Mountain God’s Forest Farm – CH56

Chapter 56: Pondweed

Late at night, the lights in Ying Kongtu’s courtyard were still on.

The fish hanging on the rack had already dried. Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan divided the work between them. Part of the fish was cut open and sent to be dried, part was salted and prepared to be sun-dried, part was chopped into fish paste to make fish balls, and another portion was set aside to be made into canned fish.

It was Ying Kongtu’s first time making canned fish. He used a recipe he found online, then reduced the seasonings on his own.

Together with Wen Zhongshan, he heated oil in the wok and first fried the fish until it was dry, to the point that even the bones could be eaten.

After the fish was fried, he placed part of the fried fish pieces in a large basin to soak out the excess oil. Then he started another wok, heated oil, stir-fried a small amount of tomato paste until fragrant, and added the fish pieces to braise.

Dart and Jingwei mainly ate dried fish pieces, so they dried the largest amount of fish pieces.

Tiaozhu and Xian Niao preferred lightly seasoned food. The difference was that Tiaozhu did not eat much spicy food, while Xian Niao loved spicy flavors, but could only eat food that was mildly spicy. If it ate too much, it would feel uncomfortable.

This tomato canned fish made by Ying Kongtu could be used to give Tiaozhu and Xian Niao an extra meal. He and Wen Zhongshan, as well as Dart and Jingwei, could also eat a little.

As Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan busied themselves in the kitchen, the tomato fish was soon bubbling away.

The aroma of fish drifted through the entire courtyard.

Dart and the others had originally been asleep, but when they smelled the fragrance, they all got up and sat in a row outside the kitchen, staring into the kitchen with bright eyes, their ears occasionally twitching.

“Feeling greedy?” Ying Kongtu met the eyes of the furry ones from inside the kitchen. “Want a midnight snack?”

“Meow-ao—”

“Awoo—”

The furry ones answered in unison.

“Wait a little. It needs to cool first.”

Ying Kongtu scooped the braised tomato fish pieces into a large basin, washed the wok clean, put in a steaming rack, then portioned the freshly cooked tomato fish pieces into canning jars and placed the jars into the wok to steam.

The furry ones could hardly wait.

Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan served them food. Each furry one first got fish balls, freeze-dried pieces, dried vegetables, then tomato fish pieces according to how much each could tolerate.

Xian Niao could eat a large spoonful. Dart could only have a taste.

Even so, they still ate very happily.

Ying Kongtu could not resist making a serving of noodles for himself and Wen Zhongshan too. He poured tomato fish pieces over them, added stir-fried chopped pickled greens and chili oil, mixed everything well, and started eating.

“This is really good.” Ying Kongtu tasted a bite and praised, “Although it’s slightly inferior to the Ai fish Tiaozhu caught last time, it’s already better than most fish on the market.”

Wen Zhongshan nodded in deep agreement.

Tiaozhu, who was eating outside, heard the key word and lifted its head to glance over. Seeing that they did not continue talking, it lowered its head and continued eating.

Soon, the canned fish in the wok was done.

Only Ying Kongtu’s family’s wok was big enough. Jars with a capacity of one thousand milliliters could be steamed five or six at a time.

He opened the lid, used a clean cloth as padding, tightened the lids of the jars halfway, then took the jars out to cool.

The water in the wok was still boiling. He added cold water and immediately steamed the second batch.

They steamed for more than two hours before all the cans were finished.

Ying Kongtu placed all the cans on the table. First, he tightened the cooled jars completely, then prepared to send them to the attic for dark storage.

While Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan were tightening the jars, they felt gazes behind them. When they turned around, all four furry creatures in the house were still awake, their eyes following their movements back and forth.

“?” Ying Kongtu looked at them. “Are you still supervising?”

The four furry ones did not answer. They only stared intensely at the cans on the table.

Ying Kongtu noticed that Xian Niao’s head was even moving slightly. He was even more puzzled. “Xian Niao, are you counting the cans?”

Wen Zhongshan asked, “Can it count?”

Xian Niao said, “Awoo.”

Ying Kongtu said, “I suspect it can.”

Ying Kongtu stretched out his hand and counted for them. “There are twenty-three cans in total. Xian Niao, don’t count wrong.”

“Meow-woo.”

“Awoo.”

The four furry ones called out in unison again. It was impossible to know whether they had understood or not.

Ying Kongtu glanced at them and said, “I’ll put them in the attic later. If you want to eat them, tell us.”

Xian Niao said in satisfaction, “Awoo.”

