Chapter 23: Harvest in the Mountains
The harvest in the mountains was even richer.
Not long after entering the mountain, Jian Xingxia discovered a massive grove of wild chestnut trees near the base. If they hadn’t been scattered so unevenly, she almost would have thought they were artificially planted. The entire chestnut forest, intermingled with other trees and vegetation, stretched for about two or three kilometers.
In July, the chestnuts were not yet ripe. Prickly green spheres hung heavily from the branches, conspicuously enticing.
Yet, there was still a harvest to be found.
Beneath the trees lay chestnuts from previous years. Most had been eaten by birds and beasts, but with a careful rustle and poke, one could still find plenty of undamaged chestnuts.
Jian Xingxia stepped on a dried, prickly chestnut burr, gently prying it open with her sickle to reveal the brown shell inside. She picked it up, wiped it against her clothes, and bit it open. The chestnut was slightly shriveled and shrunk, but its flavor was incredibly rich and concentrated.
Jian Xingxia’s interest was piqued, and she asked Da Hei to help. “Let’s gather some. We can head back and boil them to eat.”
They could also roast them, make chestnut puree, or bake chestnut cakes. As long as it didn’t cost money, Jian Xingxia was exceptionally fond of it right now.
Da Hei didn’t use a sickle. With a gentle rub of his thick, calloused palm, the prickly burr fell away. He casually tossed the chestnut into the bamboo basket. Before long, he had gathered half a basketful.
He didn’t say a word, and Jian Xingxia, completely absorbed in gathering chestnuts, didn’t notice either. It was only when she looked up again that she hastily called a halt.
“How much do we have already? It must be nearly twenty jin, right?”
Da Hei had been born in the Great Yu Empire, where weights and measurements were similar to modern times. He nodded. “Over twenty jin.”
Jian Xingxia had him pack them into a gunny sack, tie the mouth securely, and leave it beneath a tree. “We’ll turn back the way we came by one-thirty in the afternoon at the latest. We’ll leave the chestnuts here and pick them up on our way back.”
Gathering chestnuts had delayed them by an hour, but fortunately, they walked as they gathered, eventually making their way out of the forest.
There were quite a few other fruit trees along the way, but because the season wasn’t right, some fruits had already rotted into fertilizer, while others hadn’t even borne fruit yet. Jian Xingxia noted them down one by one, her heart filled with a profound sense of happiness.
The two continued to climb the mountain.
This kind of wild mountain was completely different from the scenic mountains at tourist attractions. There was no clear path; even if a path had existed before, it was now choked with wild grass. Nature’s resilience was extraordinarily powerful; without human intervention, it wouldn’t take long for the land to grow into whatever form it pleased.
Though it was called a climb, they would occasionally hit massive, gentle slopes that felt almost like walking across flat plains or fields. It made it quite difficult to keep their bearings.
Jian Xingxia and Da Hei used their own methods to mark the forks in the road. Da Hei used his hoe to hack conspicuous marks into nearby trees and rocks. The large trees in the mountains were unmanaged, their branches growing wildly in all directions. Considering she would have to venture into the mountain again in the future, pruning branches and clearing a path was a necessity, so Jian Xingxia didn’t object to Da Hei’s actions.
Jian Xingxia, on the other hand, tore strips from a tattered woven fertilizer sack she had brought along, tying them to trees while drawing a crude schematic diagram in her notebook.
“A mountain in sight can ride a horse to death.” This saying wasn’t an exaggeration. The mountain Jian Xingxia was patrolling today wasn’t considered high, but as she and Da Hei walked and climbed, by one-thirty in the afternoon, they were still only halfway up a minor peak.
Jian Xingxia and Da Hei hauled over some rocks to form a small ring, making a marker to record their very first mountain patrol.
They looked around, rested for a brief moment, drank some water, and ate a sweet potato and an egg each, along with two or three crabapples and nectarines they had picked along the way. The crabapples were like tiny apples, with a mealy texture that was pleasantly tart and sweet.
