Chapter 78: Picking Mountain Raspberries
After the Dragon Boat Festival passed and the dragon boat rain ended, the sky gradually cleared.
The mountain raspberries on the mountain had been nourished by the rain and gradually entered their peak season.
This year, Ying Kongtu had first bought Qianzhongcui Mountain, then obtained a portion of Wen Zhongshan’s divine power, so his own divine power had deepened considerably.
Under the nourishment of divine power, the plants on the mountain all grew very well this year.
Especially all kinds of raspberries from the Rubus genus.
At this time, the raspberries were right in their flowering and fruiting season. After being nourished, their fruits had grown as plentiful as stars and were ripening one after another, giving off an enchanting sweet fragrance.
Because of this, Ying Kongtu’s mountain had become a huge orchard. From far away, one could see the fruits on the mountain and smell the sweet fragrance drifting from it.
There were many wild fruits on his mountain, and they attracted many animals.
The mountain was now extremely lively. No matter when one went up the mountain, one could hear the melodious cries of birds.
Other animals with relatively wide ranges of activity, such as wild boars, wolves, deer, and goats, had also come over. The ecology on his mountain had improved quite a bit again.
The animals ate the mountain fruits happily, and the furry ones in Ying Kongtu’s family ate them too.
Thanks to the little mountain god’s identity, they could always find the best-growing mountain fruits.
Seeing that Tiaozhu and the others all liked eating mountain fruits, Ying Kongtu specially used divine power to save the biggest and best fruits for them.
On Friday, he and Wen Zhongshan took the furry ones to pick mountain raspberries.
Right now, all kinds of raspberries were ripe, and the ones growing best were the mountain raspberries.
This year, the weather had been favorable, with ample mist and rain. The mountain raspberries had grown extremely large, some even the size of nearly half a palm.
They were big, sweet, and soft, carrying a rich fruity fragrance. They grew in clusters on the branches, and at a glance, they looked like red rubies dotted among green leaves.
“Let’s pick this patch of mountain raspberries today.” Ying Kongtu had the furry ones carry baskets in their mouths and split up to pick them. “No fighting.”
“Meow-ao!”
“Awoo!”
“Kiki!”
As soon as Ying Kongtu finished speaking, Tiaozhu and the others carried their baskets and ran toward the places with the most mountain raspberries.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan also found a spot, put down their baskets, and began slowly picking mountain raspberries.
Ying Kongtu picked one mountain raspberry and placed it in his palm, sighing. “It’s much bigger than last year’s.”
“That’s your credit.”
“It should be our credit.” Ying Kongtu looked at Wen Zhongshan. “Actually, aside from the divine power, I feel like the fertilizer made from the lake mud we dredged up last winter also played quite a big role.”
“Maybe.” Wen Zhongshan picked one and tasted it. “So sweet. Purely sweet, with no sourness.”
“Mountain raspberries ripened on the branch are like this. These few will taste even better.”
A mountain god could always find the tastiest portion among mountain fruits and wild vegetables. The mountain raspberries he picked were also especially large, fragrant, and sweet, juicy and tender, tastier than most of the mountain raspberries on the branches.
Ying Kongtu picked one of them and held it to Wen Zhongshan’s lips, signaling for him to taste it. “How is it?”
Wen Zhongshan said, “This is the most fragrant, sweetest, most delicious mountain raspberry I’ve ever eaten.”
Ying Kongtu also tasted one. “Mountain raspberries should be eaten on the mountain. If they’re left for even a short while, their color, aroma, and flavor will all suffer.”
“When I used to be in the mountains, I would occasionally eat raspberries too. Most of those raspberries were sweet and sour, relatively small, and grew among thorny bushes. They weren’t easy to pick, so I didn’t really like picking them.”
“This patch of mountain raspberries is different. They’re quite large, not hard to pick, and they taste very satisfying.” Ying Kongtu picked another mountain raspberry and brought it to Wen Zhongshan’s lips. “The fragrance of this patch over here might be a little different. Want to try it?”
“It really is. They’re from the same patch, so why is there this kind of difference?”
“The sunlight, rain and dew, soil, and surrounding microorganisms are all a little different.”
Ying Kongtu picked mountain raspberries with various flavors, aromas, and degrees of sweetness and sourness from the branches for Wen Zhongshan to taste, and he ate some himself too.
As they continued tasting, when Ying Kongtu picked another mountain raspberry and passed it backward, a muzzle squeezed between them.
Ying Kongtu looked down and met Jingwei’s gaze. It was grinning up at him.
