Chapter 23 Taking Stock of the Gains
Pine cones don't spoil easily once sliced. Just wash them, drain them, and place them on a rack to air dry.
But looking at so many pine cone pieces, Zuo Shan was very worried.
The two small hand-woven burlap sacks we had at home had already used up the dried and ground yam peels. Now, where should we store this huge pile of pine cone slices that are about to be ground into powder?
At times like this, she envied those time-traveling gods who had space and spiritual springs as standard features.
Poor thing, she was unlucky enough to be transported to a wasteland, and on top of that, she was carrying a child of unknown father, yet she didn't have a single cheat code.
Her only mechanical servant, Chestnut, was someone she found while scavenging. It's true what they say, comparisons are odious!
However, Zuo Shan was an optimist by nature and would never let herself wander in self-pity. She quickly found the space storage tool of this world from the original owner's memories - the space button.
Space buttons are a high-tech product made of a special material. Their capacity varies depending on the size, ranging from 1 cubic meter to 50 cubic meters or even more.
However, when that great catastrophe struck, the intense radiation and heat destroyed the only two factories and equipment on the Algae Star capable of producing space buttons, and almost all the technicians died, so the technology was lost.
Fortunately, the surviving space buttons can still be used. It is said that their lifespan is at least eight hundred years, so many important people in the city today have space buttons.
Occasionally, they are sold on the market, but they are usually used by the unworthy descendants of important figures to exchange for silver coins. The price starts at least at hundreds of thousands of silver coins, which is definitely out of the question for a poor nobody like her.
Never mind, we still have to try to find a way to use local materials and make the most of the available space.
Zuo Shan decided to go to the Purple Bamboo Forest tomorrow.
The so-called Purple Bamboo Forest is definitely not the mystical Purple Bamboo Forest in the courtyard of Guanyin Bodhisattva's house in the myths of her homeland, but rather a product of the mutation of ordinary green bamboo.
The mutated adult bamboo is tens of meters tall, and the thickest one cannot be wrapped around by a person. It is also very hard and extremely difficult to cut.
However, she can choose newly unearthed tender bamboo, which is relatively soft and easy to cut. After being cut into pieces, it can be woven into various shapes, which should be good for making a storage cabinet or something.
Having planned tomorrow's work, she continued to review today's achievements.
The first thing she dealt with was the Firethorn Wood Spirit Core, which only had 15 energy points. To dig it out, she dug out its roots as well.
Of course, the reason for bringing it back was to try and see if it could be planted.
Zuo Shan hesitated. If she dug out the wood spirit core, even if the firethorn roots were buried in the soil, they would most likely not survive.
Moreover, soil that hasn't been hardened might attract rodents that could gnaw on the roots and stems, even if plants grow in it.
Wait, something's not right!
Since this firethorn can survive in the wild, it means that rodents must not like to eat its roots and stems, otherwise it would have died long ago!
Having figured out the cause and effect, An Qingkong immediately took a small hoe to the doorway. She chose an empty spot next to the short, mutated lemon tree and prepared to dig a hole to plant firethorn.
It was already dark, and most of the residents of District 50 were resting at home.
During the day they go scavenging, and although they are not sleepy now, they are used to going to bed early to rest, because lying down is the most energy-efficient way to consume less food.
When Mao Li saw that she was going to dig a hole, she quickly jumped out, and two slender mechanical arms extended from her paws. In no time, she dug a two-meter-deep hole.
"Wow! Mao Li, you're so capable!" Zuo Shan praised him with starry eyes. Mao Li lowered his head shyly: "Master, this is just the simplest agricultural robot that can do it. It's not worth your praise."
"You helped me, whether it was something simple or difficult, you deserve praise!" Zuo Shan said sincerely.
Chestnut was increasingly moved and decided to stay up all night to thoroughly explore its knowledge base and see if there were any good ways to help its owner improve their life.
Zuo Shan buried the roots of the firethorn in the pit, then connected a tap to the water pipe and thoroughly watered the pit.
After planting the firethorn, Zuo Shan took stock of her harvest for the day: 35 pine nuts with moderate radiation and 3 pine nuts with low radiation.
They lay quietly at her feet, and she touched them one by one with her left hand, like a nouveau riche secretly counting his silver ingots at night.
