Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 446 Fungi?

After Xu Xiaoyan scooped the sixth batch of wood ear mushrooms out of the iron pot and spread them out on a waterproof cloth to dry, she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand amidst the rising steam.

Most of the fresh wood ear mushrooms on the ground have been gone.

She sorted through the rest, setting aside the small pieces, enough for tomorrow's wood ear mushroom soup. She covered them with a damp cloth and placed them in a cool, shady corner of the wooden house.

The rest were poured into the pot in order and stir-fried into dried wood ear mushrooms, one pot after another.

After finishing everything, she divided all the dried black fungus into two portions in plastic bags, filling each portion to the brim, tying the bags tightly, and then pinching them with her fingertips to make sure there was no air leakage.

She handed one of the portions to Lan Yue and stuffed the other into her backpack.

Blue Moon was squatting at the door of the wooden house, using the sunlight filtering in from outside to clean the dirt from under her fingernails.

Seeing the plastic bag handed to him, he paused for a moment, looked up, and looked somewhat confused.

"Xiaoyan, didn't you say you were going to sell wood ear mushrooms? What happened? Are you not going to?" She took the bag. "You went through so much trouble, cooked so many batches, and now you're not selling them?"

Xu Xiaoyan sat down opposite her, leaning against the wooden wall of the cabin, stretching her legs and moving her knees which had been squatting for a long time.

"The official purchase price is too low," Xu Xiaoyan said, turning her gaze from the doorway to the bag of dried wood ear mushrooms in Lan Yue's hand.

"As you saw today, many people came to ask about prices, but few were willing to buy cookies. Maybe everyone is short on cookies and is reluctant to spend them on 'trying something new'."

Lan Yue opened her mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again.

She knew Xu Xiaoyan was telling the truth. All afternoon, people kept asking about the price, but the number of people actually buying cookies could be counted on one hand.

Xu Xiaoyan continued, "It's not really appropriate for us to continue doing this. Now that we've turned it into dried wood ear mushrooms, we won't have to worry about it. We can keep them for ourselves to eat, and we can also slowly trade them with other people."

"And now we have a cabin," she said softly, her voice lower than when she was speaking to Blue Moon, more like a satisfied whisper as she talked to herself.

"We have a place to stay, making everything convenient. We don't have to worry about leaky tents during a midnight downpour, we have hot food to eat, and a dry place to lie down. What's the rush?"

"In the past," Lan Yue said with a slightly hoarse voice, "if it rained in our area, we could go up the mountain to pick mushrooms."

Wearing those old-fashioned liberation shoes and carrying a bamboo basket, you don't have to walk far; it's just on that small hill behind the village.

Under the pine trees and in the bushes, you can find them easily. Stir-fry the mushrooms you pick with lard and some garlic slices, and they smell amazing...

She paused here, rested her chin on her knees, and looked out at the continuous drizzle.

His gaze was unfocused, as if he had pierced through the rain curtain and seen a place very, very far away, a place he could never return to, and some things he could never eat again.

Xu Xiaoyan, who was tidying up the bags, suddenly stopped when she heard this, and looked up at Lan Yue with her eyes fixed on her.

"What did you say?"

Lan Yue was startled by her sudden reaction, pulled out of her reverie, blinked, and asked with a puzzled look, "Hey Junzi, what's wrong?"

Xu Xiaoyan did not answer immediately.

She put the bag of dried wood ear mushrooms off her knees, placed her hands on the ground behind her, leaned forward slightly, and her eyes gradually brightened.

"Mushrooms!" she repeated the word, her lips curving upwards into a wide smile.

"I almost forgot about it until you mentioned it. Haven't we been paying attention to mushrooms all this time?"

Lan Yue paused for a few seconds after hearing this, then lowered her head to think for a moment, frowned and shook her head.

She shook her head and gestured with her hands, her tone tinged with puzzlement:

"Logically speaking, with this kind of rain that has been falling for many days, making it stuffy and humid, and with so many pine trees on the mountain and the ground full of humus, fungi should be growing."

When I was a child, I would pick mushrooms in weather like this: after a thorough rain, the sun would shine on them, and the mushrooms would sprout.

"We've been running around in the mountains for so many days, we've looked for pine resin and picked wood ear mushrooms, but it seems we haven't really seen any fungi..."

The more she talked, the stranger it seemed. Her brows furrowed, and she tapped her chin repeatedly with her index finger.

It was as if I was retracing the route of the past few days in my mind, confirming that I hadn't seen a single mushroom in any corner.

Xu Xiaoyan leaned against the wooden wall, her smile slowly fading, replaced by an expression of rapid thought.

Her gaze shifted from the rain curtain at the doorway to a pile of unprocessed raw wood ear mushrooms in the corner of the wooden house.

It was then moved to the few remaining pieces of dried wood ear mushrooms in the iron pot, and finally landed on the bag of dried wood ear mushrooms in Lan Yue's arms.

"Mushrooms," Xu Xiaoyan said softly, "We may have forgotten, but others probably haven't, right?"

When she said those words, she herself felt a little unsure of herself.

Will others not forget?

She recalled the pine resin incident from a couple of days ago. As soon as the news spread, everyone on the mountain went crazy, running all over the mountain with flashlights, as if they wanted to scrape off a layer of bark from every single pine tree.

If there really were mushrooms on the mountain, and they could be traded, sold for money, or eaten, someone should have discovered them long ago.

But during the days she spent in this place, whether at the trading post or the camp, she never heard anyone mention the word "mushrooms," nor did she see anyone come down the mountain to sell them.

Lan Yue looked up at her, and the two exchanged a silent glance in the dim light of the wooden house, both looking helpless.

Xu Xiaoyan looked away from Lan Yue's face, lowered her head, and unconsciously drew circles on her knee with her fingers.

She wondered, if someone really discovered mushrooms, would it cause such a commotion as pine resin? But mushrooms are different; mushrooms are not like pine resin.

Mushrooms hide in the grass, under the roots of trees, and in piles of fallen leaves; you may not find them unless you bend down and lower your head.

Moreover, mushrooms are seasonal and not available every day. They only appear after a thorough rain, and they sprout when the sun shines, but disappear after a few more rains.

The question is, has anyone actually seen it?

Lan Yue just said, "Logically speaking, there should be," but the two of them had been running around in the mountains for several days, looking for pine resin and picking wood ear mushrooms, but they really hadn't seen a single mushroom.

Are they blind? Or do mushrooms not grow on this mountain? Or perhaps they did grow, but someone else got there first?

Xu Xiaoyan considered the last possibility in her mind a few times, but felt it was unlikely.

If someone really does find mushrooms in the mountains and can sell them for money.

Given her current understanding of the "speed of information spread," everyone in the camp should have known about it long ago, and there should have been people setting up stalls to sell it at the entrance of the trading point.

But now there's absolutely no movement, it's eerily quiet.