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Ye Caiping returned home and saw the sisters, Ye Jin’er and Ye Huan’er, helping Ye Yinhua hang clothes.
“Good morning, little aunt,” Yinhua greeted timidly.
Ye Caiping smiled, “Where are your grandpa and grandma?”
“Grandpa and my three brothers took firewood to the town to sell,” Yinhua said, “Grandma and my eldest uncle went to pick up my eldest aunt. My father and mother are tending the fields.”
Qinghe Village was located in the south of the Zhou Dynasty, with a warm climate suitable for growing three crops a year: two seasons of rice and one season of wheat.
Therefore, there was no time for leisure, and they still had to work in the fields now.
Ye Caiping nodded, “Jin’er, Huan’er, let’s go for a walk in the mountains. Yinhua, stay home and watch the house.”
Yinhua was startled, “Little aunt, you still have an injury…”
“It’s alright. I can’t stay cooped up at home all the time. I just want to go out for a walk and see if there are any wild vegetables to dig up.”
Ye Yinhua saw no harm in it and nodded.
Ye Caiping took her sisters to the firewood shed, grabbed two backpacks and a hoe, and threw two sickles into the backpacks.
The two girls immediately took one each, not letting Ye Caiping touch them.
…
Following the memories in her mind, Ye Caiping quickly arrived at the back of the mountain.
Although it was already late autumn, the forest was still lush.
Reaching the middle of the mountain, Ye Caiping and her daughters searched for a while and finally found cassava in a gully.
Not just one or two plants, but a whole patch, stretching across half the gully, with what looked like thousands of plants.
“Quick, let’s go over there.” Ye Caiping was delighted and quickened her pace.
Ye Jin’er and Ye Huan’er followed Ye Caiping to the cassava patch, their faces changed, and they quickly pulled Ye Caiping back a step, “Mother, this is poisonous roots. Let’s go!”
As if they would be poisoned if they touched it.
“No. I came here to find poisonous roots. This isn’t called poisonous roots, it’s called cassava. I saw it in some miscellaneous books. As long as it’s processed properly, it’s edible.”
“Eat? But…last night someone was poisoned…”
“That’s because they didn’t know how to process it. Listen to me, let’s dig some up.”
Ye Caiping calculated the time in her mind.
In her memory, cassava matured around October, but looking at the weather in the Great Zhou Dynasty, she knew it was calculated according to the lunar calendar.
Today was August 23rd, which was equivalent to October in the lunar calendar, and the cassava had already matured.
Unlike Ye Caiping’s excitement, Ye Jin’er and Ye Huan’er’s faces were pale.
This was something that could kill people! But since their mother told them to dig, they dared not object.
Ye Caiping picked a small one, used the sickle to cut off the branches in three or two strokes, and pulled it with her hands, but it wouldn’t budge.
She found a good spot, dug down with the hoe, and then pried upwards, “You two pull the stem.”
The two girls immediately pulled, and with a force, they leaned back, their bottoms hitting the ground, and the cassava was pulled out.
Ye Jin’er and Ye Huan’er looked at the small stem, with four or five large root tubers growing underneath, their faces turning pale. This…was poisonous roots?
It looked…so scary!
Ye Caiping was delighted, and in three or two strokes, she chopped off the cassava. It looked like it weighed over ten pounds.
Moreover, judging from the quality, it had indeed matured.
【Ding, discovered poisonous bitter cassava, 1 copper coin per pound, would the customer like to sell it?】 At this moment, the mechanical voice that had been silent for a long time sounded in her mind.
Ye Caiping was stunned, how could it be so cheap?
She had bought cassava before, five or six copper coins per pound!
No!
In modern times, they ate bread cassava or sweet cassava, which were varieties that had been improved by scientists for generations, greatly reducing the toxicity, and could be eaten as long as they were cooked soft and glutinous.
These in front of her were the most primitive bitter cassava, highly toxic, and required a lot of processing before consumption. In modern times, almost no one ate them. Being offered 1 copper coin per pound was already considered a fair price.
Alright, anyway, there was a lot of it, 1 copper coin was 1 copper coin, every little bit helps!
“Let’s dig up a few more.”
Ye Caiping said, and started digging again.
Although Ye Jin’er and Ye Huan’er were still scared, they followed her instructions.
After an hour, the three of them had dug up a total of five cassava plants.
These cassava plants had been left untouched for a long time, so they were big and strong. The five plants yielded more than ten pounds of cassava.
