Chapter 60 Chapter 60 (Part 1)
Love grass?
Are you referring to the small spiritual lotus?
Lin Xinghuo gently touched the small lotus in the white jade basin and asked, "Why do you say it's a weed?" It clearly has flowers, and even if only a layer of lotus petals remains, it is still very beautiful.
As soon as she approached with the jade basin, the dead orchid struggled to twist its slender leaves. The tattered leaves twisted with difficulty into the shape of a dark green bouquet. Perhaps because the leaves were a lot sparse, the twisted peony flowers were not very lush. The orchid turned like a cat's-eye rope, and the peony flower turned into a small daisy. Its tightly hidden white core and green leaves were rolled up to form the 'heart of the flower'.
Not to mention Lin Xinghuo, even the caracal felt a chill in his teeth. The caracal's fur trembled a few times as if it had been electrified, and the "little daisy" that Chou Lan held high was shaken, and it actually looked a bit pitiful.
Holding the white jade basin tightly, Lin Xinghuo stepped back several steps, otherwise he would definitely not be able to resist plowing it with a rake.
"Hmm——" Choulan actually stretched the little daisy even higher.
"It actually learned to whimper from the fox cub?" Lin Xinghuo couldn't believe it, but suddenly he sniffed forward in surprise: "This flower doesn't stink!" The man and the macaque had always thought that when the leaves of the stinking orchid broke and the juice oozed out, the stench was inevitable.
Can the stinking orchid actually control its odor?
This stench that had once practically knocked it unconscious could actually be repelled! Grandpa Caracal was furious. He and the Choulan had known each other for a long time, having clashed frequently when their cultivation levels were comparable. Choulan's immobile roots were a disadvantage, so Grandpa Caracal had never killed it. After the fight, even though the unfortunate creature had been bewildered by the stench, Grandpa Caracal hadn't pursued it, and had even watered it with the spiritual dew collected by Lin Xinghuo... Could it be that the spiritual dew on the lotus leaves had attracted this creature?
It still remembers the friendship between them, but now it knows that the stench can be controlled at will, even with broken and juicy leaves, the stink orchid can do it.
The caracal's tail stood up, and its claws popped out with a snapping sound, as if it wanted to cut the orchid into a bald head. The first to bear the brunt of the attack was the weird and showy little daisy.
Lin Xinghuo held Jinglian and his family and moved a little further away.
This time, the stinking orchid reacted quickly. It quickly pulled out the mutated leaf and swept it close to the caracal. The caracal's pink nose moved and the smell was no longer bad.
The stinking orchid stretched out its leaf ingratiatingly and waved it vigorously in the air. Soon, the thick and lingering stench disappeared.
Lin Xinghuo looked at the two slender, flexible leaves that were placed before her eyes, trying to discern the consciousness transmitted by Chou Lan. Chou Lan's consciousness was fragmented and unclear, and it took her a while before she could half-guess, "Is this a tribute?"
The fox cubs were already happily catching a long leaf in their mouths. Fox Three and Black Sable, holding either end of the leaf, each jumped onto a rock and began to swing it up and down in a formal manner. Big Fox and Little Fox, whimpering, began to burrow into the rope, jumping around happily. Lin Xinghuo was almost inconsolable. Wasn't this the same jump rope the village kids had been enjoying lately? These guys were getting more and more naughty.
The white core leaves of the stinking orchid rummaged through its own "leek leaves", broke off two, rolled them up and placed them at Lin Xinghuo's feet. At the same time, its roots in the soil began to wriggle, and in a moment it struggled to pull out a root system.
This root was much thicker than the stinking orchid's leaves, allowing the unhealed wound to be clearly seen. Immediately, the root system curled up, and aside from the small daisy that stubbornly refused to let go, the stinking orchid itself became a fluffy ball of grass. The caracal immediately understood why the stinking orchid had managed to sneak from the depths of the Unsalty Mountain to its home valley. So that's how it did it. Despite the much richer spiritual energy near Mirror Lake, the stinking orchid still hadn't advanced, likely due to its damaged roots.
Fox Da jumped out from the "big rope" flying up and down, put his two paws on Lin Xinghuo's knees, and cried softly. Lin Beiguo's consciousness was much clearer than Chou Lan. He told Lin Xinghuo that he had seen the grass ball before, on the day when Lin Xinghuo closed the valley and brought back Zhu Longdan. The grass ball was very interesting, but he didn't find it when he came to the bottom of the valley again.
