inspire-indiana Chapter 25 Mushroom Picking
Chapter 25 Mushroom Picking
Early in the morning, the continuous spring rain stopped yesterday. Although the sun didn't come out today, there was a breeze and no sign of rain again.
Li Mingsheng got up early in the morning and found it was a rare cloudy day. Although the ground was still a little wet, the flowers, plants and trees were no longer damp from the rain.
"The weather is just right today. I'll go make a fire first. After you finish washing up, take out five or six of the lotus roots we dug last time, wash them and bring them here. We won't be back at noon today, so cook them and take them with you!" Li Mingsheng told Yanli after he finished washing up.
By the time Yanli had picked out five or six lotus roots as thick as thighs and washed them, Limingsheng had already lit the fire and boiled the water.
"Just right!"
Li Mingsheng took the diangen from Yanli's hand and put it in the stone pot to cook slowly. The diangen cooks quickly and is very filling. In the Wanyuan Continent where there is no rice or wheat, Li Mingsheng basically eats it as his staple food.
Of course, a native orc like Yanli didn't like to eat Diangen before he met Li Mingsheng. Their ultimate goal was to eat meat, and they would only eat Diangen when they had no other choice.
After meeting Li Mingsheng, Yanli felt that eating meat with salted vegetables was more delicious!
After Li Mingsheng finished cooking the rice roots, he began to prepare breakfast. For breakfast, Li Mingsheng planned to stir-fry some wild onions and long-tusked beast meat, and then pair it with some cuckoo chicken soup.
Because of their hard work over the past few days, they now have two stoves. One stove is cooking the rice roots, while Li Mingsheng has started to cook.
He first used a bamboo shovel to scoop out a large lump of long-tusk oil from the stone pot on the cupboard and put it into the stone pot. After a while, the milky white oil melted. At dawn, he added shredded ginger, red fruits and small green fruits to stir-fry until fragrant. Then he added the long-tusk meat and stir-fried it until the fragrance came out and the long-tusk meat changed color. Then he added chopped wild onions and stir-fried until cooked through, then took it out and put it in a stone bowl.
After Li Mingsheng placed the fried dishes on the bamboo table, he started to prepare the cuckoo chicken soup.
This bamboo table was made by Li Mingsheng himself in the spring. It is square. Although it is not big and cannot hold heavy objects, it is big enough for two people to eat on.
"What a nice smell!" Yanli smelled the fragrance as he entered the kitchen. He had just prepared a carrying basket and filled two large bamboo tubes with cooled boiled water to drink before going down the mountain.
No matter how much time has passed, Yanli always feels that Li Mingsheng's cooking skills are very good and the dishes he cooks are fragrant and delicious.
"The roots should be ready. Use a bamboo basket to drain the water."
While Li Mingsheng was cooking the cuckoo chicken soup, he took down the stone pot in which the rice roots were cooked and placed it on the ground, then said to Yanli with a smile.
He just happened to use this stove to roast some baa beast meat, which he would then wrap in leaves and eat in the mountains. He didn't know what the situation would be like in the mountains or whether he could light a fire, so he prepared everything in advance.
The meat was marinated last night. Because salt was added and the weather was not too hot, there was no peculiar smell and it was still very fresh.
Li Mingsheng was grilling the meat, and Yanli was standing by with leaves to catch the food. After Li Mingsheng finished grilling, Yanli put all the wrapped barbecued meat into the backpack.
At this time, the cuckoo chicken soup was ready. They each used a large rice dumpling, and then shared the stir-fried meat with wild onions and aunt's chicken soup. Originally, they wanted to keep some of the cuckoo chicken soup to take away in a bamboo tube, but when they thought that this thing would get cold easily, and the cuckoo chicken soup would become oily after cooling and would not taste good, Li Mingsheng gave up.
By the time they set out, it was already about three hours after daybreak. Li Mingsheng roughly estimated that it was around nine or ten o'clock.
They walked all the way to the back mountain, passed the place where they dug the trap, crossed a stream, and then continued forward.
"Wugui Mountain is ahead. We have already gone a little deeper. Be careful and follow me!" After entering Wugui Mountain, Li Mingsheng told Yanli to follow him. After all, it is such a big place and it would be very dangerous if they got lost accidentally.
For Li Mingsheng, even if he got lost inside, he could still determine the direction based on the growth of the trees and so on, but Yanli could not do that.
"Okay, Brother Li!" Yanli was not an ungrateful person, and he gladly accepted Li Ming's constant concern.
Because there was no road inside Wugui Mountain, Li Mingsheng could only hold the bone knife in his hand and chop down the dense thorns along the way to clear a way in.
The two walked for about half an hour and came to an open forest, and did not go any further.
This depth is already a bit risky for Li Mingsheng and his friends.
They also encountered quite a few strange beasts along the way, but most of them were three or four-star. These beasts were also afraid of death. After seeing the strength of Li Mingsheng and the others, they did not dare to provoke them. After all, it was spring and supplies were abundant. There was no need to risk their lives to provoke these two powerful orcs.
This seemed to be the consensus of all the strange beasts below five stars, so when they saw that Li Mingsheng and the other man did not actively attack them, they also tactfully dodged away.
"Ignore these monsters below five stars for now. Let's pick mushrooms first and then kill one on our way back!"
Li Mingsheng looked at a large patch of chicken mushrooms under the tree and spoke.
"So many mushrooms!" Yanli exclaimed as he looked at the patches of mushrooms on the ground in front of him.
As expected, the uninhabited Wugui Mountain was truly rich in resources. Although he had seen a lot of mushrooms in the spring in the hunting area of his original tribe, he had never seen so many like this.
While Yanli was still in shock, Li Mingsheng had already picked the piece of chicken mushroom neatly and put it into his backpack.
"This chicken mushroom will definitely be delicious when cooked with cuckoo chicken!"
Seeing that Li Mingsheng had already started picking mushrooms, Yanli also started picking mushrooms. He only dared to pick up the ones he knew, and would not pick up the ones he did not know. This was because many orcs in the tribe had died while eating mushrooms in the past, so Yanli did not dare to pick up mushrooms he had never eaten before.
He picked up all white button mushrooms.
After Li Mingsheng harvested another piece of morels, he saw the piece behind Yanli, which showed signs of having been picked. However, the mushrooms on that piece were big and plump, but Yanli did not pick them.
He asked curiously, "Why don't you pick mushrooms?"
Yanli followed Li Mingsheng's gaze and tightened his grip on the mushroom. He felt a little embarrassed and said awkwardly: "I don't know what it is, I don't dare to pick it up!"
Li Mingsheng went to look at his backpack and found that it was full of white button mushrooms. He smiled softly and explained to Yanli: "These are shiitake mushrooms. They are edible. After drying, they can be eaten in winter. They are delicious."
Then he put down his backpack, took out a few different mushrooms from it and said to him: "This is black fungus, you can see the black clusters, this grows on dead wood, you can eat it, or you can dry it and keep it for the snow season. This is chicken mushroom, you can stir-fry it or make soup, this is pleurotus geesteranus, this is morel, all of them are edible."
Yanli watched the other party's introduction and carefully wrote it down one by one.
"Like this one, it can't be eaten." Li Mingsheng picked up a mushroom with a red cap and a white stem from the ground and introduced it to Yanli.
"The brighter the color of the mushroom, the more likely it is to be poisonous, so we should try to pick darker ones, such as white, gray, etc., like the one you just picked. Don't pick up those you don't recognize. Even if you really want to pick one up, we can catch an exotic animal and let it test its poison for us!"
Yanli looked at Li Mingsheng's slightly sinister expression and nodded in agreement!