The furry ones soon fell asleep in the living room, satisfied as they smelled the fragrance.

Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan still had to clean up afterward.

The two worked until past four in the morning before saying good night to each other and returning to their rooms to sleep.

Today, the whole household slept at home. Xian Niao and Tiaozhu rarely did not return to the shrine.

Ying Kongtu listened to the breathing sounds one after another, his mood very peaceful. That night, he also slept deeply.

By the time he woke up again, it was already past noon.

After washing up, Ying Kongtu yawned and went out. He looked at Wen Zhongshan, who was teasing Jingwei in the courtyard. “It’s been a long time since I got up this late.”

Wen Zhongshan went to wash his hands and came over. “Does your head hurt?”

“Not really. I just feel a little groggy, not as clear-headed as usual.”

Wen Zhongshan helped him massage his temples. “Rest this afternoon. Sleep earlier tonight. You’ll be fine when you wake up tomorrow morning.”

“I think so too.” Ying Kongtu yawned and turned his head, looking at the bamboo tray on top of the courtyard wall. “What’s being dried up there?”

When he saw clearly, Ying Kongtu realized, “Fish maw?”

“You said yesterday you wanted to dry some fish maw. I cleaned them and put them out to dry. See if they need any more processing.”

After the blood vessels, membranes, fat, and other impurities on the surface of a fish bladder were removed, it only needed to be washed clean, drained, and spread out to dry to become fish maw.

Ordinary fish maw was dried from the swim bladders of large fish. Once dried, it would become thick, golden, and very beautiful.

Although the Ai fish they had caught yesterday were not large enough, they had been nourished by divine power and were especially rare fish. Ying Kongtu wanted to dry a little fish maw for their family to stew and eat.

Ying Kongtu went over to check. Then he turned and smiled at Wen Zhongshan. “Very clean. The condition is excellent. Have you dried this before?”

Wen Zhongshan said, “I’ve only eaten it before. I learned online.”

“That’s still very impressive.” Ying Kongtu gently turned the fish bladders over. “Let’s cook.”

The ingredients processed last night were still in the refrigerator.

The fish stomachs had been marinated, while the fish livers were soaking in ice water.

Ying Kongtu only kept out the fish liver they would eat today. The rest was dried to be left for the furry ones at home.

Today’s fish liver had already been thoroughly soaked clean of blood, appearing very clean.

Ying Kongtu scooped them out, washed them again, dried the surface with kitchen paper, and placed them in oil to slowly pan-fry over low heat with lard.

The fat content in the fish liver was very high. As it fried, the wok filled with oil.

Its aroma was also rich, drifting out bit by bit and attracting Xian Niao and the others over. They sat at the kitchen doorway and waited.

Ying Kongtu scooped out the fish liver for Xian Niao and the others and set it aside to cool.

For the fish liver meant for humans, he poured in yellow wine, added chili rings, drizzled soy sauce over it, then added garlic shoots and pan-fried everything for a while.

The fish liver, fried until golden brown, was served on a large black porcelain plate. After the green and red chili rings and emerald garlic shoots were slightly arranged, it looked extremely tempting.

“Looks good, right?” Ying Kongtu carried it to Wen Zhongshan’s side. “It smells fragrant too. Super fragrant.”

Wen Zhongshan nodded cooperatively at the side.

Ying Kongtu set the fish liver aside, washed the wok clean, and said to Wen Zhongshan, “For the fish stomachs, I want to do it all in one wok. Strong fire.”

Wen Zhongshan pulled the bellows. “Is this okay?”

“Perfect.” Ying Kongtu said happily.

Ying Kongtu waited until the wok was hot, then added a spoonful of rapeseed oil and scraped in half a piece of lard.

When the oil began to smoke, he added pickled chilies, pickled ginger, and garlic cloves. Once their fragrance burst out, he poured in the fish stomachs with a sizzling sound, quickly stir-fried them a few times, then splashed in high-proof rice wine.

As soon as the rice wine entered the wok, flames immediately rose and quickly burned away the alcohol.

Ying Kongtu stirred the sauce he had prepared in advance with the spatula, poured it into the wok, and quickly stir-fried.

The sauce rapidly evaporated and blended, finally becoming a slightly translucent thickened sauce.

Seeing that the sauce had thickened, Ying Kongtu directly tossed in a handful of chopped green garlic leaves, stir-fried evenly, and took it off the heat.

The entire process took less than a minute.

