Chapter 264 Traces
This tea tree not only produces tea seeds, but many of them have already fallen from the branches after ripening and drying.
The dried tea fruit is round, a little rough to the touch, and looks dark brown. The skin of the tea fruit that is not completely dried still has a reddish-brown green color.
Some of the tea leaves that fell on the ground had been broken open, revealing the black tea seeds inside.
It's like a mangosteen without the green stem, and the tea seeds inside are black petals.
Some tea seeds that have not yet fully matured and dried are white, and from a distance they look more like mangosteen flesh.
It’s just that the skin of the tea fruit is very hard, and the tea seeds inside are also hard.
Some tea berries have already ripened and dried to the point of cracking on the branches, opening the peel to reveal the black tea seeds.
The two of them hurriedly collected the tea seeds scattered on the ground and the tea fruits and tea seeds on the trees into the basket.
At first glance, tea seeds look a bit like black chestnuts, but when you hold them up to your nose you can smell a rich oily aroma.
Zhao Yeqing remembered that people in the village who went to the mountains to pick tea seeds used to go before the Descent of Frost, saying that the oil yield of the tea seeds was higher at that time.
But now due to weather reasons, the quality of the tea seeds now seems to be almost the same as those picked before the Frost Descent.
But not all tea seeds are ripe. Some tea seeds that have not dried and matured are still hanging on the branches, looking like small peaches that are just beginning to turn from green to red.
After they finished harvesting the two tea trees at the foot of the mountain, they headed towards the tea trees in the mountain.
When the hot weather comes, the trees in the mountains are covered with long and dense moss. Zhao Yeqing thought that after such hot weather, most of the moss in the mountains would die.
Unexpectedly, once we entered the forest, not only did the expected scene not appear, but the moss on the trees was also motionlessly green. The further we went into the mountains, the higher the altitude, and it looked as if it had not experienced this high temperature.
Zhao Yeqing was stunned. He stood still and pointed at the scene in front of him and asked, "Is this not in the same dimension as us?"
The dimension must be a dimension. Mu Xi didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "If I had known, I would have come here to escape the summer heat."
The two of them were more and more amazed as they walked.
At noon, the temperature on the meadow was about 35 degrees, but before the two of them reached halfway up the mountain, the temperature on Mu Xi's watch showed only about 28 degrees.
Because it rained a few days ago, the sun was shining on the mountains today, and there was a thin layer of mist floating in the mountains at noon.
From time to time, the sound of birds chirping could be heard among the trees, a sound that had not been heard in the woods near the meadow recently.
The air was filled with the smell of a forest that had been damp for years, a complex odor of soil, rotten leaves, and decaying wood.
When we arrived at the tea trees in the mountains, the tea fruits here were obviously not as dry as those at the foot of the mountain, and most of them were still green.
The two of them only picked the ripe ones and would wait for a while to pick the rest.
The remaining fruits at the foot of the mountain are about the same maturity as most of the tea fruits in the mountains, and it is expected that they can be picked in about a month.
Mu Xi was carrying materials and clearing land during this period, and he accidentally pulled his right arm. There is no problem with his daily life, but he can't lift it high or exert much force.
Zhao Yeqing could only pick the tea seeds from high places by holding them up with his left hand, or knocking them down with a wooden stick.
After collecting all the tea seeds, the two of them had to search the nearby area. After all, they hadn’t seen any wild vegetables or flowering plants along the way.
The only gain was some herbs that were not found in the mountains and forests near the meadow. This place is sparsely populated and has a special climate, and the types of herbs are not available in the home stock.
They first walked around separately, but since neither of them was familiar with the area, they didn't dare to separate too far, only about ten meters apart.
The climate here is humid, and there are quite a lot of wild mushrooms. Zhao Yeqing found some clusters of mushrooms under the roots of a tree. The dark yellow mushrooms were connected together at the roots, and there were about a dozen or twenty mushrooms in a cluster.
This one is edible, but she doesn't know what it's called. It looks a bit like tea tree mushroom, and it smells especially fragrant after being dried.
Zhao Yeqing was searching intently, and Mu Xi behind him was also searching intently. He found traces of animals there.
The trees here are very old, and their roots are intertwined and occupy the land in the mountains, so there are not many herbs on the ground. Among the not-so-dense weeds, he found a mark that was obviously crushed by animals.
The trace was not wide, estimated to be less than ten centimeters in diameter. It did not look like the remains of an animal like a wild boar, but more like a small weasel. However, no footprints or feces were found on the ground.
There are long drag marks.
Mu Xi didn't think it was a snake at all. Firstly, he felt that the climate here was relatively cold, which was not an environment that snakes liked. Secondly, he thought that the width of the trace was not wide only relative to mammals. If it was a snake, the size would be too outrageous.
So even though he was holding the gun, he didn't look overly alert.
But when Zhao Yeqing picked all the mushrooms on the ground and looked back, he almost died on the spot.
A spotted python about four meters long was coiled on the tree above Mu Xi's head. Only a small part of its long tail was hanging from the leaves and was accurately captured by Zhao Yeqing. Looking upwards, she saw that the snake's body was thicker than her calf!
The python's attention was all on Mu Xi. Zhao Yeqing moved his head as if nothing had happened, and then he saw the python's expression through the branches.
Pythons are mostly arboreal, and snakes hunt by basically launching attacks from ambushes, and their speed is so fast that people cannot react at all.
From what she observed, the snake's demeanor did not look like it was about to attack.
Yes, the two of them hung around under the big tree for more than twenty minutes. If they really had any ideas, they would have been dead long ago.
Zhao Yeqing raised his voice slightly and said to Mu Xi in a calm tone: "Don't look back, don't move, there is a big snake above your head, come to me slowly."
She didn't dare move forward, for fear of accidentally provoking the snake to attack.
Upon hearing this, Mu Xi's body froze and his heart began to pound. He knew Zhao Yeqing, and from the tone of his voice he guessed that the guy above him must be a big one.
Thinking about the traces he had just seen, he stood up slowly and walked towards Zhao Yeqing, but he held the gun tightly in his hand. The obvious whitening of his knuckles revealed that he was not calm inside.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he safely reached Zhao Yeqing's side, and pretended to look back at the tree unintentionally.
At just one glance, he couldn't help but sigh that he was really lucky.
The two planned to pretend that they didn't see it and evacuate to another place first.
But the two of them could never have imagined that the snake actually had ideas of its own, and it moved its body and swam down from the tree.
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