The village chief drove six people along the bumpy road.

Shen Yingyu gripped the handrail, swaying from side to side with the car. "Group leader, you're bringing so many people up the mountain to dig bamboo shoots, how exactly are the tasks divided?"

The five-member chaebol group tacitly agreed on some rules: major matters were to be handled by Yan Jie, while minor matters were to be handled by Jiang Hexi.

"We've harvested the last batch of chives in the vegetable garden."

Jiang Hexi pulled out the bundle of snakeskin bags and gave one to each person. "Before going up the mountain, let's identify the bracken and mustard greens with the village chief. Pick as much as you can, along with the bamboo shoots, and fill a sack to go down the mountain. It would be even better if we could bring back some mushrooms as well."

Yu Xiangwan took the burlap sack with a puzzled look. "Didn't you successfully infiltrate the old ladies' circle and become familiar with them? How come you can't even buy groceries?"

"Wanwan—"

Jiang Hexi said earnestly, "The vegetables that the grandmothers are growing now are only enough for them to eat. The new seedlings that grow next week will be available for us to eat. Besides, no vegetable sold outside can taste as good as the ferns from the mountains."

As she spoke, she handed the snakeskin bag to Yan Jie, but he hesitated to accept it.

Yan Jie gave her a very critical look. "Why did you give me a fertilizer bag?"

"This is not a bag for fertilizer."

Jiang Hexi solemnly declared, "These are bags used for storing chicken feed. The inner membrane has been completely removed, and the outer snakeskin bag has been washed at least twice."

Chu Yang chimed in, "Brother, I washed this bag; it's absolutely clean."

Yan Jie remained silent for a long time, then reluctantly took the snakeskin bag and threw it at his feet.

Xie Wanyi suddenly asked, "Is Xi Mei the group admin? Did you create a group before?"

Jiang Hexi: "Yes, there is a group."

Xie Wanyi: "When you have time later, please add me to the group."

"Excuse me, thank you for your support, Best Actor."

Yu Xiangwan politely declined his invitation: "Our small group is called the Five Tycoons, and it's already full. I can't add you to the group."

Xie Wanyi looked at Jiang Hexi and smiled in a way that was absolutely captivating. "Xi-mei, could you make an exception for me?"

Jiang Hexi lowered her eyes, unmoved by his smile, and said loyally, "I'll listen to Wanwan."

[Xi Mei's twisted logic always seems so reasonable; once the chives are harvested, she naturally goes up the mountain to harvest bamboo shoots.]

When I saw that bundle of burlap sacks, I knew there was going to be a joke, but I never expected it to be about chicken feed!

[My son, Yan Wang, is a germaphobe. How could Xi Mei possibly give him a snakeskin bag?! The real question is, how could he possibly accept it?!]

[Just wondering, are chicken feed bags much more advanced than fertilizer bags?]

[I think so too. They're all just burlap sacks, but after Xi Mei's rambling, chicken feed bags suddenly seem high-end!]

The village chief stopped the car at the crossroads of the wild forest, and the group of people took their tools and stood on the ground.

He pulled up photos of bracken and shepherd's purse on his phone and showed them to them one by one.

“This bamboo forest is the village’s industry. You rented land in the village and boosted e-commerce, selling out the village’s eggs and peaches. You can dig up any of the mountain products here.”

"Village chief, with you saying that, I won't stand on ceremony." Chu Yang shook the snakeskin bag, picked up his hoe, and went into the mountains.

The village chief had a strange feeling that he was going to suffer a loss, but he didn't know why.

The air is cool after the rain, and bamboo shoots are sprouting everywhere.

Water droplets accumulated on the bamboo leaves quietly splattered onto the bamboo hat, staining the bamboo strips a dark color.

Jiang Hexi adjusted his straw hat and walked up the mountain along the path, passing clumps of small, tender bamboo shoots, and headed straight for the two-meter-tall "Gatling gun" bamboo shoot.

The village chief stood below, looked up and saw her circling around a large bamboo shoot, and felt a headache coming on.

"Jiang Hexi, that bamboo shoot is almost as big as a bamboo, why are you cutting it down?"

"I want this big bamboo shoot."

Jiang Hexi took out a wrapped kitchen knife from the snakeskin bag and chopped the bamboo shoot in half with one stroke.

She had seen videos of bamboo shoots being cut before, and she imitated them by cutting from the tip of the bamboo shoot, which revealed the bamboo shoot nodes when she cut it open.

The village chief had intended to relax at the foot of the mountain and offer some pointers, but after seeing Jiang Hexi chop down the large bamboo shoots, he became so angry that he climbed halfway up the mountain in one go.

"These bamboo shoots are so old they're practically falling out of your mouth. What are you going to do with them? Can you even eat them?"

"Village chief, I want to eat bamboo rice."

Jiang Hexi deftly cut the peeled bamboo shoots in half, picking out the tender green half and tossing it into the snakeskin bag:

"The glutinous rice steamed with old bamboo shoots is the most fragrant. That's what Cui Atai taught me. You didn't know that, did you?"

The village chief had no right to admit he couldn't do it. "You could have just said so earlier. You made me overreact."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a tremendous crashing sound came from behind as bamboo fell to the ground.

The village chief turned around and saw Chu Yang chop down a bamboo stalk as thick as a bowl. He exclaimed in surprise:

"If you're going to dig up bamboo shoots, fine, but why are you cutting down my bamboo?"

Chu Yang innocently replied, "Steamed chicken in bamboo tubes."

The village chief thought he could get rid of them with a snakeskin bag of bamboo shoots, but who would have thought that these "mountain bandits" wanted both!

These two brilliant minds have really scared the village chief; he thought they were going to empty his pockets.

[Hahaha, how naive the village chief is! Does he really think a plate of stir-fried bamboo shoots will suffice? These rich kids not only want bamboo rice, they want bamboo chicken too!]

[If I were the village chief, I'd be furious too if someone carried a bundle of sacks into the mountains to buy goods.]

Yu Xiangwan dug up half a bag of tender bamboo shoots and then went to the stream to look for bracken.

Xie Wanyi was worried about her going alone, so he followed behind. Seeing her push through the grass and walk in, he stretched out a bamboo pole, blocking her path.

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