Sure enough, when the stinking orchid worked hard to roll into a grass ball, the little guys dropped the long leaves and rushed to roll the grass ball, chasing each other and scratching the grass ball. The hunting-loving Fox Two even used his little milk teeth to grab the tip of the leaf that was not curled up and pulled it back. He let go after pulling it very long, and the stinking orchid leaves shrank back with a "snap" like a spring.
Choulan whimpered again, tumbling pitifully towards Lin Xinghuo's feet. The caracal swatted the grass ball away with one paw, and this time even Huahua joined in the fun...
Plants rarely possess intelligence. Even the highest-grade gourd vine in the family can only reveal subtle instincts to the outside world, such as swaying its vines when Lin Xinghuo feeds it wood spirit energy or casts a power technique. But this stinking orchid is pursuing another spiritual flower?
The caracal didn't understand the reason, but it told Lin Xinghuo: "The plant monsters that awakened first after the restoration of spiritual energy are more or less unreasonable." For example, it can speak without refining the transverse bone in its throat. Another example is Choulan, which already had a vague spiritual intelligence when they met earlier.
It's not easy to kill such a stubborn orchid, and I don't want to take it in, but this thing is completely devoted to Xiao Linglian.
The pure lotus, still without any conscious awareness, stretched out comfortably in the white jade basin. The thin layer of spiritual soil had completely covered its plump, white lotus stems, its petals fully open, revealing the tender yellow lotus base. Beneath the stone table lay a tangled mass of seaweed-like grass, its dark green leaves scattered about, even its black roots barely covered. It looked forlorn and pathetic. However, one particularly unique leaf, a delicate blend of emerald green and jade-white, twisted into the shape of a morning glory, stubbornly raised high, leaning against the edge of the stone table, yet daring not to approach too closely.
Lin Xinghuo felt that this was a vivid picture of "the foolish grass guarding the unfaithful flower".
What to do? Lin Xinghuo looked at the caracal.
The caracal seemed to be lost in thought, and no one knew what he was thinking about. It was not until Lin Xinghuo couldn't help but poke his belly that the caracal came to his senses.
"Stay here to look after the house." The caracal held Lin Xinghuo's hand and said nonchalantly.
After all, he was an old acquaintance of Uncle Mao, so Lin Xinghuo agreed after thinking about it. In the end, Uncle Mao reluctantly made a simple contract with Chou Lan not to harm each other.
Just as glass was being refined, Lin Xinghuo built a small glass house in the backyard, covered it with wooden floors, filled it with cushions, and placed a white jade pot on the wooden platform in the middle. The stinking orchid occupied the northeast corner of the glass house, and a longevity peach tree, which was Mr. Mao's favorite, was planted in the southwest corner.
Neither the stinking orchid nor the peach tree was planted directly in the ground, especially the stinking orchid, as pulling its roots out of the ground was too skillful and would have been too damaging to the orchid. Instead, they used a spirit wood box as a flowerpot, filled it with yellow-grade spirit soil, and planted both trees inside. When directly planted in the ground, the stinking orchid needs to dig its roots deeply to absorb sufficient earth energy and nutrients, but in spirit soil, this isn't necessary, making it much easier for the roots to coil. On the second day of settling into Lin Xinghuo's glass house, it learned to leave only a thin root in the spirit soil, while curling the rest into a ball. When the spirit beasts, tired from playing, snuggled up under the wooden platform and fell asleep, the stinking orchid's ball would be there, naturally bringing it closer to the little spirit lotus.
Every time Lin Xinghuo passed by, he couldn't help but sigh that Chou Lan's intelligence was really all used in "licking grass".
I have to say that the stinking orchid worked very hard. Since it moved into the spiritual soil, within less than a week, it had already presented Lin Xinghuo with a bundle of long green leaves that were turning black.
Lin Xinghuo was afraid that it would become bald, but the caracal mercilessly exposed the stinky orchid's straightforward thoughts: "These are the old leaves it has shed. The stinky thing is in a hurry to grow new leaves before the New Year!"
Isn’t it the New Year? It’s time to wear new clothes and prepare New Year’s goods.
Lin Xinghuo held onto the discarded leaf, unwilling to let it go. After all, it was from a demon plant at the Enlightenment stage. She remembered that her precious talisman pen had originally been made from the hair of a demon macaque at the Enlightenment stage, and it still worked perfectly. She pinched the leaf, which didn't smell at all, and suddenly had the idea of using it to make some clothes.
*
"Auntie, what's this dyed with? It's such a nice green!" In the auditorium, young women were touching the threads on Lin Xinghuo's loom, asking. Chinese New Year is almost here, and who wouldn't want a brand new green military uniform? Then, with a canteen and backpack, they could go to the photo studio in the county town and get a picture taken. How beautiful!
