Chapter 31: Picking Chinquapins
Ying Kongtu discovered that Wen Zhongshan had some misunderstandings about mountains.
He seemed somewhat surprised that there were all kinds of delicious wild fruits and vegetables in the mountains.
“Food in the mountains is different from artificially cultivated food. Even if it’s the same variety, it isn’t quite the same. You can’t look at wild fruits and wild vegetables with a fixed impression of a certain food.”
“Wild fruits and wild vegetables have long growing cycles and fuller flavors. They may not necessarily be sweeter or more fragrant, but their taste is usually richer. Most of the time, they’re quite delicious.”
Facing Ying Kongtu’s serious expression, Wen Zhongshan also nodded solemnly. “I know that now.”
“In autumn, there’s a lot of food deep in the mountains.” Ying Kongtu said with great interest, “I saw a decent chinquapin tree the other day. Do you want to eat chinquapins?”
“What are chinquapins?”
Ying Kongtu gestured. “They’re also a kind of chestnut tree from the beech family. They’re similar to chestnuts, but smaller and more fragrant. Once stir-fried, they can be placed in a snack basket and eaten slowly.”
Wen Zhongshan said decisively, “Let’s go!”
“Then tomorrow we’ll go up the mountain to pick chinquapins. We can also take Jingwei to get used to the mountain forest.”
The wolf cub had grown a little more and could now be considered a young wolf.
Ying Kongtu no longer called it by the nickname “wolf cub.” He called it by its proper name, Jingwei, and became more serious when getting along with it.
It was like treating an adult wolf, placing it in a more equal position.
It was already half-grown.
If it lived in the wild, the mother wolf would take it and its siblings out to try hunting.
Now that it lived in Ying Kongtu’s house, going out was not so convenient.
Precisely because of that, Ying Kongtu decided to begin formal hunting training with it.
Jingwei was a gray wolf, and the wolf nature in its bones was still there. Whenever Ying Kongtu brought it up the mountain, it was always very excited.
“Awooo—” As soon as Jingwei went up the mountain, it stretched its voice and began howling.
A wolf’s howl was comparatively low and carried a certain deterrent force. It sounded rather convincing.
Jingwei howled a few times, as if intoxicated by its own voice. It did not find it tiring either, opening its mouth and howling nonstop.
Ying Kongtu was usually used to bringing Tiaozhu up the mountain.
Tiaozhu was extremely quiet and not clingy at all. Ying Kongtu had also grown used to its independent and calm personality.
Now it had been replaced by Jingwei.
Jingwei took one step and howled twice, and every howl was the kind that used all its strength.
Ying Kongtu could not take it anymore. When it howled again, he reached out and gently held its muzzle. “No howling!”
Jingwei blinked its pair of black-bean-like eyes and looked at Ying Kongtu with its tail trailing behind it. Its expression was rather innocent.
Ying Kongtu emphasized, “No howling.”
Jingwei tilted its furry big head, seeming to think.
Ying Kongtu released its muzzle and patted its neck. “Go on. Let’s keep going up the mountain.”
Jingwei: “Awooo—”
Ying Kongtu immediately pinched its muzzle again, manually muting it.
Jingwei: “Woo woo.”
Every time Jingwei howled, Ying Kongtu pinched it once.
After half a morning, Jingwei finally reacted. Ying Kongtu was not letting it howl.
Ying Kongtu had climbed mountains so many times without sweating, yet now there was sweat on his forehead.
It was all from being tormented by teaching Jingwei.
“This silly wolf.” Ying Kongtu looked at Jingwei and said with slight helplessness, “If you howl so loudly and so often, even if there’s prey ahead, it’ll run away. What the hell are you going to hunt?”
Jingwei’s eyes shifted. “Awoo—woo woo.”
Wen Zhongshan followed behind, watching the person and wolf interact, a smile involuntarily appearing in his eyes.
Wen Zhongshan said, “Don’t you often rescue animals? Were the other animals smarter?”
