Chapter 37: Picking Pine Cones
While Chu Qiao was enjoying his leisure time in the mountains, netizens started to joke:
"Master Chu, can air be eaten as food?"
"Master Chu is cultivating in the mountains."
"Master Chu's is called fasting."
Chu Qiao looked at the comments and tried to suppress a smile. He stood up and said, "We still need to eat, but the visibility is poor at night, so it's hard to find water. I'll go see if there's any food we can eat."
Chu Qiao looked up at the pine trees, his eyes shining. "As you can see from the camera, we are in a pine forest. There are many species of pine trees, such as the common Chinese pine, cedar, Korean pine, and horsetail pine. Most pine trees bear fruit from September to October, while Korean pine bears fruit from October to November. And here in this forest, there are Korean pine trees."
"When the red pine cones mature, the scales on the cones don't open very much. Most of them don't open at all or only open halfway, and the seeds don't fall off. If we're lucky, we can find pine cones that haven't been discovered by squirrels."
Most of the red pine trees that bear fruit are very tall, so Chu Qiao has to climb up to try his luck at picking them.
Although Chu Qiao was wearing professional outdoor shoes with triangular nails for grip, the red pine was still 20 to 30 meters deep. Wearing shoes would reduce the sensitivity of the soles of the feet and make it difficult to grip the ground.
She took off her shoes and socks, revealing her white toes.
"Master Chu, that one, climb that one, it's thick, there might be a lot of fruits on it."
"The one next to you."
"Yes, the tree on the right."
Chu Qiao walked into the tree as everyone requested, but did not move immediately. Instead, he stood still and looked around the tree and its trunk.
She shook her head and stepped back: "You can't climb this tree."
"Why?"
"This tree looks strong, why can't I climb it?"
"Master Chu, are you thinking this tree is too tall to climb up?"
"I understand, I understand. Even men can't climb up. It's not shameful for Master Chu not to be able to climb up."
Chu Qiao bent down and tore off a few pieces of mushroom-like fungi from the roots of the tree.
"Look at this, it's growing from the roots of the tree, which means the tree is damaged or dying. There are also a lot of dead branches and leaves around the tree, which means the situation above is not optimistic either."
"It's dangerous to climb a tree like this. Let's choose another one."
"Master Chu is still more careful."
"Master Chu has excellent observation skills."
Panda Panpan: "That mushroom can be eaten, why did you throw it away?"
Feng Ge followed suit: "Waste is the greatest crime."
Chu Qiao approached the tree again, frowned, and pulled the mushroom out of the ground.
The mushroom was completely white, with scattered flesh about 8 centimeters wide, just like a large enoki mushroom. Although Chu Qiao didn't recognize it, he knew that fungi should not be eaten randomly, as it was very likely to cause hallucinations or even be life-threatening.
Chu Qiao closed her eyes slightly. The forest plant skill she had obtained in the last lottery took effect. In an instant, the information about this fungus appeared in her mind.
Name: Amanita phalloides
Alias: Amanita phalloides
Edible: No (toxic)
Poisoning reaction: Mainly causes serious damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, and often leads to death due to liver failure.
Mortality rate: 90%.
Chu Qiao opened his eyes instantly and pointed at the camera, with a look of both laughter and tears on his face: "Brother Pan, Brother Feng, you are not leaving me any chance of survival. This is Amanita phalloides. If you eat it, there is almost no hope of survival."
"Panda Panpan gifted the anchor a plane - Hungry, don't listen to me, I'm just talking nonsense."
"Anchor, you're talking nonsense! Isn't it said that brightly colored ones are poisonous, and inconspicuous ones are not?"
"That's just a high probability, but the white-capped Amanita is indeed highly toxic, while the brightly colored orange-capped Amanita, which looks the same, is a well-known edible mushroom."
Chu Qiao threw the mushroom to the ground in disgust, rubbed his hands on the bark, and walked deeper into the jungle.
She found a pine tree that was more than 20 meters tall. It was not as old as the other pine trees, but it was very lush.
Chu Qiao nodded: "This is the one, let's go up and try our luck."
She hugged the tree with her hands and feet, pressing her forearms and biceps against the trunk, pulled her body upward, and then wrapped her legs around the trunk to maintain stability.
Stop after every step.
After climbing about 10 meters, I finally found a branch.
Chu Qiao could breathe a sigh of relief and explained to everyone: "When climbing a tree with bare hands, you must follow the three-point rule. When climbing a tree with bare hands, three of your limbs must be firmly fixed on the tree and distributed in three different positions to form three fulcrums.
Chu Qiao squeezed his feet together, reached out one hand to the branch, shook it vigorously, and after making sure it was stable, he used the force to pull it up, and his whole body jumped up a bit.
There were more branches above, and using the same method, Chu Qiao quickly reached the top of the tree.
There were indeed quite a few pine cones growing on the treetops; Chu Qiao's guess was correct. She twisted one off.
I saw that the fruits hidden inside had become mottled, some were completely gone, and some were only half left with rectangular squirrel tooth marks on them.
Chu Qiao picked another one nearby, but it was the same.
He held up the pine cones for everyone to see: "It seems we are too late. The cute squirrels have already come here. Squirrels are very smart. They also know that the fruit on this tree grows well."
"Then it's so high, isn't it a waste of time to climb?"
"Squirrel is really unsportsmanlike. He didn't even leave any for Master Chu."
Chu Qiao threw two pine cones under the tree and looked at the tree next door.
"We've come up here, so we can't have come here for nothing." Chu Qiao said, taking out a rope from his backpack.
"Master Chu, what are you going to do?"
"Master Chu, don't you want to jump over?"
“Master Chu, it’s over 20 meters. Falling down is no joke.”
Chu Qiao tied the rope to the thickest trunk of the tree and tied the other end to himself.
"I tied the rope so that if I failed to jump or lost my footing, I would be suspended in mid-air instead of falling."
The tree opposite was even lower than this tree, and it was full of pine cones. Chu Qiao couldn't see clearly whether there were pine nuts inside, but he still wanted to give it a try.
Chu Qiao leaned forward, pushed the tree trunk with his right foot quickly and forcefully, stepped forward with his left foot, and lifted his body into the air. Chu Qiao was quick-eyed and quick-handed, and when his left foot stepped on the branch, he grabbed a branch with both hands and hung on it.
Chu Qiao jumped up and sat steadily on the branch, with his legs dangling from the branch.
"Master Chu is on vacation."
"Who said that? Master Chu climbed a tree. He must be very tired. He needs to take a rest."
"Master Chu, is it good?"
Chu Qiao looked down and nodded, "How cool! All the mountains look small from a distance."
After she finished speaking, she stood up from the tree trunk and stepped on the leaf-covered trunk with her bare feet. The needle-like leaves pricked the soles of her feet, as if scratching them.
Chu Qiao had no calluses on the soles of his feet, so he endured the itch and picked a pine cone.
Grin.
"Just as I thought, the pine cones on this tree are so small that even squirrels don't like them. I guess I got a great deal."
Without hesitation, she picked thirty or forty pine cones. Seeing that she had picked all the fruits on the tree, Chu Qiao clapped her hands.
"Leave some space for the squirrels so that we can meet again in the future."
As she said that, she jumped back to the original tree, untied the rope, and carefully put it into her backpack.
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