sinovels Chapter 1761 One root is worth 8
Chapter 1761 One root is worth 8
Chapter 1761 A single whisker is worth a thousand eight hundred
Just as Zhao Jun was lost in thought, Li Baoyu, Li Ruhai, and Ma Yang all gathered around him, while Zhang Yuanmin quickly asked again, "What grade of leaf?"
Even if the old master Sun Liang were to appear in the spirit, he couldn't be sure what grade of wild ginseng it was if it hadn't sprouted.
But that's easy to fix; just say it's auspicious and grandiose.
"Six-leaf variety!" Zhao Jun responded, then heard Zhang Yuanmin ask again, "How many seedlings?"
"They're everywhere!" Zhao Jun said auspiciously as he gently pushed the ginseng bud downwards with a deer antler spoon.
"Huh?" Zhao Jun was taken aback, and as he brushed away the soil, he saw the ginseng body.
Li Baoyu, who had come over, was someone who had seen the world with Zhao Jun. He glanced at him and said with a disappointed look, "Little Nianzi."
The so-called "small twisted seed" refers to wild ginseng that is less than 20 years old. Two-leaf ginseng, palm-sized ginseng with five compound leaves, and three-leaf ginseng with three compound leaves are all considered "small twisted seed".
Small pieces of this medicine have little medicinal value and are not enough to be weighed, so almost no one buys them.
When mountain runners carry out their small torches, they choose a spot they can remember, press the torches down, and wait ten or twenty years before carrying them out again.
Li Baoyu called out "Little Nianzi" as soon as he opened his mouth because he hadn't seen the rhizome of the wild ginseng.
Wild ginseng, excluding the above-ground stem, has the following morphology from top to bottom: reed, stem, body, veins, and whiskers.
The rhizome of wild ginseng is mostly divided into two or three sections. Every late autumn, when the above-ground stem withers and falls off, a small bowl-shaped reed is left on the rhizome of the wild ginseng.
Year after year, the ginseng rootlets grow longer and longer, and the root bowls become more and more numerous.
"Baoyu, shut up!" Zhao Jun shouted in a low voice, and Li Ruhai raised his hand and slapped Li Baoyu on the back of the neck.
Li Baoyu turned around and glared at Li Ruhai, who then said, "Don't you know the rules?"
Upon hearing Li Ruhai's words, Li Baoyu immediately fell silent.
There are many more rules for ginseng hunting than for hunting. When ginseng is being raised high, people around cannot say anything, especially unlucky things.
Before the ginseng was even brought out, Li Baoyu called it a small, inferior product. If this were a legitimate ginseng guild, Li Baoyu would have gotten slapped twice in the face by now.
Zhao Jun kept working, and unlike Li Baoyu, he was not disappointed.
The older generation of wild ginseng growers called wild ginseng that was over fifty years old "fairy children," and wild ginseng that was over a hundred years old was even more so "great fairy children."
The celestial child gathers the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the mountains to cultivate, and must go through many tribulations.
Especially for ginseng that's close to the ground, Ma Yang can crush it with one stomp, so what about a big deer stomping on it?
The rhizome at the top is most vulnerable to injury. Wild ginseng with its rhizome broken off will go dormant underground, during which time it will first revive its buds, and then emerge from the soil again when spring arrives and flowers bloom.
At this moment, Zhao Jun could not see the ginseng in its entirety, but he could sense that the root head was about an inch long. He didn't know if the root head had been injured; if it had, then its age could not be determined by the root head alone.
Another issue is that this ginseng is too close to the ground. If there isn't enough snow the year before, it will freeze and won't sprout the following year. If it doesn't sprout, it won't grow a rhizome.
Therefore, Zhao Jun still held hope for this ginseng seedling.
Another reason for his enduring hope came from the old omen on that pine tree.
In the mountain travel, a four-leafed plant is called a "clump". In other words, if you find a four-leafed plant, you are very likely to find other plants around it.
Five-grade leaves are grouped together, while six-grade leaves are called a single leaf.