“Not really.” Ying Kongtu sighed. “Have you forgotten the animal mountain gods sleeping in the shrines? They would teach them. I didn’t need to.”
“You rarely taught them before?”
“Basically never. They could all rely on instinct to adapt to the mountain forest.”
At this point, Ying Kongtu said again, “There are too few wild animals now. Quite a few animals don’t really know how to hunt anymore.”
“Like the saker falcons before?”
“The saker falcons were all right. It was just that their breeding season had gone slightly wrong, and they hatched a few too many chicks. They themselves didn’t have any major problems.”
“Then which animals don’t really know how to hunt?”
“Weasels, foxes, badgers… and wolves? I’ve noticed quite a few animals aren’t as fierce as they used to be.”
“Maybe it’s because this place is too close to humans, so they don’t have room to be fierce?”
Ying Kongtu thought about it. “That does make sense. Since they live so close to places where humans are active, being too fierce would be troublesome. Maybe they’d have an even harder time surviving. Being slightly tamer might actually help them live better.”
They chatted while walking up the mountain.
Ying Kongtu identified the direction and led Wen Zhongshan to look for the chinquapin tree.
“It’s right there.” Ying Kongtu pointed from afar. “The one hidden in the middle of the woods.”
“It doesn’t seem any different from the surrounding trees?” Wen Zhongshan said after carefully distinguishing.
“They’re all broadleaf trees from the beech family. People who aren’t familiar with them will have a harder time spotting the difference.”
“There are acorns, chestnuts, and chinquapins. The trees in the beech family seem quite good at producing tasty nuts.”
“Yes. That’s why in spring, I said that for the nearby mountain forests, I would focus on Masson pines and beech-family trees. Now there’s already a harvest.”
The two people and one wolf walked forward.
They had come a little late. Quite a few chinquapins on the tree had already fallen to the ground.
However, the chinquapins were still wrapped in their spiky shells. Most of them were dry and fragrant, and they looked to be in very good condition.
Ying Kongtu took iron tongs out of his basket. “Use the tongs to pick them up. You can also step on them with your shoes. Try not to touch them with your hands.”
As he spoke, Jingwei was already impatiently using its paw to paw at the chinquapins fallen on the ground.
Very quickly, the chinquapin pricked its muzzle.
“Ying!” Jingwei jumped backward, dodging the dangerous chinquapin, then vigorously licked its mouth.
Ying Kongtu glanced at Jingwei and said with amusement, “This is the wrong demonstration.”
Wen Zhongshan also found it funny. He patted the back of Jingwei’s neck. “It isn’t this rash at home.”
“Maybe because the mountain forest is its homeland, its curiosity has been stimulated to the maximum?”
The two of them ignored Jingwei and began picking chinquapins.
Soon, Wen Zhongshan discovered that the chinquapins he picked, whether in size or quality, were far inferior to the ones Ying Kongtu picked.
The chinquapins Ying Kongtu picked were fragrant and glossy. At a glance, they were top quality.
The two back baskets placed side by side made for a rather tragic comparison.
Ying Kongtu also noticed. “You really can’t judge them at all. Look at this one, this one, and this one. They’re all bad. If you bite them open, they’ll be very bitter.”
Wen Zhongshan looked carefully. “They all look the same on the outside.”
“They’re completely different, all right?” Ying Kongtu could not help pouring out all the chinquapins in Wen Zhongshan’s basket. After sorting through them a little, he handed him the empty basket. “I’ll pick them. You shell them.”
“I’ll go shell them over there.”
“Go farther away. I’m going to shake down some fresh ones.”
Ying Kongtu drove the person and wolf farther away, then gripped the tree trunk and shook it hard.
The chinquapins overhead fell like raindrops, crackling and pattering as they rolled everywhere.
Ying Kongtu then used the iron tongs to pick out the spiky chinquapins one by one, placed them into the basket, and carried them to the empty space nearby for Wen Zhongshan to shell slowly.
The spiky shell outside the chinquapins was rather heavy and took up space. Shelling the nuts directly and bringing them back that way was much more convenient.
