Over the next stretch of time, through June, Li Longji went into the mountains only about once a week, taking supplies to Sun Jiaqiang.
To his surprise, Sun Jiaqiang really did stay in the mountains, going out to pick mushrooms whenever he had nothing else to do.
He picked not only morels but other mushrooms too. He did not dare eat the other mushrooms he gathered, so he left them drying on the worktable, waiting for Li Long to come and look.
When Li Long came to check, he found that Sun Jiaqiang had gathered all sorts of mushrooms. Only then did Li Long realize there were so many mushrooms in these mountains that even he did not recognize.
All he could do was pick out the edible mushrooms he knew and give Sun Jiaqiang a little "lesson." As for the others, they might as well throw them away.
What surprised Li Long was that black tiger's paw mushrooms had already begun growing in some parts of the mountains in early June. They were small, but they really were there.
Li Long was rather pleased. He told Sun Jiaqiang to keep an eye out for these mushrooms once the morels were gone, saying they fetched a good price.
As for the morels Sun Jiaqiang had gathered, he asked whether Li Long would buy them. If so, he could take them.
Of course Li Long would buy them. He weighed them and found that Sun Jiaqiang had gathered somewhere between two and three kilograms over the past week or so. Li Long had not yet asked about this year's morel prices at the Purchasing Station. Last year, they seemed to have been over twenty yuan per kilogram, so he bought Sun Jiaqiang's at fifteen yuan per kilogram, paying forty yuan for