After the father and daughter said goodbye to Aunt Liu, they continued to walk into the mountains. An Dashan usually did not go too deep into the mountains, just a little further than where the villagers usually went, and today was no exception.
When they arrived, An Dashan told An Ning, "Daya, stay in this area and don't go too far. I'll go around to see if there's any prey."
An Ning was just hoping that An Dashan would not be with her. Hearing this, she nodded quickly and said, "Dad, don't worry, I will never run around."
After An Dashan gave An Ning instructions, he went hunting with a bow and arrow on his back. After An Ning confirmed that An Dashan had gone far away, he transferred some of the astragalus in the space and three ginsengs. To avoid arousing suspicion, he used a small hoe to dig the surrounding land. The ginsengs in the space were all cultivated, and they were only about three years old. They could not be compared with the real old mountain ginseng, but in the ancient times when ginseng was scarce, they could be sold for a certain price, which could at least make life a little better for the family. After doing all this, An Ning looked around to see if there was anything that could be used at home. The place that An Dashan brought An Ning to was rarely visited by other than the nearby hunters, and there were really a lot of good things.
Seeing the vast expanse of wild mushrooms, An Ning was excited. She hadn't eaten chicken stewed with mushrooms for a long time. There was a pheasant at home that hadn't been eaten yet. Since the family had good food in the past two days, Gao prepared the pheasant, salted it, and put it in the well so that it wouldn't spoil so quickly.
As to why these wild mushrooms can grow so well, it is because people nowadays cannot tell which are poisonous and which are not, so no one eats them. Now they are all cheap for An Ning.
When An Dashan came back, he saw An Ning had already picked up a basket full of "poisonous mushrooms". He was so scared that he quickly stepped forward to stop her and said, "Daya, don't pick them up. Those mushrooms can't be eaten. They are poisonous."
When An Ning heard An Dashan's voice, she turned around immediately and saw An Dashan staring at her with a worried look on his face. She stood up and made up a story: "Dad, all the mushrooms I picked are edible. Do you remember that I was in a coma a few days ago? Although I was in a coma for only a few days, it was indeed several years in my dream. It was during those days that I learned a lot of skills from an old immortal in my dream, including the ability to identify poisonous mushrooms."
An Dashan was excited when he heard this and asked, "Is it an old immortal who looks like a Taoist priest?"
An Ning didn't know why her father was so excited, so she could only nod and say, "Yes, Dad, how did you know?"
An Dashan said, "You don't know that when you were unconscious, an old Taoist priest who looked very experienced came to our house and said that you would wake up soon and that you were a blessed person. Your mother and I were very worried at the time. We could only hope that what the old Taoist priest said was true, and we even gave him ten cents."
An Ning opened her mouth, wanting to ask if they were being cheated, but then she thought about how she could use this excuse to do many things in the future. So she changed her tone and said, "Dad, that must be it."
An Dashan looked around and saw that there was no one around, then he lowered his voice and said, "Don't ever tell anyone about this in the future, or you'll be burned to death as a monster."
An Ning knew that An Dashan was not trying to scare her, so she nodded and said, "I understand, Dad."
An Dashan saw that An Ning had already picked up a basket full of mushrooms, so he said, "Let's go home, otherwise your mother will be worried."
An Ning was also a little tired, so she nodded and went down the mountain with An Dashan. An Ning saw that there was only a pheasant and a hare in An Dashan's backpack, so she suddenly had an idea and released two adult rabbits from the space while An Dashan was not paying attention, and then shouted: "Dad, look, there are two rabbits there."
An Dashan was a man who had survived the battle. He turned around, aimed at the right spot, drew his bow and shot two arrows at once. Farmed rabbits were not as flexible as wild ones, so both arrows missed. An Dashan walked over, picked up the two rabbits, weighed them, and said, "What fat rabbits!"
An Ning thought to herself, "Of course it's fat. That's the rabbit that ate the crops in my space. How could it not be fat?"
With these gains, An Ning no longer made trouble and followed An Dashan back home obediently.
When Gao returned home, she was feeding the chickens. Seeing the father and daughter coming back so early, she was a little surprised and said, "Why are you back so early today?" Then she came over to take down An Ning's backpack. But when she saw the "poisonous mushrooms" in An Ning's backpack, her face changed slightly, and she said to An Dashan angrily, "Daya is still young and ignorant. Are you still ignorant? Why did you pick up these poisonous mushrooms?"
An Dashan grabbed his angry wife and said, "Let's go inside and talk." Although Gao was angry, she followed An Dashan into the house.
An Dashan pulled Gao into the house and told her the story An Ning had made up. Gao was skeptical and said, "This is too mysterious, but what if Da Ya remembered it wrong?"
An Dashan thought for a while and said, "Why don't we cook each type of mushroom and feed it to the chickens first to try. If they are not poisonous, we can eat them." Although Gao felt sorry for the chickens, she nodded in agreement.
When Gao and An Dashan came out of the house, they saw An Ning sorting and drying mushrooms in a winnowing basket. Gao also came over to help.
But when Gao saw the ginseng and astragalus under the mushrooms, she picked up a ginseng and looked at it carefully, and asked uncertainly: "Daya, what is this? Why does it look a bit like ginseng to me?" When Gao was young, an old doctor from the same village went up the mountain to collect herbs and was lucky enough to dig up ginseng. Many people saw it at the time, and later it was bought by a wealthy family for 1,000 taels. This incident caused a sensation in several surrounding villages and caused a craze to go to the mountains to collect herbs. But it is not so easy to collect old mountain ginseng. Later, no one collected it, and gradually no one mentioned this matter.
An Ning didn't expect that Gao had seen ginseng before. She nodded and said, "Mom, yes, this is ginseng, but it's not very old. The one next to it is astragalus. They are all medicinal herbs. When Dad goes to sell game tomorrow, I will go to the town with him and sell these medicinal herbs."
Gao didn't ask An Ning why he knew so much, thinking that it was all taught by the old immortal, so as to save An Ning from having to explain. Gao nodded, and sorted them out with An Ning, and then picked out some of each type of mushroom, cooked them and fed them to the chickens. After the chickens had eaten for a long time, they saw that they were indeed fine, and finally believed that these mushrooms were not "poisonous mushrooms". An Ning looked at Gao's actions and didn't say anything. After all, it was about life, and there was nothing wrong with being cautious.
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