Chapter 24: Rapeseed Plant
The wild lettuce is nearly two meters high, like a small tree, very conspicuous in the half-person tall weeds, and it can be seen from a distance.
Although this season is still called summer by the Black Panther tribe, it is the season when most fruits are ripe and ready to be harvested. The leaves of the wild lettuce had grown a bit old, but Luo Zhen didn’t want to waste this kind of wild vegetable that he finally found. When picking it, he picked it up one by one along the bottom leaves of the root, because the leaves that grew could be consumed for a few days and only about one-third of it had been picked. Now some new leaves have grown at the top, close to flowering and seeding.
Luo Zhen stood next to the wild lettuce and looked up. The flowers on the top had already faded. He needed to step on his feet to slightly break off the upper pole to get to the place where the seeds were set up.
Luo Zhen has no personal experience in planting vegetables. Even the flowers raised at home are packets of seeds bought online. He does not know how much the survival rate of these seeds can be obtained by this method of picking and planting, so he dares not pick all the seed-bearing parts in one go.
A-Xue is not tall enough, so she can only stand aside and watch. Beside him, she uses animal skins to catch what Luo Zhen has picked. She has never noticed this weed that grows not far from the tribe. She curiously reached out and took one that Luo Zhen had picked and squeezed- the rapeseed was a bit hard.
“Can you grow vegetables with this kind of thing?” The curious A-Xue asked again.
“Well, it should be possible.” Luo Zhen has finished picking the rapeseed. At this moment, he plans to pick some more leaves and go back. The lettuce can be stored for several days, so there is no need to come and pick some up every day and the neighborhood they were in cannot be taken lightly.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Luo Zhen smiled. He used the rapeseed plant when stir-frying meat before so the bitterness of the vegetable leaves could be concealed by the meaty taste, but the taste was still not pleasing to the beasts, and every time he used wild vegetables, most of it went into his stomach.
After picking wild lettuce and rapeseed, he went to a place near the tribe near the tent to pick plantain seeds. There were more plantains than wild grasses so Luo Zhen directly broke the seed-bearing part and took it back.
The rapeseed has been picked so then they can go back and start planting.
“Ah.” To help, A-Shui also said that he would help carry the harvest of vegetable leaves, but his body was too thin, and the leaves blocked his sight. He didn’t pay attention to the situation under his feet and fell to the ground after walking a few steps. The leaves of lettuce in his arms were also scattered around in a mess.
“What’s the matter?” Luo Zhen hurriedly went over to help him. There was no animal hide on his knees, and he was scratched by sand, but it didn’t look serious. “Does it hurt?”
A-Shui shook his head and didn’t seem to care about this small injury. He patted the dirt on it and bent down to pick up the lettuce leaves.
“I tripped over the rotten wood.” A-Xue pointed to the piece of wood not far from A Shui. Some black fungi were growing on the wood. A-Xue frowned when she saw it and stooped down to put aside what was in her arms. She found a stone on the ground and pulled down the black fungus, intending to dig a small hole to bury these things.
Luo Zhen saw that piece of rotten wood, half of the wood was buried in the soil, covered with some green moss. There was a cluster of black bacteria growing in the area covered by the surrounding weeds. Luo Zhen’s eyes lit up and he quickly stopped. A-Xue’s actions.
“Wait, these are fungus.”
“Fungus?” A-Xue looked at the thing on the rotten wood suspiciously. It was indeed shaped like an ear. “These things are poisonous, and they must be buried if they are found in the tribe.”
“Poisonous?” Luo Zhen had already squatted to the side of the rotten wood, and the action of reaching out to pick it up stopped because of A-Xue’s words. The excitement that he thought he had discovered a new ingredient was instantly wiped out.
It was also the first time he saw fungus growing on rotten wood. This kind of thing can be used not only as a food material but also for medicinal purposes. It is much better than the wild lettuce leaves they picked just now. Luo Zhen felt a little bit reluctant, “Have you ever eaten it?”
A-Xue shook her head, “But I heard the old people say that when we first came here to settle down, some ignorant children would accidentally eat these things. As a result, even Da Wu was unable to save those children. After returning, Da Wu later demanded that all the rotten wood found around the tribe be cut down and buried.”
“Well then.” Luo Zhen stepped back and stepped aside. Since someone had had an accident after eating, Luo Zhen would not continue to insist on trying again.
A-Xue seems to have experience in handling these fungi. Before Luo Zhen could help, she scraped off all the fungi neatly, then buried all the fungi in the soil, and stomped the soil with her feet. Before leaving, he dug up the rotten wood, intending to take it home and burn it as firewood.
Because Luo Zhen deliberately took a detour outside, it was time for lunch when the three of them returned to Lu Zhan’s house. He did not know when Lu Zhan had returned. At that moment, he was lying on a slate bed and continued to make wooden bowls. A lot of sawdust had been piled under the bed, and a few decent finished products were piled beside it.
He put the picked things in the tent before Luo Zhen went to make lunch first, A-Xue dragged the rotten wood home and came back after the meal. Even if she is the daughter of Da Wu, she can’t be in other people’s homes to eat and drink all the time. A-Shui stayed because there was no one home in his family.
When A-Xue came back again, he brought a piece of meat to Luo Zhen. This was the same thing he ate there in the morning, stone salt is scarce and there is no better way to preserve the meat. The meat A-Xue brought over was a bit rotten and it didn’t smell very good, but Luo Zhen didn’t dislike it, and took it with a smile.
The steps for planting are very simple. Dig a shallow hole, throw the seeds in, cover with a thin layer of soil, and pour water on it. A-Xue learns very carefully. After all, there is only a small piece of land that was opened last night. It didn’t take long to plant it.
Luka came back when they had just finished planting the ground. He was in his beast form, with two adult male hog deer on his back and a bison that was bigger than the bison he had hunted back.
“How did you hunt so many prey today?” Luo Zhen asked in surprise as he watched the other party throw the prey to the side of the fire.
Luka wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked up at the sky first, and then replied, “It’s going to rain.”
Thanks for the chapter! 🧡💛