Li Long left home and headed straight to Tao Jianshe's house.
He was worried Tao Jianshe might not be there. If he was out, Li Long would have to leave the things at his own house for Tao Jianshe to collect when he returned.
To his surprise, Tao Jianshe was weeding his vegetable garden. He was surprised to see Li Long come in, too, and greeted him with a smile:
"Xiao Long, you're here. Did you just come back from the mountains?"
He also looked behind Li Long.
"Daqiang didn't come back. He asked me to bring you a few things. I'm heading back into the mountains right away, too." Li Long raised the bag in his hand. "We shot a wild boar today. There's a strip of smoked meat in here, and some fresh wild mushrooms. Oh, and Daqiang dug up a codonopsis root. It replenishes qi and blood. He said you could steep it as tea whenever you like."
Li Long took the enormous codonopsis root out of the bag, giving Tao Jianshe quite a start.
"How come it's so big?"
"Nobody digs these up in the mountains. It's been growing for decades," Li Long explained. "Just leave it in a cool room to dry. Slice off a little each time to steep as tea, or boil it in water to drink. It doesn't taste bad."
Tao Jianshe, like most people on the team, knew little about codonopsis, but hearing that it was a kind of "ginseng" was enough to make him take it seriously.
Of course, codonopsis belonged to the bellflower family, unlike ginseng, which belonged to the Eleutherococcus genus, but most people would not bother with such distinctions.
After giving him the instructions, Li Long left the Tao family's house.
Li Juan was almost at Reed