Lin Xiaopu had not expected that this bamboo fungus was not only edible but also so delicious; the gluttonous cravings in her mouth were already stirred. She couldn’t help but swallow her saliva. “Big Sister, we have plenty of rain here. After it rains next time, let’s come and pick this bamboo fungus first thing in the morning!”
Bamboo Sun likes to parasitize old bamboo roots. The two of them marked the location where the bamboo roots were well-developed and then went off happily to scout other spots.
By mealtime, the two happened to find the source of a mountain spring. Small trickles of mountain spring water flowed out from the cracks in the rocks, merging into more and more. As it flowed over a flat, large rock, it washed down from above, forming a small waterfall. The water curtain splashed silver-white droplets, gathering into a small puddle below, and then meandered down along the mountain stones.
The two sisters, Lin Shu and Lin Xiaopu, used their own bamboo tube cups to catch the mountain spring water flowing from the small waterfall. Accompanied by this sweet mountain spring water, they munched on a flatbread.
Wealthy families in the Dayuan Dynasty had long since transitioned to three meals a day, but the poor commoners still ate only two. They ate “morning food” during the Chen hour (7-9 AM) and “evening food” during the Shen hour (3-5 PM); in simpler terms, these were breakfast and dinner.
Once the two had finished their simple breakfast, the number of villagers coming to the mountains gradually increased. The adults were busy with farm work, so those who came were mostly children. There were teenage girls coming to cut grass, as well as mischievous boys around seven or eight years old—the kind even dogs would loathe—who were jumping up and down looking for bird eggs.
A troublemaker from some family saw the two of them and gave a shout, “Look, look! This is the fake heiress of the Marquisate who came from the capital! The fake heiress is taking the ‘medicine jar’ from Uncle Lin’s house to dig for wild vegetables!”
Lin Shu: …
Her fists tightened.
Whose brat was this?
The naughty boy mocking them appeared to be around ten years old, built dark and sturdy—clearly a “child king.” Behind him followed a group of children of similar age, all of them acting like wild monkeys.
As soon as he spoke, the other children burst into laughter.
“Big Sister, that’s Wang Yingen from the village,” Lin Xiaopu explained in a low voice, subconsciously wanting to hide behind Lin Shu. However, seeing Lin Shu’s brow furrowed and her face flushed with anger, a sudden surge of rage rose in Xiaopu’s heart. She stepped forward and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Wang Yingen, you—you turtle’s egg! You call me a medicine jar, and last time you called me a ‘short-lived ghost.’ I’m going to tell Auntie Li and have her beat your bottom!”
Wang Yingen’s mother, Auntie Li, was a woman famously sharp-tongued and fierce in Tianshui Village. Her greatest wish in life was for her son to amount to something, but unfortunately, Wang Yingen was far from it—it was good enough if he just caused fewer troubles. He made her head ache with anger every day. From far away in the village, one could hear the sound of Auntie Li chasing Wang Yingen with shouts and scolding, but the more he was beaten, the tougher he became. He had already become a little local tyrant in the village, leading a group of children his age to run wild all day—either raiding bird nests in trees or catching loaches and snails in the fields.
And now he had run wild right in front of Lin Shu and Lin Xiaopu.
Mocking her was one thing, but mocking her Big Sister was unacceptable; Lin Xiaopu was angry.
Wang Yingen made a face at her and stuck out his tongue. “Bleh, bleh, bleh. You are a medicine jar, and you are a short-lived ghost. Where was I wrong? Go tell my mother, go ahead, go ahead!”
What use was treading on someone’s toes with complaints? Lin Shu had her own way of dealing with such a brat. She looked at the dark, sturdy boy with a beaming smile and asked in a gentle voice, “Your name is Wang Yingen, right? Have you ever eaten Jade Dew lotus root powder osmanthus cakes, candied longan, sugar-steamed crispy yogurt, or Qiqiao pastries? Have you ever played Cuju, Tangrams, the Nine Linked Rings, or the Luban Lock? Have you ever heard the plays about the nine-year-old County Magistrate or the eight-year-old Emperor?”