If someone really did carry out a sixth-grade leaf from this place back then, then this old village must have hidden a lot of treasures.
Zhao Jun continued digging with the deer antler spatula, removing soil and picking out tendrils.
Since the ginseng was growing close to the tree, it was inevitable that tree roots and ginseng rootlets would become entangled. At this point, Zhao Jun needed to carefully distinguish them and then use the sharp scissors from the small yellow cloth bag to cut the tree roots.
"Awooo! Awooo!" Suddenly, two barks came from the dogs, and Zhang Yuanmin and the others looked up in alarm.
The barking wasn't very urgent. Zhang Yuanmin and his colleagues often worked with hunting dogs and could tell that it wasn't barking because they had prey, but rather because Black Tiger was being mischievous.
"Go!" Li Baoyu stood in front of the black tiger and shooed it away.
His attack only fueled Black Tiger's curiosity. It tried to bypass Li Baoyu, wanting to see if there was anything good to eat over there.
"Come here, Tiger!" Zhang Yuanmin called to Black Tiger and said, "I'll carve some meat for you."
At this point, there was no other way but to coax the black tiger with meat.
Zhang Yuanmin lured the black tiger over with bear meat. While he was cutting the meat, the black tiger stretched its neck and peered out, trying to see what Zhao Jun was doing.
At this moment, Li Baoyu, Li Ruhai, and Ma Yang were protecting Zhao Jun. The more Black Tiger couldn't see, the more curious he became.
"Come here, Tiger." Only when Zhang Yuanmin put a piece of bear meat to Black Tiger's mouth did Black Tiger withdraw his curious gaze.
Black Tiger chewed the meat in its mouth, and after it finished eating, it heard Zhang Yuanmin call out to it again.
Black Tiger looked up and saw four pieces of bear meat in front of him. At that moment, Zhang Yuanmin continued to cut meat for Black Tiger without stopping.
Overjoyed, Black Tiger forgot all about Zhao Jun and ate heartily.
Meanwhile, Zhao Jun continued his work. By this time, the ginseng body had been unearthed, with a head about one and a half fingers long and a ginseng body about two fingers long. Zhao Jun carefully examined the head and the round head.
Considering the time this wild ginseng seedling had been dormant due to freezing, Zhao Jun estimated that it must be over twenty years old.
This ginseng is enough to weigh, but it won't sell for much money.
However, Zhao Jun did not intend to sell the ginseng seedling. He planned to take it out to dry in the sun and keep it for his wife to stew with old hen when she was in postpartum confinement.
Wild ginseng is excellent for replenishing qi, and when paired with old hen, it can help postpartum women recover very well.
Once the ginseng body is unearthed, only the ginseng rootlets remain. Judging solely from the appearance of this wild ginseng rootlets and body, this ginseng is worthless, perhaps only a hundred or two hundred yuan.
Zhao Jun kept it for his own use. In fact, if he wanted to save trouble, he could have simply torn off the tendrils in the soil.
But Zhao Jun didn't; he continued to use the deer antler spatula to dig up the soil and separate the tree roots.
Growing next to a large tree with dense roots, it added a lot of unnecessary work for Zhao Jun, but Zhao Jun remained calm and unhurried.
In fact, Zhao Jun is a very lazy person, but he doesn't do things unless he wants to, and when he does, he wants to do them to the best of his ability.
As Zhao Jun cut the tree root and continued to push it down with the deer antler spoon, he felt resistance.
It turns out that further down, it's all yellow mud.
"Come on, don't block the light." Zhao Jun told Li Baoyu, who was standing behind him, to move aside. The tall guy was blocking all the light from behind him.
"Brother," Li Baoyu defended himself, saying, "I was protecting you from the Black Tiger."
As Li Baoyu spoke, he stepped to stop the black tiger that was trying to get closer to Zhao Jun, saying, "Look, it always tries to get closer to you."
"Give it a slap." As soon as Zhao Jun said this, Black Tiger turned and ran away.
