Country Oddities

In the last two decades, gas was not yet widely available in rural mountain villages in the south. Most families could only rely on firewood for three meals a day. Therefore, when the crops were planted, the people in the mountainous areas tied a sharply sharpened hooked wood knife to their waistbands and drove a large buffalo as dark as charcoal into the mountains. There is less firewood and more people. The hills near the village have been "shaved" smooth by the villagers. Not a single long hair is left, and the short hair has been dug up by the roots of the cattle. The villagers had to get up early, bring some porridge in small bamboo baskets, and go deep into the mountains with two or three people. When the sun went down and the sky turned dark, they returned with a few handfuls of bush firewood. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.