar was frightened when it heard Sha Zhu's shouting, so it rushed straight towards the elm tree, trying to break the tree and knock Sha Zhu down.

It was also because Sha Zhu hugged him so tightly that he got so angry that he yelled and cursed.

The wild boar seemed to understand, "You come to my territory and dare to scold me." It kept leaning its body against the trunk of the elm tree. It was strong and powerful, so it used all four legs to try to shake the silly pillar down with brute force.

You know, if the trunk shakes one point, the branches will shake eight points. Sha Zhu felt that he could not stay on the tree for a long time, otherwise he would be shaken down by the wild boar sooner or later.

Sha Zhu drew out his dagger, put his legs aside, and prepared to find a good opportunity to jump onto the wild boar's back.

Fortunately, wild boars, like domestic pigs, don’t raise their heads, otherwise they would be alert if they noticed Sha Zhu’s actions.

While the wild boar was turning under him, Sha Zhu jumped onto its back with his legs apart and locked the boar's buttocks tightly with his legs and feet. He took advantage of the situation to bend forward, grabbed the boar's fangs with one hand, and stabbed the boar's neck with a knife with the other hand.

The wild boar was injured and in pain, and knowing there was someone on its back, it kept jumping, trying to knock Shazhu off.

Sha Zhu's knife-holding hand kept stabbing and thrusting. Sha Zhu had wrestled as a child and later became a chef, so he was strong. He had killed pigs and sheep before, so he was very accurate and ruthless with his knife. After more than a dozen cuts, he severed the wild boar's trachea and carotid artery. The wild boar, which had lost too much blood, slowly lost its strength and fell down.

Even so, Sha Zhu was exhausted, sweaty all over his head and back, and he sat on the pig, panting heavily. It was really thrilling, if he hadn't jumped on the back, grabbed the pig's tusks accurately, and coiled around the pig's body, or if the pig was bigger and Sha Zhu had less strength, he would have been knocked to the ground by the wild boar, and his body would have been pierced by its tusks, turning into wild boar feces.