Chapter 73 The Tree Blossoms After a Thousand Years
Qin Suisui didn't expect that Pei Jiuyan would leave that very night after saying he would cooperate with the investigation.
She was still a little dazed when she woke up in the morning. After dropping Zan Zan off at the daycare, she went straight to the Guangmingding Brigade.
Her proposal has been approved by the hospital, and the vacant houses in the village are being cleared out. She needs to go and take a look, and see if there's anything else that needs improvement.
Su Yunyi is really dedicated. Since planting the seedlings she cultivated the night before last, she has spent almost all her time except when she is sleeping in the medicinal herb field. She has become tanned and lost weight.
Qin Suisui also went to the field and took a walk around, carefully checking the growth of the medicinal herb seedlings and measuring the current state of the soil and water.
After finishing their work, the sun was already quite strong. The two sisters hid in the shade of a tree to bask in the sun. Qin Suisui, using the cloth bag as a cover, took out two bowls of icy cold mung bean soup from her spatial storage and handed them to her. The two ate and chatted.
Qin Suisui looked up at the sky: "On my way here, I heard the old people in the village say that the sky looks strange and there might be a typhoon in a couple of days."
Su Yunyi frowned upon hearing this: "Then what should we do? Should we put something to block it?"
Qin Suisui shook her head: "I considered this factor when I chose this land. This hillside is right behind the sea, and there are trees all around to block the view. In addition, these seedlings are very short, almost touching the ground. In theory, it shouldn't have a big impact."
Moreover, if the typhoon really does affect the area, it will be futile for them to try to cover it up, unless they build a house to protect the medicinal herbs, but that is obviously impossible.
The growth of medicinal herbs is the same as that of plants in nature, where the fittest survive. Moreover, when planting these herbs, she mixed some water from a small stream into the water, which should have helped them resist typhoons.
After returning from the medicinal herb field, Qin Suisui headed straight for an unused courtyard at the end of the village. From afar, she could hear the sounds of banging and laughing, as well as the voices of men talking and laughing loudly. It must be the brigade leader, Mai Defu, leading people to repair the courtyard.
Qin Suisui went over to take a look. It was an ordinary house with a large courtyard. There were four main rooms, two side rooms on each side, a kitchen and a woodshed. It could be considered a large household in the village. Although it was a little dilapidated now, it could be repaired and used without any problems. She didn't know why the house was left empty.
However, it has made things more convenient for them now, and since it's not far from the back mountain, it's indeed very convenient to use it as an experimental base.
She went inside and looked at each room. Finally, following the model of the Changbai Mountain ginseng base, she selected the four rooms in the main building as cultivation rooms. Some of the roof tiles were broken or missing, so she took some of them, bought glass from the glass factory, and installed them to ensure indoor lighting.
The indoor area also needs to be waterproofed and the humidity needs to be maintained. All in all, it's quite a project. Fortunately, the hospital will send specialists to provide guidance, so Qin Suisui doesn't have to worry too much.
Just as they were finishing their conversation, Zhou Zecheng suddenly arrived.
Ever since working as a translator at the Canton Fair, Zhou Zecheng, for some reason, has become arrogant. After returning to the brigade, he repeatedly asked for leave and was unwilling to go to tap rubber.
These past few days, he's either been chasing Su Yunyi around the vegetable garden or chasing Madford around the base. He seems very busy, but in reality, he hasn't done anything. Anyway, he doesn't need those few centimeters.
He had just returned from somewhere and was playing with a reddish-brown object that looked like a small mango pit.
Qin Suisui's gaze initially swept past him, but after a moment, she immediately turned back, staring intently at the object in his hand.
"Where did you come from?"
Zhou Zecheng looked puzzled and held up the reddish-brown "mango pit" in his hand: "You mean this?"
Zhou Zecheng was a little puzzled. Last night, his dream told him that there would be an opportunity on that small island. He went there and wandered around for a long time, but found nothing and returned disappointed.
Bored, he picked up a "fruit pit" and it caught Qin Suisui's attention.
Qin Suisui nodded: "That's right! Where did you find this? Can you tell me?" If she wasn't mistaken, this should be the seed of a cycad, a cycad that blooms after thousands of years!
Cycas spinosa, native to Qiongtan Island, is one of the most primitive groups of seed plants. It survived the most dramatic upheavals and changes on Earth over thousands of years, when even the dinosaurs that once dominated the Earth could not escape their fate. It has endured many vicissitudes and is known as a "living fossil of the plant kingdom".
However, due to severe interference from human activities such as agricultural planting, artificial forests, and logging, the natural distribution environment of cycads has been eroded and severely fragmented.
This can be described as an extremely endangered species. Having grown up with her grandmother and being exposed to various medicinal herbs, Qin Suisui naturally knew about the amazing effects of Cycas revoluta.
Although the entire Cycas spathulata plant is poisonous, its roots, leaves, and seeds can actually be used as medicine if properly processed. Moreover, it has remarkable effects on promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, dispelling wind, and relieving pain.
Qin Suisui's previous proposal to find and incorporate rare medicinal herbs into artificial cultivation has been approved by the hospital. If they start with cycads and succeed, it will be a great beginning for both their hospital and the medical community.
