Chapter 17: Ganba Fungus
The mushroom oil they had made was extremely fragrant. The next day, Ying Kongtu’s home was still filled with its aroma.
He kept ten jars aside and placed the rest into his back basket, planning to bring them to Xing Chang.
Xing Chang had long been full of anticipation for the mushroom oil he made.
When he saw Ying Kongtu take out the golden-yellow fried mushroom oil, Xing Chang, as a local, immediately understood the value inside.
“Kongtu, you fried this mushroom oil way too well!” Xing Chang could not wait to open it and smell it. “So fragrant! There’s even the aroma of chicken fat!”
“I don’t really like adding chicken essence, so I fried it with chicken fat.”
“No wonder it tastes like this. Hiss, delicious! The chili strips you added are delicious too, so fragrant!”
“I saw that people usually add some chili strips when frying mushroom oil. The chilies on my mountain happened to have turned red, so I dried some and cut them into strips to fry in.”
“No wonder it’s so fragrant! I knew the chilies bought outside weren’t this fragrant!”
Ying Kongtu handed him all thirteen jars of mushroom oil he had brought. “Two jars are for you. Please help me mail the remaining eleven jars to your colleagues.”
“All right! They’ll definitely be thrilled when they receive them. Hiss, it really is so delicious.”
Ying Kongtu had already received the money transferred by Xing Chang’s colleagues in advance. One jar of fried mushroom oil was three hundred yuan, much more expensive than the fried mushroom oil on the market, but it was genuine and made with good ingredients.
Xing Chang wanted to pay too, but Ying Kongtu firmly refused and only asked Xing Chang to help mail the parcels.
Seeing that Xing Chang liked it, Ying Kongtu said, “I’ll bring you more next time.”
“Great! Thank you, Kongtu!” Xing Chang ate another piece of fried mushroom and looked at him. “Where are you going? Are you inspecting the mountain today too?”
“No inspection today. I rented a mountain to gather mushrooms.”
In recent years, renting mountains to gather mushrooms had become quite popular in Changchuan County.
Gathering mushrooms required a certain degree of skill and stamina. Not everyone could go up the mountain and return with a full harvest, and not everyone had time to go up the mountain every day to gather mushrooms.
So some households that had mountains but were not skilled at gathering mushrooms, or did not have time to go up every day, would rent their mountains out and let others gather mushrooms there.
The mountain Ying Kongtu wanted to rent was one such case.
Xing Chang asked, “Which mountain?”
“Qianzhongcui Mountain.”
As Ying Kongtu’s liaison officer, Xing Chang knew his situation very well. As soon as he heard this, he said, “That mountain used to be part of your territory too, right?”
As a mountain god, Ying Kongtu’s former territory had included thirty-nine mountains. He had told Xing Chang about them, and Xing Chang had remembered them all.
“Yes. I hadn’t found a chance to go up before. A couple of days ago, I saw the mountain owner say he had launched a mushroom-gathering mountain rental project, so I rented it for one day.”
During the several hundred years Ying Kongtu had been asleep, the human world had changed unpredictably.
Most of his territory had become ownerless mountain forest and belonged to the state, while a small portion had been contracted out by others.
Qianzhongcui Mountain was one of them.
Seeing him like this, Xing Chang patted his arm in silent comfort.
Ying Kongtu did not feel much about it. “It’s fine. Aren’t you helping me keep an eye on the mountains? If any mountain is going to be transferred, I’ll contract it back then.”
“All right. I’ll work harder and make more contact.” Xing Chang said seriously, “There’s one mountain that has a bit of progress already. I’ll tell you once it’s confirmed.”
Receiving good news, Ying Kongtu’s spirits lifted. He said goodbye to Xing Chang and carried his back basket toward Qianzhongcui Mountain.
Qianzhongcui Mountain was north of Ying Kongtu’s home. It had now been contracted by someone to grow red-fleshed kiwifruit.
Its elevation was relatively high, and its terrain was rather steep. In addition, its mushroom yield was average, so not many people rented this mountain to gather mushrooms.
After Ying Kongtu arrived at Qianzhongcui Mountain, the mountain owner, Yue Chengji, was waiting at the foot of the mountain to receive him. He greeted him, “You’re here?”
“Yes.” Ying Kongtu asked, “Can I go straight up the mountain?”
“Yes, just be careful.” Yue Chengji enthusiastically pointed. “Go that way. There are more mushrooms in the pine forest over there. But there are some in other places too, depending on what you like.”
After exchanging a few polite words with Yue Chengji, Ying Kongtu went up the mountain.
He did not walk toward the pine forest. Instead, he went to a shrine somewhere in the valley.
After not coming for many years, this shrine on Qianzhongcui Mountain had almost weathered away. The characters carved on the stele could barely be seen anymore.
Ying Kongtu sighed silently, wiped it clean carefully with a handkerchief, then stacked the shrine back into shape.