“Awoo.” Jingwei gave a soft cry. Seeing that Ying Kongtu did not seem to object, it lifted its head and took away the delicious mountain raspberry between his fingers, even licking his fingers.
Looking at Jingwei’s bright eyes, Ying Kongtu found it funny and casually stuffed two more into its mouth.
“Mi.” Dart squeezed over, forcibly pushing open a gap between them. It stood only on its hind legs, its two front paws resting on Ying Kongtu’s wrist, indicating that it wanted some too. “Mi.”
Ying Kongtu treated everyone equally and also fed it two mountain raspberries.
Now all the furry ones came over to line up.
Ying Kongtu had no choice but to balance things again, finding the tastiest portions of mountain raspberries on the branches and stuffing two into each of their mouths.
Ying Kongtu’s hand was soon licked into a complete mess. He wanted to wash his hands, but he never found the chance.
Later, Tiaozhu and Shuangzhong began fighting over them.
The two were evenly matched. Ying Kongtu was squeezed between them, and his clothes became stained with mountain raspberry juice. His whole body was filled with the scent of mountain raspberries.
“All right.” Ying Kongtu pushed Tiaozhu and Shuangzhong away. “No more grabbing. I’ll make mountain raspberry skewers for you. One skewer each. There won’t be any extra.”
Tiaozhu and Shuangzhong looked at each other and moved away to either side.
Ying Kongtu went to the mountain stream to wash his hands, then picked some grass stems and returned to string mountain raspberries for the furry ones.
He tied a knot at the bottom of a grass stem and strung the picked mountain raspberries onto it. The bright red berries formed a long skewer, just like candied hawthorns.
These berry skewers looked very fun and were also very delicious.
Ying Kongtu asked Wen Zhongshan to help hold them. He deliberately counted them, making sure the size and number of mountain raspberries on each skewer were the same before dividing them among the furry ones and letting them go play off to the side.
Mountain raspberries could not be pressed down, so Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan had specially brought large baskets and spread the mountain raspberries in shallow layers.
These two baskets of mountain raspberries could be brought home.
As for the mountain raspberries picked by the furry ones, those were covered in their saliva, so they could only enjoy them themselves.
Recently, the mountain raspberries were in their peak season.
Ying Kongtu picked some and put them in the freezer to freeze, then made several jars of jam.
There were still many mountain raspberries on the mountain, and most of them were the very tasty kind.
Ying Kongtu looked at them until his heart itched, then said, “How about we make some mountain raspberry vinegar?”
“Mountain raspberries can be made into vinegar too?”
“Of course. After they’re made into vinegar, the fragrance is still very strong, and the flavor is quite good. I used to brew persimmon vinegar more often. When I encountered a good year, I would also brew some mountain raspberry vinegar.”
It was rare for Ying Kongtu to want to brew some vinegar, so the next day, he dragged Wen Zhongshan along to pick two large baskets of mountain raspberries.
The ripeness of these two large baskets of mountain raspberries was just right. Sitting in the baskets, they smelled both fragrant and sweet.
Ying Kongtu simply rinsed them twice with well water, then took out bamboo trays. Together with Wen Zhongshan, he spread the mountain raspberries flat across the bamboo trays.
The moisture on the mountain raspberries had to be dried before they could proceed to the next step.
Ying Kongtu brought over two large glass sealed jars. After washing them clean and disinfecting them, he and Wen Zhongshan began brewing vinegar.
The process of brewing fruit vinegar was very simple. They only needed to use a wooden pestle to mash the mountain raspberries, add enough rock sugar, and then place them somewhere cool to ferment.
Under the action of acetic acid bacteria, these mountain raspberries would slowly turn sour until they completely fermented into fruit vinegar.
The mashed mountain raspberries looked very beautiful inside the glass jars.
Tiaozhu and the others were all very curious.
Ying Kongtu had originally wanted to let them ferment in the living room, but seeing them like this, he decided not to tempt them. In the end, he moved the mountain raspberries up to the attic to ferment.
As long as they fermented somewhere cool and well-ventilated, and someone stirred them from time to time, they would ferment well. There was no need to keep them right under one’s eyes every day.
Ying Kongtu developed all kinds of ways to eat mountain raspberries. He even tried making mountain raspberry milk tea for Tiaozhu and the others.
He used a little goat milk as the base, added mountain raspberry jam, frozen mountain raspberries, freeze-dried berries, meat floss powder, and whipped cream. That became their favorite fruit tea.
