Seven Days Later
Deep in the forest.
The broadleaf trees were lush and full, and although it had been around thirty degrees these past few days, the mountain forest still held a coolness.
Jiang Heng weaved through the undergrowth, a burlap sack in her hand already more than half full.
Her bright eyes scanned through the withered grass and twigs.
After so many days of gathering, she could quickly spot the mushrooms she needed—for instance, at this moment, she caught sight of several clusters of Termitomyces.
About two meters away, there was a small patch of Pine Mushrooms, which with a little encouragement from her could soon become a whole area.
Jiang Heng hurried over, gently grasping the stem of a Termitomyces.
The soil beneath softened automatically, and with a slight pull, she harvested a single Termitomyces, then the second, the third…
Afterward, she moved on to pick the Pine Mushrooms.
As the temperature rose, more mushrooms appeared. Previously, filling a burlap sack meant trekking over one or two mountain ridges. Now, she barely crossed one ridge before filling a sack.
At most, in another week, mushrooms would flood the market, and competitors would surely emerge.
But Jiang Heng had no intention of lowering her prices.
Once this batch was harvested, the vegetables in her fields would begin to be harvested one after another.
Mushroom yields would decrease then, making things easier. She wouldn’t need to go to the mountains so frequently and could occasionally gather mushrooms to dry and sell slowly.
Of course, today was still a busy day.
Song Ming’s colleagues needed quite a lot of mushrooms!
Because of the hard work in the past few days, the mushrooms Ye Sui needed were already dried.
Today, Jiang Heng came with another purpose: Ye Sui had collected six thousand yuan, saying she could add some hometown specialties however she wished.
Specialties—Jiang Heng was truly at a loss for a moment.
Though their area was rich in mountains and water, the geography meant there was nothing particularly rare.
If it was too cheap, she felt embarrassed to offer it.
She also understood that Ye Sui’s generous offer wasn’t simply to buy mushrooms; she probably wanted to help. So Jiang Heng tried to bring out something better, hoping to surprise this wealthy woman.
Just yesterday, while gathering mushrooms, she had encountered a few bees collecting honey.
This patch of forest, nurtured by Spiritual Rain, had plants growing much faster than before.
There were many blooming flowers in full splendor, and the number of bees seemed to have increased as well.
Suddenly, Jiang Heng thought of honey.
Nothing better could represent the characteristics of this forest’s produce.
These were truly fine things.
So today, Jiang Heng deliberately brought a plastic bag—just to collect honey.
When her burlap sack was over half full, she observed carefully. Most of the bees in the targeted beehive had gone out collecting nectar. Without hesitation, she quickly got to work.
No need to climb carefully—she cut straight through with a water blade.
The large beehive hanging from the treetop was cut open with a small slice from the water blade.
Then another blade cut from bottom to top, severing the connection between the branch and the hive, causing the hive to fall swiftly.
Jiang Heng opened the plastic bag and caught the hive steadily.
She didn’t take too much, just about half a jin (approximately 250 grams).
It wouldn’t affect this group of wild bees much.
After packing the bag, Jiang Heng lifted the burlap sack and quickly left the scene. When the bees returned, they wouldn’t notice the honey was gone.
She had only walked a few steps when she noticed a familiar Yellow-throated Marten.
The little creature was perched on a branch blocking her path, tilting its head and staring at her. Then its eyes shifted toward the beehive behind her.
Jiang Heng thought, “It seems like honey is another favorite food of the Yellow-throated Marten?”
These past few days, the marten had been showing up frequently, either to latch onto her or to ‘repay kindness.’ It hadn’t helped her pick mushrooms, probably afraid of getting beaten? Cough.
But it often helped watch her burlap sacks. Since yesterday, Jiang Heng had been using four sacks, and this single marten couldn’t handle it all—so it even called friends to help.
Heaven knows when Jiang Heng returned with the first sack and then instantly appeared at the second and third, the Yellow-throated Marten was still there. She almost thought it could teleport too!
After all, wild animals mostly look alike to humans, so it’s normal to sometimes fail to distinguish them.
Seeing it again now, Jiang Heng felt no annoyance.
She quietly broke off a palm-sized piece of honey and tossed it to the marten, whispering, “Don’t tell anyone!”
Consider it payment for the past few days.
The marten, startled by the flying object, relaxed when the honey piece landed nearby, emitting a familiar sweet aroma. Its glossy black eyes immediately brightened, and with a nimble leap, it pounced and grabbed the honey.
Jiang Heng took the chance to slip away, moving on to the next forest patch.
Repeating the same process—picking mushrooms and harvesting honey—Jiang Heng managed to ‘raze’ every beehive within her Spiritual Rain-nurtured area, gathering about four jin (around two kilograms) of honey that morning.
Though this weight included the hive material, it still needed filtering to get pure honey.