The black tiger was scared away, and Li Baoyu was chased away. Zhao Jun looked down to find the ginseng rootlets, but found that the rootlets stopped going down when they reached the yellow mud, and instead grew horizontally along the black soil layer.
Zhao Jun used both hands, using a stag antler spoon in his right hand and his left hand, either using his fingers in conjunction with the stag antler spoon to dig the soil or using scissors to cut the tree roots.
Li Baoyu and the other three craned their necks to look, and saw that Zhao Jun was digging the ginseng root longer and longer.
The rootstock and the ginseng body together are about five or six centimeters long, and this tendril is already over fifty centimeters long. And even then, part of it is still in the soil.
Zhao Jun knelt on the ground, concentrating intently as he continued to lift the ginseng.
At this moment, Zhao Youcai came down from above with Black Tiger to inspect the situation. Seeing the group squatting in front of the tree, Zhao Youcai shouted, "What are you doing?"
When doing delicate work, the worst thing is to be disturbed. Zhao Jun stopped what he was doing, frowned, and glanced in the direction from which the sound came.
Seeing this, Li Baoyu quickly waved to Zhao Youcai and said, "Grandpa, don't make a fuss, my brother is carrying a club."
"A... a clumsy ...
When Zhao Youcai got closer, he saw that his son was engrossed in carrying ginseng. Zhao Youcai turned to Li Baoyu and whispered, "Why does he look so clumsy these days?"
“Xiao Yang stepped out of it all,” Li Baoyu said, and Zhao Youcai looked at Ma Yang in surprise.
Ma Yang grinned at Zhao Youcai, who whispered, "Little Yang is lucky."
Praised by Zhao Youcai, Ma Yang's mouth practically stretched to his ears with a grin. Just then, Zhao Youcai suddenly sensed something was amiss. He glanced down at Zhao Jun, then asked Li Baoyu in surprise, "Why did your brother bring his own stuff?"
If it was discovered by accident, then what about the weapon in Zhao Jun's hand?
“Well…” Li Baoyu said, “Yesterday, I was watching over Old Zhao from these trees.”
"Old Zhao?" Zhao Youcai's small eyes widened. "Look at Old Zhao, why didn't you perform the mountain sacrifice just now?"
“Um…” Li Baoyu was stumped by Zhao Youcai’s question.
Seeing that Li Baoyu remained silent, Zhao Youcai asked again, "Did you kowtow?"
"Kneel...kneel..." Upon hearing this, Li Baoyu quickly cast a pleading look at Zhang Yuanmin.
At that moment, Zhao Jun said, "Dad, I won't go over there. You go and kowtow twice for me."
Zhao Youcai: "..."
"Brother has been carried out?" Li Baoyu's words gave Zhao Youcai a way out.
At this moment, Zhao Jun held a wild ginseng root in his hand.
“This…” Zhao Youcai glanced at the ginseng. Knowing he couldn’t speak carelessly, he simply said, “Why are the roots so long? They must be at least half a meter long!”
“Got it.” Zhao Jun held the wild ginseng in one hand and measured it with his other hand, saying, “It’s over sixty centimeters long.”
"Why does this ginseng look like this?" Zhang Yuanmin asked. Zhao Jun replied, "This is called 'plucking hairs from the bottom of a club'."
"What?" Zhao Youcai and the other four were completely confused. Zhao Jun explained to them, "This club is too close to the ground. If you peel back the dried leaves that fell last autumn, you'll see the rootstock."
If the snow is light one year and it freezes, it won't sprout new buds the following year, but it will grow tendrils, and those tendrils won't stop it from growing.
According to Zhao Jun, this wild ginseng must have been dormant for many years to grow such long tendrils.
“Son, you…” Zhao Youcai said with a smile as he took out a cigarette, “No matter how long the whiskers are, they’re not worth anything. Even if they’re eighty meters long, what use are they?”
Zhao Youcai was right. This ginseng would only fetch a little over a hundred yuan if sold in Lingnan. It would also fetch about the same price in Hebei.
