Chapter Seventy-One: The Grape Trellis

  In the morning, as soon as the alarm clock rang, Ju An opened his eyes and jumped up. He startled Wu Song, who was turning off the alarm clock, and pointed at Ju An, shouting twice before following him into the bathroom to wash up. The two quickly finished cleaning up, with Wu Song wiping the black face of the monkey with a small towel, when Ju An's figure flashed by and he had already entered the space.

  As soon as I entered the space, I saw that the branches of a dozen or so fruit trees were all laden with fruit. There were three varieties of apples alone: large red apples with a purplish tint, golden yellow apples like those bought in supermarkets, and domestically common red Fuji apples. There were also plum-like fruits, ping-pong-ball-sized dates, and golden pears. I picked one of each kind and put it in my mouth to taste. Some were fragrant and sweet, while others were crisp and refreshing. The texture was also better than the fruit bought outside, and they were slightly larger too.

  After eating a circle, Ju An was already full and brought out a basket of fruit from the space. As soon as he came out of the space, he heard the sound of knocking on the door outside: "Hey! Old Six, don't sleep, get up and work!"

  He casually picked an apple from the fruit basket and handed it to Wu Song, who was playing by himself, then placed the basket on a cabinet beside the door and opened the door.

  As soon as the door opened, Wang Fan, dressed neatly, rushed in: "What's taking you so long, what are you doing?" Seeing a basket of fruit, he picked up a yellow apple and wiped it on his clothes before taking a big bite. After eating several mouthfuls, he waved the fruit in his hand at Ju An and said, "Hmm, this fruit seems to taste better than yesterday's."

  "Haven't even washed it yet, just wiped it on my body and bit into it, not afraid of getting dirty" Ju An said with a frightful tone.

  Wang Fan munched on fruit while saying to Ju An, "Don't think you can fool me. If it's not washed, would you dare put it in your own room? Let's hurry up and go for a run around the block. Running domestically is not as enjoyable as here, even if it's just circling around. It's more fun playing here than there." After finishing speaking, he took another pear from the basket and handed it to Wukong, then put a red Fuji apple into his own pocket.

  " Hurry up and get changed, I'll go down first, we won't have breakfast either."

  "Alright, I surrender. You go down first, I'll change my clothes and come down. It's been a while since we've had some fun in the town, but after playing for a bit, we can't stay on the ranch anymore. My bullets have almost run out from this period of time, and I haven't gone shopping yet." After finishing speaking, he pushed Wang Fan with his hand, pushing him out of the door, then closed it behind him. He took off his pajamas, put on a pair of jeans, a dark-colored long-sleeved shirt, boots, and found a baseball cap to wear on his head. Then, he called out to Wu Song as they went downstairs together.

  Ju An and Wang Fan each collected their horses, let them run freely for a big circle, then Ju An drove the pickup truck with Wang Fan to the town.

  They arrived at the outdoor gear store in town, dropped off Wang Fan, and let him go to the shooting range by himself. Ju An drove to buy some wood, planning to build a grape trellis in the space, plant two dragon eye grapes, and then wait for peaches or other fruits to be available on the market before getting some, so that he could eat fresh fruit all year round.

  I bought about ten large square woods, brought several stacks of long wooden strips, and also bought some tools to connect the components and iron nails in the tool shop. Since I did manual labor at my senior brother's place last time, I unexpectedly liked the feeling of doing DIY small things by myself. This time, I plan to build a small grape rack by myself in the space to practice my hands.

  Dragging the purchased wood and tools, he got off the highway and drove along the forest for a while. After observing that there was no one around, he moved the wood and tools into the space. After finishing, he was already sweating profusely and took a good rest after drinking a bottle of beverage. Then, he drove to pick up Wang Fan who had been at the shooting range for a while and brought him back to the ranch.

  Just arrived at the gate of the shooting range, Wang Fan came out of the store and opened the car door, got in and said to Ju An: "If you don't come soon, I'll just take a taxi back to the ranch. What's going on? You've been gone for so long."

  Jū ān looked at the guy with a gloomy face and thought that this time was really too long, choosing wood, buying tools, and making a big circle. It's almost midnight now, so he could only laugh and answer: "Some things on the ranch take time to handle, which delayed you. You won't play for a while, why are you waiting here stupidly?"

  Wang Fan thought for a moment, then poked Ju An's waist with his finger and asked with a sly smile: "Is it that you're meeting up with that certain sister and going out to play behind your brother's back?"

  "Hey, what's with the wild imagination? Nothing's going on. Let's go home and eat, don't you think your brother is still a bit hungry?" After saying that, he pulled Wang Fan into the car.

  After lunch, the two of them cleaned up the bowls and chopsticks on the table. Ju An said to Wang Fan, "This afternoon, I'll take a nap first. I had some insomnia last night and slept late, so now I'm feeling a bit drowsy. If you don't want to sleep, feel free to go out and have some fun, ride horses or fish, whatever you like." Ju An made an excuse, wanting to enter the space to set up his own framework.

