Ever since someone offered to sell the peach orchard, Xu Lai has been seriously considering that if she wants to continue down the path of selling goods through live streaming, she can't keep relying on acquiring other people's businesses to support herself; she also needs to have something to sell.
After considering it for a while and negotiating the price with the person, she finally bought the land for 48,000 yuan. Once the contract was signed, the orchard belonged to her. There were still many empty spaces in the orchard, and Xu Lai planned to make good use of them in the future.
It's almost the end of July, and the rice in the fields is gradually turning yellow. Grandpa took advantage of the cool morning weather to kill the last wave of insects. In another ten days or so, we can harvest the rice.
With the morning dew on their faces, Xu Lai and Xia Ning went into the mountains. The aunt who sold mushrooms before told them that mushrooms could only grow in places with moss deep in the mountains.
Xu Lai was itching to pick mushrooms; she had wanted to for a long time. To avoid picking poisonous mushrooms, she even searched for a long time online for mushroom pictures until she could identify them.
As soon as she entered the mountains, she saw several small red mushrooms. She didn't recognize them before and thought they were poisonous, but a blogger who picked mushrooms online said they were edible.
She patted the mushroom head, picked it and put it in the basket. Xia Ning shouted, "This is poisonous, right? Throw it away quickly! Red umbrella and white stem, isn't this it?"
Xu Lai was amused by her: "My dear sister, this is a red mushroom. Trust me, it won't poison you."
After picking these few mushrooms, the two continued walking. Xu Lai found two more porcini mushrooms, and her smile deepened: "My goodness, what incredible luck! Even a novice can pick mushrooms so quickly."
After wandering through the forest for most of the day, the sun was already up, and their baskets only contained porcini mushrooms and red mushrooms. Xu Lai didn't dare to pick some of the strange-looking mushrooms because she found that the pictures and the actual mushrooms were completely different. Just to be on the safe side, she gave up on them.
Once they emerged from the deep mountains, they reached a hillside with an unobstructed view. Xu Lai carefully watched the road, while Xia Ning looked left and right, hoping to find mushrooms in the roadside grass.
And sure enough, she saw it—a termite mushroom. Xia Ning excitedly grabbed Xu Lai's hand, "Look at that, isn't it a termite mushroom?"
Xu Lai looked over and recognized the termite mushroom, so she nodded: "It really is. Ningning, how come you have such good eyesight? I was just worried about not having any mushrooms to pick."
The two squatted there. The soil was a bit hard, so it was impossible to pull it out directly. Xu Lai broke off a stick and pried open the soil around the perimeter, dug a small pit, and then tried to pull the termite mushroom out.
After the termite mushroom was pulled out, Xu Lai searched around in the surrounding grass and actually found another one that had just sprouted.
In no time, the two mushrooms were in the basket. Xu Lai was satisfied and prepared to walk down the mountain. Finally, he was no longer empty-handed.
After walking along a small path, she looked closely and felt that something looked familiar. She went over and examined the leaves of the tree, then said, "This should be a five-finger peach."
Xia Ning had already walked some distance when she saw her stop, so she turned back and asked, "Did you see termite mushrooms again?"
Xu Lai pointed to the tree and said, "Is this a five-finger peach?"
Xia Ning was dumbfounded. She didn't know what a five-finger peach was. Xu Lai picked a fruit, and white juice flowed out from the broken part, which made her more and more certain.
But the two of them didn't bring any other tools with them except for the camera and the basket. If they had had a hoe, she would have dug it up and taken it home on the spot.
Xu Lai used leaves from other trees to shield himself and said, "Hurry home and tell Grandpa we'll go into the mountains with him to dig."
The road home is no longer the same one. This road leads directly to the back mountain of her house, where there is a large bamboo grove. No one knows whose it is, because no one has taken care of it for so many years.
Passing by the bamboo forest, Xu Lai saw a white patch in the distance. She was slightly nearsighted, so she squinted to look at it and thought it looked a bit like a mushroom. She then pulled Xia Ning over to take a closer look and found it to be a large patch of termite mushroom flowers.
They had grown quite large, many of them had opened their caps. Xu Lai pulled them up one by one. This termite mushroom without individual caps was valuable, but also quite good.
Now the basket was truly full, and Xu Lai couldn't help but hum a tune as she headed home.
She planned to use the five-finger peach to make chicken soup, and stir-fry the termite mushrooms directly.
Gently brush off the mud from the mushroom stems with a toothbrush, then tear the mushrooms into strips, stir-fry them briefly with pork belly, and you're done.
After Grandpa came back, Xu Lai told him about the five-finger peach by the roadside. Grandpa smiled and said, "Okay, I'll go dig it up after I finish eating."
Xu Lai placed a piece of food on his plate. "Try it. We were lucky to find some termite mushrooms today, weren't we?"
Grandpa nodded: "Good luck, you're amazing."
Grandma asked, "Where's Ningning? Didn't she go with you?"
Xu Lai explained, "I asked her to stay for dinner, but she said she wasn't interested in these mushrooms and that I would call her when the chicken soup was ready."
Grandma laughed when she heard this, "This girl."
Xu Lai ultimately didn't let her grandfather go digging in the middle of the day. She advised, "There's no rush. You should take a nap and rest well. We'll go around four or five o'clock."
She was also very tired. Recently, she read a WeChat public account and started learning about health preservation during the hottest days of summer.
She takes a nap every day. She changed into her pajamas, turned on the air conditioner, and fell into a deep sleep.
She had another dream. In the dream, she took a project proposal to Zhao Qingyun, hoping he could take a look and give her some advice. But instead, she saw Qin Huan in his office, and the two were behaving intimately. Seeing that scene made her feel uncomfortable.
Just as she was about to throw the proposal in his face, she woke up. Xu Lai patted her face and said, "So annoying, I can't even sleep soundly during my afternoon nap."
She decided not to sleep, turned on her phone, found a novel to read, and even brought up a plate of lotus seeds, peeling and eating them as she went.
Around four o'clock, her grandfather called her from downstairs, "Xiao Lai, come on, lead the way."
Xu Lai responded, "Coming, coming, Grandpa, wait a minute, I need to use the restroom."
She went directly up the back mountain and walked with her grandfather to the spot where they met today. Her grandfather identified it and confirmed that it was a five-finger peach. After looking around and finding no heartbreak grass, he felt relieved and began digging.
Xu Lai dug out a section of root, took it, and smelled it. "It smells so good."
Grandpa slung his hoe over his shoulder and said, "Come on, hurry home and hold the chicken down. We'll stew it tonight."
Xu Lai silently thought to himself, "Every time I find a Five-Finger Peach, a chicken will be lost. It's truly an invisible killer."
After descending the mountain, she saw many trucks parked by the roadside, and she looked bewildered, wondering what was going on.
She walked around the truck and saw Qin Huan and the village chief. It turned out that the village's funds had been approved and the garbage bins ordered earlier had been delivered.
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