Chapter 33: The Wild Pheasant That Got Snatched Away

The black caps of the morels hadn’t opened yet, which meant they were at their most nutritious. Fang Mingxi lowered her head and sniffed, as if she could already smell the fragrance of morels sizzling in a pan.

Her hands didn’t stop moving. She strung together several morels, then brushed aside nearby pine needles and uncovered a small cluster of matsutake.

While she found two types of mushrooms on her side, Tang Yao had gathered an entire pile of chanterelles.

Those bright yellow mushrooms were something Tang Yao had never seen before, but after months of reading up on wild plants, she now knew they were edible and not some brightly colored poisonous species.

She picked faster and faster. One golden chanterelle after another filled the small basket hanging from her arm.

Fang Mingxi added her own mushrooms to the basket as well, earning a round of praise from Tang Yao. She smiled, breathed out, and closed the exploration panel.

The virtual forest dissolved, returning them to reality.

The air in the woods had turned icy in an instant. Tang Yao couldn’t hold back a sneeze.

“Achoo!”

She rubbed her nose. The cold air had hit so sharply it felt as if even her snot had frozen.

A bit embarrassed, she took out a handkerchief to wipe it away, then turned to Fang Mingxi. “Meimei, we picked a lot today. We should head down the mountain before it gets even colder.”

Fang Mingxi sniffed. “Cold.”

They decided to descend. Although the rain had eased, the ground remained wet and streaked with traces of runoff. With each step, mud and fallen leaves clung to their shoes.

The rain had made the mountain path treacherous, and they struggled to make their way down.

Tang Yao carried the basket and kept glancing at Fang Mingxi to keep her from slipping. But the moment she failed to watch her own footing, her shoe slid, and she toppled forward.

“Ah!”

Fang Mingxi jerked her head up just in time to see Tang Yao tumble past her.

“older sister!!!”

Tang Yao rolled down the slope, bumping along the narrow path until she crashed into a patch of thorny shrubs. A few branches finally stopped her from rolling farther.

Fang Mingxi rushed over, carefully avoiding the rocks. She didn’t even pause to retrieve the fallen basket and ran straight to Tang Yao.

“older sister, are you okay?” She frantically pulled away the branches tangled in Tang Yao’s hair and tried to help her sit up.

Tang Yao had been knocked senseless. Her hat was gone, her basket missing, and beneath her hand lay a completely crushed morel.

She stared at the ruined mushroom with heartbreak, palms pressed against the cold, muddy ground. “The mushroom got crushed…” Such a big one too, who knew if it was still edible.

Fang Mingxi’s eyebrow twitched. Older sister, seriously? You’re worried about the mushroom right now? Shouldn’t you be checking yourself?

She mustered enough strength to pull Tang Yao to her feet, then dusted the mud from her pants and backside. “older sister, breathe.”

Tang Yao touched her head. She was still dizzy, and it took a moment before the spinning stopped.

She forced a small laugh. “I’m fine. The path’s just slippery from the rain. I didn’t see where I stepped.”

She gathered the fallen mushrooms again, and seeing them dirtied by mud made her heart ache even more.

The southern side of Maple Leaf Mountain really seemed out to get her.

After collecting the mushrooms, she noticed a few more in the grass. She pushed the grass aside and froze. Her hand trembled as she whipped around to call Fang Mingxi.

“Xixi, come here!” Her face lit with joy, even more excited than when she found the mushrooms.

Lying in the grass was a fainted wild pheasant. A still-warm egg was stuck beneath it, and under its body was an entire nest of eggs.

They had knocked the pheasant unconscious completely by accident. Tang Yao’s lingering dizziness vanished instantly.

“Xixi, we’re having meat today!” A wild pheasant, meat! Real meat! They hadn’t had any in months.

“A wild pheasant? Where?”

Before Tang Yao could finish speaking, several figures burst out from the side. A pockmarked man spotted the pheasant and lunged, grabbing it by the wings.

“I got it! I caught the wild pheasant!” Liu Damaizi shoved Tang Yao aside and proudly held up the pheasant for his companions.

The others, slower to react, turned red with envy when they saw the limp pheasant in his hand. They scrambled into the grass as well.

“I found the eggs!”

“I saw them first! He Daniu, those are my wild pheasant eggs, don’t you dare grab them!”

“Get lost! I saw them too. Whoever grabs them first gets them!”

The three men clawed at each other over the eggs, each clutching several while cursing the others for being shameless.

Tang Yao the one who actually discovered the pheasant had been shoved aside so hard she nearly fell again. She finally steadied herself, only to watch them steal both the pheasant and the eggs. She was so furious she nearly cried.

“Xixi, that was our wild pheasant. They stole it…”

After months of daily foraging, they’d collected plenty of plants, but pheasants? This was their first one. Even the eggs, they’d only seen them once before.

And now the rare pheasant they finally stumbled upon had been taken right from under their noses. How could Tang Yao accept that?

She stomped her foot in frustration, wanting to confront them, but the moment she faced strangers her nerves acted up, and she could only shake in anger.

A pheasant already in their hands, how could Fang Mingxi tolerate it?

She shoved her small basket into Tang Yao’s hands and marched forward. “Uncles, you’re shameless! We found it first! You should be ashamed!”

The men wrestling over the eggs didn’t even hear her. Instead, they grew even more brazen, grabbing the fallen morels on the ground as well.

Completely ignored, Fang Mingxi looked around, grabbed a stone at her feet, and hurled it at He Daniu.

“Did you hear me?! That’s my wild pheasant! No grabbing! You big meanies!”

Pa!

The stone hit the ground near He Daniu’s foot. At last, the men stopped and looked over. Fang Mingxi glared back, fury written across her face, several more stones in hand.

Liu Damaizi was tying up the pheasant with a grass rope. He glanced up at Fang Mingxi and Tang Yao, two unfamiliar little girls, scoffed, and continued tying.

He Daniu, however, regained a bit of sense. Their faces were unfamiliar, he didn’t recall seeing them anywhere in the brigade.

He hesitated. “Which family are you from?” Hopefully not one of the troublemaking ones.

Fang Mingxi kept her expression cold. “We live at the northern foot of the mountain.”

The northern foot. He Daniu relaxed. He and the others laughed.

“From the cattle shed, huh? Then these wild eggs are ours today.”

“You—!”

Fang Mingxi clenched her fists so tightly her teeth ground together. “You big meanies! Shameless adults! Bullying kids just because you’re older?!”

Tang Yao, trembling, tugged her sleeve and added, “Yeah! Bullying us… kids… You’re shameless!” She stuttered through the words, then forced herself to glare at them.

Liu Damaizi ignored their weak protests entirely. He finished tying up the pheasant, then his gaze landed on the basket Tang Yao was holding.

His eyes instantly brightened.

“What’s that you’re carrying? Where’d you find those mushrooms?”