Mountain God’s Forest Farm – CH54

Chapter 54: Isatis Leaves

Once the Spring Festival passed, the weather warmed up in the blink of an eye. Even the wind became warmer and more comfortable.

Ying Kongtu especially liked patrolling the mountains in this season.

Almost every day, there were new changes in the mountains. Every day, there were new sights to see.

And watching the mountain forest turn greener day by day always made him especially happy.

Ying Kongtu specially chose a fair, breezy day and brought the thirty-eight seeds the great ginkgo tree had given him up the mountain, planting them on a slope halfway up Qingfang Mountain.

Wen Zhongshan looked at the trees around them that had not really grown leaves yet and asked, “Isn’t it a little too early to plant them now?”

“It’s fine. They needed to be stored in sand anyway. Burying them here is the same as burying them in a sand pile. Once the spring rains come and the conditions are right, they’ll sprout on their own.”

Ying Kongtu looked at the excellent spot he had chosen and clapped his hands. “All right, done planting. Let’s go.”

Wen Zhongshan looked back again. “Do they really need twenty years before they can flower and bear fruit?”

“Yes, twenty years. But in a few years, they’ll already grow quite nicely. We’ll be able to pick leaves, and they’ll be ornamental too.”

Ying Kongtu led Wen Zhongshan down the mountain.

Along the way, whenever Ying Kongtu saw a suitable spot, he took yam bulbils from his cloth bag, dug a small hole, and buried them.

They would also sprout when conditions were right and grow into delicious yams.

As the weather warmed, the blossoms of peach, plum, mei, and pear trees gradually drifted down, and tender new leaves grew out.

Walking in the mountains, they could see many petals scattered over the withered leaves. Fallen flowers lay everywhere, beautiful and colorful.

There were also more bamboo shoots in the bamboo grove.

They were larger than in winter, one after another, looking fresh and tender.

Wen Zhongshan asked, “Are these still winter shoots?”

“No. Bamboo shoots in spring are spring shoots.”

Wen Zhongshan looked left and right. “But they’re still buried underground. They haven’t grown out yet.”

“They’re still spring shoots. Spring shoots and winter shoots are divided by season.”

Ying Kongtu took Wen Zhongshan around the bamboo grove, choosing shoots in suitable positions to dig up.

They cut bamboo all year round, so the bamboo grove was always renewing itself.

Now, they had to leave some shoots behind to grow into new bamboo, while some could be dug up to prevent them from growing too densely and hindering the normal growth of the grove.

Besides the tender spring shoots, Ying Kongtu also took Wen Zhongshan to dig shepherd’s purse.

These shepherd’s purse plants had also grown after the start of spring, most of them growing along the field ridges near the foot of the mountain.

Ying Kongtu chose the most tender ones to dig. Each one looked very pleasing.

Ying Kongtu said, “How about shepherd’s purse wontons tonight? We’ll make two fillings: fresh bamboo shoot and beef, and shepherd’s purse and pork. What do you think?”

Wen Zhongshan had no objections. “Sure. I’ll wash the vegetables later.”

Shepherd’s purse also belonged to the kind of food that was delicious but difficult to wash, with lots of debris caught inside.

Wen Zhongshan was extremely patient while washing it.

He washed it with well water.

Ying Kongtu’s well water happened to be warm in winter and cool in summer. The well water right now was warm, comfortable, sweet, and refreshing. The washed shepherd’s purse carried beautiful droplets of water.

Wen Zhongshan washed vegetables in the courtyard, while Ying Kongtu blanched the spring bamboo shoots in the kitchen.

Compared with winter shoots, spring bamboo shoots had a higher tyrosine concentration. Blanching them before eating would improve the texture.

He cooked the blanched spring shoots, then mixed them with minced beef. The fresh bamboo shoot and beef filling was done.

The shepherd’s purse outside did not need to be stir-fried. He directly chopped it up and mixed it with pork that had both fat and lean meat. It looked fresh and delicious at once.

The two fillings were divided into two basins and placed on the wooden table.

Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan sat by the table and wrapped wontons.

Ying Kongtu did not like small wontons when eating wontons. He always made large wontons.

One basin of filling could be wrapped up in no time.

The wrapped wontons were plump and white. Once the water boiled, they could be dropped straight in.

The furry creatures at home also wanted to eat them, so the wonton fillings Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan made were fairly mild.

For this, he also specially mixed a dipping sauce for eating the wontons.