The local area had a very long history of earth burials, and there were many tombstones of all kinds on the mountains.
Ordinary people generally did not disturb shrines. After Ying Kongtu awakened, on every mountain he had gone to that had once belonged to him, the shrines were still there, though some were especially old and damaged.
After cleaning the shrine, Ying Kongtu walked up the mountain.
The mushroom patches from several hundred years ago no longer had much reference value now. However, as a mountain god, he roughly knew what kinds of places mushrooms liked to grow, so finding them was relatively easy for him.
Ying Kongtu gathered mushrooms along the fertile, damp, shady slope. When he was almost at the summit, he happened to encounter Yue Chengji leading workers down the mountain after they had finished weeding the kiwifruit orchard.
Yue Chengji glanced at his back basket and smiled warmly. “The harvest is all right, isn’t it? I told people there were mushrooms on my mountain, but they didn’t believe me.”
“There are. If you look carefully, there are quite a lot.” Ying Kongtu asked, “Can I go take a look at the orchard?”
“Go if you want. But I don’t think there are mushrooms in the orchard. We go there every day and haven’t seen any.”
“Since I’m here, I’ll take a look.”
Orchards were prone to producing termite mushrooms, especially in this season.
Ying Kongtu wanted to search.
He had already gone up the mountain today and searched for so long. He had found quite a few mushrooms, but not many valuable ones.
If he could not find termite mushrooms or similar mushrooms, he would probably lose money on today’s mountain rental.
Ying Kongtu walked toward Yue Chengji’s kiwifruit orchard.
The orchard was quite large, more than four hundred mu in total, stretching from halfway up the mountain to the summit.
Qianzhongcui Mountain had a relatively high elevation and a fairly large temperature difference between day and night, so the red-fleshed kiwifruit grown there was also good.
It was still early before the red-fleshed kiwifruit ripened, but the vines were densely covered in kiwifruit. Presumably, there would be a good harvest this year.
As kiwifruit were climbing vines, Yue Chengji’s family had built dense cement pillar supports on the mountain. Ying Kongtu searched along the cement pillars.
Before long, he indeed found a small patch of termite mushrooms in an area that had not yet been weeded.
Some of the termite mushrooms had only just grown out, while others had already opened their caps.
Ying Kongtu found a stick nearby and carefully dug up the termite mushrooms together with their stipes.
He pulled a few shrub leaves from nearby, placed them beneath the termite mushrooms, and put them into his back basket.
After digging up this patch of termite mushrooms, Ying Kongtu continued searching.
He could sense that there was something in the orchard that interested him, perhaps some kind of mushroom.
But after walking around, he still did not see any trace of mushrooms.
Ying Kongtu sat on the summit to rest.
If he were to go back now, he would feel unwilling. But if he kept looking for mushrooms, he could not find them.
Trying to find certain tiny mushrooms in the vast wilderness of the mountains was too difficult.
Even for him, a mountain god who had personally come here, it was still hard to find them.
There was no one on the mountain. Ying Kongtu placed his back basket in the shade of a tree and lay down on the slope, covering his face with his hat, intending to rest for a while. Unexpectedly, he soon fell asleep.
Just like what he had often done several hundred years ago when patrolling the mountains.
He slept for more than two hours. When Ying Kongtu woke, he was refreshed, and his mood had improved as well.
He retrieved his back basket, carried the mushrooms, and casually chose a direction to go down the mountain.
Sometimes, if fate had not arrived, there was nothing to be done.
Thinking this, Ying Kongtu felt especially relaxed as he descended the mountain. Even his body became light, as though wind had grown beneath his feet and he was about to ride it.
Halfway down, he glanced into the forest and inadvertently saw a patch of white.
It looked a little like the common woody bracket fungi that grew on trees.
There were many of these fungi. Ying Kongtu often saw them in the forest and did not pay them much attention.
After walking past, however, his heart suddenly moved, and he felt that something was not quite right.
So he turned back and walked closer to take a look.
Very soon, he discovered that they were not woody bracket fungi at all, but two large ganba fungi.
The ganba fungi grew in the grass, resembling graceful peony flowers, very beautiful.
Ying Kongtu happily and gently picked them. Only then did he discover that both ganba fungi were extremely large, larger than his palm.
Using modern measurements, the diameter of these two ganba fungi should both exceed fifteen centimeters.
He lowered his head and sniffed them, and could smell a rich fragrance.
That was the unique aroma of mushrooms, and also one of his favorite aromas.
This was truly an unexpected delight!
Ying Kongtu placed the ganba fungi in the basket and tucked them beneath the other mushrooms to hide them.
Ganba fungi were among the most expensive local mushrooms, reaching five or six hundred yuan per jin.
Just these two ganba fungi alone meant Ying Kongtu had earned back double the money he had spent renting the mountain today.
However, he had no intention of selling them.
He wanted to personally taste the first batch of ganba fungi he had gathered after awakening!
