Zhang Chunnuan walked over and touched his head, "How are you, my mistress?"

The tips of the young man's ears turned red after his head was touched. He shyly avoided Zhang Chunnuan's hand and whispered:

"Ms. Chun Nuan, I am already 10 years old and a man. You can't touch my head casually."

"Okay, okay, you are a grown man, I won't touch you!"

Zhang Chunnuan looked at him, who was only about an 8-year-old child, put his hands behind his back, and assured him.

After joining the mistresses, Zhang Chunnuan and Wang Dongxue were followed by a group of girls and boys.

A little girl with two yellow braids came over and asked, "Ms. Chun Nuan, can I exchange wild chestnuts for you for candy later?"

Zhang Chunnuan shook his head and said in the girl's disappointed eyes: "No, but you can exchange other things with me for candy."

Wild chestnuts are considered food, but they cannot be exchanged for greedy children, lest parents come looking for them later.

"What?"

"Ms. Chun Nuan, are you going to change the candy again?"

"Should we still use wild fruit saplings?"

"If I had known better, I would have touched the snails!"

As soon as Zhang Chunnuan finished speaking, she was immediately surrounded by this group of children.

"Quiet!" She raised her hands in the air, making a pause gesture, "I have to go home to take care of my brothers and sisters in a while, so let's talk while walking, okay?"

"Okay!" All the children responded in unison.

Zhang Chunnuan opened her hands and counted them: "Wild fruit saplings, mushrooms, fungus, beautiful flowers... When you find them, dig them up. Come down the mountain and come to my house to exchange for sugar. Do you still remember where my house is?"

"Remember!"

Zhang Chunnuan followed Xiao Sanzi and Wang Dongxue to see their destination - a wild chestnut forest.

There are more than a dozen wild chestnut trees that can be hugged by one person, blocking out the sky and completely blocking out the sunlight in this area.

The trees were covered with dark green thorny chestnut buds, some of which matured prematurely and opened their mouths, and the chestnuts fell under the trees.

Several little boys put down their backpacks and used their hands and feet to climb up the tree like little monkeys. After everyone under the tree left, they began to shake the branches crazily.

The chestnut buds rustled down and hit the ground.

Zhang Chunnuan saw that they would be busy for a while, so he walked aside and started searching.

There are many chestnuts with their shells off on the ground hidden under the fallen leaves. You need to use branches to pry through the thick fallen leaves to see them.

She searched and searched, getting further and further away from Zhongxiao.

As she walked, a dead tree suddenly appeared in front of her that had fallen to the ground at some point.

The trees are layered on top of each other and covered with thick fungus.

Zhang Chunnuan's eyes lit up instantly.

Fungus has a soft texture, delicate texture, delicious taste, and special flavor. It is rich in protein, fat, sugar and a variety of vitamins and minerals, and has high nutritional value.

In the era before she time traveled, she was praised by nutritionists as "the best meat among vegetables".

Zhang Chunnuan quickly took off the fungus from the tree trunk and put it into the basket.

There has been no rain for more than a month, so this dead tree is able to grow so many fungus, presumably because of the cool and humid environment created by the wild chestnut tree.

After spending a few minutes removing the fungus from the entire dead tree, Zhang Chunnuan raised his head and looked around, only to realize that he was already separated from the large group, about ten meters away.

But this was exactly what she wanted. She put her hand on the dead tree and with a thought, the whole dead tree was taken into the farm.

From now on, I will have a steady stream of fungus to eat!

Since there are fungus, there must be other fungi nearby!

With this idea in mind, Zhang Chunnuan started searching around with the dead tree as the center.

Sure enough, I found a circle of shiitake mushrooms on another dead tree covered with moss.

The largest one is half as big as her palm, and the smallest one is about the size of a penny.

Zhang Chunnuan quickly picked the big mushrooms into a basket on his back, and then followed the same method and collected the whole section of dead wood into the farm.

As soon as I put it away, I heard Wang Dongxue’s call in the distance: “Sister Chunnuan, where are you? Come and pick up the chestnuts!”

Zhang Chunnuan responded: "I'm here, I'm here!"

She weighed the backpack and felt that the weight could still be bearable, so she turned around and walked quickly towards where Zhongxiao and Wang Dongxue were.

As I was walking, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar plant out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and walked over, squatting down to take a closer look.

This... seems to be madder!

Square columnar, whorled leaves, barbs on the stems, and small white flowers...

She once went to see a Chinese medicine doctor because of severe menstrual pain, and the medicine the doctor prescribed for her at that time included madder root, also called red grass root.

Of course, the reason why she remembered this medicinal material was because when the doctor introduced it, he said that in addition to being a medicinal material, madder is also a plant dye.

After walking along the long stem of the madder for about three meters, she finally found the location of the roots of the madder.

He easily pulled a branch from the side, dug out the whole madder plant, and took it into the farm under the cover of vegetation.

The wild chestnut forest was urging again, and she responded repeatedly and trotted over.

When Wang Dongxue saw that Zhang Chunnuan had taken so long to come over, she quickly grabbed her and hid under the tree.

At this time, the boys who had climbed up the tree had come down one after another. Zhang Chunnuan was thinking about the madder in the farm and was a little absent-minded while picking chestnuts.

Wang Dongxue watched her put a chestnut bud into her backpack, leaving the chestnut in place, and patted her shoulder gently.

"Sister Chunnuan, what's wrong with you? Are you thinking about Seventeenth and August?"

Zhang Chunnuan shook his head, "My dad is watching at home, so don't worry."

"Then why are you absent-minded?"

A flash of lightning flashed through Zhang Chunnuan's mind. If the processing workshop can extract red dye from madder, can it also extract other plant dyes?

She grabbed Wang Dongxue's hand and asked eagerly: "Dongxue, do you know where there are gardenias and polygonums?"

Wang Dongxue looked questioning: "What gardenia? And what is polygonum?"

The mistress who was not far away heard the conversation between the two and came over and asked: "Ms. Chun Nuan, is the gardenia you are talking about mountain gardenia?"

Zhang Chunnuan was not sure if they were the same thing, so he could only describe it: "It's a yellow fruit... By the way! It can be used to dye glutinous rice cakes!"

She remembered that when she was a child, she was in an orphanage. Every year during the Chinese New Year, the director’s mother would make glutinous rice cakes with gardenia seeds for the children to eat.

The third son nodded when he heard this, "That's the mountain gardenia! My grandma used to go to the mountain every year to pick some and save them for making glutinous rice cakes."

"Then do you know where it is on the mountain?"

"I know, I'll take you there!"

Zhang Chunnuan was about to nod in agreement when he looked at the sky.

not good!

It’s been so long! Her child…

Thinking of the child, she immediately put all the madder and gardenia behind her mind and said to her mistress:

"I have to go home. Mistress, please pick some gardenias for me and send them to my house. I'll give you candy in exchange!"
Chapter completed!