They had seen plenty of peaches along the way, but it wasn’t convenient to wash them in the mountains, so Jian Xingxia didn’t pick the fuzzy varieties like downy peaches or honey peaches. As for the plums, apricots, and mulberries they spotted, whether due to the variety or lack of care, they were quite sour and astringent. They made her mouth water intensely but did little to stave off hunger.
Da Hei also discovered a patch of wild radishes, flanked by wild yellow cucumbers that had ripened until they burst open, and tiny watermelons. They stumbled upon such fruits and vegetables from time to time, so they didn’t go hungry along the way.
Jian Xingxia suspected her grandmother had intentionally brought seeds up the mountain. She secretly planned to bring some seeds along next time to scatter around. The mountain soil was fertile; as long as the seeds weren’t devoured by birds and insects, most of them would sprout. As for whether they grew well later on, that would depend entirely on luck.
The path back was much easier. On the way up, they had already cut away the obstructive brush and branches, and the wild grass had been trampled down once. Jian Xingxia gathered more fruit along the way; with a front and back courtyard as grand as the old house’s, it would be an absolute shame not to dry some fruit.
When they reached the chestnut forest, the two didn’t linger this time. They turned over the years of accumulated chestnuts on the ground, successfully gathering two massive baskets full.
Da Hei carried one basket on his back, packed the rest into a sack, and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Jian Xingxia carried a lighter load of fruit on her back and a small bag in her hand, weighing only a dozen or so jin. Thanks to her years of working part-time jobs where she had endured some hardships, she managed not to collapse from exhaustion.
They had started heading down the mountain around one o’clock and reached the chestnut forest by four. After gathering chestnuts for over an hour, the sun was conspicuously dipping toward the west. Consequently, despite the heavy loads on their shoulders, the two let out their strides and dashed toward home.
Mountains had a way of looking close but feeling incredibly far when walked. It wasn’t until the sun had set completely and darkness fell that the two finally caught sight of the old house.
Dahua had stepped out with them in the morning but ran off shortly after. Now, however, she knew to come greet them, flapping her wings as she flew over.
Jian Xingxia bolted all the way home, dropped her basket and woven bags beneath the eaves of the back door, and rushed straight into the kitchen to guzzle a massive bowl of cold boiled water. Thank goodness she had boiled water before leaving. She had easily sweated out two or three jin over the course of the day.
Da Hei was parched as well. He didn’t enter the kitchen. For a Kunlun Slave like him, entering the house without an explicit command from his master was forbidden; even stepping onto the covered veranda was an offense.
He went to the well, drew a massive bucket of water, and without using a cup or bowl, hoisted the bucket directly to dump it over his head. How much water he actually drank was anyone’s guess, but his clothes certainly drank their fill.
After guzzling his fill, Da Hei stripped off his coarse hemp garment, wrung it dry, and used it to wipe the water from his torso and face.
Hearing the commotion, Jian Xingxia ran out to look, and she was instantly scared out of her wits.
“My god! Why aren’t you wearing clothes!”
In the literal sense of the words, he was wearing absolutely nothing!
Jian Xingxia knew Da Hei lacked shoes and socks, owning only a single garment resembling a burlap sack with two holes cut out for his arms. A grass rope was tied around his waist like a knee-length short skirt—exceedingly crude. But she hadn’t realized it was this crude. Beneath the burlap sack, there was nothing at all!
Thank goodness darkness had fallen completely and Da Hei’s skin tone was dark, so Jian Xingxia, standing at the kitchen doorway, couldn’t see anything with absolute precision.
Jian Xingxia spun around, barked at Da Hei: “Put your clothes on!”
Da Hei frantically scrambled to put his garment back on, feeling that he had aroused his master’s aversion once again. But he didn’t know exactly what had made his master angry—whether it was because he had used the well and bucket without permission, because he had soaked his clothes, or because he had drunk water before his master commanded him to…
Da Hei stood in the courtyard, completely at a loss, his starkly black-and-white eyes staring blankly toward the kitchen.
