Chapter 33: Autumn Pickled Greens
Ying Kongtu’s little wooden boat did not look big, but it was unexpectedly spacious.
In the end, the entire little wooden boat was loaded with fine, black silt from the bottom of the lake.
Ying Kongtu slowly rowed the boat to the shore. “I’ve used this boat for a long time. It’s been soaked in divine power, so it can carry a little more than an ordinary boat.”
Wen Zhongshan looked at the waterline. “I’m afraid it’s more than just a little.”
Ying Kongtu smiled. “Didn’t I tell you before that I used to come here to scoop fish? Some fish were especially big, weighing fifty or sixty jin, and they were extremely strong. They could exert one or two hundred jin of force.”
“At the time, in order to avoid capsizing, I specially studied it for a while and tried several times before making this kind of little wooden boat—large capacity, not easy to overturn, and light to use.”
“No wonder you buried it in the silt and preserved it so carefully.”
“Of course. I spent a long time making this boat before I was satisfied with it. Now it’s not easy to find this kind of wood anymore.”
Ying Kongtu rowed the boat to shore and poured out the silt inside, leaving it on the bank to dry.
The wind here was strong, with no shelter at all. The silt should dry very quickly.
Only when it was a little drier, with less water content and not so heavy, would they be able to carry it down the mountain more easily.
After dumping out one boatload of silt, they rowed the boat back to scoop up the next load.
They went back and forth like this several times a day, repeating the process for several days.
The silt on the shore grew more and more, like a border inlaid around the clear snow mountain lake.
Looking at it from a distance, it was actually quite beautiful.
Perhaps because the dried silt was so fine in texture, when viewed from afar, it had a beauty of its own.
Up close, the black lake mud was even finer than paste, dark and glossy.
Even if it were not used as fertilizer, perhaps it could be used to fire porcelain and produce excellent ceramics.
Wen Zhongshan stared blankly at the lake mud and thought to himself.
Ying Kongtu always knew what he was thinking. Looking at his side profile, he said, “In the past, I did give lake mud to a friend for firing porcelain, but only a little, for my friend’s personal use.”
“Whether this silt comes from fish, aquatic plants, or sand and soil carried in by snowmelt, it all comes from the mountain. So this lake mud should be taken from the mountain and used for the mountain. It won’t be put to other uses.”
Wen Zhongshan had not expected him to say this and turned to look at his profile.
At moments like this, the divinity of this mountain god was especially clear.
Wen Zhongshan could not look away at all.
“All right, let’s carry the mud down,” Ying Kongtu said.
Wen Zhongshan nodded silently.
And so, they carried the lake mud down to the foot of the mountain bit by bit.
Compared to the chicken manure fertilizer and sheep manure fertilizer Ying Kongtu had bought, this batch of lake mud was not considered much, yet its presence was especially striking.
Even someone who knew nothing about lake mud would know at a glance that it was absolutely something good.
Together, Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan crushed the dried lake mud, then mixed it with the purchased humus soil, wood shavings, chicken manure fertilizer, sheep manure fertilizer, and the isatis root seeds that had been soaked for a day. In the end, they mixed everything into several large piles of fluffy material.
The seed coat of isatis root seeds was relatively hard, so they were not especially easy to germinate.
If one wanted to plant isatis root, the seeds had to be soaked, or buried in sand for stratification.
Ying Kongtu had soaked the seeds in advance, then mixed the seeds with various substrates. The effect was equivalent to sand stratification.
Seeds treated this way would have a much higher germination rate.
In addition, by mixing the seeds with other substrates, the seeds could be better protected.
Wen Zhongshan and Ying Kongtu processed the seeds together.
Looking at the several hill-like piles of seed mixture at the foot of the mountain, Wen Zhongshan could not help feeling pleased.
“So the seeds are considered ready now?”
“They’re ready. We just need to find some workers to go up the mountain and sow them.”
Before looking for workers, Ying Kongtu specially discussed it with the small animals at home—mainly with Tiaozhu.
Ying Kongtu crouched on the ground. “Tiaozhu, I’m going to hire people to go up the mountain and sow seeds. For the next few days, there may be a lot of people on the mountain.”
Tiaozhu looked at him with its orange-yellow eyes.
He reached out and stroked Tiaozhu’s neck. “Those are people I’ve allowed onto the mountain. Don’t scare them, all right?”
Tiaozhu lowered its head and licked its paw. Whether it understood or not was unclear.
Ying Kongtu simply took it as having understood.
Jingwei and Dart came over as well.