Served in open-mouthed cups, they could drink it slowly, taking half a day to finish.
It was inconvenient for Shuangzhong to drink directly, so Ying Kongtu specially made it special versions: mountain raspberry cubes, freeze-dried cubes, and meat floss cubes, so it could hold them in its beak and eat them. It was very satisfied too.
After Ying Kongtu finished making them, he gave each of them a cup.
They lay in a row along the corridor, occasionally licking a mouthful of fruit tea and fishing out the toppings inside to eat. They looked extremely comfortable.
The berries this year had grown far too well.
Wen Zhongshan asked, “Should we pick some to sell?”
“Selling them would be too troublesome. There are so many thorns, so they actually aren’t that easy to pick.” Ying Kongtu hesitated. “And once picked, they’re hard to preserve. They spoil too easily.”
Ying Kongtu thought about it and also felt that letting mountain raspberries cover the mountains and fields like this was a waste.
The wild animals could not eat that many. Most of the mountain raspberries would fall from the branches and eventually rot back into the soil.
Not only mountain raspberries—next, there would be all kinds of raspberries and other wild fruits too.
If they were all wasted, it would be too much of a pity.
Ying Kongtu said, “I’m thinking, why don’t we raise another batch of pigs this year? The pigs we raised on the mountain last year were pretty good.”
The animals on the mountain all had their own territories and could reject animals of the same kind.
Last year, after they raised more pigs on the mountain, there were fewer wild boars. More than half of Wuchuan Mountain became the territory of their domestic pigs.
The domestic pigs ate all kinds of wild vegetables and fruits on the mountain. After more than a year of being raised, they were now half-grown and would reach slaughtering standards this winter.
Last year, Ying Kongtu’s divine power had still been relatively weak, yet he had still been able to free-range so many pigs.
Now that his divine power was stronger, raising more pigs would definitely be no problem.
Ying Kongtu said, “I want to raise a few breeding pigs. Three sows and one boar should be fine. We’ll raise them on Qingfang Mountain. When the time comes, we can breed the pigs ourselves, and the quality of the pigs will also be better.”
“Will we be too busy?”
“It shouldn’t be a big problem. The pigs on Wuchuan Mountain no longer need to be fed. We only occasionally put out a little grain for them, and they can find food on their own. We can just move the time and energy we used for feeding pigs onto the newly raised pigs.”
Ying Kongtu clearly had this idea for a while.
Wen Zhongshan said, “Shall we find a time to buy piglets? Should we start raising breeding pigs from piglets, or raise adult pigs directly?”
“Piglets. If we start from piglets, the quality will be better.” Ying Kongtu pondered. “I’m also thinking, why don’t we directly raise a pig breed suited to extensive free-range raising?”
The two looked at each other.
Wen Zhongshan roughly understood what he meant. “You mean pigs like Iberian black pigs or cattle pigs?”
“Right, pigs like that. The pigs we bought last year were just ordinary pigs bought from the market. They’re actually domestic pigs. Although they were raised on the mountain and received some nourishment from divine power, the breed itself isn’t very good. They’re rather delicate and more troublesome to raise.”
Ying Kongtu said, “I looked up some information. There are quite a few pig breeds abroad that were specially bred for grazing. If they’re released into forests, they can find food on their own. They’re more suitable for our situation.”
They did not intend to raise pigs for sale.
Rough-fed free-range pigs that could graze did grow relatively slowly, but they were very hardy and did not require much care from them.
Ying Kongtu only needed to register the piglets, limit their range of activity, and make sure they would not go down the mountain or get lost.
Wen Zhongshan said, “I think that works.”
Ying Kongtu said, “The difficult part now is how we can buy high-quality piglets. I took a look, and trying to import piglets from abroad—especially breeding pigs—is quite difficult.”
Author’s Note:
Wen Zhongshan likes Shuangzhong very much. Whenever he sees Shuangzhong, he always stretches out his hand, lets it stand on him, and then feeds it jerky.
After being trained like this for a while, whenever Shuangzhong circles in the sky, it flies toward Wen Zhongshan.
Wen Zhongshan also stretches out his hand every time to serve as an eagle perch for it.
Until one time, Shuangzhong landed on Wen Zhongshan’s arm as usual, but did not get any jerky.
It tilted its head and looked at Wen Zhongshan, then looked toward Ying Kongtu, confusion showing in its eyes: Kikike?
Why, after training him for so long, does he still not know that when I land on his arm, he has to give me snacks?
Human, you’re a little dumb.
