Although she also felt it was a bit cruel, the chicken still smelled delicious, especially wild chicken.
Just thinking about it—this wild chicken could be exchanged for all the seedlings she wanted, opening the path to her wealth—she couldn’t suppress the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Seeing Lu Zhaozhao so happy, Gu Yan finally felt somewhat reassured. Just a moment ago, he had truly worried that they wouldn’t encounter any prey today!
After all, this kind of thing had happened before.
Hunting required quite a bit of luck.
Sometimes one could wander in the mountains for half a day and not see a single living creature.
Especially in winter, the chances of hunting anything were even slimmer.
So, Lu Zhaozhao was right—they really needed to think of another way to make a living. Otherwise, when the cold season came, life would become difficult.
However, her idea still seemed unreliable, because in winter, not only was hunting hard, but selling vegetables was even harder.
In winter, it felt like besides radishes and cabbage, there were hardly any other vegetables to sell!
Did she really intend to make big money just from juicy radishes and cabbage?
Gu Yan had settled in Xinghua Village after the New Year. When he first arrived, the weather had just started to warm slightly—it was still pretty cold. At that time, the vegetables his family ate were all given by Sister-in-law Zheng next door—either radishes or cabbage—so it had left a deep impression on him.
But seeing Lu Zhaozhao ready to work hard with such determination, he didn’t want to discourage her. After all, her original intention—to think of ways to supplement the family’s income—was good.
So, because they had hunted a large wild chicken, both of them were very happy.
After tidying up, the two prepared to move forward and explore some more.
Perhaps there would be other surprises.
Lu Zhaozhao followed Gu Yan, still holding her wooden stick and tapping it along the way.
However, now that they had a catch and had been walking for some time, she had started to get used to the mountain path, and her mood was much more relaxed than when they first came up.
She also had some leisure to observe the forest around them.
The air in the mountains was indeed better than outside, and the feeling was fresher. The mountain dew was heavy, which was normal.
Ah, if only she could dig up a thousand-year-old ginseng. She had read time-travel novels before, where the female protagonists were especially lucky—they would enter a mountain and immediately see ginseng, which could be sold for silver!
Could such good fortune fall on her just once?
So, Lu Zhaozhao carefully scanned everything along the way, afraid that she might miss ginseng if it were there. Missing it would be a loss of a fortune.
But after walking for half a day, there was no ginseng, not even a sprout!
Liars—all lies!
Who said there was ginseng in the mountains?
She really had overthought it.
Just as she was feeling disappointed, something in the distance suddenly caught Lu Zhaozhao’s eye.
It was a dead tree, almost lying on the ground, covered in moss, without a trace of life.
Yet Lu Zhaozhao’s eyes lit up as she ran toward it, exclaiming excitedly,
“Gu Yan, come quickly! There are so many wild shiitake mushrooms here!”
Hearing her voice, Gu Yan quickly turned to look at her. He saw her standing near a rotting tree, her eyes shining as she stared at the small mushrooms growing on it.
Seeing this, Gu Yan was startled and hurried over to stop her:
“Lu Zhaozhao, don’t touch those! Be careful, they might be poisonous.”
Lu Zhaozhao looked up at him, puzzled, and repeated his words in disbelief:
“Poisonous?”
“Yes. These little things might be poisonous. I don’t know much about them, but Sister-in-law Zheng had warned me before. Since I often went hunting in the mountains, she feared I might eat something by mistake. She told me that if I saw plants that looked like small umbrellas, I shouldn’t touch them, and definitely shouldn’t eat them—they could kill! She said that once, someone in Xinghua Village ate something like this from the mountains and died of poisoning! Since then, no matter how poor people were, they wouldn’t go to the mountains to gather such things.”
Gu Yan spoke seriously. He couldn’t distinguish these vegetables or plants himself, but he remembered Sister-in-law Zheng’s warnings.
Seeing Lu Zhaozhao’s actions, he immediately recalled what she had said.
After hearing him, Lu Zhaozhao nodded thoughtfully and looked at him, saying solemnly:
“There are indeed many poisonous mushrooms in this mountain, but I’m sure these wild shiitake mushrooms are not poisonous—they’re even very delicious. Don’t worry, I’ve eaten them before. Here, lend me your dagger. I’ll harvest all of these. Even if we can’t eat them all immediately, we can dry them for later. This is really a treasure.”
As she spoke, Lu Zhaozhao directly took the dagger from his waist!
She showed not the slightest courtesy.
Seeing how confident she was, Gu Yan, though still a bit worried, didn’t stop her from picking the mushrooms.
Lu Zhaozhao cut one mushroom at a time, swiftly and efficiently.
This was her first time harvesting wild shiitake in the wilderness, and the aroma was far richer than cultivated mushrooms. They would certainly taste delicious.
There were indeed quite a lot on this single dead tree.
It was enough for several meals.
She was incredibly lucky.
Only one thing was strange—she had been picking for so long, yet her spiritual spring space still hadn’t detected anything.
Until she was almost done, Lu Zhaozhao, unable to contain herself, actively called upon her spiritual pet in her mind to ask about it.
The spiritual pet, somewhat helpless, explained:
[Actually, it did detect them, but these aren’t growing in the soil, so they can’t be planted in the spiritual field, and the spiritual field didn’t notify you.]
After saying this, the spiritual pet felt a little embarrassed. This was the first time it had encountered a plant that couldn’t be grown in its space. Apparently, its space needed to be updated to keep up with the times.
Previous hosts had never harvested shiitake mushrooms!
Lu Zhaozhao listened and couldn’t help laughing and crying at the same time.
Alright, poor thing.
Once she understood, she happily continued harvesting mushrooms.
In fact, she was quite familiar with fungi. She could usually distinguish poisonous from non-poisonous mushrooms.
She owed this knowledge to a former colleague in the hospital’s emergency department.
They often shared interesting stories while eating together.
The funniest were the patients who had been poisoned by mushrooms. Their hallucinations and behaviors could be ridiculously comical, making people both feel exasperated and sympathetic.
Later, she even heard a children’s rhyme online about mushroom poisoning:
“Red umbrella, white stem, after eating, lie on the board together!”
It was so catchy that she couldn’t help singing along sometimes.
Because of this, she once intensely studied fungi, so now she could distinguish most mushrooms’ toxicity with confidence.