Chapter 42 Mushroom Picking
Ziyi and Yike each carried a backpack with a few snakeskin bags in it. They were going to pick mushrooms today.
"Are there really mushrooms?" Although Yi Ke believed Zi Yi in his heart, he still couldn't help asking, "Don't mushrooms need moist places to grow? There are hot springs here, the temperature is not low, how can it be moist? How strange? There are actually such things as mushrooms?"
"This place is indeed a little strange. The ground outside is bare stone slabs, but the soil inside is fertile. You saw yesterday that many plants are growing there happily."
"That's right! No wonder nature is so magical."
"It's impossible to grow mushrooms outside in the ice and snow, but in this hot spring area it's warm like spring all year round, so what is impossible? So, no matter what the reason is, as long as we know that these are gifts from nature," said Ziyi.
They went to the "Little Gourd" inside the hot spring. On the cliff of the "Little Gourd", there were three stone walls that were concave inward. It was dark and damp inside the stone walls, and there were many collapsed dead wood sections.
"Wow! How strange! Why are there so many dead trees here?" Yike felt very strange when he saw the rows of dead trees. There were no trees around, so why were there so many dead trees? And they are arranged neatly like mummies.
"This is what Uncle Hao and I picked up outside the hot spring. We want them to grow mushrooms here. The dead wood that grows wood ear mushrooms is placed in the stone wall over there." Ziyi explained.
"You are so smart! You actually knew that mushrooms would grow this way."
“At first, when I saw moss growing on these stone walls, I found some dead wood and threw it here to give it a try. Unexpectedly, mushrooms really grew there, so later we went outside specifically to look for dead wood that could grow mushrooms.” Ziyi didn’t expect that his unintentional action would yield such a big reward, and he was very happy.
"How do you know those mushrooms are edible?"
"I don't know him, but Uncle Hao knows him."
"Oh, I didn't know it before, but then I ate poisonous mushrooms again, so I don't dare to pick mushrooms casually anymore."
"Oh, you've eaten poisonous mushrooms? That's really dangerous."
"Well, I was still young at that time. After work, I had no food to eat, so I went to the mountains to find food. I saw mushrooms and I picked them to eat. At that time, I didn't know that mushrooms could be poisonous. Because I often eat mushrooms and have never been poisoned, I thought all mushrooms were edible."
"Who saved you then? Your mother is so cruel. She didn't even give you food after you did the work."
"Not being given food was a common occurrence. I was lucky at the time. I ate mushrooms and then went to work in the fields. There were many people with me at the time. The village doctor happened to be in the fields. When he saw me vomiting and having stomachache, he guessed that I had eaten something wrong, so he asked me what I had eaten. I told him that I had eaten raw mushrooms. The doctor said that kind of mushroom was poisonous, and then he immediately put his hands in my throat and kept pinching it, making me vomit even more. I vomited out everything in my stomach, and it seemed that even the bitter gallbladder came out. In the end, my grandfather carried me home to rest. My grandfather and Yang Huaihua had a fight about this matter." When Yi Ke thought of that honest old man, he felt sad.
"It's okay, you won't be hungry anymore." Ziyi didn't know how to comfort Yike, so he could only hold Yike's hand tightly and express himself silently.
Yike quickly put her sadness behind her because she saw a lot of mushrooms.
There are really a lot of mushrooms. The dead wood is dotted with shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, chicken mushrooms, pine mushrooms, etc. "Let's pick mushrooms!" Yi Ke happily picked up the basket. While picking mushrooms, she carefully put them into the backpack and happily sang a mushroom picking song: "A little girl picking mushrooms, carrying a big bamboo basket, holding the hand of her beloved big brother, going into the mushroom nest, there are so many mushrooms, as many as countless stars, and the mushrooms are so big, as big as the little flower umbrellas. Pick and pick mushrooms, fill the basket..."
While picking mushrooms, Ziyi looked up at Yike and listened to Yike's cheerful singing, with the corners of his mouth raised upwards.
"Ziyi, my backpack is full, what should I do?"
"Go sit on that clean rock over there and rest while I put them in the snakeskin bag."
"Okay! Brother Ziyi, I'll help you hold the snakeskin bag so it'll be easier for you to put it in."
"Yeah, okay!"
"These mushrooms are so big! Did you and Uncle Hao come here often to pick them?"
"Well, I usually come here once a month to pick some herbs and mushrooms and sell them outside the mountain to buy some rice and other things that are not available in the mountain. This is the main source of income for the family, so we can't tell anyone."
"I understand. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." Yi Ke promised.
"I believe it, otherwise I wouldn't have brought you here. You go and have a rest, I'll put the rest of the snakeskin bags down." Ziyi tied the snakeskin bag full of mushrooms tightly with a rope, put a long rope around it, and let it down along the stone wall.
All the mushrooms and fungus in the three cracks of the stone walls had been picked, and the four snakeskin bags and backpacks that they brought were all filled to the brim. Ziyi carried a basket on his back, and two snakeskin bags full of mushrooms were tied to the basket. He also carried a load on his shoulders. The tall Ziyi was completely submerged in the snakeskin bags. Yike found it very funny and laughed out loud, wanting to help share some of the load.
"Ziyi, hahahaha, Ziyi, put a bag on my backpack. Haha, you're almost turning into a mushroom. Hahaha!"
“No need. Just watch the road and take care of yourself.” Ziyi took a step with his long legs, and Yike quickly jogged to catch up. Just kidding, two steps of his short legs could not match one of Ziyi’s. When they reached the narrow passage in the valley, Ziyi could only go back and forth several times to transport the mushrooms out bag by bag.
That night, mushrooms were used in all stir-fries and stews. In my dreams at night, there are also large patches of mushrooms...
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