The mercenary group was supposed to shell the pine nuts for free during the inspection, but she only selected five moderately radioactive pine nuts for Jia Yiming to shell; the rest were brought back with their shells on.
Because pine nut shells are hard and dense, they have a natural preservation function, and they are more likely to spoil once the shells are removed.
The mercenary group chooses to remove the shells directly because they have vacuum-sealed bags, and the shells are lightweight and take up little space, making them easy to transport.
Most people who go scavenging choose to ask them to shell the pine nuts directly so they can easily sell them at the exchange hall. Of course, a few of them will leave the pine nuts for their families to eat, but no one chooses to take the shells back with them.
Zuo Shan chose to keep the pine nuts in their shells because she had eaten many different flavors of pine nuts. More importantly, she thought that one day in the future, she might be able to try planting pine trees.
Imagine planting a pine tree in front of your house. In the hot summer, it provides shade and shelter from the wind and snow in the cold. At Christmas, you can hang bells and lanterns on it and use it as a Christmas tree. How wonderful would that be!
Of course, this is just her fantasy at the moment.
But people need to have dreams to live, otherwise life would be so dull and boring.
The fantasy is over, and the reality is that there is no suitable place to store these pine nuts.
After searching for a long time without finding a suitable place, I had no choice but to pile it up in the corner and cover it with a bunch of messy ramie fibers that I had taken out of the original body.
This is used to weave burlap sacks. Scavengers in District 50 will also cut raw ramie fibers, which are about one centimeter wide, into finer threads to weave into linen for clothing.
This type of clothing is flexible, strong, and durable, but its disadvantages are that the texture is rough, it feels very uncomfortable against the skin, and it is not very warm, so it is only suitable for wearing in extremely hot weather.
After casually covering the pile of pine nuts in their shells, Zuo Shan heard his stomach rumble.
She took out a shelled pine nut, put it in her mouth and took a bite. The strong astringent taste made her almost spit it out.
I never imagined that fragrant pine nuts would taste so bad before they were processed.
Good ingredients should not be wasted. She broke five shelled pine nuts into small pieces and steamed them for half an hour on a rattan steamer rack.
After cooking, place the meat on a wire mesh rack (which can also be used as a barbecue grill) and slowly roast it over the fire.
While she was at it, she took out the leftover alfalfa leaves, chopped them into small pieces, blanched them in the only pot in the house, sprinkled them with the only seasoning powder in the house: coarse salt, and mixed them well.
When the air was filled with a strong aroma of roasting, she turned off the fire, ate a piece of roasted, fragrant pine nut, took a bite of simple cold alfalfa salad, and then threw a few yam strips into the water used to blanch the alfalfa to make a vegetable soup.
She ate her dinner, which was both sumptuous and simple, to her heart's content. It wasn't until she burped that she realized she had eaten two medium-radiation pine nuts, a large piece of low-radiation alfalfa leaf, five medium-radiation yam strips, and more than half a liter of boiled water.
Calculating the value of these things, she felt a pang of pain in her heart and lungs—these were all gleaming silver coins!
But since we've already eaten it, it's too late to regret it. We can't just take it out of our stomachs and sell it for money, can we?
That night, Zuo Shan had a wonderful dream. In her dream, she had just won the World Marathon Championship, and her coach invited her and her teammates to a Manchu Han Imperial Feast.
On a huge round table were 108 dishes. She swore she counted them one by one. Among them were 54 southern dishes, including 30 Jiangzhe dishes, 12 Fujian dishes, and 12 Cantonese dishes.
There were also 54 dishes in the Northern cuisine section, including 30 Shandong dishes, 12 Beijing dishes, and 12 Manchu dishes. She was so overwhelmed by the choices that she didn't know which dish to pick up first.
Just as she was drooling and hesitating, the alarm rang.
The moment Zuo Shan opened her eyes and saw that everything around her was pitch black, she wanted to slap herself hard. How stupid was she? Why didn't she just pick up her chopsticks?
This dream made her deeply realize the saying: "Strike first and you'll be strong; strike later and you'll suffer."
In her subsequent scavenging work, she strictly adhered to this principle and indeed benefited greatly.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
