Wood ear mushrooms usually like to grow on fallen rotten wood or dead standing poles, so where there is more dead wood, there will be more wood ear mushrooms.

Wan Feng knew that Xishan had experienced a big fire in 1979, a very large forest fire that burned for a long time. There was a large area of ​​forest in the southwest of Xishan that still looks different now, which was the place where the forest fire raged.

Wildfires are the natural enemy of forests. Countless trees were burned after the fire passed through the mountains, so there must be a lot of rotten wood there. Even the poles that were passed by the fire were rotten in patches.

After he came back in his previous life, he would pull a cart to this mountain every winter to cut standing poles and bring them back to use as firewood, so he knew where the forest was.

As soon as we reached the edge of the forest, there were more mosquito bites. This was why Wan Feng wore thick clothes and a hood. Especially those damn mosquito bites loved to drill into the hair. Although these bastards are small in size, they are very poisonous. A bite from them can cause a big bump on the skin.

Wan Feng rolled up his sleeves and trouser legs, wore long socks under his high-waisted rubber shoes, and put on a hood on his head.

This hood is very similar to the hats worn by Japanese devils in movies, except that the ribbon behind the devil's hat has become a whole semicircular piece of cloth, covering the entire shoulders and back of the neck.

However, although this set of equipment can prevent mosquitoes, it causes poor ventilation and heat is inevitable.

Wan Feng would rather endure the hot spots than give in to mosquitoes and small bites. If he was bitten by them and left a row of lumps, it would take two or three days to heal.

This is before we even enter the woods. If we enter the woods, there will be even more air forces.

The father and son walked along the side of the mountain to the burned forest.

In more than two years, this mountain forest that was once burned so miserably has regained its vitality. If you don’t observe carefully, you won’t be able to see any significant difference between this place and other areas.

The most common trees growing on this mountain are oak and birch, mixed with some other miscellaneous woods. Oak is the tree species that is most suitable for growing wood ear mushrooms. As long as you can find a rotten oak trunk, wood ear mushrooms will naturally appear.

Wan Feng waved his long sword to clear the way in front, while Wan Shuichang directed the direction from behind and left marks on the trees so that they could easily get out of the mountain.

After walking for more than half an hour, the father and son came to a shady valley, which was where the forest fire had passed.

As soon as he arrived here, Wan Feng tied the face belt with two straps sewn on it last night around his neck, used two wooden sticks to cross the straps to prop them open, and began to look for rotten fallen trees and dead poles nearby.

Soon he found a piece of rotten wood more than one meter long, with one end on the ground and the other end leaning against a tree trunk. The entire rotten trunk was covered with layers of shiny, black, and plump wood ears.

Wan Feng squatted down, picking wood ears with his hands flying while talking to his father non-stop to prevent them from getting separated.

Although the mountains here are not high, the forests are dense, and the two of them may get separated if they are not careful.

Wan Feng quickly picked up all the wood ear mushrooms on this piece of rotten wood. After walking a few steps, he found another piece of rotten wood lying on the ground in a haphazard manner. The large area of ​​black wood ear mushrooms made Wan Feng feel dizzy.

"Dad, there's a big one here."

"I found one too, you can pick it." Wan Shuichang agreed from a distance.

Wan Feng was picking wood ear mushrooms one by one from the rotten wood, and had completely forgotten that his exposed hands were being intensively bombarded by mosquitoes. Even though his hands were constantly moving, those damn mosquitoes dared to land on the back of his hands. Although countless of them were swatted to death, Wan Feng's back of his hands was also bitten and had several big lumps.

But in this situation he no longer cared much about mosquito bites.

The wood ear mushrooms in this area were probably never picked by anyone before, so they were not only large in size but also grew densely in patches, one after another. In less than an hour, Wan Feng's first dough strip filled half a bag.

Wan Feng left the bag under a big tree and cut a large piece of bark from the tree to make a conspicuous mark.

Not only are there a lot of rotten wood around here, but there are also rows of standing poles. However, not all the standing poles have wood ears, but as long as you find one with wood ears, you will get a piece.

Wan Feng suspected that he had fallen into a nest of wood ears. He hardly moved and was busy in the area of ​​dozens of meters.

After more than an hour, Wan Feng's other noodle strip also picked half a bag of fungus.

These two large and a half noodles with black fungus weigh about 70 kilograms.

This gave him a feeling of unreality.

He clearly remembered that many people went up the mountain to pick wood ear mushrooms for a whole day, but could only collect 20 to 30 kilograms of wet wood ear mushrooms.

How could I have picked so many fungus in just two hours?

Is this fucking true?

Wan Feng grabbed a piece of wood ear and stuffed it into his mouth.

It's slippery and has a slight crackling sound when you bite it, but it doesn't have much taste.

It's real wood ear, nothing wrong with it.

At this moment, the father not far away exclaimed: "Holy crap! This ant nest is huge!"

Wan Feng followed the sound and came to his father. About 20 to 30 meters in front of them, there was an ant nest that looked like a steamed bun on a meadow.

Ant nests are very common in Northeast China, but the size of this ant nest is a bit speechless.

Wan Feng estimated that the highest ant nest was more than one meter high, and it might be almost one and a half meters high. There were several other ant nests around it, each about seventy to eighty centimeters high.

Further out there are some obviously destroyed ant nests.

The destroyed ant nests caught Wan Feng's attention.

"Dad, who do you think would come here and destroy an ant nest for fun?"

Wan Shuichang frowned and thought for a long time: "People will definitely not come, so it must be animals. Which animal would like to cause trouble in an ant nest? Could it be a black bear?"

Wan Feng took a deep breath and said, "Dad, I think we should leave here. How many have you picked?"

Of course they have to stay away from black bears nearby.

"Probably over fifty pounds, how about you?"

"I've picked this much too, I estimate it's over 70 kilograms. There are black bears around here, so we'd better retreat. If we encounter one, we'll be in trouble."

"Okay, we've almost finished picking them. I didn't expect them to be picked so quickly today. From these 100-plus kilograms of wet fungus, we can easily dry them out into 10-plus kilograms of dried fungus. Let's get going!"

The black bear is a very interesting guy. Although he is big in size, he likes to pick on small animals, such as poking hornets' nests, digging out ant nests, etc.

That's someone else's hobby, and Wan Feng and his son don't want to have anything to do with it.

The father and son packed up the fungus they had picked and left the forest along the way they came.

Wan Feng collected a lot of fungus and his father carried them on his back. Wan Feng tied the two openings of his father's bag and hung them on his shoulders, one in front and one behind.

After the father and son came out of the mountain, they went straight to the wheat field at the foot of the mountain, and walked along the edge of the wheat field to the dirt road used specifically for transporting grain.