Chapter 103: Drinking Soy Milk and Eating Soy Pulp (Bonus Chapter for reader Grape C who loves braised beef)
Even while recuperating at home, Pan Duole couldn't stay idle. She asked Xiao Bao to take out the soybeans she had picked from the Ghost Thorn Vine last time.
At that time, only the chestnuts that were picked had been tested. Xiao Bao was an indiscriminate recipient of all the beans, and picked a total of 88 pods.
I've been so busy since then that I haven't had a chance to retest, so Pan Duole took the initiative to take on this task.
After testing, it was found that nine pods had moderate radiation levels, while none had low radiation levels, but that was still quite lucky.
Adding to the 6 pods that were previously tested as edible, a total of 15 pods were edible, yielding 116 large soybeans.
Soybeans are already quite heavy, and each one was the size of a longan, so the total weight was over 15 jin (7.5 catties), which was quite a bumper harvest!
Just thinking about thick, milky-white soy milk makes Zuo Shan's mouth water, but unfortunately, he doesn't have a soy milk maker.
When she told Mao Li about her needs, he immediately found a picture of a simple hand-cranked soy milk maker in his database.
Then, each part was disassembled, and a three-dimensional model was drawn. Zuo Shan went to the scrap metal recycling station to buy some high-quality scrap metal, and brought it back for Xiao Bao to sculpt the parts according to the shape.
At first, Xiao Bao's technique was not very good, and the parts he sculpted were all oddly shaped. After half a day of practice, he was able to make them very precise.
It has to be said that Xiao Bao's ability to control metal forms is truly amazing!
With the parts in hand, Mao Li quickly assembled a small soy milk maker. Zuo Shan used six large soybeans to grind more than two liters of thick soy milk, and she finally got to drink the first cup of soy milk in the wasteland.
At first, Xiao Bao disliked the taste of soy milk, but when it saw that Sister Shan and Lele were drinking it, it started drinking it with a frown. As it drank, it gradually fell in love with the taste.
Hmm, that's really good! No wonder Sister Fan was so excited when she took her first sip!
After grinding the soybeans to make soy milk, Zuo Shan stir-fried the remaining soybean pulp over a low flame until fragrant. He gave each person two handfuls and also sent a small bowl to Uncle Wu's house next door. Uncle Wu couldn't help but drool just from the aroma of the stir-fried soybean pulp.
Aunt Zhou felt a little embarrassed, so she gave Zuo Shan a stack of soft diapers. She didn't know what material they were made of, but said that the manufacturer had given them to her as a free gift when she was buying supplies. Since she didn't have a baby, she thought it would be perfect for her to use.
She had heard her husband mention more than once that Miss Zuo would always bring him delicious food, making him feel quite embarrassed, but the food was so delicious that he couldn't bear to refuse.
Now everyone was in high demand, especially Xiao Bao, who kept pestering her for more, forcing Zuo Shan to give it half of her share.
After resting at home for four days, Pandole refused to continue and insisted on going to the wild to scavenge.
Zuo Shan saw that her complexion had indeed improved a lot, and her body looked even stronger than before. After fusing the two mutated plants, her physical strength had almost reached the level of a first-level ability user.
After all, wastelanders feel uneasy if they don't scavenge for a day.
As always, the whole family went out together. This time, Zuo Shan chose the farthest collection point, about 30 kilometers away from the residential area. She wanted to take advantage of the fact that her belly was not so big that she could not walk anymore to conduct an on-site investigation of the farthest collection point in District 48.
This is because there are 36 hours in a day on Green Algae Star; otherwise, she would never dare to go to such a far place to collect algae, as the round trip alone would take about nine hours.
Fortunately, she now has the ability to move quickly. Although she is a level zero novice, her physical strength is still stronger than that of an ordinary person.
Pandole and Xiaobao could keep up with her speed, not to mention Maoli, who would never get tired as long as he had energy.
We set off at seven in the morning as usual, at a time when we wouldn't encounter any other scavengers, and Mao Li would always be leading the way, illuminating the way.
They passed a small ditch on the way, and Pan Duole excitedly asked, "Sister, shall we fish here?"
"Let's forget about it and wait until next time. Our destination is a bit far today, and we can't afford to waste time along the way," Zuo Shan said.
Her years as an athlete instilled in her the habit of setting goals in advance and persevering in achieving them.
When they arrived at their destination, Pan Duole and Xiao Bao were exhausted. Zuo Shan was slightly better off, but she also felt like she was about to reach her limit.
As dawn broke, the area appeared to be a hilly region with numerous undulating hills and parched land that, for some unknown reason, was devoid of vegetation.
There aren't many particularly tall trees; they are scattered around. Most of the trees are variegated shrubs that are about 2-5 meters tall.
To be fair, this kind of place is actually very suitable for gathering, at least it is not easy to get lost. Just climb up the small hill and look down, and you can see the winding path you came from.
The path is about one to two meters wide, and it must be regularly cleaned, otherwise it would have been covered by messy vegetation long ago.
Zuo Shan chose a small hill as her resting spot. She glanced at the surrounding hills and addressed everyone:
“Each of us should choose a small hill. If we encounter danger, we should shout loudly and then run back the way we came. In places where people regularly clear the area, the mutated beasts will be more wary.”
“Okay!” Pan Duole took the lead in agreeing, but after Zuo Shan finished drinking a sip of water, she found that she was the only one left.
It seems her family wanted to take care of her, a pregnant woman, so they left this rest stop for her, saving her the trouble of traveling.
Zuo Shan accepted everyone's kindness and began searching on the small hill.
When Zuo Shan first started testing, she was aimless and didn't care which plant's leaves she was testing. She just wanted to do an experiment to see the average radiation level of the plants in this area.
After examining about a hundred leaves, she concluded that the radiation levels here were generally lower than in Zone 50.
In Zone 50, if you test hundreds of leaves and find more than five with moderate radiation, that's considered extremely lucky. Most of the time, it's normal to find two with moderate radiation out of every hundred leaves.
Furthermore, not both leaves are necessarily edible; some are bitter, and some are poisonous. Therefore, it is difficult for people in District 50 to store enough dried vegetables to eat during extremely cold weather, and going hungry in winter is a common occurrence.
But this place is different; out of a hundred leaves, eight are moderately radiated, and one is even lowly radiated.
In the past, when she went scavenging, even when she was incredibly lucky, she rarely encountered such a high percentage of edible items.
Except for that bamboo grove, the edible proportion of bamboo leaves and bamboo shoots is higher because the purple cloud egg purifies the surrounding soil.
As for the peanut grove and those soybeans, it was pure luck on her part.
Perhaps it was the great god of time travel who gave her a little bit of luck, because she was much luckier than the original owner when she went out to scavenge, which gave her the courage to raise children and national treasures.
After finishing her experiment, Zuo Shan began to take stock of the leaves she had just harvested. Among them were three leaves that she was unfamiliar with, but which she remembered from the original owner's memories and were edible.
There were three more that she recognized, and they were even picked from the same tree—tender elm seeds.
Unfortunately, this elm seed sprouted from an unknown seed that drifted from somewhere. The plant is not tall, only a little over two meters, and looks shorter than a normal elm tree.
But the leaves and the elm seeds that grow are quite large; the leaves are as big as an adult's palm, and the elm seeds are as big as a blooming rose.
It's clearly a mutated variety, and the tree is no more than two years old. There are only a few clusters of elm seeds on it, and only three edible seeds were detected.
There definitely won't be enough elm seeds to steam, so Zuo Shan plans to divide these three elm seeds into three portions later, one for each person. Since chestnuts can't be eaten, this is just enough, hehe!
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