Wang Yingen was left completely dazed.
What… what were all those?
Lin Shu tilted her fair, slender neck and looked at him, her expression not annoyed in the slightest, her smile more beautiful than a flower. “So what if I am the fake heiress of the Marquisate? You have no idea how much fine food I’ve eaten, how many delicious drinks and fun things I’ve seen, or how many interesting plays and stories I’ve heard. A brat like you will probably never get to eat or see them in your entire life.”
By the time Lin Shu led Lin Xiaopu far away, Wang Yingen was still standing there like an idiot.
“Boss, boss, what were those things the fake heiress was talking about?” one of his little lackeys asked curiously.
Wang Yingen’s face turned bright red. “I—how would I know? I’ve never been to the capital!”
On this side, Lin Xiaopu recalled the way Wang Yingen had been stunned and let out a series of giggles. “Big Sister is so amazing! Wang Yingen couldn’t even say a word!”
Lin Shu laughed. “In the future, Big Sister will make you lots of delicious food and fun things. When you see him, just ask him if he’s ever eaten or played with them. I guarantee he’ll be so jealous he’ll wish he could become you immediately.”
Lin Xiaopu responded joyfully, feeling extremely happy. Her Big Sister was so good to her! It was a different kind of “good” than the previous Big Sister.
The previous Big Sister always had earning money on her mind and perhaps often couldn’t look after her or find time to play because of it. But every time that Big Sister earned money from selling her embroidery, she would secretly buy candy for her to eat. When eating candy, she felt she was the happiest child in all of Tianshui Village.
But the Big Sister before her was willing to take her out to play. Not only was she as beautiful as a celestial being, but she also recognized so many wild vegetables and would even step forward to teach Wang Yingen a lesson on her behalf, making that foul-mouthed boy speechless for the first time. She really liked her so much!
Lin Xiaopu took a step forward, secretly grabbed her sister’s hand, and said with a slightly red face, “Big Sister, the road ahead is hard to walk. I’ll lead you.”
Lin Shu couldn’t help but laugh—who was leading whom?
The back mountain was large and could be explored for an entire day; if one looked at every spot carefully, a single day wouldn’t be enough.
But Lin Shu reached her limit after only half a day. By the end of it, Lin Xiaopu was fine, but Lin Shu was already gasping for breath.
“Xiaopu, aren’t you tired? Your sister is already panting.”
Lin Xiaopu also had a thin layer of sweat on her forehead, but she was still in high spirits. “Big Sister, I’m not tired at all!”
Lin Shu felt depressed. If someone like her younger sister was considered congenitally weak, then what was she? This body was too frail!
“Let’s go, let’s go home. We’ll come back next time,” Lin Shu said, her body tired but her spirit not.
The harvest from today’s trip was too great; the mountains were full of treasures!
And they had only explored a small portion; she didn’t know what good things were in the remaining areas.
When going up the mountain, Lin Shu had intentionally avoided picking too many wild vegetables. Only when coming down did she add them to the back-basket one by one.
A little bit each of wild celery, amaranth, shepherd’s purse, wild garland chrysanthemum, mud-coated vegetable, and tender leaves of malan. The aralia had already grown out, so they couldn’t eat the thorny tender sprouts on top, which made Lin Shu feel a bit of regret; one should know that those sprouts in early spring are the “King of Wild Mountain Vegetables,” also known as the “Ginseng on the Trees”—nutritious and delicious. The mouse-ear cudweed had also grown old, but pinching the very tips of the tender leaves was still edible, and they would be most delicious for making green dumplings (Qingming cakes).
Thinking of this, Lin Shu asked, “Xiaopu, what do people around here eat during festivals? Do you eat green dumplings for Qingming? Do you eat zongzi for Dragon Boat Festival? What about Mid-Autumn?”
