webnovelfull Chapter 403 - 401: Going Up the Mountain
Chapter 403 - 401: Going Up the Mountain
Lin Lan smiled at the children. "It’s so nice to be back! The mountains are full of delicious things."
Lin Jun nodded. "Yeah! It’s better than the city. We can run wherever we want and don’t have to worry about kidnappers."
Just then, Wu Shufen came over, smiling at the children. "My goodness! You all look like little alley cats. Hurry up and wash your hands. It’s time to eat."
"Okay!" The children ran out the door toward the well.
Lin Lan picked and ate a couple of mulberries. They weren’t very sweet, but they were quite juicy. Then she ate a couple of plums, which tasted pretty good.
Li Xiangyang took the peaches to be washed and handed one to everyone. They all found them crisp, sweet, and quite delicious.
Most of their belongings had been moved to the city, so Wu Shufen used the meat and vegetables they’d brought to whip up a few simple dishes and set them on the table.
Perhaps because they were tired from the walk, everyone ate with gusto.
After the meal, the children played in the yard for a while. Little Douzi soon came running back, listlessly leaning against Lin Lan and starting to doze off.
Soon after, Lin Jun and the other children ran back as well, gathering around the small square table and resting their heads on it.
Wu Shufang chuckled. "A full belly makes for sleepy kids. Once they eat, they just want to nap."
Old Li said, "They walked such a long way, and then went looking for fruit at the foot of the mountain as soon as they got back. They must be exhausted."
Lin Lan picked up Little Douzi and said to Lin Jun and the other kids, "The beds are all made. Come with your auntie and get some sleep."
"Okay!" The children rubbed their eyes and followed her into the room. They kicked off their shoes, climbed into bed, and fell asleep.
Lin Lan placed Little Douzi on the bed where Lin Hong was sleeping and tucked them both in. Then she covered Lin Jun and the other children before leaving the room.
Li Xiangyang said to her and Zhou Shitou, "Cousin, Little Lan, should we go to the back mountain and see if we can find any mushrooms?"
Zhou Shitou smiled. "Sure. Let’s grab a basket and go have a look."
The three of them went out through the back courtyard. They grabbed a thin bamboo pole from under the eaves of the house and searched the area at the foot of the mountain, but they didn’t find a single mushroom. They did, however, see that the wild yellow gardenias along the path were in full bloom.
Wild yellow gardenias were different from the cultivated kind, with petals that were either yellow or white. The fruit of the yellow gardenia was also a source of natural food coloring; Lin Lan used a dye boiled from it for her pea cakes.
Lin Lan picked a flower and sniffed its fragrance. "The mushrooms are all gone. We must have come too late; someone’s already gathered them all."
Li Xiangyang thought for a moment. "Maybe it’s because street vending is allowed now. People can sell mushrooms in town for money, so more people are out foraging."
Zhou Shitou smiled and shook his head. "No, Brother-in-law, it’s just because we’re too late. When we go mushroom hunting, we leave first thing in the morning. We head to the spots where we’ve found good mushrooms in previous years first, then pick up any we see along the way."
Hearing this, Li Xiangyang turned to Lin Lan. "So they’re gone. We’ll just have to try again early tomorrow morning."
Lin Lan remembered that the hillside was covered in yellow gardenias. "There are yellow gardenias up there. Let’s go take a look. If there are mushrooms, we can pick a few for dinner. If not, we can just pick some gardenias to bring back."
"Alright," the two men agreed. Zhou Shitou led the way up the path, while Li Xiangyang waited for Lin Lan to walk up with him.
Zhou Shitou, who was walking ahead, turned back to look at them. "Xiangyang, Little Lan, there are a few trumpet mushrooms over here!"
"Let me see."
Lin Lan and Li Xiangyang hurried over. Looking where he pointed, they saw several trumpet mushrooms in a small thicket, their light-red caps looking very much like the bell of a horn.
Lin Lan smiled. "Not bad, we’ve made our first find."
Li Xiangyang crouched down, brushed aside the pine needles on the ground, and carefully plucked one. "Aren’t the brightly colored ones supposed to be poisonous?"