  Wang Fan thought for a moment and said, "Let's go fishing instead. I know the place. Later on, I'll go by myself, so don't worry about me. Also, don't eat that pumpkin stuff tonight. Eat beef or pork dumplings instead."

  "Today's time is not enough to wrap dumplings, tomorrow when Lu Guangyuan and others come, it's just right to wrap them. If not, let's continue eating steak tonight, I'll get you two pieces, will that be enough?"

  Wang Fan nodded and suggested, "Let's just have rice instead, stir-fry some meat dishes, eat something sweet and savory. Beef patties are fine to just taste the freshness, I couldn't take eating them all the time."

  "Alright, I'll cook rice that night and stir-fry a couple of dishes. If you can catch 7 or 8 small fish, we can have a feast."

  "That's it, I'll go to the pond and stay for a while. It's still the pot stickers that I used to eat when I went to your house to play during school days. The pot stickers in Jiangnan City are all awkward to eat, they don't have the local flavor." Wang Fan said happily.

  Get Wang Fan to leave, Ju An took Wu Song upstairs and entered the space. After entering the space, Wu Song happily ran under the fruit tree, pointing at the fruit tree and shouting at Ju An. Ju An patted Wu Song's head and said, "There will be something for you to eat later, what's the hurry? Come and work first, and then there will be grapes to eat." He casually picked a fruit and handed it to Wu Song, then took Wu Song back to the bamboo fence courtyard. They prepared to set up a shelf from the entrance of the bamboo fence to the front of the big tree. They placed one end of several 2.7-2.8 meter long thick wooden beams on a base, connected them with horizontal beams, and fixed small wooden bars at intervals with iron nails. After working for two or three hours, they finally set up a simple grape shelf frame, which looked like a huge board. Fortunately, there was no wind or rain in the space; otherwise, if it were not so, the few pillars would have been blown down by the strong wind.

  I took a look at the time and it was almost evening, so I went to the kitchen to cook some rice. Then I went to the greenhouse to pick some vegetables and prepared to make a few dishes: loofah egg soup, green pepper meat shreds, and scallion beef stir-fry. Each dish had plenty of ingredients, and even without making the small fish pot stickers, there was enough for two people. The leftovers would be a bonus for Tiger Head and Garlic Head.

  Two dishes were stir-fried, and Wang Fan just came back. After a few hours, he only brought a few anchovies in his hand, and said to Ju'an: "Ah! The small fish only caught two or three, not enough to eat. Today's anchovy is quite powerful, one hook and one accurate."

  "Ha! This angler fish is much more delicious than the small ones, hand it over, today we'll have braised angler fish!" He said as he took the fishing basket from Wang Fan's hands and started to clean up.

  After a delicious dinner, Ju An found an excuse to continue sleeping and went back to her space to build her own grape rack. Wang Fan scolded her for being lazy and returned to his room.

  You had just finished building the trellis and planting the grapes, when it was already one o'clock in the night. You hastily took a bath and lay down on the bed, soon falling into a deep sleep with thunderous snores. Poor Wu Song thought that his snoring was too loud, so he lay on the small loft bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep for a long time.

  The next day, at around 10 o'clock, Lu Guangyuan and his wife arrived at the ranch. Ju An and Wang Fan took them on a tour of the ranch. Lu Guangyuan and his wife were not particularly interested in the cattle and sheep, as they had seen too many before. They only showed slight surprise at Wu Song, but were more interested in the dogs, Hu Tou and Suan Tou.

  Four people were wrapping dumplings and chatting while looking at the quiet tiger head and garlic head beside them, praising: "This is a good dog, I didn't expect that you would use this kind of dog for herding here, I've never seen it before, what breed is it? And it's so clever, earlier when I was observing by the cow herd, driving the cows was simply amazing, and look at its build, really robust, fighting a wolf alone should be no problem".

  "Ah, I brought it from my hometown, to be honest, I'm not sure what breed it is, I bought it at the dog market in Jiangnan, probably a local mutt. Brother Lu, if you like it, I have three females here that are about to give birth soon, when the puppies are a month old, you can come and pick one up."

  Chang Dongna smiled and said: "It's best to be similar to these two, either white or yellow, not floral, a bright color is good-looking and powerful".

  "Come on, when the time comes, you can come over and pick some. If there aren't any white or yellow ones, don't blame me," Ju An said with a smile.

  Wang Fan said: "Anzi, when the puppy is full moon, if I'm not around, leave one for me. When I come back next time, I'll take it back to China to raise."

  "Sit back and relax," said with a wave of his hand: "What are you following the excitement for? If you want to raise it yourself, wait until next time, I've already promised a few others."