"It's better than the one my brother exchanged with someone. The one he exchanged for was saved by a relative who was in the army and hadn't worn it and mailed it to him. Maybe it's been stored for a long time, so the color isn't as bright as this one." said Cen Lingdang, who had two braids.
The green dye used in the village is made from the retting of indigo. Indigo is a common weed found in fields, especially near puddles, where it often grows in clumps. In summer and autumn, rural adults and children gather some, tossing it into the yard when they get home. Once they've dried, they collect it in baskets. When they have enough, they pour it into a broken jar and soak it in water. When it's rotten, they add lime and wood ash. Once the water dries up, the blue mud at the bottom becomes a dye similar to the indigo sold at the supply and marketing cooperative. It can dye grayish-blue cloth.
In previous years, people were short of clothes, so making this thing was just a New Year's decoration, more so to make faded clothes last longer. But this year, before the end of the year, everyone realized that there was too little indigo to use. Even though people are no longer required to observe auspicious taboos, farmers still refuse to use white coarse cloth and insist on dyeing it before use. The supply and marketing cooperative did sell indigo, a small bag for ten cents, but only young women and wives who were fond of coquettishness could afford it.
Cen Lingdang tugged at her gray-blue jacket and pouted, "The indigo powder from the supply and marketing cooperative is only slightly brighter than the color I make myself. Look at my clothes, they haven't even been washed yet, and they're already so gray."
Lin Xinghuo smiled and said that only when one is well fed and warmly clothed can one have time to deal with these things.
The auditorium was bustling with activity. Half the audience was discussing how to dye cloth for stronger, brighter colors, while the other half, young and old, were making plans to go rabbit trapping on the western slopes. Last summer's heavy rain and hot weather weren't good for the crops, but they were incredibly nourishing for the forests. During the autumn hunt, we discovered an abundance of wild game, especially rabbits. We'd already cracked down on the rabbit holes that had been roaming down the mountain to steal food during the autumn harvest, but there were still plenty. If we didn't deal with them now, they'd definitely come back to steal the seeds during the spring planting season.
The leaves of the stinking orchid are flexible and as fiber-rich as flax. Lin Xinghuo can directly extract long filaments without the need to comb short hemp into long hemp. She also refines the remaining juice into powder using a refining cauldron - just a small handful of this stuff mixed with water can be used to dye a lot of coarse cloth.
Lin Xinghuo stuffed a wooden box into each of them, and inside each box was a small wooden spoon, the spoon as big as a fingernail. Lin Xinghuo instructed: "One spoonful to two buckets of water, and be sure not to get it on your hands, it's very difficult to remove."
Aunt Huang, who was spinning her spinning wheel nearby, laughed, "They're so used to it. Why would they actually bother making this for them?"
Everyone thought that Lin Xinghuo made it with herbs, and that the brown-red dye was made by the fairy lady using yams from the south. It was a real waste of time and money.
Lin Xinghuo didn't think anything of it; it was mutual. A visit to the health station at the foot of Nanshan Mountain would have made it clear. Three rooms would have been enough for a village health station, so why did they add two more? Wasn't it to serve as a herbal medicine warehouse? Furthermore, every household had some kind of herbal medicine planted on their own plots, exactly what she needed for her jade paste. Not only did the villagers help her collect, they even transplanted the herbal seedlings to their own homes. Even before the autumn harvest was over in the fields, the two herbal medicine warehouses were already overflowing, all prepared and delivered by the villagers after work.
The captain's wife, swiftly working her sewing machine, teased her mother-in-law, "Listen! This sour smell is pungent! Tell me, isn't my aunt spoiling you?" Ever since the autumn harvest, Little Fairy had sent the family a large sack of slightly green rice, even husked. The cooked rice was a vibrant green, so fragrant it was almost intoxicating. It was the first time Mrs. Huang had ever found rice more fragrant than meat.
Huang Dazhuang's husband was the team leader, so Huang Dasao didn't dare accept the rice at the time. But the fairy girl said it was a gift specifically for her mother-in-law. When Huang Dazhuang returned home, Huang Dasao realized that the fairy girl had remembered her husband's words during the meeting: "Let my mother have more bowls of solid rice without coarse grains." Huang Dazhuang had requested the rice seeds from Hebei Province, knowing how low the yield of this variety was. The couple hurriedly sent them back at night, but were surprised by the fairy girl's first show of auntishness. Huang Dasao felt bad thinking about it now. Although the fairy girl was pretty, her serious face was even more intimidating than the old branch secretary, who was known for his stern face in the surrounding area.
