bestfiction Chapter 75 Chewing plum wine
Chapter 75 Chewing plum wine
It was 5:40 a.m., and the sky was still not fully light.
Lin Ran walked ahead, while Su Peixue wore a plain cotton and linen dress with the cuffs rolled up twice, and her hair was braided into a loose braid that hung down her shoulder.
He was carrying an empty bamboo basket.
The road up the mountain was a dirt road. It had rained a few days ago, and the road surface was still damp and soft to the touch.
Lin Ran carried the tripod ahead, while Su Peixue followed behind with a bamboo basket. The road was lined with waist-high wild grass, its leaves glistening with dew, which smeared onto their trousers as they walked, leaving dark watermarks.
When we reached the halfway point of the mountain, the sky opened up.
A sliver of golden light shone through the eastern mountain ridge, and then the entire sky changed from gray-blue to orange-red.
Smoke began to rise from the village at the foot of the mountain. Thin white smoke rose from the tiled roofs. There was no wind, and the smoke column went straight up, only slowly dissipating when it reached halfway up the sky.
The rooster crowed, and a dog from who-knows-where barked a few times in response. Birds flew out of the woods, their wings fluttering.
Lin Ran set up his tripod on the hilltop and adjusted the camera position. In the viewfinder, the village below was shrouded in a thin mist, with cooking smoke and morning fog blending together, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other.
He pressed the record button.
The first long shot has been filmed.
"Xuexue, come over here from that direction."
Lin Ran was giving instructions.
Su Peixue straightened her clothes and came up from the other side of the mountain path, carrying a bamboo basket.
The morning light shone from behind her, enveloping her in a pale golden halo.
The plain cotton and linen skirt swept across the grass, knocking off the dewdrops, which landed on her shoes.
Her steps were neither fast nor slow, and the bamboo basket swayed gently in the crook of her arm.
Lin Ran zoomed in on her face, and the beauty mark at the corner of the girl's eye was particularly clear in the morning light, exuding a natural charm amidst her innocence.
Don't look at me. Look at the tree.
Lin Ran continued to give instructions.
These voices will be processed out later, leaving only the sounds of nature and Su Peixue working.
Even Su Peixue didn't say a word the whole time.
She shifted her gaze to the plum tree by the roadside. The plum tree was not tall, with branches stretching horizontally and leaves that were dark green.
Green plums hang on the branches, their skin covered with a layer of white frost.
Su Peixue walked to the tree, stood on tiptoe, and stretched out her hand.
When your fingers touch a green plum, pinch the stem between your thumb and forefinger, and gently twist it, you hear a soft, crisp "snap".
As the plums fell from the branches, dewdrops rolled down the leaves and landed on the back of her hand.
She put the plums into the bamboo basket, one, two, three.
The bottom of the bamboo basket was slowly filled with green plums, the white frost on their skins rubbing against each other, making a very soft and muffled rustling sound.
Lin Ran zoomed in with a close-up shot. She picked up a plum with her fingers, examined it in the sunlight, and put it in the basket. She touched the rim of the basket with her fingertips, leaving the dew on the bamboo strips.
They took several more photos until the bamboo basket was completely full of green plums.
"This one shot of picking green plums is enough."
Lin Ran turned off the recording and watched the playback.
"Let's go down the mountain to the spring."
The road down the mountain was more slippery than the road up. The heavy rain a few days ago washed several ditches into the dirt road, and the soil was still wet, making it slippery to walk on.
Su Peixue walked ahead, a bamboo basket slung over her arm, one hand holding onto a tree trunk by the roadside, while Lin Ran followed behind carrying a tripod.
When she stepped into a patch of wet mud, her foot slipped. The sole of her shoe slid forward a little bit on the muddy surface. But this little bit was right on the edge of the slope, the edge of the small hill being a steep slope about waist-high, with rocks and bushes below.
"Ah~!"
The girl's center of gravity had shifted, and her hand reached out to grab something in the air, but she couldn't catch anything.
Lin Ran reacted quickly, throwing down the tripod and stepping over. He reached under her armpit with his right hand to grab her back, and placed his left hand on the back of her head, causing the two of them to fall to the side.
A feeling of weightlessness suddenly came over me.
Lin Ran might as well put his arm around Su Peixue and let himself be the one to fall on her back.
There was a dull thud when his back hit the ground. Lin Ran felt a jolt in his back!
Fortunately, the soil was loose after the rain, so there was no major problem.
Su Peixue slammed into his chest, her forehead hitting his chin. Her hair was disheveled, and her long, shampoo-soaked hair covered his face.
Then something cool and soft, with the tart taste of green plums, touched Lin Ran's lips...
It should be said that it crashed into us.
Su Peixue kept chewing on green plums on her way down the mountain.
At that moment, the sour taste of the green plum traveled from her lips, mingling with the faint sweetness in her breath, and entered Lin Ran's mouth...
Two green plums rolled out of the basket and landed on the grass next to his ear. They rolled twice more and then stopped.
Su Peixue lay on his chest, not getting up immediately.
Her eyelashes blinked in front of Lin Ran's eyes, so close that he could see the curve of each one, and the corners of her mouth slowly turned up.
"Keeper, how does the imported plum juice taste?"
The golden morning light shone on the girl's cherry-pink face, making her incredibly beautiful.
Lin Ran lay on the ground, his back pressed against the gravel, his head resting on the grass.
The mouth still tasted sour from the green plums, and the tip of the tongue was both sour and astringent.
Her breath was still on his lips, cool and soft.
Brewing wine, in any case, involves putting it into jars. Chewing wine is also an ancient method.
"good."
Su Peixue climbed off him and brushed the grass clippings off her clothes.
Half of the green plums rolled out of the bamboo basket and scattered in the grass. The green plums were hidden among the grass, and you had to squat down to find them one by one.
Lin Ran got up from the ground, his back soaked with mud and bits of grass. He picked up the fallen plums and reassembled the scattered equipment. One leg of the tripod had come loose, and he tapped it a few times with a stone to tighten it.
"The filming is finished, it's okay if a few fall. We'll just pick a few more to make up the difference."
Su Peixue bent down to pick up the last green plum and put it in the basket. When she straightened up, she stepped on the ground with her left foot and then quickly shifted her weight to her right foot.
Lin Ran was squatting on the ground checking the camera and didn't notice.
She picked a few more, about the same size as before, with the white frost on their skin intact.
The spring water at the foot of the mountain is in a gully halfway up the mountain.
It's not one of those springs built with stones in tourist attractions; it's just a stream of water seeping out from a crevice in the mountain. The locals dug a small pool below it and laid a few bluestone slabs on it.
The water was clear, and you could see the sand and pebbles at the bottom of the pool.
The sun has risen, but it hasn't reached here yet; a thin layer of moss grows on the stones by the spring.
Su Peixue squatted down on the bluestone slab and placed the wooden basin under the spring. The spring water flowed down the cracks in the stones, hitting the bottom of the basin with a crisp sound. Water splashed up and landed on her fingers; she flinched, the spring water being cooler than the air.
Su Peixue poured the green plums into the basin. The green plums sank to the bottom of the water, and the white frost on their skins turned transparent when it came into contact with the water. She put her hands into the water, scooped up a handful of plums from the bottom of the basin with her fingers, and gently rubbed them together with her palms.