Returning fully loaded, Jiang Heng carried four burlap sacks.
Having watched her masters build houses recently, she realized the carrying pole was very handy. With a pole and two hooks, she could carry four sacks at once.
She wondered why she hadn’t thought of this before!
Fresh mushrooms were quite heavy, but balanced on her shoulders, it felt light as a feather.
As usual, she used Shrinking Earth to travel from the mountain forest to its edge, then leisurely walked out.
This whole area was still fallow. It wasn’t until near the village that some scattered fields were cultivated by other families.
Closer still, Jiang Heng saw her own land, where a group of people were working vigorously.
The chicken coop, duck coop, pigsty, and sheep pen were all progressing rapidly thanks to everyone’s help.
The chicken coop was already at the stage of laying tiles.
Large red tiles were carried up one by one, with three craftsmen placing them steadily. The roof was almost complete.
Inside the chicken and duck coops, Jiang Heng planned to install some shelves so the poultry could perch and rest instead of all squatting on the ground, which easily caused rheumatism (not really).
Also, the activity areas for all her fields and livestock would be separately fenced with nets.
Her pond had been leased out and would also be fenced, with a small shed built nearby.
Compared to the rest, these were minor projects.
The veteran craftsmen had been well-fed and well-hydrated over the past two days. Despite the blazing sun, they seemed even more energetic than when they first arrived, so the work was moving faster than Jiang Heng expected.
The main structures of the chicken and duck coops were built first. To make management easier, the interiors were laid very flat. Once the shelves were installed, they could bring in the chicks and ducklings to start feeding.
Jiang Heng looked on eagerly, her steps light as she returned home.
Opening the courtyard gate, the grown caramel and pudding dogs clung to her.
No matter how many times, the dogs greeted her enthusiastically, refusing to stop rubbing against her, whining nonstop.
Jiang Heng could only slowly bring these two mischievous dogs to the cemented yard, set down the carrying pole, and unload the mushrooms.
The yard already had five drying racks, each holding three large bamboo trays.
On the trays lay a variety of mushrooms, spread evenly.
Jiang Heng checked the mushrooms; they had just been flipped over.
She instructed Da Boiniang to help turn them every one or two hours when she wasn’t home, so Jiang Heng wouldn’t have to keep coming back.
Da Boiniang readily agreed. She would also come to help in the afternoon when Jiang Heng was home, worried that she might forget.
Jiang Heng habitually rubbed the spoiled dogs, calming them before picking up the heavy bag of honey and heading to the kitchen.
Everything else could wait—first, she had to process the honey. She… was craving it.
This was pure wild honey.
And it was made from nectar collected after the Spiritual Rain had watered the flowers.
It had to be delicious!
However, Jiang Heng had never processed this before and had to look up the method. Step by step, she filtered out the clearest honey according to the tutorial.
Fortunately, the glass jars she ordered arrived yesterday and were already cleaned.
Watching the thick yellow honey drip slowly through the fine cloth into the jar, Jiang Heng felt an inexplicable sense of relaxation.
It was so smooth and pleasant.
When all the honey was filtered, she ended up with just over two jin (about one kilogram).
It sounded like a lot, but the chubby glass jar was only half full.
Jiang Heng made herself a cup first. The boiled water was specially cooled by magic, then mixed with a spoonful of honey and stirred. The thick honey dissolved completely.
She took a sip.
The first taste was sweet.
Different from the pure sweetness of Mulberry Juice, yet not as cloying as sugar water—more natural and lasting, with a faint tartness adding layers to the flavor.
As she drank, a delicate floral aroma tickled her nose.
She heard that honey made by bees collecting from specific flowers had distinctive floral scents—for example, locust flower honey smelled strongly of locust blossoms.
The honey Jiang Heng had wasn’t from such specialized flowers; the bees foraged whatever was blooming in this large forest.
But that didn’t affect its pure, natural sweet flavor.
Especially since it contained traces of Spiritual Energy—the bees collected nectar from flowers nurtured by Spiritual Rain, so the honey itself carried spiritual energy.
Jiang Heng took several more sips before setting the cup down.
Satisfied, she went back to work.
She took out several small glass bottles and filled them one by one. Each bottle could hold about 150 grams, but she only filled them about 70-80%.
That was about 80 grams per bottle.
After filling eight small bottles, only about 90 grams remained in the jar.
She reserved these three taels (around 150 grams) for herself.
The eight portions were divided: one for Ye Sui, one for Da Boiniang, one for her Cousin, one for Uncle, one for Uncle’s Son, and the other two for neighbors who helped her with the work.
She also kept a separate portion of dried mushrooms to send along with the honey to her maternal Uncle.
After capping the jars, Jiang Heng set them aside.
When the deliveries were sent, she would bring everything to the courier point together to send to her Uncle and Ye Sui.