Zhou Shitou laughed. "Don’t worry, you can eat these. Trumpet mushrooms aren’t poisonous."
Lin Lan put the mushrooms into the basket and looked farther up the mountain. "There must be more higher up."
Having found a few mushrooms, the trio felt more confident. They continued enthusiastically up the mountain, occasionally tapping the weeds on the path with the bamboo pole and checking the shrubs along the way.
Their haul was pitifully small. They found a few more assorted mushrooms, but they didn’t see a single premium one like boletes or "bigfoot" mushrooms, let alone any termite mushrooms.
Li Xiangyang spotted a few mushrooms in a thicket with red caps, white spots, and snow-white stems. ’The trumpet mushrooms weren’t poisonous,’ he thought, and then asked, "Here are a few more. Can we eat these?"
Lin Lan stepped forward to take a look and shook her head repeatedly. "That’s a death cap. If you eat it, you’re guaranteed to be poisoned."
Zhou Shitou also nodded after looking. "That’s right. They look pretty, but they’re deadly poisonous. When we forage for mushrooms, we only pick the ones we recognize. We don’t even touch the ones we’ve never seen before. A single mistake with those things can be fatal."
"Even with the mushrooms we take back to dry, we have to sort through them one more time before they go to the drying room, just in case one of the kids at home accidentally threw a poisonous one in."
Li Xiangyang said with approval, "That’s the right way to do it. You can never be too careful with food."
After searching along the path for a while longer, they found a few milk-caps. Deciding the pickings were too slim by the road, they headed deeper into the woods.
Lin Lan noticed more and more yellow gardenias on the mountain. Even before they got close, the rich fragrance of gardenias wafted toward them. "There are a lot of wild yellow gardenias up here. Let’s pick some petals to take back. We can wash them and make some fried flower and egg patties."
"You can fry and eat yellow gardenia petals, too?" Li Xiangyang had eaten fried squash blossoms before, but never fried gardenia flowers.
"Yep!" Lin Lan replied. ’We brought flour with us,’ she thought, ’and I knew Shilian sells eggs, so I didn’t bring any. We’ll have to find a family to buy some from when we get back down.’
Once they got closer, they picked more than half a basket of the freshest petals. They also found a few more assorted mushrooms under the flowering bushes before heading back down the mountain with their haul.
Old Li and Lin Changyou had gone for a stroll around the village.
The two sisters, Wu Shufen and Wu Shufang, were cleaning vegetables—spinach, radishes, and celtuce... all seasonal produce.
Wu Shufen had also taken some of the brown sugar they brought and given it to a neighboring family.
Wu Shufang smiled at the three of them. "How was the haul?"
Lin Lan smiled and shook her head. "Not great. We only got some assorted mushrooms. It’s probably just enough for one stir-fried dish with some green peppers and garlic."
Wu Shufen looked at the mushrooms they had gathered and said cheerfully, "Right after you left, Yuru’s parents came by and brought some vegetables, eggs, and mushrooms. There are morels and termite mushrooms—all the good kinds."
Lin Lan saw that the winnowing basket was full of mushrooms.
Li Xiangyang took a look. "We didn’t see a single one of these on the mountain."
Wu Shufen smiled. "Yuru’s mom said there aren’t any good mushrooms on the back mountain; they went to the big mountains to the west to find those. She also said it just rained a couple of times a few days ago, so the mountains are teeming with them. We should get up early tomorrow to go foraging."
Lin Lan poured the yellow gardenia petals from the basket. Li Xiangyang drew a bucket of water, and the two of them gently rinsed the petals clean, then put them in a bamboo colander to drain.
They also took the termite mushrooms, morels, and other assorted mushrooms from the winnowing basket and scraped them clean with a sliver of bamboo, preparing them for dinner.
Little Douzi ran out of the room. "Mama, I have to go potty."
Seeing his urgent expression, Lin Lan couldn’t help but chuckle. "You little rascal, can’t you find Grandma’s bathroom?"
Little Douzi said anxiously, "I’m scared! Grandma’s bathroom is super dark!" His grandparents were frugal and used a low-wattage bulb, so it wasn’t very bright, and the little boy found it frightening.