Chapter 105: Field Training Tree Elves
“The Instructor replied that it will be delivered in half an hour.”
The Class President smiled brightly as she closed the terminal and said, “Actually, if it’s delivered from the air, five minutes would be enough. The base side said that preparing the flour and heating plate would take some time.”
“That’s still pretty fast.” Xiang Chuan tilted her head. “When the seasonings are delivered, could you have someone help put them near my container? Wash the pot with hot water before using it. For the heating plate… see if you can assemble a low table here in the middle to put it on.”
“Hm? From the way you’re talking, are you going out later?” The Class President furrowed her brow.
“Yeah, going to the forest to find some things.” Xiang Chuan waved her hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll have people from our club come with me.”
“That’s good then. Be careful on the road.”
Hearing her say that, the Class President finally showed a relieved smile, which made Xiang Chuan get a black line on her forehead: In the eyes of these kids, was she some child who needed a guardian watching her every move at all times?
In fact, that was indeed the impression of her in the eyes of Class Eight Students.
“Do you want us to come with you today?” Ouyang Yating, who was redoing her hair inside the tent, saw Xiang Chuan poke her head in and casually asked. After all, yesterday the four of them had gone out together.
“No need, Liang Gong coming along is enough. This time we’ll just walk around nearby.” As Xiang Chuan spoke, she started rummaging through her backpack again. In the past couple of days, the other classmates’ backpacks were basically still quite neat, but Xiang Chuan had pretty much turned everything except her spare clothes inside out. If she hadn’t remembered that her bag was placed in the corner near the tent entrance, she might have even turned out her clothes.
Finally, she found the equipment she wanted in the middle layer of the backpack. She quickly put on her shoes, grabbed Liang Gong who was obediently waiting at the tent entrance, and rushed straight out.
“Liang Gong! Keep an eye on her! Don’t let her go too far! Contact us immediately if there’s any problem!” Ouyang Yating shouted somewhat regardless of her image.
“Whoa whoa whoa wait for me! Class President, I’m going too!” Chou Manman hurriedly grabbed her water bottle and rushed out of the camp with them, without even hearing the Class President’s response.
Far away in the Xiang Family Mansion in the villa area, after the viewers and streamer Xiang Xue, co-streamer Lin Ming watched Class Eight’s lunch while drooling, they finally remembered to eat their own lunch. But after finishing lunch, regarding which group the camera should follow next, the live stream room viewers had a difference of opinion.
[Follow the Patrol Group. Maybe we’ll run into students from other classes on the way, that would be interesting.]
[We just missed the chance to observe the Stalwart Group processing live fish. We can make up for it now.]
[Follow little Xiang Xue’s sister. She’ll definitely bring back something unexpected.]
This left Xiang Xue and Lin Ming stumped too. All three suggestions were very interesting, and any one of them could be talked about at length, but each class could only be assigned one camera. Now the Patrol Group had already set off, the Stalwart Group had rolled up their sleeves to get to work, and the culprit behind this situation, Xiang Chuan, had also rushed out of the camp with two little companions. They had to decide quickly.
“This is the ‘Class Competition Live Stream Room’. We should naturally focus on the most frontline developments of the class. What’s there to see in my sister digging in the dirt?”
With that, Xiang Xue directed the live stream room team members to remotely control the camera to follow the Patrol Group.
Fortunately, she chose the Patrol Group. If they had followed Xiang Chuan, the live stream room might have erupted into arguments later.
Xiang Chuan, still unaware that she had luckily avoided becoming the center of the storm thanks to her sister, was now once again leading Liang Gong and Chou Manman—who wasn’t even a member of A Bite of China Club but still tagged along—off the main paths in the woods and into the underbrush, searching for something.
Xiang Chuan, relying on her insect repellent chip, was now casually parting the underbrush, not knowing what she was looking for under tree after tree.
“Xiang Chuan, do we… really have to find this?” Chou Manman looked at the thing in the picture Xiang Chuan sent her, her little face scrunching up.
“Yeah,” Xiang Chuan lifted her head from the underbrush, with a few leaves stuck on her hair. “If we don’t find it, when the kitchenware arrives later, the chicken… uh, once we catch the chicken, the dish we make without this flavor would be no good… Huh, there’s wild vegetables here.”
With that, Xiang Chuan plucked the wild vegetables and put them into the storage box Liang Gong was carrying, then dove back into the underbrush to rummage for something.
“But… I feel like if you put this thing in the soup, probably no one would want to eat it, right?”
“Didn’t you say pretty much the same thing this morning?” Xiang Chuan looked at her speechlessly. “I heard your conversation with Liang Gong, you know.”
“Hm? Did I? Ahahaha, the fish is so delicious~” Hearing this, Chou Manman immediately put on a vibrant smile and started pouncing into the underbrush to search for the thing in the picture.
Xiang Chuan didn’t call out her awkward change of topic and continued searching with her head down. But after searching for so long without finding anything, she muttered to herself: “Why can’t I find even a single piece of deadwood in these woods…”
“I saw in the nature reserve introduction that it’s because deadwood is not good for environmental maintenance, so it’s cleared away immediately,” Liang Gong explained.
“That’s so unnecessary!” Xiang Chuan grumbled viciously, sighing inwardly. She now only hoped to find some under the trees.
After searching for about twenty minutes, she didn’t find what she wanted, but along the way they gathered a pile of wild vegetables and wild fruits. Xiang Chuan looked at the storage box on Liang Gong’s back piled like a small mountain with wild vegetables and fruits, and thought self-defeatedly that maybe she could just make do with these and whip up a cold side dish.
With oil and garlic, she could stir-fry a side dish or something. If boiled directly in the pot, it would work too. Chicken soup with green vegetables tasted pretty good, just lacking some seasonings, making the flavor a bit monotonous. The picky 21st century corporate slave skillfully stepped over the underbrush to the tree base, groping around while mentally planning the evening’s arrangements.
“Club President! Don’t go too deep!” Liang Gong saw Xiang Chuan venturing further in and got a bit anxious.
“Got it!” Xiang Chuan waved her hand, then as usual squatted in front of the tree roots, looking without much hope at the brownish-black little umbrellas on the roots.
…Hm? Brownish-black little umbrellas?
Xiang Chuan instantly sobered up, looking at the umbrella-shaped things growing at the base of the tree trunk: brown caps, white stems, very much like what she remembered. But to be safe, she took out the biological identification instrument she had tossed into her backpack for fun, never expecting it would actually come in handy.
The instrument scanned the little umbrella in front of her and, under Xiang Chuan’s anxious gaze, reported its scientific name: [Beep—Little Umbrella Family Shiitake Genus Shiitake Mushroom]
Finally! Finally!!
Xiang Chuan excitedly picked the shiitake mushrooms, then carefully buried the soil at the roots to protect the mycelium, and shouted excitedly to the two: “Found it! I found it! Come here quick!”
She looked at the brownish-black little umbrellas on the surrounding tree trunks, in a very pleasant mood: Tonight’s chicken soup side dish finally had a landing spot.