She then headed to the backyard. The water buckets had been converted into aquatic tanks, now half-filled with water.
In the bigger and wider tanks, many fish and shrimp swam.
There were eight tanks in total—four with Small Dragon Shrimp and four with fish.
It really felt like a fishmonger’s place!
These were caught yesterday. The pond was leased out, so the larger creatures needed to be cleared out as much as possible—big fish and big shrimp had to be caught.
Otherwise, when the young fish were stocked, losses would be significant.
So she used the four traps she bought, baited with leftover fish entrails from caramel and pudding dogs.
The next morning, she caught all these!
She had returned many small fish and shrimp to the water.
Taking photos of the fish, shrimp, and mushrooms she planned to sell, Jiang Heng posted them in her newly created Order Group:
[Jiang Heng: If you need anything, you can pre-order. Deliveries available for orders over 500 yuan. Stall opens at 5:30 PM, or come buy directly.]
She also posted the prices:
[Torch Termitomyces, 200 yuan/jin (stock: 23 jin)
Bud Termitomyces, 260 yuan/jin (stock: 11 jin)
Boletus, 180…]
Immediately, the small group of just over thirty people started buzzing with notifications:
[Boundless Sky: Oh wow! Small Dragon Shrimp!]
[Boundless Sky: Boss, your shrimp are huge! Can I fish for them?]
Jiang Heng: ?
Song Ming’s fishing dad really couldn’t resist fishing wherever there was water.
She smiled wryly and politely declined. Other customers also expressed admiration:
[Boss Ge: These are huge! Want to buy, boss, I’ll order from you.]
[Tranquil Years: That’s a big one. Too bad my daughter’s still in postpartum confinement. I’ll just buy fish.]
[Little Fatty’s Grandpa: Sister Gao, your daughter’s not out of confinement yet?]
[Tranquil Years: She has to stay indoors for two full months. But she looks much better than before. Her face was so pale just after birth. If she wasn’t so hot, I’d have her rest for three months…]
The customers chatted, but orders weren’t made in the group—they were private messages, so it didn’t matter.
The group was mainly so regulars could know when Jiang Heng’s stall would open, to avoid missing out.
She only went every other day, and the group had just been created three or four days ago, so only about thirty regulars had joined.
After leaving the group, Jiang Heng saw many private order messages. Boss Ge had bought the usual Termitomyces, Mulberries, plus a fish and two jin of Small Dragon Shrimp.
Other bosses had also ordered small amounts, probably to try the goods first.
After replying, it was time to cook. Jiang Heng heard Chen Aying calling them for lunch outside.
Just as she was about to cook, someone entered, and she hurried out to check.
Chen Aying came in with her Uncle, Jiang Da Qiu.
Jiang Da Qiu looked very much like Father Jiang Erqiu, both handsome in their youth despite the deep lines and darkened skin from years of hard outdoor work.
Their personalities were similarly blunt and awkward. Jiang Heng’s mother often said Jiang Heng must have inherited the Jiang family’s taciturn nature, worrying how she’d manage in society.
On the second day of construction, Da Boiniang returned.
Jiang Heng wanted him to rest more, but he refused. He came back in the morning, then changed into work clothes that afternoon to help carry bricks and mix cement, working energetically.
Jiang Heng wanted to persuade him but was stopped by Jiang Peng, who calmly said, “It’s fine. If he wants to work, let him. He’s happy helping you.”
Jiang Heng could only pick some extra Mulberries every day to make Mulberry Juice for them.
The juice made from Spirit-infused Mulberries was good for the body.
Seeing the two enter together, Jiang Heng was surprised: “Da Boiniang, what brings you here?”
Jiang Da Qiu looked shy: “Your mushrooms are really tasty…”
Chen Aying rolled her eyes and explained, “Your uncle wants your mushrooms. We’ve been feeding him well these days. I specially saved a jar of mushroom meat sauce, but he finished it in three days. Xiao Heng, take some mushrooms for me to make more sauce to bring to the construction site.”
Jiang Heng suddenly understood and nodded quickly, “Sure.”
She smiled and said, “Da Boiniang, you could’ve just said so. No need to be shy. All picked from the mountains, free of charge.”
While saying this, she already reached for a bag. “These are fresh mushrooms, the tastiest now.”
Jiang Da Qiu chuckled awkwardly, “I thought you were trying to sell them. Mushrooms are free, but you still have to climb the mountains to pick them. I heard you sell them at a good price.”
Since Jiang Heng began selling mushrooms, the family had never run out. She delivered some every two days, but Chen Aying kept most for her daughter Xiao Xiao, who loved mushrooms and was stingy to share.
So only one jar of mushroom meat sauce was left, eaten sparingly when craving struck.
But after Jiang Da Qiu returned, he finished it in three days, despite having good meals every day. Chen Aying was puzzled and asked.
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