Yufang slept a wonderfully sweet sleep, her mood so uplifted that even her dreams tasted like sugar.
Early the next morning, she got up to prepare breakfast for the family.
She diluted white flour with water into a batter, stirred in a small pinch of salt, and washed a handful of dandelion leaves to set aside.
Then she built a fire, set up the pot, and poured the remaining half-pot of vegetable oil straight into it.
When the oil reached about seventy or eighty percent heat, she wrapped the dandelion leaves layer by layer in batter and carefully dropped them into the sizzling oil to fry.
One piece, two pieces—she made well over twenty of these fried leaf pancakes, until the batter was completely used up.
After setting them on the table, she followed her usual routine, first handing a plate of pancakes to Xia Huai'an, and then to Mother Xia.
Xiaomao had been waiting impatiently for a long time. Seeing that her eldest brother and mother had both received their pancakes, she immediately reached out on her own accord, grabbing one in each hand and stuffing them straight into her mouth.
"Mwah… too hot… mwah… so delicious!" Xiaomao looked just like a greedy little cat.
"You girl Yufang, frying up so many pancakes, you must have used up all the oil in the house!" Mother Xia scolded affectionately before picking up a pancake and taking a bite. Her face instantly broke into a smile. "Your cooking skills aren't bad at all!"
Xia Huai'an smiled and took a bite as well.
Upon entering the mouth, it was salty, savory, and crispy, offering both the deep satisfaction of high calories and the fresh fragrance of wild greens, while the saltiness in the middle served as the finishing touch, infusing this delicacy with an indispensable soul.
Without a doubt, this was the best meal he had eaten since crossing over.
Even if these fried vegetable pancakes were sold at a roadside stall in the Dragon Kingdom, they would probably become an internet-famous snack, drawing countless people to wait in line.
Xiaomao devoured all four pancakes in less than three minutes. Still unsatisfied, she looked with eager, pleading eyes at Xia Huai'an's plate.
Xia Huai'an chuckled and pushed his plate toward Xiaomao. "Xiaomao is growing, so she should eat two more! Yufang, make more from now on—let's eat our fill every single meal."
Mother Xia hastily objected, "No, no! It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality! Life is already good enough now, just like a landlord's family. If we squander food like this every day, how will we endure hard times if they come back?"
Xia Huai'an replied, "My build is large and I have a big appetite, Mother's health isn't good, Xiaomao is growing, and Yufang is way too thin. All of us need to eat our fill so we can slowly nurse our bodies back to health."
"Especially Yufang—didn't you want the two of us to get married sooner, Mother? Look at how thin Yufang is; she couldn't possibly handle me tossing her around. Let's fatten her up a bit first."
Hearing this, Yufang's face turned beet red. Blushing deeply, she turned away, her body trembling slightly as she didn't dare look at Xia Huai'an.
Mother Xia spat out, "Damao, how on earth do you have the nerve to say things like that right to her face! Yufang is still an unmarried maiden—how is she supposed to listen to such wild, brazen talk! And Xiaomao isn't that young anymore, she's starting to understand things. Mind your language from now on."
Xia Huai'an thought to himself that people in ancient times really couldn't take a joke. If the remarks he just made were in the Dragon Kingdom, they wouldn't even count as anything. Let alone men, whether it was unmarried young maidens or young wives who already had children, the dirty jokes they could spout would knock you right out of the park.
Xia Huai'an nodded. "All right, I'll mind my tongue from now on. But don't skimp on the food. Life is going to get better and better, and there will be more grain than we could ever finish eating. There's no need to make ourselves suffer for no reason."
Mother Xia hesitated for a moment before saying, "Fine! You should be the master of this household anyway. Do as you see fit. But just make a little less for my portion."
Xiaomao jumped up with joy. "That's wonderful! Sister-in-law, I want to eat fried vegetable pancakes for lunch too—I want ten!"
Mother Xia scolded, "You little minx running your mouth off, aren't you afraid of eating yourself to death! With an appetite like that, let's see which family will ever dare to marry you!"