The two divided the work and soon shelled quite a few chinquapins.
Jingwei also came to help. Dragging its tail, it searched the ground, and soon it carried a chinquapin it was satisfied with to Ying Kongtu.
Ying Kongtu took it and looked it over. “Good wolf. Jingwei, you really know how to choose?”
The half-grown wolf sat on the ground. “Awoo.”
Wen Zhongshan also came over to look. “It chooses better than I do.”
Soon, both baskets they had brought were full.
Carrying the heavy, fragrant chinquapins on his back, Ying Kongtu happily walked down the mountain.
Chinquapins could be stored for a long time. He would fry them in two flavors: one salt-and-pepper, one plain. After frying them, he could place them in the snack basket and eat them until the beginning of spring next year.
While walking down the mountain, Ying Kongtu suddenly stopped and said to Wen Zhongshan, “Do you want to eat Japanese raisin tree fruit?”
Wen Zhongshan said, “The Japanese raisin tree fruit that looks like sticks, the kind we saw outside the vegetable market that day?”
“Yes, that. It’s very tasty, but spitting out the seeds is a little troublesome.”
Ying Kongtu wanted to eat them, so he took Wen Zhongshan and Jingwei quickly toward the side of the mountain.
The Japanese raisin tree on the side of the mountain was over thirty years old. It grew very tall and very straight.
However, this did not trouble Ying Kongtu.
He put down the basket, wrapped both arms around the trunk, and climbed easily to the treetop.
He specifically picked the fruits on the sunny side, with thick branches and good flavor.
In just over a minute, he had picked a large handful of Japanese raisin tree fruit.
He twined them slightly with a branch, and the bunch looked like a bouquet.
After coming down from the tree, he did not think too much about it and simply handed it to Wen Zhongshan, who was waiting nearby.
It was Wen Zhongshan who, upon receiving the bouquet-like bundle of fruit, lowered his head and gently smelled it.
Seeing his action, Ying Kongtu belatedly realized that deliberately tying them into a bouquet like this seemed a little ambiguous.
Maybe the action itself was not ambiguous, just an ordinary casual tying.
However, with the subtle atmosphere between them, and Wen Zhongshan’s action added to it, it looked a little not quite right.
Ying Kongtu did not dare look at Wen Zhongshan. He deliberately turned his face away, stuffed a large handful of Japanese raisin tree fruit into his mouth, and chewed and chewed.
It was as if filling his mouth meant he did not have to speak, and if he did not speak, things would not be awkward.
When the fruits were bitten open, the juice released a clear, sweet scent.
Wen Zhongshan glanced at Ying Kongtu and also broke off a small branch of fruit to put into his mouth.
The fruit was sweet, but not cloyingly sweet at all. It also had a fresh mountain fragrance.
Wen Zhongshan liked this flavor.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan were both eating now, which made Jingwei at their feet so anxious that it looked at one of them, then the other, spinning back and forth.
“Ying ying!”
The half-grown wolf was so anxious it seemed like it was about to start talking.
Ying Kongtu broke off a small branch of fruit and fed it to Jingwei as well.
With a wolf’s powerful digestion, as long as it did not eat too much, there would be no problem.
The two people and one wolf were standing in the forest eating Japanese raisin tree fruit.
At that moment, Ying Kongtu suddenly felt a subtle sensation. He raised his head and looked into the distance. “Hm?”
“What is it?”
“It feels like someone is worshipping at the mountain god temple.” Ying Kongtu pressed his chest. “And it’s the kind where they’re making a wish.”
When people made wishes to the mountain god, the power of faith they provided was stronger than ordinary faith power.
In addition, when the mountain god truly fulfilled that person’s wish, the person would come back to repay the vow, which would generate another wave of faith power.
Even hundreds of years ago, when Ying Kongtu’s divine power had been strong, he had rarely received people’s prayers.
After all, there had been many gods one could worship back then.
Unexpectedly, now that several hundred years had passed, someone was actually properly making a wish to him?
