Two days later, Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang hauled the last cartload of poles back to the team.
Li Long and Li Qingxia stayed in the mountains for another half day, mainly to gather wild vegetables and the like.
Morel season was almost over. Li Long searched several gullies but picked less than five kilograms of fresh ones altogether.
He gathered over ten kilograms of Black Tiger's Paw Mushrooms, which had already started coming up.
There were even more Boletes, Pine Mushrooms, and large quantities of Grass Mushrooms.
There were also plenty he did not recognize, including mushrooms that looked very much like Termite Mushrooms, which he did not dare pick. He even saw Bruising Boletes and a kind of purple mushroom that looked beautiful-eerily beautiful.
Li Qingxia dug up a few Codonopsis roots. He said he might not be able to wait until the late-autumn harvesting season-though his main reason was that he had heard Li Long say the Codonopsis here grew big and had not believed him. Once he dug some up, he believed it.
After that, he could not stop himself-who would believe a single Codonopsis root could weigh half a kilogram?
Most of these things were dried halfway, then packed into sacks for Li Long and Li Qingxia to take home.
While Li Qingxia was digging Codonopsis, Li Long made a special trip to pick wild strawberries, also known locally as dipiao.
At this time of year, there was not much fruit at home. They could eat it in the mountains, but their family could not, so Li Long picked two full Enamel Basins-it was exhausting work. These tasted better than strawberries, but they were tiny!
Fortunately, they grew in patches all over the mountains here, so he could pick for ages without moving.
Li Long