After walking through the bamboo forest, we arrived at a mixed wood forest. There were pine trees, chestnut trees, and Chinese oak trees in the forest. The young fruits had already grown.
Yang Xiaoxue pulled Yang Chunyan and said, "Be careful when you pass this way. Last year, Zhiqiang's mother was almost bitten by a snake when she was picking chestnuts in the woods."
Zhao Huifang: "There are quite a lot of old thorns these days. The day before yesterday when we were digging herbs in the mountains, we saw someone catching poisonous old thorns to sell!"
Yang Chunyan: "Next time you go to Ning'an, buy some snake medicine and hemostatic medicine from Dr. Wang's house. His snake medicine is very effective."
"Yes!" Yang Xiaoxue pointed ahead as they walked through the woods, "I dug up seven or eight kilograms of Poria cocos there yesterday."
"You can see there is lungwort growing next to it. You can only dig the young leaves that have just grown. The ones that have vines are useless."
"Oh!" The four of them took note and found some tender grass to dig.
Yang Chunyan took a few people to dig some Oxalis, Viola yedoensis, some Epimedium, and some Stone Ear, and their backpacks were almost full.
Yang Xiaoxue said to Yang Chunyan happily: "I have long wanted to go up the mountain with you. Otherwise, I would only dare to dig up herbs that I know, such as mountain radish, mugwort, and motherwort."
"When you have time, you should buy two books on herbal medicine. Pick some that you think you are confident of, and bring them down the mountain to show to Doctor Xiao Wang. If he is right, you will have the courage to pick them next time."
"Yeah, why didn't I think of this method!"
After hearing this, Li Qiuyue also said, "Chunyan, is there a book that teaches us how to dig herbs?"
Yang Chunyan nodded. "Xinhua Bookstore should have it. Buy the ones with color illustrations so they are easier to recognize."
"I understand."
Yang Chunyan turned around and looked at Yang Xiaoxue, "Which way do you usually go?"
Yang Xiaoxue pointed to the path ahead and said, "I always walk along the path."
Yang Chunyan looked around and pointed to the winding and rugged mountain road on the right, "Then let's go up from this side and take a look."
"Okay!"
The group climbed up the slope and walked forward, and found that the vegetation on this road was much denser.
Half an hour later, they arrived at a valley. Yang Chunyan pointed to an old flat vine with clusters of lavender flowers and a stem wider than an adult's palm. "I've been looking for it for so long, but this is the first time I've found a pole vine."
Yang Xiaoxue came over to take a look. "There are still some on the pole vine. The ripe fruit looks a bit like bitter eggs. It tastes a little sweet and quenches thirst. Is this also medicine?"
"It's a medicine. You can just cut it up and sell it. You can also wash it, slice it, dry it, and sell it."
Other names of the pole vine: flat vine, big reed vine, iron belt vine, flat dragon crossing the river, etc. The vine stems have the effect of dispelling wind and dampness, relaxing muscles and activating blood circulation.
Like Millettia reticulata, it grows by clinging to trees or rocks with its tendrils. Some can be over tens of meters long and forty to fifty centimeters wide, but only about ten centimeters thick.
It blooms very tiny lavender flowers, which grow in large clusters and look densely packed. The fruit is similar in shape to the Kyoho grape. When young, the fruit is green and sour, and when ripe, it is brown-red, soft, juicy and slightly sweet and edible.
The pole vine is also known as a natural water bottle. When its vine stems are cut, clear water for people to drink flows out. It is said that Dai hunters living in Xishuangbanna usually do not bring water bottles when they go into the mountains. When they are thirsty, they cut a small piece of pole vine and drink the water that flows out.
After Zhao Huifang cut the vine with a knife, several people came forward and grabbed the vine stem, shouting "1, 2, 3" and pulling it down hard.
Several people were so tired that they were sweating profusely, and the ground and their bodies were covered with leaves. They pulled down the vines clinging to the trees and cut them off. Looking at the long dragon-like shoulder-pole vines on the ground, they sat down on the ground with joy.