“All right, we can get ready to eat.” Ying Kongtu said happily. “You prepare Xian Niao and the others’ food. I’ll stir-fry another dish of flowering cabbage.”

Their flowering cabbage was all produced from the little vegetable garden on Wu Chuan Mountain.

Any flowering cabbage that tasted ordinary had been taken by Ying Kongtu to feed the pigs. Only the freshest and sweetest flowering cabbage was picked and brought back for the family to eat.

For this kind of flowering cabbage, once the wok was hot, one only needed to add a little lard and a thin layer of salt. Once stir-fried, it was sweet, tender, without fibrous residue, and full of vegetable flavor. Eaten with rich dishes, it best cut through greasiness.

Ying Kongtu was still a little sleepy when he first sat down to eat. But once he sat down, the food immediately awakened all his senses.

The pan-fried fish liver was truly too delicious. The outside was crisp and fragrant, while the inside was tender and melted with a slight press of the tongue. It had a unique aroma, blooming like dense clouds, incomparably fresh and fragrant.

Ying Kongtu had originally feared that it might be a little fishy, so he had specially used chili rings and garlic shoots to suppress it.

Unexpectedly, the fish liver only had a rich umami fragrance. The chili rings and garlic shoots further added layered aromas, making it rich and delicate.

“It’s even better than I imagined.” Ying Kongtu praised highly. “The only pity is that eating too much of it makes it easy to get tired of.”

“It’s suitable for savoring slowly.”

“Yes, suitable for eating slowly. It’s really delicious. Next time, we can dry the fish liver too. That would also be good.”

As Ying Kongtu spoke, he turned to look at Xian Niao and the others.

Xian Niao and the others clearly liked the fish liver very much too.

Especially Jingwei, who was lying on the ground and eating slowly. Even the tip of its tail showed happiness.

“Try the fish stomach too. It’s also very good,” Wen Zhongshan said to Ying Kongtu.

Ying Kongtu picked up a chopstickful. “I’ve noticed you especially prefer these sour, crisp foods.”

After putting it into his mouth, Ying Kongtu realized that the fish stomach was not purely crisp. It had a wonderfully unusual texture, crisp with a hint of softness. The first bite was crisp, and only after carefully tasting could he detect the soft, glutinous texture underneath.

Because it was fully coated in sauce, the fish stomach was crisp, tender, fresh, and fragrant. Every bite was a double impact of texture and flavor.

Especially since it had just come out of the wok, it was fresh and scalding hot. Ying Kongtu could also taste the unique fragrance of wok hei.

“I’ve found that the flavor of Ai fish is even better than we imagined.” Ying Kongtu said thoughtfully.

“It is very good. Your cooking is also very good. With delicious side ingredients, its taste becomes so astonishing.”

“In that case, we should raise more of them.” Ying Kongtu ate another piece of crisp, delicate fish liver and made up his mind. “We’ll raise more.”

The Ai fish eggs on the mountain numbered in the tens of millions. Although Ying Kongtu had cast the mountain god’s blessing on them and used divine power to keep other birds and beasts from approaching them, more than ninety-nine point something percent of the eggs would still be lost for various reasons.

In the end, the number that could become young fish and grow up, across the entire Ai Lake, was probably only one or two thousand.

If he did not protect them, the most that could grow up from this batch of fish would only be a few hundred.

Wen Zhongshan asked, “Doesn’t what we’re doing now already count as raising more?”

“No.” Ying Kongtu said, “We haven’t left them enough food. Many young fish, even if they successfully avoid predators and survive, will starve to death.”

“Do we need to catch prey for them?”

“Not for now. When they’re still small, eating water plants will be enough. Catching prey will be something for when they grow bigger.”

Ying Kongtu thought for a moment. “Let’s plant another batch of aquatic plants. In the past, there were several more types of aquatic plants down there. Now, they’ve disappeared one after another.”

Although Ai Lake was a snow-mountain lake, since it could have fish and mussels, there had also been many aquatic plants on the lakebed before.

Before Ying Kongtu fell into slumber, there had been at least twenty or thirty types of aquatic plants on the lakebed. Now, only a few remained.

He had always been patrolling mountains and protecting forests, and had not had much energy to care for Ai Lake, so he had not really managed it.

Now that he wanted to raise Ai Lake properly, it was very necessary to work hard to transplant some back.

Ying Kongtu said, “I’ll think of a way and see how to get some good aquatic plants back.”

“What aquatic plants do you need? We should be able to buy them online now.”