But since Zhao Youcai said that, Zhao Jun said, "Dad, then you have to decide how much to sell it for."
"What is this thing and how much does it cost?" Zhao Youcai was taken aback. He then saw Zhao Jun gently trace the long tendril of the wild ginseng with his index finger and say, "Just this tendril, if it falls into the hands of certain people, it's worth a thousand or eight hundred."
"Huh?" Zhao Youcai was taken aback, then his small eyes darted around, and he quickly realized what was going on.
"This kid." Zhao Youcai, realizing what was going on, glared at Zhao Jun, then looked around and said, "Does this little thing really need to be wrapped up?"
To preserve wild ginseng, herders peel moss and pine bark, first wrapping the ginseng in moss and then rolling it inside with pine bark.
Zhao Youcai thought the little club was worthless and not worth the trouble.
But Zhao Jun said, "Dad, take a walk around here and see if there's any moss growing on that big rock. Just dig some out."
As he spoke, Zhao Jun pointed to the ditch he had just dug and said, "There's still one seedling there."
"What?" Upon hearing this, Zhao Youcai hurriedly stepped forward to see, and Li Baoyu and the others also came closer.
Then, at the end of Zhao Junqi's ginseng rootlets, a patch of white emerged from the black soil.
"That's utter bullshit." Zhao Youcai glanced at it and said, "It's all white and spiky, isn't that a tree root?"
"Dad, you should go now." Zhao Jun hurriedly dismissed Zhao Youcai, saying, "This is Little White Dragon."
"What?" Zhao Youcai's small eyes widened in shock, while Zhang Yuanmin, Li Baoyu, and Li Ruhai beside him also looked shocked.
They knew that at the end of this month, Zhao Jun would be heading to Daqinggang in Lingnan to drive away the tiger. The purpose of driving away the tiger was to obtain a stone dragon.
The reason why Tuna Stone Dragon is named is because a wealthy man was searching for three dragons in the process.
But to their surprise, the most mysterious of the three dragons in the ginseng was right in front of them.
"Little White Dragon?" Of the people present, only Ma Yang didn't know about this. He looked at Zhao Jun with surprise and said, "Brother-in-law, 'Journey to the West'?"
"What Journey to the West?" Zhao Jun smiled, beckoned Ma Yang over, and instructed, "Xiao Yang, you can talk to Dad and Mom about today's matter, but don't go outside to tell anyone else."
The location of Lao'anzi and the harvest during the mountain expedition are secrets and cannot be revealed to outsiders.
"Brother-in-law..." Ma Yang hesitated for a moment, then said, "I still want to go out and brag about it..."
"What are you bragging about?" Zhao Jun joked. "Your brother-in-law can just get you two balloons to blow up."
Ma Yang: "..."
Everyone laughed heartily. Zhao Youcai said to Ma Yang, "Kid, you can't tell anyone about this. This is our wealth. If you tell others, someone else will get it."
"I understand, Uncle." Hearing Zhao Youcai say this, Ma Yang nodded solemnly and said, "I won't tell anyone."
Zhao Jun believed Ma Yang's assurance. Despite the boy's seemingly reckless nature, Ma Yang was tight-lipped.
Just then, Ma Yang suddenly pointed at Li Ruhai and said to Zhao Youcai, "Uncle, even if I don't say it, he definitely has to!"
Five pairs of eyes turned to Li Ruhai, who said angrily, "Why are you staring at me like that?"
"You have a bad mouth!" Ma Yang said this confidently, making Li Ruhai's face turn red with anger.
"Alright, stop arguing." At this moment, Zhao Jun waved his hand and said, "Let's trust Ru Hai this once, and we won't tell anyone."
Li Ruhai nodded emphatically after receiving Zhao Jun's approval. Zhao Jun walked to the tree, stuck the deer antler key into the ground, and shouted, "Club!"
One more chapter coming up, bro, I'm going to sleep now.
(End of this chapter)