“Green dumplings? Zongzi?” Lin Xiaopu’s eyes were blank, clearly not knowing. “I don’t know about other places, but in our Tianshui Village, we eat Qingming Baba during Qingming. There is plenty of mugwort on the mountains; the villagers mash the mugwort and mix it into glutinous rice, molding it into individual baba cakes, then cook them in a pot or on a stove until they are toasted and ripe. We don’t eat any zongzi here for the Dragon Boat Festival either; we eat Tongzi leaf baba. Old rice is ground into rice milk, lard is added, and it’s wrapped in Tongzi leaves and steamed—it’s so fragrant! Big Sister arrived a few days late, otherwise you could have eaten the Tongzi leaf baba Mother made herself. As for Mid-Autumn, we all make Ciba (pounded rice cakes), cooking the glutinous rice and mashing it into a paste…”
Lin Shu was not surprised after hearing this.
This place was remote, with different local customs; it was normal not to eat zongzi and the like. However, she had come all the way from the prosperous capital. Not only in the capital but in other provincial cities as well, the food was already very rich. It was just that Tianshui Village was poor, and many delicacies had not been developed, leading the people to have a very simple diet.
The rural people’s knowledge of wild vegetable varieties was also not comprehensive enough, perhaps because Tianshui Village suffered from fewer famines.
Lin Shu pointed at the mouse-ear cudweed that had already grown old. “Wait until next year when our family is more well-off, and Big Sister will use the tender leaves of this mouse-ear cudweed to make Qingming cakes for you. Qingming cakes made from this wild grass are the truly fragrant and delicious ones!”
“That’s great, that’s great! Big Sister knows so much!”
Lin Shu joked, “Of course, just look at where your sister came from.”
Lin Xiaopu also followed with a silly smile. “Hehe.”
To the people of Tianshui Village, the highest official they had ever seen was the County Magistrate at best. The capital was too far away to even imagine, so in Lin Xiaopu’s eyes, it was perfectly normal for her sister to know everything.
Whatever her sister said, she believed.
“And this Guanyinchai, let’s pick more of it.”
Lin Xiaopu wrinkled her nose, looking disgusted. “Big Sister, what are you picking this for? This stuff stinks so bad. We call it ‘Stinking Lady’; even pigs won’t eat it.”
Lin Shu laughed. “It smells bad now, but wait until I make ‘Guanyin Tofu’—you’d better not find it too delicious.” Guanyinchai did have a special foul smell, which is why it was also called the “stinking servant girl,” but it was truly a good thing.
“What? This can actually be made into tofu to eat?” After her initial shock, Lin Xiaopu immediately compromised. “Big Sister, then let’s pick more!”
On the way down the mountain, Lin Shu also broke off a bunch of cypress branches, and directly broke off a bundle of the everywhere-visible chaste tree (Huangjing).
Lin Xiaopu asked curiously, “I won’t ask about the cypress leaves, but Big Sister, what are you picking this chaste tree for?”
Lin Shu raised an eyebrow playfully. “To go back and make ‘Chaste Tree Stir-fried with Meat’?”
“What? I only know that this thing hurts when you get hit with it; it can be stir-fried with meat? Auntie Li loves using these chaste tree switches to whip Wang Yingen. Sometimes you can hear her scolding from far away, and Wang Yingen howls like a stuck pig from the pain.”
Lin Shu burst out laughing. “Whipping it onto a naughty child’s bottom until it’s covered in red stripes and burning with pain—isn’t that ‘Chaste Tree Stir-fried with Meat’? It matches that old peasant proverb: ‘A filial son emerges from under the rod, and a good person emerges from under the chaste tree switch.'”
Lin Xiaopu was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter as well. “Big Sister is teasing me!”
“The ‘Chaste Tree Stir-fried with Meat’ is a tease, but the alkaline zongzi made from this chaste tree have a golden color, are crystal clear, and are supremely fragrant and sticky. That is no lie.”
Lin Xiaopu’s mouth watered as she listened.