Jingwei even held Ying Kongtu’s sleeve in its mouth. “Awoo—”
Ying Kongtu casually stroked Jingwei’s neck, then stroked Dart. “You two too. Don’t go up the mountain these next few days. Just play at home.”
Dart rubbed against Ying Kongtu’s knee. “Meow.”
Ying Kongtu stroked the wolf cub, then the orange tabby, his face full of smiles.
Tiaozhu, licking its fur beside them, glanced at him, then leapt lightly onto the top of the courtyard wall.
Wen Zhongshan walked over, stretched out his hand, and touched Tiaozhu, who was crouched on top of the wall.
Tiaozhu lowered its head and gently licked his fingers.
Ying Kongtu went to the day-labor market outside the vegetable market and hired twenty-five people to help sow the seeds.
He often sold mountain goods there and had a good sense of the people waiting for day labor.
Soon, he picked out the workers, divided them into groups of five, and assigned reliable team leaders.
Ordinary team members would be paid three hundred a day, and team leaders three hundred and thirty.
Ying Kongtu showed them the map he had drawn by hand. “Each group will sow according to the marked locations, starting from the top of the mountain and working down. Just scatter the seeds on open ground. Places where plants are already growing don’t need to be sown.”
Everyone carefully identified the locations their own group needed to sow and found that Ying Kongtu had written everything very clearly. It did not seem difficult.
The hardest part of this sowing work was that the seed mixture had to be manually carried from the roadside up the mountain.
Bibai Mountain was all right; it had a winding mountain path that led straight to the summit.
But Wuchuanshan required them to carry the seeds from the foot of the mountain to the top, which was more laborious.
Ying Kongtu said to everyone, “Thank you for your hard work. Let’s set off.”
The chicken manure, sheep manure, and wood shavings in the seed mixture were all relatively light. One basket of seeds was not too heavy, and carrying it was not especially difficult.
Everyone had mentally prepared themselves, and when they truly began carrying them, they all breathed a great sigh of relief.
This job was not as hard as they had imagined, and everyone became more interested in chatting.
“Boss Ying, what’s in this mixture?”
“If we just scatter the seeds, will they really grow? When I see people planting, they usually loosen the soil first, and after scattering the seeds, they cover them with soil.”
“The birds on the mountain will eat the seeds, won’t they? Back in my hometown, whenever we plant something, before the seeds even sprout, the birds eat them first.”
Facing everyone’s enthusiasm, Ying Kongtu smiled. “Don’t worry. They will definitely grow.”
“They’ll grow for sure, but I’m afraid the germination rate won’t be as high as ordinary seeds.”
“After the seeds are scattered, do they need watering?”
“There aren’t many water sources on the mountain, so watering won’t be easy.”
Ying Kongtu was very easy to talk to, and everyone was quite happy to chat with him.
As they chatted, everyone discovered that although Ying Kongtu seemed very approachable, his mind was as clear as a mirror. He knew everything.
Seeing this, everyone became even more attentive and worked more seriously.
Soon, the five groups spread out to sow seeds.
These mixed seeds were very easy to sow. They only needed to be scattered evenly over the open ground, and there was basically no technical skill involved.
They first sowed seeds on Wuchuanshan.
It took them three days to roughly sow all the open spaces on Wuchuanshan, then they moved to Bibai Mountain.
Wuchuanshan and Bibai Mountain were relatively low in elevation, with gentler slopes and decent planting conditions.
Especially Bibai Mountain.
Jiang Hanhai had previously planted many fast-growing eucalyptus trees on Bibai Mountain. Now that the eucalyptus trees had been cut down, large stretches of open land had been cleared.
Although Ying Kongtu had scattered many seeds there one after another, those seeds had not yet had time to germinate. There were still many exposed open patches on the mountain.
At a time like this, planting one crop of isatis root on them could help conserve soil and water.
When the isatis root was dug up next spring and summer, the soil could be loosened at the same time, preventing it from becoming compacted.
Therefore, planting this crop of isatis root would not only avoid harming the mountain forest, it would benefit it.
After observing for several days, Tiaozhu could sense that the isatis root was good for the mountain forest, and much of its irritation at being disturbed by humans faded.
When patrolling the mountain, if it saw the isatis root seeds and substrate blown by the wind into piles, it would even deliberately paw at them a few times.
It had a very strong sense of ownership.
Ying Kongtu discovered its actions but did not expose it.
The isatis root seeds were soon fully scattered.
Just as the others had worried, the newly scattered isatis root seeds showed no signs of germination.
Until one day, clouds gradually filled the sky over Changchuan County, which had been clear for quite some time.
The moisture in the wind grew heavier and heavier.