The three of them used vines to bundle the cassava into three bundles. Ye Caiping took out three large roots, peeled them with a sickle, revealing the white flesh, and then chopped them into pieces about 15 centimeters long.
“It looks so beautiful, but it smells…bitter,” Ye Huan’er said fearfully, “Then…what do we do with it?”
“Follow me, let’s go to the mountain stream.”
Ye Caiping put the peeled cassava pieces into their backpacks, and the three of them left together.
Not far from the cassava forest, there was a mountain stream about 1.6 meters wide, with water reaching up to the elbows.
Ye Caiping tied the chopped cassava pieces with vines and put them in the stream, tying the other end to a tree by the creek.
“Soak it for a day and a night, and we can cook it tomorrow,” Ye Caiping washed her hands and stood up.
Actually, soaking it in a basin would also work, but you would have to change the water a few times. Soaking it directly in the creek and rinsing it was more effective than soaking it in a basin.
“Let’s go, let’s see if there are any wild vegetables.”
“But the big bundles of poisonous roots we just dug up are still over there,” Ye Jin’er said.
“Leave them there for now. No one will steal this stuff. Wait…I left my sickle there, you two wait here, I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll go,” Ye Jin’er said.
“No need, I know where it is, you two wait here.”
Ye Caiping said, and quickly left.
She quickly returned to the cassava forest, and the three large bundles of cassava were neatly placed on the ground.
Ye Caiping looked back and saw that her two daughters hadn’t followed, so she reached out and touched the cassava bundled on the ground.
【Ding, discovered poisonous bitter cassava, 1 copper coin per pound, would the customer like to sell it?】
Ye Caiping quickly clicked confirm.
【Poisonous bitter cassava, 102 pounds, 1 copper coin per pound, total 102 copper coins.】
As soon as the voice fell, Ye Caiping’s small box-sized space gained 102 copper coins.
Ye Caiping immediately beamed with joy, but this amount of money wasn’t enough to cover the cost.
Should she dig up more? But that would be so tiring!
It was exhausting work, it was better to use the 102 copper coins to take a shortcut!
Ye Caiping took the sickle and returned to the creek. Ye Jin’er quickly greeted her, “Mother, there are shepherd’s purse on the other side, let’s dig some up to change our taste.”
It was almost winter, and there weren’t many vegetables, just turnips and cabbage, and the Ye family was about to turn into big turnips themselves.
The three of them crossed the stream, and they saw some scattered shepherd’s purse.
Ye Caiping dug up one, and a ding sounded in her mind: 【Discovered pure natural and pollution-free shepherd’s purse, 15 copper coins per pound, would the customer like to sell it?】
The price was really high!
Ye Caiping’s eyes sparkled.
But the three of them had dug for a long time, and they only got three or four pounds, not enough for the whole family to eat for two meals.
Ye Caiping simply gave up selling it.
Since it was still early, Ye Caiping and her daughters continued to wander around the mountain, seeing if they could dig up anything else.
Ye Caiping kept an eye out for some grass, hoping to dig up some ginseng, lingzhi, or something like that.
Based on her experience reading novels, time-traveling women always dig up ginseng! She could also find some lingzhi or He Shou Wu [1]also known as Fo-Ti in English, is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb derived from the tuber of the plant Polygonum multiflorum or Reynoutria multiflora. It is highly regarded in Traditional … Continue reading.
But she had wandered around for a long time, and she hadn’t even found a single ginseng hair!
Ugh! What time-traveling women always find treasure on the mountain! Don’t spread rumors! Don’t believe rumors!
“Sigh, only this much.” Ye Jin’er shook the less than a handful of shepherd’s purse in her hand, “All the wild vegetables on the mountain have been picked clean.”
Ye Huan’er also lifted her few sticks of dry firewood, “Firewood is getting harder and harder to find.”
“Let’s go back!” Ye Caiping said, leading them down the mountain.
Note:
Characters
Other Characters:
Heigou – Ate poisonous roots
Heigou’s mother
Doctor Zhao
Zhao Facai – Neighbor
Village Head Ye- Sometime Ye Lizheng (Lizheng is a title that refers to Village Head/Chief)
Ye Bajin – Village Head’s Son
Fubao – Village Head’s Grandson
Places:
Qinghe Village: FL’s Village
Li Family Village
Great Zhou Dynasty
References
| ↑1 | also known as Fo-Ti in English, is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb derived from the tuber of the plant Polygonum multiflorum or Reynoutria multiflora. It is highly regarded in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and has been used for centuries for its purported health benefits. |
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