Aunt Huang pointed at her daughter-in-law with the shuttle, and scolded her jokingly, telling her to work faster because there were a lot of people waiting behind her to use the sewing machine.
Lin Xinghuo's sewing machine has been a huge help this winter. Using it to sew the backs of clothes is incredibly easy. At first, only Wei Chunfeng knew how to do it, but Wei Chunfeng, not shying away from her skills, gradually taught several other young wives how to sew. Finally, enough cloth was available, and before the New Year, every household had to make clothes. Wei Chunfeng simply made a small basket and put a bunch of small wooden sticks in it. The families who gathered together would draw their sticks and sort them by length. Each person would take an hour, and no one would take more than they needed, and no one would be left behind.
Most of the women were convinced by Wei Chunfeng, and as a result, even though there was only one sewing machine in the whole village, there was no quarreling or quarreling. Even Fang Tongjian was surprised: he remembered that in the past, a group of old friends and neighbors had quarreled a lot for the stone chessboard in the courtyard in order to fight for a good position.
Wei Chunfeng, who was wearing a patchwork jacket, smiled and pointed at Lin Xinghuo who was weaving quickly, meaning that the village's most beloved girl was here and could calm things down!
On the nineteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Lin Xinghuo's first roll of spiritual cloth was completed.
The leaves of the stinking orchid are dark green, but unexpectedly, when woven into cloth, they turn out to be the lustrous, lush green of rice seedlings. Lin Xinghuo tried it on herself, but she always thought it was a little too bright, the green almost glowing. But everyone in the village praised it, saying it was a beautiful color. The eldest son of Cen Dazhu's family even sent him his new military uniform, which he hadn't been willing to wear, and asked Lin Xinghuo to make him a green uniform in the same style.
He Songlan from Hetan Farm even came to teach her tailoring. This gentle woman was not only exceptionally skilled at making clothes but also a wonderful painter. Many women in the village secretly sought her out for patterns, content even if they could only hide them in their notebooks. Wei Chunfeng even whispered to Lin Xinghuo, "They're all eagerly waiting for New Year's greetings. They all say that's when you can tell whose wife is skillful and whose is clumsy and incompetent. Even girls as young as seventeen or eighteen want to compete... Just wait, next year, the matchmakers who come to our village to propose marriages will have their soles polished."
Lin Xinghuo, who was already seventeen years old after the new year, remained silent. In the end, she couldn't resist the good intention and made a green jacket and skirt by herself - after all, she didn't dare to ruin the style of the green military uniform.
It's actually not bad, made with the rabbit fur that Fox Er hunted last month.
Lin Xinghuo put on new clothes and looked at herself in the mirror, and her conceited heart suddenly arose.
The caracal got a green scarf and squatted on Lin Xinghuo's shoulder to look at himself in the mirror. While looking at himself, the caracal suddenly jumped to the ground and ran away.
Until midnight that day, Grandpa Mao came back with a stinking orchid on his back. Inside the orchid's tall, upright leaves was a camera...
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The author has something to say: See you later~
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2023-12-01 23:20:00 and 2023-12-04 18:00:00~
Thanks to the little angel who cast the mine: 1 crane;
Thanks to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: Squirrel without a Tail (85 bottles); Xiaoxiao, No Ibuprofen for a Headache (80 bottles); Ice-Colored ￠Lingling (50 bottles); Hold the Panda and Take a Bite, Slowly Return (30 bottles); Heyuan (26 bottles); Curly Curl (25 bottles); Dada Tiantianriwan (Everyday), Mengzhong (In the Dream), Bad Guy, Yingluo, Dada (Did You Add More Updates Today) (20 bottles); Salt of the Sea of Tears, Old Angel, Feng, Wooden Man, Shelled Bingdundun, SSS-Shiloh (10 bottles); Half-Heart Without Sugar (7 bottles); ZEREVAN 6 bottles; Mushroom Riding a White Horse, Avada Eating a Big Melon, Bright Eyes 5 bottles; A Cup of Lemon Tea 4 bottles; Yue Beibei 3 bottles; Flowers Not Withered, Rain After the Sky Clears, Pen Tip Flowing Grace, Emily, Snow Branch, jnpp1976, Han Ting 2 bottles; Is My Wife Coming Today?, D, Little Fish, Mind Your Business, Nanchen Like the Wind, Quickly Falling, Returning Crane, Diving in the Clouds, Autumn, Monopoly 1 bottle;
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