Into a white porcelain bowl went chopped scallions, minced garlic, and bird’s-eye chilies. Then soy sauce, oyster sauce, and aged vinegar were poured in. With a slight stir, the fragrance drifted out.

The freshly wrapped wontons were fresh and tender.

Especially the shepherd’s purse ones. The richness of the pork perfectly balanced out the plainness of the shepherd’s purse. Once combined, each bite was full of that unique fresh tenderness of wild greens.

Ying Kongtu also found it amazing.

Human vegetable markets were already very developed now. Even in winter, people no longer had to eat radishes, cabbage, and pickled vegetables every day like before.

Yet even after rotating through so many vegetables daily, suddenly eating a meal of shepherd’s purse still brought out that especially tender, fresh taste, as if the entire palate had been awakened and the food had suddenly come alive.

Not only Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan, but the furry creatures at home were also very satisfied with the wontons.

That much could be seen from their slightly swaying tails, not to mention that even Tiaozhu finished everything without leaving any food behind.

In spring, all things flourished.

The best-growing plants on Ying Kongtu’s mountains were still the isatis plants.

Their isatis plants were already generally more than thirty centimeters tall.

Once spring arrived, these isatis plants grew leaves rapidly. One plant after another, their leaves were dense and green, looking extremely delightful.

At this time, the leaves could already be harvested to make daqingye [1].

So when Ying Kongtu and the others went up the mountain, besides patrolling, they would also gather isatis leaves along the way.

They specifically picked the dark green, complete leaves. Once picked, the leaves gave off a strong isatis scent.

There were isatis plants on all six mountains under Ying Kongtu’s name. There were far too many leaves to harvest and far too many to dry under the sun alone.

There was also plenty of rain in spring, and the air was humid.

If he relied only on sun-drying, the leaves could easily mold.

So Ying Kongtu bought a commercial dehydrator and directly dried the leaves at low temperature.

After the daqingye was dried, he collected it in cloth bags and piled all of it in the dry, well-ventilated attic for temporary storage.

“Can these daqingye be sold now?” Wen Zhongshan asked.

“Yes. Let me see how to sell them.” Ying Kongtu said cheerfully, “They should count as premium-grade daqingye, much better than general bulk goods. They ought to fetch a good price.”

“Then should we look for merchants?”

“Merchants work. Pharmacy owners, pharmaceutical companies, buyers and so on would all work. Once I’ve accumulated a bit more in a couple of days, I’ll try contacting them.”

Ying Kongtu was very confident in his family’s daqingye.

When this batch of isatis was planted, they had used lake mud. On top of that, his divine power had recovered somewhat. Though it was still very faint, overall, this batch of isatis had been nourished by divine power.

It definitely could not compare with medicinal herbs carefully grown by those non-humans, but compared with ordinary herbs grown by humans, its medicinal effect was much better.

In the past year or so of browsing online, Ying Kongtu had seen many people complain that the medicinal effect of Chinese herbs nowadays was poor.

Daqingye grown like theirs definitely would not have a problem with medicinal effect. Once pushed into the market, it would surely be greatly welcomed.

Full of confidence, Ying Kongtu found the contact information of relevant people. After getting in touch, he mailed samples of the daqingye to them.

Unexpectedly, the pharmacy owners and relevant people from pharmaceutical companies soon replied by email and directly declined him, saying they had fixed partners and could not rashly change them, but they could cooperate in the future if there was an opportunity.

The buyers were interested in his daqingye, but they could only offer the price of general bulk goods, which was the price of the most ordinary grade of daqingye.

The other party offered only ten yuan per jin, and that was the price for dried daqingye.

Ying Kongtu frowned. “You get what you pay for. Mine isn’t ordinary goods either. Why are they pushing the price so low?”

Wen Zhongshan looked at the way Ying Kongtu’s long brows furrowed like distant mountains gathering together, and his heart softened completely. “Merchants pursue profit. If they can push prices down, they’ll push them down as much as possible.”

“That’s still too low. At such a low price, I can’t even recover the cost.” Ying Kongtu’s brows tightened further as he muttered, “Besides daqingye, there’s still isatis root in another two months. If the daqingye can’t sell for a good price, the isatis root looks uncertain too.”

Wen Zhongshan looked at him and only wanted to kiss him.

Ying Kongtu was worried. They had already gone into debt to plant rice.

If planting isatis also lost money, they would start losing money right at the beginning of the year. He would probably lose all the way to the end of the year.

Ying Kongtu had a headache. After thinking about it for two days, he discussed it with Wen Zhongshan. “How about I open an online store?”

