I Awakened to a Farming TALENT

## Chapter 19: Mushroom Hunting – A Treasure Hunt for Adults

After the Summer Solstice, the weather grew hotter, and everything flourished.

Jiang Tingyun’s farmhouse restaurant business was also getting better and better. Returning customers kept showing up.

A few days ago, several university students came. When they arrived late and found the food was sold out, they ended up buying all the ugly buns she’d made.

Zhu Lili had the bright idea to start a WeChat group so regulars could keep track of the daily menu and opening hours.

Because Qionghua Restaurant was very capricious. Not only were there few dishes, but once the prepared ingredients were gone, they closed for the day. Customers often showed up to find an empty restaurant.

Many regulars were frustrated, but the food was so good they couldn’t stay away. When they heard about the WeChat group, they all joined.

Jiang Tingyun’s bad luck had also completely disappeared. She was safe and sound, very happy. She’d even visited the temple several more times to offer fruits and vegetables.

With her luck turned around, she started thinking about going up the mountain to pick wild mushrooms again.

More and more stalls were selling wild mushrooms at the market. After several heavy rains, mushrooms were popping up all over the mountain—it was hard to resist.

Compared to ordinary vegetables and fruits, wild mushrooms were loved by many for their unique flavor and texture.

The night before, a heavy rain had fallen, finally stopping around midnight. At 4 a.m., Jiang Tingyun geared up to go mushroom hunting.

This time, she’d learned her lesson. She wore rain boots, carried a backpack basket, held a walking stick in her hand, and had a sickle strapped to her waist. Snakes and bugs—don’t you dare mess with me.

There was a folk saying about eating mushrooms: three things you need to be familiar with—the species of mushroom, cooking it thoroughly, and the route to the hospital.

Picking mushrooms was also a technical skill. If you didn’t know the species and picked them recklessly, you risked poisoning and seeing little green men.

And even if you were an expert mushroom hunter, moving to a different forest could lead to mistakes—mushrooms that looked similar might not be safe to eat.

For Jiang Tingyun, however, this wasn’t a big problem. With her awakened talent, she was intimately familiar with everything that grew from the earth.

With her basket on her back and flashlight in hand, she slowly made her way along the path in the darkness.

Before she even got up the mountain, she struck gold. Under a pine tree by the roadside, she spotted several medium-sized, greenish mushrooms with a surface covered in brownish-green scales.

**【Green Head Mushroom (*Russula virescens*): Edible. Crisp texture, sweet taste, mild and pleasant.]**

“Lucky me! Right by the road and no one found them. Truly, the early bird catches the worm.” Jiang Tingyun crouched down happily, gently lifted the mushrooms with two fingers, and placed them in her basket, which she’d lined with leaves and pine needles to protect the mushroom caps.

After picking them, she carefully covered the spot back up with dead leaves and pine needles.

The vegetation on both sides of the trail was thick. Occasionally, she saw large white mushrooms in the grass, their caps as wide as umbrellas, covered with grayish scales.

**【Green Spored Parasol (*Chlorophyllum molybdites*): HIGHLY TOXIC!! NOT EDIBLE!】**

These were poisonous mushrooms, yet they looked plump and white—and they were everywhere. This mushroom had a nickname: ICU mushroom, meaning one bite and you’re straight to the intensive care unit.

Jiang Tingyun didn’t linger. She continued up the mountain. Once she entered the forest, everything was lush green, making the mushrooms much harder to spot.

She didn’t know where mushrooms usually grew in previous years, so she kept her eyes on the ground. Wherever dead leaves or pine needles bulged suspiciously, she gently poked the spot with her stick.

Sure enough, not long after, she found a coral-shaped mushroom.

**【Coral Mushroom (*Clavariaceae*): Edible. Crisp and tender texture, delicious flavor.]**

This kind was also called “broom mushroom.” Not particularly valuable, but it tasted good when stir-fried. Jiang Tingyun didn’t turn her nose up at it. She crouched down and carefully picked it.

She wandered around for a while after that and only managed to pick a few wild shiitake mushrooms and some wild wood ear fungus from rotten logs.

The harvest wasn’t much, but Jiang Tingyun was still full of enthusiasm. Mushroom hunting was a treasure hunt for adults—who could resist its charm?

The sky gradually grew brighter, giving her much better visibility.

She walked into an oak forest. Jiang Tingyun’s eyes lit up. *Finally, something delicious.*

**【Yellow Bolete (*Boletus*): Edible. Thick, smooth, and slippery. Sweet and savory taste.]**

This yellow bolete was entirely yellow, round and plump. It had another nickname: “yellow scabby head.” It was an officially recognized edible mushroom.

It was said that if you found a single mushroom, there might be a whole cluster nearby. Jiang Tingyun searched the area carefully.

And what a find! She uncovered several yellow boletes growing together under the dead leaves.

“Ha!” Jiang Tingyun couldn’t help laughing out loud. She crouched down and dug them out. *Great! Plenty to eat today. This big clump is enough to stir-fry a whole plate.*

She continued up the slope, and mushrooms kept appearing on both sides. Most of them were boletes, but their names weren’t familiar, and locals didn’t eat them, so she left them alone.

She also encountered some chanterelles, small “dog chicken” mushrooms, and milk-cap mushrooms. These mushrooms didn’t have much flavor on their own—they were just “mixed wild mushrooms”—but when cooked in a hot pot or stir-fried with meat, they had their own unique charm.

But her luck wasn’t over yet. After passing through a thicket, she saw several entirely black mushrooms growing by the root of a tree—very large, very plump.

**【Black Bolete (*Boletus*): Edible. Firm, dense flesh. Thick and delicious.]**

“One, two, three… Damn! So many! Hahaha.” Jiang Tingyun’s face ached from grinning. She set her basket down and started picking immediately.

The black boletes were round, plump, and meaty—each one as big as half a palm. They had an extremely rich flavor, perfect for stir-frying or cooking into rice.

By the time she’d thoroughly searched that patch of ground, her basket was more than half full.

“So many! Enough, enough.” She pulled out her phone to check the time and prepared to head down the mountain.

Mushroom hunting really takes time. It felt like she’d only been at it for a short while, but the sun was already high in the sky.

She walked briskly down the mountain, her eyes automatically scanning the ground for any mushrooms she might have missed.

Suddenly, she stopped.

“Am I seeing things?” She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

**【Dryad’s Saddle / “Ganba” Mushroom (*Thelephora*): Edible. Dry, crisp flesh. Exceptionally delicious.]**

“*Ganba* mushroom?!” She exclaimed involuntarily, then immediately clamped her mouth shut. Although this stretch of forest belonged to her, during mushroom season, people might sneak in to pick. She didn’t want anyone to overhear.

*Ganba* mushrooms were a real treasure. They weren’t much to look at—like layers of crumpled, rotten tree bark. But their flavor was intensely savory. Other mushrooms might need meat to enhance their taste, but *ganba* mushroom had dry, crisp flesh, like air-dried beef—no, even better than beef.

She hadn’t heard of anyone finding *ganba* mushrooms in her area. Yet here she was, lucky enough to stumble upon two of them—one large, one small.

She carefully picked them, wrapped them separately in leaves, and put them in her basket.

After standing up, she circled the area several more times, but didn’t find any more.

She made a mental note of the spot, though. Maybe before long, she could harvest again.