It's currently the harvest season for Potentilla chinensis, with its serrated leaves that are green with white markings and covered in white down on the underside.
Jiang Zhi bent down and used a knife to clear away the soil around the roots of the white grass, revealing spindle-shaped tubers underneath. The tubers were short and forked, resembling chicken thighs.
Xiaoman immediately recognized it: "Aunt Jiang, I recognize this grass, it's chicken leg root! It's edible!"
As he spoke, he quickly dug up another plant nearby, scraped off the dark brown outer skin of the thick tuberous root of the white clover with a knife, revealing the pinkish-white cross-section inside, and then stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it.
Jiang Zhi nodded, and then casually scraped off a tuber and ate it herself.
Xiaoman is right.
Potentilla fruticosa, also known as chicken claw ginseng or chicken claw grass, has roots and stems rich in starch. When chewed, it has a slightly sweet taste and is a popular snack for children in rural areas.
This is also a medicinal herb. Since its name contains the character for ginseng, it has the effect of replenishing qi.
However, its qi-tonifying effect is relatively weak. When stewing meat, adding a few chicken feet and ginseng for long-term consumption can tonify qi and strengthen the spleen, and is used for spleen and stomach weakness and loss of appetite.
If fresh chicken claw ginseng is mashed and applied externally, it can treat wounds that are slow to heal and has the effects of detoxification and tissue regeneration.
Xu Dazhu is weak and deficient in qi, and cannot tolerate tonics. Chicken claw ginseng is the best medicine for him.
Upon hearing that the herb was for her elder brother and was comparable to ginseng, Xiaoman's spirits immediately lifted, and the depression and gloom she felt upon seeing the tragic state of the village vanished instantly.
Immediately search the mountains and fields for white grass to ensure that my elder brother can have a bowl of this nourishing herb every day.
Besides Potentilla chinensis, there are many other herbs that can regulate and nourish the spleen and stomach.
The most famous one is probably the wild yam, also known as the foot-shaped sweet potato. This is a must-add herb for rural elderly people when stewing meat, and it is considered a nourishing and health-preserving delicacy.
Wild yam and kudzu are similar, both being perennial climbing plants, except that one is herbaceous and the other is a vine.
Cultivated yams typically grow two to three meters deep into the soil. Every time I see someone digging yams, it looks like they're digging trenches. Wild yams, on the other hand, grow even deeper underground.
Moreover, they grow in harsher environments, usually under trees or near rocks, and some even grow directly in piles of rocks. Harvesting them is much more difficult than harvesting ginseng.
It's early spring now, and the woods are still lacking in green. The vines twining around the branches are easy to spot, especially the heart-shaped leaves that look like little hands waving in the wind.
However, wild yam is harvested in late autumn and early winter, so it is not at its best for medicinal effect now and can only be used as is.
After walking and searching, and acquiring more than a dozen plants of *Potentilla discolor*, they finally found wild yam vines at the foot of a cliff.
Digging yams is hard work, but fortunately, wild yams, although their roots are deep in the pile of rocks, are relatively easy to dig because of the recent long rain and the loose soil.
First, find the vines and dig down along the roots. The soil here is thin, so wild yams can't grow to four or five meters tall, and they might even get into the cracks in the rocks.
Digging away the pile of stones and digging down two feet, a pair of fleshy rhizomes, squeezed into strange shapes by the stones, were revealed. The skin was grayish-brown and covered with thick fibrous roots, like a sweet potato with a beard.
Xiaoman was overjoyed, her face covered in mud as she dug: "Aunt Jiang, can we eat this?"
He felt like kudzu root.
Kudzu root can fill you up, so this should work too! How come I never knew before that the whole mountain was full of food?
Jiang Zhi helped him pick wild yams and said with a smile, "Of course you can eat them. Wild yams and sweet potatoes are related; they're from the same family."
Xiaoman found it amusing and casually asked, "Did your aunt's family eat this before? I've never heard Xiaotian mention it!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he regretted it and, seeing Jiang Zhi's expression, quickly said, "Before... that Xiao Tian... he rarely spoke either."