Ying Kongtu searched around nearby but found no more ganba fungi.
He was not disappointed either and walked down the mountain with light steps.
On the way, he sent Wen Zhongshan a message: I found a very delicious mushroom today. Are you free to come for dinner?
Wen Zhongshan: I also received a very delicious ingredient. I was just about to message you and invite you over for dinner.
Ying Kongtu: Oh? We really are of one mind! Bring the ingredient to my place? We’ll eat together here?
Wen Zhongshan: No problem. See you later!
Having arranged dinner with Wen Zhongshan, Ying Kongtu’s mood became even better.
On his way down the mountain, he encountered the mountain owner Yue Chengji again and even greeted him.
When he returned home, Ying Kongtu saw Wen Zhongshan waiting outside from far away, with a package placed at his feet.
Ying Kongtu quickened his steps and jogged over. “Why didn’t you come a bit later? What did you bring me?”
Wen Zhongshan stood where he was, smiling as he waited. “A kind of highland rice. I noticed you’re quite interested in ingredients, so I brought it for you.”
Ying Kongtu opened the gate, and Wen Zhongshan carried the rice, following him into the kitchen.
Ying Kongtu put away the mushrooms and opened the rice. He found that the rice was long and slender, cleanly fragrant, with a faint pale-green hue overall. It was crystal clear and translucent, obviously new rice from this year at a glance.
Old rice did not have this kind of gloss and clean fragrance. It was prone to becoming coarse and whitening.
“This truly is good rice!” Ying Kongtu praised, holding the rice. “I was just thinking of making fried rice today, and you brought rice over.”
“Fried rice?”
“Ganba fungus fried rice. It’s a very delicious fried rice. Most people should like this flavor, and you probably will too.”
Wen Zhongshan smiled. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never tasted it.”
Ying Kongtu also smiled. “Then tonight is just right for you to try it. Come help me?”
Ying Kongtu scooped out rice and used the firewood stove to cook it first.
Because they were eating fried rice today, he deliberately kept the rice soup and cooked the rice slightly firm.
After scooping out the cooked rice, he spread it on a plate to cool, then first stir-fried the ganba fungus.
When Ying Kongtu scraped and washed away the dirt, he did not go easy at all. Any part underneath that might have been carrying soil was completely cut clean, leaving only the most fragrant mushroom flesh.
The ganba fungus was broken into pieces by hand, only briefly rinsed with well water, then dried clean with kitchen paper. Now it was dry, fragrant, and rich, with almost no moisture.
Ganba fungus in such excellent condition, the moment it was poured into the large iron wok and stimulated by the gleaming animal fat, immediately released its fragrance.
It was a mellow aroma that had soaked up the sunlight, rain, and mist of the mountains. At this moment, its fragrance also released a rich mountain freshness like mist.
The firewood stove burned fiercely, and the wok was large.
The ganba fungus jumped in the wok, sizzling.
The chilies and whole garlic cloves Ying Kongtu added released another kind of aroma after being stir-fried over high heat.
Smelling this fragrance, he poured the cooled rice into the wok.
Once the rice, carrying a faint pale-green hue, was stir-fried loose, it immediately became evenly coated in glossy oil. Every grain of rice shone slightly.
Ying Kongtu quickly stir-fried a few times. The rice in the wok was so fragrant that it seemed to rush boldly into their noses, forcefully occupying all their attention.
Even after Ying Kongtu served the fried rice into two large bowls, the fragrance remained astonishingly rich.
“Dinner!” Ying Kongtu placed a large ocean bowl of rice before Wen Zhongshan and said.
The two each held a bowl of rice and began eating.
Ganba fungus fried rice looked unimpressive, but it tasted extraordinarily fragrant.
When Ying Kongtu added seasoning, he had only added salt. Because of this, the flavor of the fried rice was extremely pure, with the mushroom aroma occupying absolute dominance.
With every mouthful, the mushroom fragrance seemed ready to burst out from their mouths and noses.
Mushroom fragrance, oil fragrance, garlic fragrance, chili fragrance—all kinds of aromas intertwined together. Each time he chewed, new fragrance was released.
Finally, the clean sweetness of the rice brought all the freshness and fragrance to a close, leaving a lingering aftertaste that was still deeply enjoyable.
“It’s truly delicious,” Wen Zhongshan said. “Once, I led a team into the snow mountains on a mission. We got lost and had to gnaw on military rations and chunks of ice for several days.”
“And then?” Ying Kongtu took a sip of rice soup and looked up at him.
“After the local guide who lived at over four thousand meters above sea level received news, he picked us up and made us fried rice with oil and salt.”
“That fried rice was also very fragrant. It was the most delicious fried rice I had ever eaten in my life, and even now, I can still recall that flavor.” Wen Zhongshan smiled faintly and said, “Today, it feels as though I’ve returned to that time. The fried rice is still just as fragrant, and the feeling of being alive is just as strong.”