"On that small island that stretches out from the coast, there are two palm trees, but their flowers look like big pom-poms. I picked them up from under those trees."
Based on his description, it is indeed a Cycas revoluta!
Qin Suisui was a little excited. She knew that the small island was not far from the reef where they used to go beachcombing. Just as Zhou Zecheng said, it was a small island extending from the coastline, separated from the mainland by a shallow bay of about 20 meters. Between the bay and the mainland, whether it was man-made or naturally formed, there were thick reefs connecting the two sides, forming a passage.
Qin Suisui once asked Sister Tang about that small island, but Sister Tang didn't know much about it either. She only said that the island was too desolate, with many snakes, insects, and rodents. Mainly, there was nothing good there, so basically no one went there.
I never expected to find the nearly extinct Cycas spathulata there!
She looked at the sky outside, which was sunny and calm, and there was no sign of the weather changing. But just to be on the safe side, she pulled the captain, Madford, aside and asked him about the typhoon.
Medford came out of the inner room, looked up and squinted at the sky outside, and nodded: "It doesn't seem like there's any sign of the weather changing. The typhoon shouldn't be coming anytime soon."
Madford is over fifty years old this year, considered an elder in the village and an old fisherman, so Qin Suisui naturally believes what he says. Besides, that small deserted island isn't far, less than twenty minutes by bike from the village, and it's only noon now, so Zanzan will definitely be back before school gets out in the evening.
Qin Suisui then pulled Zhou Zecheng aside, asked him for the exact location, and then put on her hat and rode off towards the deserted island under the scorching sun.
It was midday, the sun was blazing, and there weren't many people on the beach.
After riding to the coast, Qin Suisui put her bicycle directly into her spatial storage. She then took out several packets of snake and insect repellent from her storage and hung them on her body before stepping onto the rocks and onto the small island.
This small island wasn't far from the shore, but once you stepped onto it, it felt like entering another world. Qin Suisui was captivated by its natural scenery.
This is an oval-shaped island, with a higher elevation in the west and a lower elevation in the east. The eastern side is surrounded by soft white sand beaches, and perhaps because no one comes here, there are many coral fragments and shells washed ashore by the waves.
From above the beach all the way to the edge of the west coast, it is covered with lush tropical vegetation, with coconut trees, palm trees and other shrubs and fruit trees forming a natural green barrier.
According to Zhou Zecheng, the place where he found Cycas revoluta was about a hundred meters past this grove of trees, and it was very conspicuous.
Qin Suisui thought about it and agreed. Cycas revoluta prefers a climate with high temperature, high humidity, and partial shade. High temperature and high humidity are easy to achieve, but partial shade can only be found in this dense forest.
Unlike Changbai Mountain, Qiongtan Island doesn't have large wild animals, but traversing the tropical jungle inevitably carries some dangers. Qin Suisui dared to come alone not only because she had medicine to repel snakes, insects, and rodents, but also because she had Dahei and Dahuang! The two little guys hadn't been out for a long time! These past few days, except when Pei Jiuyan wasn't home at night, Qin Suisui would let them out to guard the yard; they hadn't gone anywhere else.
Qin Suisui walked into the woods and, after confirming that she couldn't see from outside, brought out Dahuang and Dahei directly from her spatial storage.
Sure enough, as soon as they came out, the two little guys started frolicking in the woods. The sudden appearance of two creatures they had never seen before startled the birds and beasts in the forest, who scattered in panic. After they finished frolicking, they ran happily to Qin Suisui's side. Knowing that Qin Suisui had important business to attend to, Dahei obediently squatted down as before. After Qin Suisui sat on its back, it carried her slowly through the woods.
Qin Suisui had instructed them not to run away, because she needed to find Cycas revoluta!
Besides the haphazard tropical trees, the forest also contained many fruit trees and medicinal herbs. Qin Suisui accepted everything she saw, storing all the medicinal herbs into her spatial storage, hoping they might come in handy someday.
Considering that Dahuang and Dahei like bananas and lychees, Qin Suisui specially collected a few more banana and lychee trees she saw in the forest. She also collected any mango, coconut, and wampee trees that she found along the way. What was even more surprising was that she also found many pineapple clumps "sitting" on the ground and a large area of passion fruit vines.
Needless to say, Qin Suisui had been craving passion fruit for a long time. When she first came to Qiongtan Island, after buying furniture with Pei Jiuyan and the others, she went to a state-run restaurant for dinner. Pei Jiuyan bought her a glass of passion fruit juice. The taste was a wonderful blend of the fragrances of a hundred fruits, sweet and sour, and exceptionally refreshing!
There were so many fruit trees in the forest that Qin Suisui almost forgot the important purpose of her trip while she was busy picking them.
After finishing collecting everything, I sat on Big Black's back and continued forward.
She was starting to feel something was off. According to Zhou Zecheng, she had walked more than a hundred meters, but apart from the fruit trees, she hadn't seen a single cycad.
Zhou Zecheng wouldn't lie to her about this. He gave her the seed directly, confirming that it was indeed a cycad seed, though it had probably been pecked by birds and had a few small holes on it.
Qin Suisui frowned and thought for a while, then looked up and suddenly realized that the light in the forest seemed to have dimmed a bit.
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