Several people were fanning themselves with their hands and breathing heavily.
Yang Xiaoxue said: "This is the annoying thing about June weather. If you sit still, you don't feel hot, but if you move a little, you sweat all over."
Zhang Xiuxiang: "This is nothing. We finished working in the kiln yesterday and then reloaded it. Our clothes and pants got wet and then dry. We even wrung out water from our underwear. Our buttocks are covered with prickly heat."
Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "Let my second brother apply some sweet potato starch on you, and it will be fine overnight. My mother applied sweet potato starch on my little Lin."
Zhang Xiuxiang was a little embarrassed. "Putting powder on the face is okay, but putting sweet potato starch on the butt will really make it a big white butt. Who would see it?"
Li Qiuyue gave her a nudge and winked at her, "Show it to second brother!"
"Puchi~" Zhao Huifang didn't know what she was thinking about. She spat out a mouthful of water far away and laughed so hard that she almost couldn't straighten her back. Several people also laughed along with her.
Yang Chunyan stopped laughing and said to Zhang Xiuxiang, "Second sister-in-law, go back and get some bitter melon leaves, mash them up and rub them over, then apply some sweet potato powder, and the prickly heat will be gone in two times."
Zhang Xiuxiang smiled and said, "Mom found some bitter melon leaves and sweet potato powder to apply on me last night, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to sleep last night."
"It will be out of the kiln in half a month, and the weather will be even hotter by then!" Li Qiuyue said as she kicked the pole, "Oh my god, no wonder I can't pull it. Look, it's about 20 to 30 meters long, right?"
Yang Xiaoxue stood up and said, "You guys chop the vines, I'll go get some firewood so we can roast corn."
"Okay, I'll go pick it up with you."
Yang Chunyan and Yang Xiaoxue went to the slope, picked up a small bundle of firewood, carried it down the slope, gathered the firewood together and lit it.
Zhao Huifang took out the pancakes she had prepared in the morning and asked, "Do you want more pancakes?"
Zhang Xiuxiang: "No, young corn is delicious. I haven't eaten roasted corn for a long time."
"I'll cut a few sticks and we'll string them together and roast them." Yang Chunyan sharpened one end of the wooden sticks and strung the tender corns together. Several people sat around, turning the sticks in their hands and watching the corns on the sticks slowly give off bursts of roasted aroma.
Yang Chunyan took a bite and said, "It's delicious! I remember when I was a kid, I was so hungry that I couldn't sleep, so my brother took us to the fields of the brigade to roast corn and eat it. It tasted so good!"
Several others raised their hands, “We’ve eaten it too!”
Zhao Huifang said: "When I was a child, I often thought that if I could have a good meal of fat meat, and it was gone before I could even taste it, I would be willing to work every day."
Yang Chunyan held up the corn and said to the others, "Let's work hard and try to bring some meat up the mountain to roast next year!"
"Okay, let's go up the mountain to have a barbecue next year!" several people responded in unison.
The women seemed to have returned to their days as girls, sitting together and laughing about their embarrassing childhood experiences. They did not extinguish the fire until they had roasted and ate more than a dozen corns, then they dug the soil to bury them, and continued to move forward with their baskets on their backs.
After crossing a small stream and going uphill, we arrived at a maple forest. The big trees in the forest blocked out the sun, and the sunlight shone through the dense treetops, shining with mottled light on the leaves, and it became cool all of a sudden.
There are still small trees in the woods that were blown down by the strong winds two days ago.
Yang Chunyan felt that there must be good stuff here.
Sure enough, Yang Xiaoxue, who was standing nearby, shouted in surprise, "Ganoderma lucidum!" and ran over happily.
Zhao Huifang and a few others also found a few and ran towards the Ganoderma lucidum excitedly.
Yang Chunyan saw a few araceae, and walked over to see a big gray-black Ganoderma lucidum with a bowl-shaped mushroom cap blooming on a big tree stump in front of her. She walked over to see that there were a few more around the stump. "Great! I didn't expect there are such good things here!" (End of this chapter)
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