“Ordinary ones probably won’t work.” Ying Kongtu explained, “Ai fish can no longer be considered ordinary fish. Ordinary aquatic plants won’t sustain them. Even if they can barely manage, the quality of the Ai fish raised on them won’t be good.”

“Then do you have any idea what aquatic plants to plant?”

“No.”

Ying Kongtu answered extremely straightforwardly.

Wen Zhongshan looked into his eyes. Ying Kongtu originally wanted to act shameless, but in the end he could not hold it in and smiled.

“I really don’t. I didn’t pay much attention to aquatic plants before, and so many years have passed. How could I still remember what aquatic plants there were?”

“Should I ask someone?”

“Let’s check books first. Once I read the materials, I’ll definitely be able to remember something.” Ying Kongtu nudged Wen Zhongshan with his elbow. “Check with me?”

“All right. At my place?”

“Sure, sure. I was just feeling that with Xian Niao and the others around, it’s easy to get distracted when reading at home.”

So after the two finished eating and tidying up, they walked shoulder to shoulder to Wen Zhongshan’s house.

Wen Zhongshan’s house was at the foot of the mountain.

The spring sunlight was just right. Ying Kongtu and he walked along the road and arrived within a few minutes.

Wen Zhongshan’s home was very quiet. When the door was pushed open, there was a faint fragrance inside, a cool and quiet scent, like wind blowing from Ai Mountain, carrying the breath of snowy peaks.

“Changed to a new fragrance?” Ying Kongtu asked.

“Mm. Do you like this scent? If you’re not used to it, I’ll take it outside.”

“No need.” Ying Kongtu smiled. “It smells good. It suits your home very well.”

Ying Kongtu did not dislike coffee, so Wen Zhongshan went to brew coffee and also brought out the snack basket Ying Kongtu had given him.

The small county had relatively few books. The two sat at the long dining table, looking through e-books downloaded online.

The floor-to-ceiling windows were bright and clear. Sunlight spilled into the courtyard. Looking out through the windows, there was a feeling of watching lake water ripple.

The way the wind stirred the newly grown tree buds was also beautiful.

The two slowly flipped through books, first looking for content related to freshwater aquatic plants and algae.

Ying Kongtu did not understand this kind of knowledge. He could not search using keywords, so he could only look at pictures and see if he could find any familiar images.

“Found it.” Ying Kongtu suddenly said. “This kind of aquatic plant used to grow on the lake surface.”

Wen Zhongshan looked at the title. “Bamboo-leaf pondweed?”

“Yes, pondweed. There are many types of pondweed. The pondweed that grew in Ai Lake was somewhat similar to these, but not the same species.”

Ying Kongtu searched for all kinds of pondweed and compared them carefully. “The pondweed in Ai Lake had thinner, longer leaves. Its flower spikes had a little orange in them, very small. Sometimes, at a glance, they looked like dots of starlight on the lake surface.”

Listening to his description, Wen Zhongshan roughly understood what the pondweed in Ai Lake looked like. “Perhaps we should search the Special Management Bureau’s database for content related to pondweed.”

“Can we search it?”

“Yes. If not, we can ask Fu Yuan for help.”

Wen Zhongshan logged into the Special Management Bureau’s database, entered his personal account and password, and slowly searched using keywords.

Most of the Special Management Bureau database was open to registered special-ability individuals.

Ying Kongtu looked through it with him.

The two first searched with keywords. When they really could not find it, they searched for photos related to water areas.

If pondweed grew in the water, it could be seen in photos too.

The two spent several days searching. In the end, however, they did not find the information from books. Instead, Wen Zhongshan edited an image according to Ying Kongtu’s description of the pondweed, posted it on the internal forum, and someone recognized it.

The other person said that their village grew this kind of pondweed and could take photos for them to see.

That afternoon, the two received the photos.

As soon as Ying Kongtu saw the pondweed in the photos, he immediately said, “This is the pondweed! This is the kind of pondweed that used to grow in Ai Lake!”

Unexpectedly, after searching for so long, the clue had actually been provided by someone from the Special Management Bureau.

Ying Kongtu was certain that this was the kind of pondweed that had once grown in Ai Lake!

Now it could be restored!

Author’s Note:

At night, Ying Kongtu saw the furry ones gathered around Wen Zhongshan, so he walked over and called out to them.

The four furry creatures trembled and turned back in unison, looking at him resentfully.

Only then did Ying Kongtu see that the furry creatures had all puffed up in fright. Even Xian Niao had become a whole size rounder.

“They’re listening to ghost stories,” Wen Zhongshan said.

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