After finishing his meal, Xia Huai'an went over to take a look at the greenhouse, and then checked on the fodder in the warm room. Everything was normal.
He picked up his dagger and rope, and said to Yufang, "I'm going to chop some firewood. Take some salt and quietly trade it with the aunts in the village for some fodder. Salt is in short supply across the village right now, so it won't be hard to trade."
"However, make sure you don't trade too much—just one, two, or three qian per household. If they ask for more salt, just tell them our family doesn't have much left either. If they ask where the salt came from, tell them I had someone pull strings to buy it in another county."
"Warn them that if they want to trade for salt again in the future, they mustn't tell anyone else, because every single household in the village is short on salt. If they blab, they can forget about trading for salt ever again."
Smuggling salt was a major crime, but peddling tiny amounts like a few pounds generally went unpunished. Even if someone wanted to investigate, it would be difficult; after all, the salt grains didn't bear any writing, and unless there was a huge difference in quality, it was impossible to tell which was private salt and which was government salt.
The salt Xia Huai'an refined was also coarse salt, and its quality was quite similar to official salt—except that some official salt was adulterated with sand and impurities, whereas Xia Huai'an's salt was the genuine article.
Once straw mushroom cultivation got on the right track, the demand for fodder would be huge. Dry rice straw made ideal fodder, and since the Xia family's supply of dry rice straw was completely used up, they needed to acquire some from the villagers and stockpile it for future use.
To the villagers, dry rice straw was merely used to start fires and burn for firewood, so being able to trade it for scarce and precious salt was naturally something they wished for above all else! Thus, even a mere liang of salt could easily be traded for several piculs of dry rice straw.
When Xia Huai'an returned to the Xia Family carrying a bundle of firewood, he discovered that a hayrick taller than a man had already been piled up in a corner of the courtyard.
"Big Uncle, we traded for nearly a thousand catties of dry hay. Is that enough?" asked Yufang, who was currently using palm leaves to make a waterproof cover for the hayrick.
"It's enough for now. How much salt did we trade away?" Xia Huai'an asked.
"A little under a catty in total," Yufang said. "The aunts were so happy; they grabbed my hands and said this salt could save lives. I wanted to give them a bit more salt, but remembering Big Uncle's instructions, I didn't dare give them extra."
Xia Huai'an nodded, put down the firewood, drank a bowl of water, and went back out to chop more wood.
He planned to stock up on plenty of firewood today and take a trip up into the mountains tomorrow.
He had made quite a few preparations for living alone on a deserted island, including how to build traps and hunt in the forests. Even though food and lodging were no longer a worry for him now, he still wanted to test whether he could handle a wilderness survival challenge. Having lived in a big city his entire life, he was still very much interested in going into the mountains to hunt.
The weather was still quite cold, but after a while, when the weather warmed up, hibernating snakes and bears would come out of their dens, making it extremely dangerous to go up into the mountains.
He was especially terrified of venomous snakes; the antibiotics he brought with him were completely useless against snake venom.
Therefore, he needed to hurry and take a trip into the mountains while the weather hadn't warmed up yet, as opportunities to venture deep into the mountains would be scarce later on.
Having a man in the house made a big difference—in just a single day, the woodshed was packed to the brim.
Yufang wanted to help chop firewood, but Xia Huai'an didn't allow it, telling her to look after the straw mushroom greenhouse, boil water, and cook instead. Yufang couldn't sit idle, however, and neatly stacked up all the firewood Xia Huai'an had chopped and brought back.
Early the next morning, Xia Huai'an packed his backpack and prepared to head up the mountain.
After giving Yufang a rundown of instructions, she didn't insist on accompanying him this time. For one thing, the greenhouse and the warm room at home both needed someone to look after them, and for another, after getting along over the past few days, she probably figured that Xia Huai'an wouldn't just up and run away like that.