When he sold wood ear mushrooms last year, Ying Kongtu had already thought about opening an online store.

At the time, he had looked at the rules and found opening an online store rather troublesome.

On top of that, the reputation of his wood ear mushrooms quickly spread, and demand exceeded supply. There was no need to use online channels at all.

After that, he never thought about the online store again.

Ying Kongtu did not mind patrolling mountains every day. Even when doing dull planting and farming work, he could find happiness.

But if he opened an online store and had to sell goods every day, he felt a little irritated just thinking about it.

Mainly, mountain gods did not lack money in most cases and did not have much interest in earning money.

Wen Zhongshan understood him well enough and suggested, “Why don’t I do it?”

“You’ll do it?” Ying Kongtu hesitated.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

He found this matter annoying. Directly pushing it onto his lover did not seem very good. He did not want to be in a relationship only to make Wen Zhongshan work as his laborer.

Wen Zhongshan kissed him. “It’s fine. I managed far more things in the past. It’s just a small online store. To me, the workload won’t be much.”

Ying Kongtu thought for a moment and finally agreed. “All right. Then after deducting costs, we split the profit fifty-fifty.”

Wen Zhongshan knew Ying Kongtu’s personality and did not refuse. He smiled and said, “Leave it to me.”

And so Ying Kongtu truly stopped managing it.

He still harvested daqingye and dried daqingye, immersing himself every day in the joy of the harvest.

However, Ying Kongtu could see the familiar courier coming to his house every day to pick up daqingye.

Wen Zhongshan said he had asked the courier to take on a part-time job helping package and ship orders. The courier was familiar with this area, so it saved a lot of trouble.

That was why the courier came to the house every day.

From the amount of daqingye the courier took away, Ying Kongtu could guess that their business was probably pretty good.

It was not until one day, when he carried dried daqingye to the attic and discovered that the attic was basically empty, that he was shocked. He had never imagined the daqingye would sell so quickly. That was daqingye from six whole mountains!

“Didn’t you say you were opening an online store? Did you wholesale the daqingye to someone else?” Ying Kongtu asked in surprise.

“No, it’s just the online store. I found a few promotions, and since our product quality is solid, the sales are good.”

Wen Zhongshan showed Ying Kongtu the real-time sales figure. “As of today, the profit is over sixty thousand.”

Ying Kongtu said, “How did it sell so well?! It’s only been half a month.”

Wen Zhongshan said, “I narrowed the positioning and specifically targeted wind-heat colds, selling cleaned daqingye herbal slices.”

Wen Zhongshan had specially repackaged the daqingye.

Each portion of daqingye was only sixty grams, containing six independent small packets of ten grams each, making it convenient for customers to decoct.

This kind of daqingye was sold as a specific remedy for wind-heat colds. Each portion was ten yuan, including shipping.

Because they were natural cleaned leaf slices, customers had little hesitation when seeing the advertisement.

After two of the ads he placed on various social platforms went viral, their daqingye suddenly became popular, and sales climbed steadily.

“I didn’t make false claims, and the customer reviews are also good.” Wen Zhongshan showed Ying Kongtu the customer reviews.

Ying Kongtu leaned over and gently swiped Wen Zhongshan’s phone. Sure enough, they were all positive reviews.

The smell is very authentic. After drinking it, the effect was basically immediate.

My child felt unwell, so I bought this daqingye to boil water for her. The heat-clearing effect was super obvious. After drinking it, her throat felt much better.

This shop’s daqingye is very good quality. The strangest thing is that their daqingye isn’t that cold in nature.

When I drank other daqingye before, I easily got diarrhea. Drinking theirs feels just right.

You get what you pay for. Their shop is expensive, but it really is worth the price.

Ying Kongtu looked at it, then looked at Wen Zhongshan with great admiration. “If I sold it myself, the profit would at most be half of what it is now, and I’d be exhausted. You really sold it fast and at a high profit.”

Wen Zhongshan smiled and touched his forehead lightly against Ying Kongtu’s. “Every profession has its specialization.”

Author’s Note:

Dart, who has quite a chivalrous heart, heard the story of the little Samoyed and secretly went to that household that night, angrily leaving a huge pile of stinky cat poop at their door.

This was the first time it left stinky cat poop without burying it and did not get beaten by Tiaozhu.

Because Tiaozhu also secretly went and left a huge pile.

Then the two of them were caught by Xian Niao and sat in a row to be scolded.

Footnotes:
[1] Daqingye is an herbal extract used in traditional Chinese medicine, commonly use to treat cold, influenza, and wind-heat condition

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