Sisters in the Deep Forest Valley: Many Fun Things

Each time they went out, they only put a few very important things into their space: money, medicine, and food.

But when I'm at home, I always have to keep those fresh, short-lived things in my space.

Medicine, pork and pork bones bought from town, dozens of late-ripening peaches from the inner courtyard, osmanthus honey, and now there's more than half a basket of dog dates.

There's nothing we can do; the space is just that small.

Two spaces... but they're still only two places this small.

Lin Chun thought about it for a while and said:

"Let's make it into jerky. It'll keep for a long time and won't take up much space."

Wild boar meat has a strong gamey and muttony smell, so adding a lot of spices to make jerky should remove much of the gamey and muttony smell.

"Sis, there's so little fat on wild boars."

"It runs all over the mountains and fields every day, so of course it's lean."

They cut off all the lean meat in the kitchen and removed the tendons and fascia.

Then cut the lean meat into long strips along the grain, put it in a large bucket, pour in clean water, soak it to remove the blood, and then rinse it several times.

After draining the meat strips, pour a large bowl of wine (the cloudy wine that Lin's father had bought before).

Add plenty of ginger slices, scallion segments, crushed Sichuan peppercorns, dogwood fruit, mustard (powdered mustard seeds), soy sauce, and salt.

"Come on, let's get started."

The two rolled up their sleeves, washed their hands, and began to stir-fry the pork strips.

By the time the spices were evenly applied to each strip of pork, it was already dark.

The two slowly straightened their stiff backs. They looked with satisfaction at the large bucket of marinated pork strips.

Lin Chunyi said to her younger sister:

"Cover it with a cloth and let it marinate overnight. Once the spices are fully absorbed, it won't taste fishy anymore. Come on, let's wash up, tidy up, and go back inside. All I want to do right now is lie down."

The autumn sun still shines brightly.

"The weather is so nice today, perfect for drying meat."

They took out four long bamboo poles, placed them between several tree branches, strung the marinated wild boar meat strips together with straw rope, and hung them on the bamboo poles.

We'll just wait for them to dry slowly.

The sun has been shining brightly lately, and the meat strips dried out in less than two days.

They took all the meat strips off, washed off the dust, steamed them in a pot for most of an hour, and then continued to dry them in the sun.

Two more days passed, and the dried meat was ready.

Lin Lanshan took one, tore it open, and ate it. "The meat is so tough, but it's spicy and delicious!"

A large bucket of meat strips weighed about 50 jin (25 kg), and after drying, more than 30 jin (15 kg) remained.

The dried meat is ready. Now they need to go check the traps on the outside and pick chestnuts.

While we're at it, let's look for the poisonous herbs we forgot to look for on our last hunting trip.

The perimeter. The location of the rope trap.

A pheasant with rosy cheeks, a purplish-green neck, mottled plumage, and long, brightly colored tail feathers fluttered occasionally in the rope.

"Sister, it's a pheasant!"

Five rope traps caught two pheasants.

I'm pretty lucky; I'll be able to have pheasant stew with mushrooms for two meals this winter.

Lin Chunyi sighed inwardly:

What a sin... First wild boar, then pheasant. Life is really tough these days.

Then, without hesitation, he snapped the pheasant's neck and threw it into his basket.

Lin Lanshan looked at her sister and sighed:

"Sis, if someone had told me six months ago that you could snap a chicken's neck so easily, I wouldn't have believed it even if you killed me. Now, seeing your skillful technique, I even feel a little pain in my own neck..."

"What was life like before? What is life like now? Why don't you put it back? We can eat snow and boil tree bark in the winter!"

"Haha, bring me another pheasant, and I'll show you how to eat it raw on the spot."

Lin Lanshan's strange and funny actions made Lin Chunyi burst into laughter.

The two walked a little further and came to the chestnut tree. Many chestnuts with cracked shells had already fallen to the ground.

Lin Lanshan kicked the chestnut tree twice with all her might, but it didn't budge.

"Okay, I thought they would just tumble down on their own."

"You'd better just stick to climbing the tree."

The two put down their baskets, grabbed some rough wooden sticks they had picked up from the woods, and quickly climbed up the two trees.

They pounded the thorny fruit hard, and in less than a quarter of an hour, all the fruit had fallen to the ground.

The two jumped down from the tree and used the back of their knives to smash open the burrs on each of them.

It took the two of them more than an hour to pack all the chestnuts into their spatial storage, leaving only a large pile of burrsy shells behind.

Now all that's left is to find the poisonous herb. The two took out the picture in the book and looked at it again.

We walked towards the grassy areas, carefully distinguishing between those with flowers and those with fruit.

After walking for an unknown distance, they finally found a large patch of plants with yellow flowers in a thicket.

Lin Chunyi exhaled and said:

"Finally, we found it! This huge area..."

Lin Lanshan looked at it from left to right, "Is this the heartbreak grass? The flowers look like honeysuckle."

"It does look somewhat like it. To be precise, it's called Gelsemium elegans. Don't mistake it for honeysuckle and try to make tea with it; it could kill you!"

"...I'm not that stupid. How can we take it back? Just pull the whole plant out?"

Lin Chunyi turned to the page about Gelsemium elegans. "The entire Gelsemium elegans plant is poisonous, with the roots and leaves being the most toxic. We can just take some leaves back. I'm afraid that if we accidentally get cut by a branch and get poisoned, that would be the end of us."

They didn't dare to pick them directly with their hands; instead, each of them broke off two branches to use as chopsticks and tore off all the leaves.

Then they returned to the valley and, downstream of the stream, dealt with two pheasants.

This time they brought a small stove, boiled a pot of water, poured it on the pheasant, and then began plucking its feathers.

Lin Chunyi looked at the pheasant in her hand and said:

"The pheasant is so beautiful, especially its long tail feathers... Let's clean the feathers and take them back to make some little gadgets."

Lin Lanshan replied:

"Hmm... Long tail feathers mean it's a rooster, of course it's beautiful."

Next, the chicken was gutted and its internal organs were removed to feed the fish. The whole chicken was then cleaned and put back into the space.

After returning home, Lin Chunyi found a piece of cloth to use as a mask, then threw all the leaves of the Gelsemium elegans into an old earthenware jar and used a stick to pound them inside.

Lin Lanshan watched anxiously as her sister squeezed the juice from the leaves, and said:

"Sis, be careful when you're pounding it, don't let the juice splash out."

Lin Chunyi dared not be careless at this moment, and only replied:

"Ah."

Then Lin Lanshan started a fire.

The earthenware pot was placed on the fire, and the juice from the leaves was slowly simmered into a thick poison.

Then they took out the eighteen hidden arrows, soaked each one in poison, and after the poison on the arrowheads dried, they soaked them twice more.

Finally, put the arrows back into the two quivers, sealed them, and stored them in the storage space along with the hidden arrows.

Lin Chunyi finally breathed a sigh of relief and said:

"It's finally done."

This hidden dart must be carried with you at all times from now on; it's a lifesaver.

Half of the poison remained in the old earthenware jar. Lin Lanshan used a bamboo knife to carve the words "Gelsemium elegans poison" on the outside of the jar and tossed it into a corner of the room.

The first rain after autumn arrived was also the first rain they experienced after coming into this world.

As they slept, it began to fall...