Holding a hiking staff, Xia Huai'an walked with a brisk pace. He crossed the nearest patch of woodland, stepped across a stream by treading on stones, passed through a grove of bamboo, and caught sight of towering, majestic mountains rising before him.
This was the deep mountain region, a place where few human footprints were ever seen. Of course Xia Huai'an didn't have the capacity to explore so many mountains one by one, so today he would have to start with the closest one.
Using both hands and feet, he grabbed tree branches and scaled rocks, carefully making his way up the mountain.
Underfoot lay either years of accumulated, rotting leaf litter or damp, slippery moss, and a centipede or some other venomous bug could crawl out at any moment.
However, his trouser legs were tightly bound at the ankles, and his thick-soled hiking boots were extremely sturdy; if he encountered any poisonous insects, he could simply crush them underfoot without a second thought.
His hands were protected by gloves, and as long as he was careful, injuries weren't likely.
Along the way, he spotted quite a few traces left behind by animals.
For instance, small pits scattered across the ground were clearly footprints left by passing creatures, though having been made long ago, he couldn't tell what kind of animal they belonged to.
There were also droppings, branches that had been pushed down or broken, and marks left on the moss—all of which indicated that this deep mountain harbored plenty of wildlife, including no shortage of large animals.
After all, Xia Huai'an was only an amateur survival enthusiast; he couldn't deduce more specific information from these superficial clues.
After climbing for over two hours, Xia Huai'an arrived at a pine forest where the terrain was relatively flat. This spot wasn't even halfway up the mountain—the mountain was simply too massive!
There were plenty of pinecones on the ground, and most of the pine nuts were still inside; it seemed there weren't many squirrels here, otherwise those pine nuts would have been eaten up long ago.
Xia Huai'an gathered pine nuts, filling his stainless steel pot, and quickly collected half a potful.
For a trip into the mountains, this harvest was rather meager and hardly worth the effort; judging by the physical energy expended, it wasn't even cost-effective.
Still, it was the best he could do. The hour was getting late, and if he didn't start the journey back soon, he might not make it home before sunset.
Xia Huai'an continued searching for pine nuts, intending to fill his container before leaving. At that moment, he noticed patches of soil beneath some of the pine trees that showed obvious signs of having been dug up.
It looked as though something had been rooting around for objects buried underneath.
From the chaotic, churned-up traces, it was most likely not a human, but an animal.
Xia Huai'an's heart stirred. He observed carefully and found a few distinct footprints.
Wild boar footprints!
Wild boars, pine trees, and churned-up earth. Bringing these clues together immediately reminded Xia Huai'an of a certain type of fungus.
"Pig-rooting fungus!"
This was what the ancients of the Dragon Kingdom called it, while in modern times, Westerners referred to it as the "black truffle."
Wild black truffles had no recorded history of being eaten in the Dragon Kingdom; historical texts merely recorded that wild boars liked to root up the soil to eat the fungi growing symbiotically on the roots of pine trees deep underground, dubbing them pig-rooting fungus.
In the West, however, black truffles were regarded as an extremely rare and premium delicacy.
Interestingly, Westerners also raised pigs to hunt for black truffles. Black truffles grew deep underground and were extremely difficult to find, whereas pigs were exceptionally sensitive to the scent of black truffles and could sniff them out from beneath the ground.
Black truffles possessed a strong, rotting odor that smelled quite unpleasant, which was likely why the people of the Dragon Kingdom—who ate virtually every edible ingredient under the sun—never developed their culinary value.
Who could have imagined that something the Dragon Kingdom treated as mere pig feed was regarded in the West as an exquisite luxury fit only for kings and nobles, with a price per gram rivaling gold!
Xia Huai'an didn't care much about black truffles, but he had a huge interest in wild boars!
Having crossed over for so many days, he hadn't eaten meat even once!
He certainly wouldn't dare hunt a large wild animal like a wild boar head-on; doing that would be playing with his life.
However, if he could find black truffles and use them as bait to set up traps, waiting for a wild boar to walk right into his snare—such a low-risk venture was definitely worth a try!