Chapter 123 Cashew Pears and Beetroot (Third Update)
They ran rather slowly today, and by the time they reached collection point number 53, it was already dawn.
This is a cliff several hundred meters high, overlooking a dense forest that stretches to the horizon.
Zuo Shan's intuition told her that there should be a lot of good things to be found down there, but unfortunately she didn't have a flying vehicle, and even if she did, she wouldn't dare to go down. Who knows if there were any high-level mutated beasts hiding in that dense forest?
She should just stick to collecting things on the cliff.
Just as she was about to leave the cliff edge, she discovered that Xiao Bao had somehow climbed up a fruit tree growing against the cliff face.
The fruit tree bears red and orange fruits the size of cantaloupes, shaped like pears, but strangely, in the middle of the large end hanging below the fruit, there is a grayish-brown fruit shaped like a kidney and about the same size as a kidney.
Zuo Shan watched as Xiao Bao nimbly moved among the branches, constantly harvesting the fruit from the tree. She was so frightened that she didn't dare to shout, afraid that if she let go, Xiao Bao would fall.
Keep in mind that there are at least several hundred meters below, and even if Xiao Bao's body has been reinforced with metal, there is still a chance that his internal organs will be damaged.
She sent Pandora to gather fruit nearby, while she stayed on the cliff edge, anxiously waiting for Xiaobao to come up after gathering the fruit.
After waiting for a full quarter of an hour, Xiao Bao finally stored all thirty-odd fruits from the tree in his spatial storage and climbed back up the cliff.
"You little brat! You scared your sister to death! Do you know how dangerous that cliff is? You could fall and die!" Zuo Shan scolded, pulling its ear.
Xiao Bao took out the reddest and biggest fruit from his spatial storage and handed it to her. Its misty eyes blinked, making her heart melt with its cuteness, and all her anger vanished.
Zuo Shan took out a cutting knife to test it, and a prompt sounded: "Beep! Moderately radiation-mutated cashews detected. Edible. Harvesting recommended!"
"Cashews? These are the legendary cashews?" Zuo Shan was stunned.
She had eaten cashews countless times since she was a child, but she never knew that cashews also produce seeds. She always thought that cashews were like peanuts or beans, growing in a shell or pod.
I never expected it to grow under this pear-shaped fruit.
She used a dagger to cut off a small piece of the cashew pear. It tasted sweet and sour, juicy, and absolutely delicious!
She cut off a small piece of the cashew nut that had formed at the bottom. Because it was raw, it still had a thick skin on it, and it didn't taste as good as a raw peanut.
It turns out that the cashew pear is the best part of the cashew. Thinking about it, it makes sense. Cashew, as the name suggests, is a fruit, not a dried fruit. Real dried fruits are not called fruits.
Zuo Shan felt like he had learned something new!
Cashew pear was the first real fruit Zuo Shan had ever tasted since coming into this world, and it was a mixture of fruit and dried fruit, which made her feel incredibly happy!
It's good to share delicious food with family members. Xiao Bao is used to it now. When Zuo Shan hands it cashews, it puts them away in its space and waits until lunchtime to share them with everyone.
Taking advantage of the cooler morning weather, Zuo Shan hurried to collect the materials.
After wandering around for a while, she found a clump of huge, thick green leaves, each leaf being more than half a person tall.
These large leaves grow outwards from the base of the plant. There are many stems of varying heights in the middle of the leaves, the tallest of which is more than two meters high. However, the leaves growing from the stems are very small, no bigger than the palm of a hand. The flowers that bloom in the middle of the small leaves are even smaller and can hardly be seen if you are not paying attention.
Zuo Shan couldn't recall this type of leaf. He opened the detection knife and cut off a small piece. An announcement came from inside: "Beep! Highly radioactive beet leaf detected. Not edible!"
"Beets?!" Zuo Shan was overjoyed.
Sugar is ridiculously expensive in supermarkets, but I never expected to find sugar beets in the wild.
Although the first leaf detected was inedible, it did not dampen her enthusiasm for white sugar. She immediately called for help and summoned chestnuts to come and assist her.
She needs to dig out the beetroots hidden underground.
Back in the countryside, my grandma and her family would grow sugar beets in their fields to feed the pigs.
We start harvesting the beet leaves as soon as the first batch of leaves grows. After harvesting several batches of leaves, the beet roots mature and it's harvest season.
Beetroot is shaped like a heart-shaped radish, but it is rounder, plumper, and more compact.
The beetroots my grandma grows are white; in the countryside, they're called sweet radishes. It's said that sweet radishes are a raw material for making white sugar.
At that time, she saw her grandmother chop the dug-up beet roots into pieces with a kitchen knife and add them to the feed to cook together.
It's said that the cooked pig feed is very sweet and helps pigs gain weight. She hasn't tasted it to see if it's actually sweet, but it's true that pigs generally like to eat it.
Later, she went to the city and saw red beets, with red leaves and red roots, like small red radishes, which people would buy to eat as vegetables.
In the countryside, sweet radishes are grown to feed pigs. They are of different varieties, very large and coarse, and different from what city people eat.
Zuo Shan hoped that the roots of this beet plant would be big enough so that she could boil some white sugar.
The chestnuts arrived quickly. A robotic arm was used to probe the ground and first check the radiation level. Fortunately, it was moderate radiation.
Then he helped her dig out the root that was buried deep in the ground. Looking at the beet root in front of her, which was bigger than a winter melon and weighed more than 30 kilograms, Zuo Shan was stunned for a moment.
Then I took out a dagger and cut its outer bark. With one stab, it felt like I had cut into thick tree bark, giving it a very woody feel.
She couldn't help but wonder if beetroot could really be used to make white sugar.
Having finally dug out such a large beetroot, she was naturally unwilling to give up. She repeatedly stabbed it in different directions with the knife, and finally discovered that the woody layer was thinnest in the middle of the giant beetroot. When the dagger was halfway in, she finally felt the crisp texture inside. After pulling out the dagger, it was still covered with sticky juice. She stuck out her tongue and licked it, and it was extremely sweet!
Zuo Shan was overjoyed and immediately put the huge beetroot into his spatial storage.
Hahaha! Time for some candy!
Finding a beet in the wild was a complete surprise, and Zuo Shan certainly wouldn't give up so easily.
The giant beet leaves, their roots dug out, lay sprawled on the ground, and Zuo Shan carefully searched among the small leaves for flowers and seeds.
It took her a full fifteen minutes to finally find eight oval seeds the size of olives. Zuo Shan took out a small sealed bag, carefully wrapped the eight seeds, and put them into her spatial storage.
She has already decided that after baby Achen is born, she will plant some beets for it so that its childhood will be full of sugar and sweet.
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