The autumn rain had arrived.
That evening, Ying Kongtu moved a chair to the corridor and sat there watching the rain.
The autumn rain was fine and dense, unbroken and endless.
Compared to the sharp and bitter autumn rains of the past, today’s autumn rain was surprisingly gentle.
Especially the rain over Wuchuanshan and Bibai Mountain.
The rain falling on these two mountains was gentle and fine, like mist, softly enveloping the entire mountain.
This autumn rain just happened to soak the land thoroughly without causing waterlogging, much less washing away the seeds scattered across the mountain forest.
It fell at exactly the right intensity, as if the heavens were helping Ying Kongtu water the land.
Wen Zhongshan moved a chair over and sat beside Ying Kongtu. “Did you bring down this rain?”
“With my current divine power, I’m still not strong enough to bring down rain like this.” Ying Kongtu held his teacup and said cheerfully, “But influencing it a little isn’t a problem.”
Wen Zhongshan stretched his hand out under the eaves and caught the falling raindrops. “This rain is falling beautifully.”
Ying Kongtu said, “Yes. Once the rain soaks through, the little isatis root seedlings should come up.”
Just as Ying Kongtu had expected, after this rain, specks of green shoots emerged from the isatis root.
They were so tiny that up close, they were barely visible, but from afar, one could see a layer of tender green.
It was as if the entire mountain had suddenly entered spring.
The isatis root on both mountains grew very well.
Their growth could only be described as rapid.
In just a few days, they became tender seedlings.
When Ying Kongtu patrolled the mountain, Tiaozhu and Jingwei both accompanied him.
Dart also came along to join the fun.
Jingwei and Dart were very curious about the newly sprouted seedlings.
Jingwei in particular could not help sniffing them and even opened its mouth, tilting its head to bite at the seedlings.
Its muzzle was rather thick and long, while the seedlings were small.
To bite one, it had no choice but to keep twisting its head. The fluffy fur on its big head shook along with the movement, making it look a little foolish.
Dart was much more efficient. With one swipe of its paw, it quickly dug out a seedling and started chewing.
Wen Zhongshan watched Dart keep damaging the isatis root and had no choice but to scoop it up and hold it in his arms.
Ying Kongtu reached out and scratched Dart’s chin. “Looks like our isatis root tastes pretty good. When we go down the mountain later, we’ll pick some on the way.”
“To make tea?”
“Of course not. This is for eating as a vegetable.” Ying Kongtu looked up and smiled at Wen Zhongshan. “Locals call this kind of vegetable sprout greens. Don’t worry, it isn’t bitter, and it won’t have any strange flavor.”
Wen Zhongshan was skeptical.
He had already discovered that Ying Kongtu had an extremely high tolerance for food.
Sour, astringent, lightly bitter, spicy—Ying Kongtu could accept all of them. He even felt that this was the original flavor of food and carried the breath of nature.
Compared to those purely sweet foods bred by humans, Ying Kongtu loved foods with more complex flavors.
Many times, when Ying Kongtu said something was “not sour” or “not bitter,” it might not actually be not sour or not bitter.
Ying Kongtu promised, “It really isn’t bitter. You’ll know later.”
Wen Zhongshan said, “Then can you make one extra green vegetable dish? If it’s bitter, I’ll eat something else.”
With a grand wave of his hand, Ying Kongtu said, “I’ll make two extra dishes for you.”
For dinner, Ying Kongtu specially made four dishes and one soup.
Usually, they had three dishes and one soup. The extra dish today was stir-fried isatis root.
The little isatis root seedlings were fresh and tender. In this autumn season that was already a little cold, eating watery, tender isatis root tasted indescribably good.
Wen Zhongshan was surprised. “It really isn’t bitter. It’s actually quite tasty?”
“I told you it wasn’t bitter. How big are they? They haven’t had time to accumulate bitterness yet.”
“It really is good. I like this vegetable.”
“Then you’d better eat a few more meals of it while you can. After some time, the bitterness will get heavier and heavier.”
Wen Zhongshan accepted the tender isatis root seedlings very well and even fell in love with this dish.
Seeing that he liked it, while the isatis root had not yet grown big and accumulated obvious bitterness, Ying Kongtu thinned out the seedlings in densely growing areas, picked more of them, and stored them in the refrigerator.
This kind of sprout vegetable was extremely difficult to preserve. Even if blanched and frozen, it would quickly lose its fresh and tender flavor.
After thinking it over, Ying Kongtu set aside part of the tender isatis root seedlings and pickled them into sour greens.
Ying Kongtu was already very skilled at pickling vegetables now.
