The night passed without incident, and in the blink of an eye, the next day arrived.
Before dawn, everyone had risen except for Wang An.
It was clear that their desire for gold was incredibly intense; if it weren't for the fact that working in the dark was inconvenient, these people likely would have gotten up in the middle of the night.
For breakfast, they ate steamed rice. As for the side dish, it was oil-splashed rice mixed with the salted mustard tuber (xiancai geda) that You Zila and Mu Xueli had brought.
Many people might not know what salted mustard tubers are.
This thing is actually dried salted vegetables made from mustard greens.
Because mustard greens have a spicy kick, they are also called spicy vegetables. As for making salted mustard tubers, it is a very simple process.
The first step is to wash fresh mustard greens and soak them in a jar of brine.
After about two months, they are basically pickled through. At this stage, the mustard greens are called salted mustard or white salted vegetables.
If you put them in a soybean paste jar, they become the famous red salted vegetables.
However, the soybean paste used to pickle red salted vegetables doesn't taste very good.
Once the mustard greens are pickled, they are put directly into a pot to be "hu"—which is essentially boiling.
But when boiling salted mustard, if you add some seasonings, the resulting salted mustard tubers will taste even better.
For example, pork skin, marrow bones, soybean paste, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise.
Once the mustard greens are boiled until they are mushy—to the point where a chopstick can poke a hole right through them—they can be scooped out and air-dried.
Once the salted mustard is dried, the finished product is the salted mustard tuber.
Some might ask: can't you just air-dry them without boiling?
The answer is yes, but such finished tubers, while edible, carry a certain stench.
It is very similar to the smell of stinky tofu; if one insisted, you could even say it smells like feces.
In any case, this scent is a pure stench, absolutely unadulterated.
The most impressive thing about salted mustard tubers is that they have no expiration date. As long as they don't get wet or attract insects, they can still be eaten after ten or twenty years.
Eating oil-splashed mixed rice with salted mustard tubers—though it looks simple—is, in truth, a gourmet delicacy of the human world!
The more you eat, the more fragrant it tastes.
Thus, after a large pot of rice was cleaned out by the group and the two foxes, everyone still felt a lingering sense of longing.
The reason for saying "and the two foxes" was that while everyone was eating, the short-tailed fox returned, leading its wife.
Stopping Wu Dong and the others from their desire to kill the two, Mu Xueli utilized his talent for storytelling and recounted the events of yesterday regarding the two foxes to the group.
It must be said that Mu Xueli always tended to exaggerate when narrating events.
But exaggeration wasn't a flaw; if a story isn't a bit exaggerated, the listeners lose interest and won't even want to listen.
Consequently, Mu Xueli had Wu Dong and the others completely fooled.
However, when the six of them tried to verify the story with Wang An's trio, they received nods of approval from them.
This left Wu Dong's group utterly shocked. Primarily, it was because mythological stories passed down in folk tradition were actually happening before their eyes; how could they not be surprised?
With that, the six accepted the existence of these two foxes.
Zhang Shuya and Sun Nian, in particular, managed to win the approval of the vixen; they spent a good while petting and stroking the female fox.
It had to be admitted that even though the fox was shedding, its fur was still wonderful to touch—soft, fluffy, and incredibly satisfying.
After Wang An poured half a bowl of mixed rice for each fox, he stopped paying them any mind.
After breakfast, just as the group was about to set off, Wang An noticed that the short-tailed fox hadn't left after eating, but was instead squatting there, quietly watching Wang An and the others.
As Wang An and the group walked toward the stone bamboo land, the short-tailed fox still didn't return to its den, but followed behind them like a dog.
Seeing this, even Feng Chengmin couldn't help but speak up
"What is this fox trying to do? Why is it clinging to us?"
Hearing this, Mu Xueli replied with a smile
"Maybe it wants to help us work because we fed it."
As soon as Mu Xueli finished speaking, everyone burst into laughter.
Although Mu Xueli was only joking, unexpectedly, this joke turned out to be a prophetic word.
The group proceeded as they had yesterday; except for Wang An, the other nine went to dig in the stone bamboo land.
Wang An, dragging his iron shovel, found a spot where the river was slightly narrower and hopped to the opposite bank.
Whether searching for nuggets or mineral veins, it was not an easy task, so one could not afford to stop moving.
At first, the short-tailed fox did not follow Wang An, but stayed with the group.
In reality, for humans, animals are things that one might care about or notice when the mood strikes, but normally, one might not even spare them a glance.
The group was the same; after a few comments about the fox standing there watching, they each went back to their own business. No one had the interest to stare at a fox indefinitely.
Furthermore, the matter of whether a fox was a "Great Immortal" was merely conversation for when one was bored; after all, no one had seen it with their own eyes.
Once the group finished digging their first respective holes and began happily shoveling out "gold rice," the short-tailed fox observed for a while and then quietly slipped away.
Although some in the group saw the fox leave, those who did didn't take it to heart; after all, such a thing was hardly worth noting.
But the fox didn't slip away to return to its den; it went to find Wang An.
Wang An's trip to the opposite bank was not in vain. After over an hour, he pried a gold nugget out of a crevice in the riverside rocks.
This was the third gold nugget Wang An had found since entering the mountains to prospect.
This nugget was only the size of an egg and didn't look particularly distinctive, so its value was certainly lower than the previous two.
But as long as it was a nugget, it was definitely more valuable than an equal weight of pure gold, so Wang An was still very happy.
Just as Wang An was admiring the nugget with a face full of joy, the short-tailed fox appeared before him.
It is a human trait that upon obtaining a novel treasure, one wants to show it off to someone, primarily to vent the joy in one's heart.
When there is no one around, one might even want to brag to an ant.
Thus, Wang An held up the gold nugget and began showing off to the short-tailed fox.
While showing off, he said to the fox
"See this? This is the famous gold nugget, hahaha..."
(End of Chapter)