Jiang Zhi smiled slightly. She didn't care what she had said; it wasn't her who had mistreated Nie Fantian.
It's just that Xiaoman and Errui were so uneasy in front of him, so he had to react in some way.
“Xiaoman, Xiaotian is right to follow the village chief. Even though we have food and shelter now, we still can’t rest easy.”
"Look at the situation in the village, soldiers might come to garrison there at any time, so we don't dare to go down the mountain and wander around."
Leaving isn't necessarily a bad thing; staying also carries risks. Put aside your savior complex and respect the fate of others.
Hearing about the soldiers, Xiaoman stopped laughing and just kept digging in the dirt.
Yes, the village burned down, and we can't go back to our homes.
Seeing that Xiaoman no longer mentioned Nie Fantian, Jiang Zhi also stopped talking. She recalled the information she had heard in her dream: Nie Fantian and his group arrived in Yuzhou Prefecture, but were locked outside the city and mixed with those refugees.
Just then, she suddenly remembered the reason why Yuzhou Prefecture was under lockdown: there were mutinous soldiers massacring villages nearby, and they were trying to sneak in refugees to enter the city...
If that's true, then Zhao Li, Xu Youcai, and the others from Xujia Village were very likely taken away by the rebel soldiers passing through the area, and their target was Yuzhou Prefecture.
well!
Thinking back, if it weren't for Master Xiaoman destroying the road beforehand on the night the fire broke out, we would all have been kidnapped and our fates unknown.
The two walked and stopped intermittently, finding several kinds of herbs along the way, and Xiaoman also discovered a few bird nests.
It was March, the breeding season, and Jiang Zhi hadn't allowed anyone to catch bird eggs. The wildfires had destroyed many bird nests, and the flock urgently needed to replenish them.
Back at Laoyun Cliff, the baskets the two carried were already full.
Jiang Zhi handed the chicken claw ginseng and wild yam to Xiaoman's grandmother, asking her to add them to the soup so that everyone could eat some. Since Xiaoman recognizes them now, he'll go dig some up after we finish eating.
Grandpa Xiaoman also knows about ginseng claws, so it's not surprising that he can eat them.
Everyone used to dig these things up to eat and play with when they were young, but no one does them anymore when they grow up.
I was quite surprised to hear that this herb has the same effect as ginseng.
"This can also replenish qi?" He couldn't believe his ears.
Grandma Xiaoman took out the white clover and examined it from all angles. As she looked at it, her eyes began to wander, as if she could see silver ingots growing wings and flying away.
In the first year after Xu Dazhu's fall, his family spent a lot of money on ginseng and medicine, exhausting all their savings. They not only had to sell their old ox but also their land.
Jiang Zhi did not exaggerate the effects of herbs. He believed that there was no distinction between high and low quality or expensive and cheap medicines, only the difference in treatment based on syndrome differentiation.
Chicken claw ginseng is naturally not comparable to ginseng in replenishing qi.
Ginseng is highly potent and has the effect of "bringing the dead back to life and reversing the course of events," meaning it can save lives.
Chicken claw ginseng has weak effects, but even weak effects have their advantages. Xu Dazhu can only eat these mild tonics now, and they are harmless for ordinary people to eat.
Grandpa Xiaoman looked incredulous, clearly still bothered by the time and money he had wasted, and curious about how Jiang Zhi knew so much about these herbs.
Jiang Zhi only replied with one sentence: "Experience makes one a good doctor!"
Xiaomanye had no way to refute it.
Since Xu Errui's father had a chronic illness that had plagued him for over a decade, it was normal for him to seek out some herbal remedies to treat himself.
Just moments ago, Little Man was excited about the chicken claw ginseng, but the next second he cried out as if he had seen something terrifying: "Oh dear, you can't eat this stuff, it'll poison you!"
He grabbed the wild yams from his basket and threw them far away, saying anxiously, "Errui's mother, Xiaoman, you must wash your hands quickly! You mustn't touch these, they're poisonous! Don't get poisoned!"
Everyone was immediately shocked, and Grandma Xiaoman hurriedly said, "Quick, quick, wash her!"
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