Chapter 189 - 83: Harvest
On the night of April 23, beside the campfire on the riverbank, Chen Zhou's dinner included several stalks of sugarcane along with meat soup and flatbread.
After eating the flatbread, he used a dagger to peel off the sugarcane's hard, dry outer skin, revealing the thick fibrous core inside, which he cut into small pieces and attempted to chew.
The sweetness of this wild sugarcane wasn't as low as he imagined, having a sweet taste with a slight hint of plant fragrance similar to that of corn stalks, not too overwhelming or greasy.
Perhaps because the rainy season had just ended, the sugarcane core still retained a lot of moisture, but the only downside was its fibers were too coarse and hard, making his mouth sore after chewing too much, even pricking his mouth slightly.
Chen Zhou guessed that this was likely because the sugarcane was too mature, with severe lignification of the inner fibers. If it had been tender sugarcane from the current year, it might have tasted better.
Sitting under the tree, savoring the long-lost taste of sugarcane, he kept spitting sugarcane residue onto the rock beach until his jaw felt stiff, then he massaged his face and set aside the remaining pieces of sugarcane.
By now, the sun had set, and the bright moon hung in the sky, round as a silver plate, suggesting the fifteenth day of the lunar month was near.
With the sound of rushing water, Chen Zhou leaned against the tree trunk, squinting, idly tossing wood into the campfire.
Lai Fu comfortably nestled between the roots of two trees, its fur still wet—
It had just engaged in a skirmish with the frogs by the river bank again, to no avail with those creatures that could hide in the water, leaving itself in a disheveled state.
…
One night passed, and it was April 24, with only two days left until the mysterious reward would arrive.
Considering that traveling home would take another day, Chen Zhou rose early, intending to make full use of this day to collect all the crops he could find and transplant them back in glass jars.
As for cassava, wild spices, and other elusive things, he would leave them for the next visit.
After all, this trip to the River Valley Plain was merely for reconnaissance, to pinpoint exact locations, and there would be plenty of opportunities to return.
Not waking Lai Fu, who was still resting between the tree roots, allowing it to continue resting, Chen Zhou started a fire to make breakfast early.
The rock beach was quite damp, and though the river water hadn't overflowed, the nighttime moisture and morning dew made his clothes and shoes especially wet and cold.
Lighting the campfire, he took the opportunity to dry his clothes while cooking.
After breakfast, warming his stomach, he fed Lai Fu, then took out a glass jar from his pocket and headed straight for the large aloe beside the rock beach.
Carefully selecting a newly sprouted tender rootstock, he cautiously severed it from the main root with a dagger, dug it out with the soil, placed it in a glass jar, and stuffed it into his pocket. He then walked towards the wild sugarcane he discovered yesterday afternoon.
Chen Zhou vaguely remembered that sugarcane could be grown into new plants simply by cutting it into sections and soaking it in water or planting it in the ground.
However, uncertain of his memory, he selected four relatively short and thin sugarcanes, dug them from the roots as well, sprinkled some water on the surface soil of the roots, then wrapped the bases in broad grass leaves to keep them moist, tied them with hemp string, and placed them on the rock beach.
Having found the aloe and sugarcane, only wild grapes, sweet melon, and tobacco remained unaccounted for.
Advance while using the iron blade to hack through the vegetation, Chen Zhou searched for the remaining crops amid the lush greenery.
Among these crops, he was most interested in the wild grapes.
Grapes are high yielding, taste good, and can be dried into raisins or made into wine.
Planted in a yard on a platform, they could climb wooden frames as ornamental plants and provide shade during the dry season.
Compared to this, tobacco has some use, while sweet melon seemed rather dispensable, having little function aside from supplementing vitamins.
Moreover, the vitamin supplementation could be replaced by other fruits, which are abundant during the next exploration of the Fruit Tree Valley, further diminishing the sweet melon's significance.
Most crucially, Chen Zhou allotted only a day for himself to locate the crops.
The River Valley Plain, though not as vast as the grasslands, allowed only limited time.
Among the vast vegetation, locating the large and vine-like wild grapes wasn't too difficult, but finding the tobacco and sweet melons, which resembled ordinary plants, would be a challenge.
If the distribution range of these two plants wasn't broad enough, it would depend on luck.
…
Searching from morning until evening.
Although time was limited, this differed from when he transported supplies from the boat, with only one chance and no opportunity to redo if missed.
Chen Zhou wasn't under too much pressure, maintaining a relatively laid-back pace during the search.
In the process of identifying plants, he occasionally stopped to rest, play with Lai Fu, letting it relax as well.
Sometimes, fate seems to enjoy teasing you.
When you hold expectations, you're often met with disappointment, but by wandering aimlessly, unexpected discoveries may occur.
As he weaved through the grass, Chen Zhou quickly found wild grapes.
Just into the dry season, the grapevines still bore flowers, and many of the fruits weren't fully ripe yet.
Wild grapes are much smaller than the common ones in life, with a very dark skin color. If not for the grapevines and leaves, Chen Zhou might have mistaken them for larger nightshades.
He dug out a grapevine with roots and cut a few pieces of the sturdy vine, reserved for planting at home, and continued to stroll.
Soon after, he discovered sweet melon and tobacco plants one after another, and even found a plant highly resembling chili.
However, the fruit of this plant wasn't ripe yet, and breaking it open to smell, it indeed had the spicy aroma of chili, strongly suggesting it was wild chili, delighting him immensely.
To take this suspected chili plant, Chen Zhou abandoned a sweet melon seedling he'd dug up, planting the collected chili seedling into the glass jar.
Thus brimming with joy and a pocketful of harvest, as he headed back to the rock beach, he stumbled upon a cluster of mountain celery.
The mountain celery had only recently bloomed, with clusters of small white flowers particularly tender and quite conspicuous amidst the green waves.
However, due to the abundance of white-flowering plants in the River Valley Plain, Chen Zhou hadn't noticed this unremarkable plant in the initial search, only discovering its resemblance to the commonly seen mountain celery on his hometown hillside by chance on the return trip.
Although named with a "celery" character, mountain celery tastes distinctly different from the commonly seen celery in markets, mainly characterized by bitterness, especially a pronounced bitter taste.
In Chen Zhou's hometown, tender and flavorful mountain celery in spring is generally cut and eaten as a salad with sauce or mixed with lamb for dumplings, reportedly tasting quite unique when cooked.
As spring passes, the stems of mountain celery become thicker and harder, gaining toughness, making them difficult to chew and digest, and are henceforth removed from the dinner table.
Chen Zhou had never been interested in wild vegetables before, but after subsisting on monotonous, flavorless flatbreads for seven months on this isolated island, he resolved to try any non-toxic, novel-tasting normal food, no matter how unpleasant he imagined it might be.
Thus, he once again drew out his dagger, further weighing down his pocket, heading back with grape, tobacco, suspected chili, and mountain celery plants fully in tow.