He let the isatis root wilt slightly in the sun, then placed it in a large earthenware jar to ferment.
In just one week, the tender green isatis root turned golden yellow.
The fermented isatis root pickled greens no longer tasted like isatis root at all.
Its unique light bitterness had transformed through fermentation into a strange sour fragrance. Not a trace of bitterness could be tasted.
Ying Kongtu stir-fried the isatis root pickled greens with lard, minced garlic, chopped scallions, and bird’s eye chili, turning them into a rice dish.
This dish sounded a little like dark cuisine.
However, when it was stir-fried over fierce heat in the wok, the sour fragrance wafting out was simply domineering.
The sourness and freshness almost seemed to turn into tangible smoke, rushing straight into one’s nose.
To go with this pickled vegetable dish, Ying Kongtu did not cook anything else fancy. He only made plain white rice.
Yet the most ordinary white rice, paired with the most sour, fragrant, fresh, and spicy pickled greens, became a food with a strange charm of its own, making one unable to stop shoveling it into one’s stomach.
Eating such sour, fragrant, fresh, and spicy pickled greens in late autumn almost made sweat break out.
Wen Zhongshan had never expected the isatis root seedlings to taste so good, much less that they could become even better after being pickled.
It was almost as if they had some kind of magic.
Looking at Wen Zhongshan’s deeply astonished expression, Ying Kongtu said, “Isatis root itself has a relatively complex flavor. After fermentation, the sour fragrance transformed from it becomes even more complex.”
Wen Zhongshan said, “When you taste it, you can’t distinguish what exactly is fragrant inside. You can only taste a layered and very distinctive sour fragrance.”
Ying Kongtu said, “Yes, it’s a very layered flavor. Pickled vegetables are like this. Often, the more pungent and bitter the vegetable is, the more fragrant and unusual the pickles made from it will be.”
The layered sour fragrance of the isatis root pickled greens was one of a kind.
Not only did Wen Zhongshan like it very much, after Ying Kongtu sent a jar to Xing Chang’s family, his family liked it very much too.
Xing Chang even specially called to express his thanks.
Ying Kongtu said, “You’re being too polite.”
“My mom told me to call. She said we had to thank you. She also especially asked me to ask what vegetable this pickled dish was made from. How is it so fragrant? It’s too sour and fragrant, completely different from other pickled vegetables.”
“Isatis root seedlings.”
“Isatis root?! The isatis root used for cold medicine? It can actually be made into pickled greens?! And it tastes that good! I thought it could only be used as medicine!”
After Ying Kongtu said this, before Xing Chang could answer, a bright female voice came through from outside the phone. “I knew it could be eaten! I told you all, and none of you believed me!”
It sounded like Xing Chang’s mother.
Then Xing Chang’s voice came through. “So it really can be eaten. We’ve learned something new.”
Ying Kongtu said, “The seedlings can be eaten. Grown isatis root can’t. But grown isatis root can also be eaten as a vegetable. It is both food and medicine. Eating a little occasionally can clear heat and reduce internal fire, but you can’t eat too much.”
After Ying Kongtu finished speaking, Xing Chang had not yet had time to reply when Xing’s mother asked, “Can isatis root still be planted this season? My old sisters and I all want to plant some.”
Xing’s mother’s voice cut in. “Didn’t they say it can treat colds? We’ll plant some ourselves. When we catch a cold, we can eat it. It’ll be more genuine.”
Ying Kongtu said, “Yes, you can. The weather isn’t too cold yet. There’s still time to plant it now.”
Xing’s mother said, “That’s great! Where did you buy your seeds? We want to buy some too.”
Ying Kongtu said, “I’ll send you the link later. Isatis root needs sandy soil with good drainage. It’s best to plant it somewhere with relatively high terrain.”
“Got it. Pick some poor land to plant it.” Xing’s mother’s voice grew even brighter. “If we had to pick a good place, we might not be able to find one. But picking poor land is easy. We can just find any neglected corner and plant a little.”
“All right.” Ying Kongtu thought for a moment, then added, “If your family wants to eat it as a vegetable, have Xing Chang come get some from me. Mine will taste a little better than what ordinary people grow.”
Ying Kongtu guessed that the reason the isatis root pickled greens he made this time tasted so good was also related to the lake mud they had scooped up.
He had made isatis root pickled greens before, but the flavor that time had not been as good as this time.
This time, the isatis root had probably been grown well.
Thinking of this newly planted crop of isatis root, Ying Kongtu’s heart filled with anticipation.
The tender seedlings that had only just sprouted were already this good. Once they grew up, how good would their quality be?
