bestfiction Chapter 23 Picking up wild goods
Chapter 23 Picking up wild goods
Wen Dashan said that during their time in the deep mountains, everyone ate together, using whatever local ingredients were available. Wen Linshi was in charge of cooking, while the ingredients were provided by the three Wen brothers and Wen Yuxia.
Everyone handed over a portion of their catch from the forest. Wen Yuxia handed the basket to Wen Dashan, saying, "Grandpa, the game is all here. You and Grandma can decide what to do with it. Hong'er and I are going out for a walk."
It wasn't that Wen Yuxia was generous; rather, she felt that birds and rabbits would spoil if left in the basket for too long, so it was better to take them out and eat them while they were still fresh.
Looking at the birds and rabbits in the basket on his back, Wen Dashan said with a smile, "Be careful, and come back for dinner soon."
"Understood," Wen Yuxia and her brother quickly left.
"Da Ya, wait, I'll go with you too," Wen Yun Shen quickly stood up and said.
“I’ll go too,” “Me too,”… The younger members of the Wen family said eagerly.
The prey in Wen Yuxia's basket dazzled their eyes, and they all began to have their own thoughts: following Wen Yuxia meant they'd get to eat meat.
Wen Yuxia pretended not to hear Wen Yunshen and the others shouting, and using her lightness skill, she and Wen Yunhong disappeared into the distant woods in a few leaps.
Eating meat is fine, but going hunting with her is not. With her spatial ability as a cheat, she plans to store up more game and exchange it for silver in town or county later.
"Sister, there, there are red berries!" Wen Yunhong was being led forward quickly by Wen Yuxia. While in mid-air, he could clearly see many red berries faintly visible in the grass.
Wen Yuxia landed gently on the ground, her eyes wide as she stared in the direction Wen Yunhong was pointing: red lanterns, a good medicine for stopping coughs and clearing phlegm.
Hidden among the weeds were clusters of red lantern-shaped plants, their leaves already withered and yellow, their branches laden with lantern-like fruits.
"Wow, so beautiful! I just don't know if they're edible," Wen Yunhong said, picking a red lantern fruit and gently lifting the thin red outer layer to reveal plump, yellow fruits inside.
Wen Yuxia said excitedly, "Hong'er, these aren't wild fruits, they're a good medicine for stopping coughs and clearing phlegm. Quick, pick them all!"
Wen Yuxia planned to put all her harvest into her spatial storage. She deliberately didn't carry a basket when she came out; she simply piled the red lanterns on the ground after taking them down.
It took them about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn to pick all the red lanterns from the grass. Wen Yuxia put the red lanterns into her spatial storage, and then took Wen Yunhong to the bamboo forest.
The original owner had gone up the mountain twice with the villagers and knew there was a large bamboo forest there. He also knew that the village chief would lead the villagers there to dig bamboo shoots the next day.
"Sister, how did you know there was a bamboo forest here?" Wen Yunhong happily ran around in the bamboo forest.
While carefully examining the ground for bamboo shoots, Wen Yuxia said, "I've been here twice, have you forgotten?"
"There's a bamboo rat!" Wen Yunhong watched helplessly as a large bamboo rat scurried past him and disappeared into the bushes. He said regretfully, "It got away."
Wen Yuxia looked up at him and said, "Go and look around for a hole. If you find one, plug it up with stones."
“Okay,” Wen Yunhong didn’t know why his sister wanted him to do this, but he obediently ran towards the place where the bamboo rats had disappeared.
He found fifteen entrances in total and blocked them all. Excitedly, he ran to Wen Yuxia, "Sister, the entrances are all blocked!"
Wen Yuxia immersed her consciousness into the space, looked at the bamboo shoots piled up in the yard, and laughed, "I dug up twelve bamboo shoots, and I'll come again tomorrow. Now let's smoke the bamboo rats out first."
The method for catching bamboo rats is the same as catching rabbits: fan smoke into one burrow, wait for the bamboo rat to walk into the trap at another burrow, and block all the other burrows.
After inspecting all the burrow entrances, Wen Yuxia suspected that three nests of bamboo rats lived in these fifteen burrows. While a cunning rabbit has three burrows, bamboo rats certainly have more than three.
He took out some wheat stalks from his spatial storage and instructed Wen Yunhong to light them, telling him to pour water on the fire after it was lit so that more smoke would be produced.
She took a basket from her spatial storage and placed it upside down at the cave entrance. Then she waved for Wen Yunhong to fan smoke into the cave. After about fifteen minutes, Wen Yuxia heard a creaking sound coming from inside the cave.
The bamboo rats couldn't stand the smoke and fire and were about to escape. Wen Yuxia braced herself against the basket, making sure it was firmly connected to the burrow entrance.
One, two... eight! Wen Yuxia felt her basket being hit hard eight times. Haha, they easily caught eight big, fat bamboo rats.
She tossed the bound bamboo rats into her spatial dimension. The siblings worked together to catch fourteen more bamboo rats, then cleaned the holes where the straw had burned, removing the stones blocking each hole.
Using her lightness skill, Wen Yuxia carried the reluctant Wen Yunhong swiftly towards the cave.
The next morning, as expected, Village Chief Ding led the villagers to the bamboo forest. Wen Yuxia generously shared her method of smoking bamboo rats and told the villagers that bamboo rats reproduce quickly, so they could catch them without worry. They only needed to keep a few for breeding, and they would have more bamboo rats to catch next year when they went up the mountain.
"Uncle Village Chief, the fire must be put out. If it starts a wildfire, none of us will escape," Wen Yuxia said earnestly.
Village Chief Ding laughed and said, "Don't worry, Daya, I'll have someone keep an eye on things."
Village Chief Ding forbade villagers from acting alone. Families wanting to catch bamboo rats had to register with him, with each family contributing a male aged ten or older. The bamboo rats caught would be distributed among the registered families.
Wen Yuxia's family consists of two siblings, the eldest of whom is only seven years old. She had no intention of signing up, but then Village Chief Ding said that her method of catching bamboo rats was meritorious, and her family would still be able to share the bamboo rats without having to contribute any manpower. Wen Yuxia accepted this unexpected joy without hesitation.
The siblings stopped paying attention to the personnel arrangements for catching bamboo rats and focused on searching for bamboo shoots that hadn't yet sprouted in the bamboo forest. Wen Yuxia didn't care about the bamboo shoots that had already emerged from the ground; she only looked for bamboo shoots buried underground to dig up.
During the day, they dig for bamboo shoots in the bamboo forest. At night, they peel and wash the bamboo shoots in the cave, cut them into strips, boil them in cold water with salt, and then hang them on tree trunks outside the cave or lay them on straw mats to dry.
Ten pounds of fresh bamboo shoots can be dried to produce one pound of dried bamboo shoots. This method of processing bamboo shoots makes them easier to store and reduces their weight. In five days, each household harvested several bags of dried bamboo shoots.
Wen Yuxia secretly put half of the bamboo shoots she dug into her spatial storage, while the other half was made into dried bamboo shoots as everyone else did.
The bamboo rat catching teams became increasingly adept at it, and every night the caves were filled with the aroma of meat. To make preservation easier, each household processed the bamboo rats into jerky, smoked meat, and cured meat.
The bamboo rats that the village gave to Wen Yuxia were made into jerky by her. She and her brother kept the bamboo rats they caught in their space away from the villagers. Wild bamboo rat meat is delicious and they would definitely make a fortune if they took it to town.
The mountain was rich in supplies, so Village Chief Ding planned to organize one group to transport the supplies down the mountain while another group continued onward.