CHAPTER 195: CHAPTER 195 ORIGINAL SIN 4

Of course, even if Yun Shuangshuang plans to harvest truffles to make money, it’s currently not feasible, because the truffle harvesting season is between November and March of the following year. The best time is from December to March, and it’s only September now. At least two more months are needed before truffle harvesting can begin.

What Yun Shuangshuang most wants to do now is to get some food for her mother. Relying on the food at home is impossible since everything at home is tightly controlled by her grandmother, Wang Guixiang. Except for her small cousin from her uncle’s family, no one else is allowed to eat.

Not to mention eggs and meat, even rice is counted grain by grain by Wang Guixiang, and she is unwilling to let Yun Shuangshuang, this "money-losing" child, eat her fill, let alone allow her to eat outside of meals, which is as difficult as reaching the sky! If Yun Shuangshuang wants to get food for her mother, she has to go out and find it.

Fortunately, the current Yun Shuangshuang has grown up. Unlike her previous life, where she didn’t know how to utilize her nasal advantage well before the age of fifteen, she now knows how to fully leverage her developed sense of smell.

Now that it’s almost harvest time, Yun Shuangshuang’s main job is to go out and pick some wild vegetables to feed the pigs and chickens. The adults at home have all gone to the fields to look after the crops. As the harvest approaches, it’s the busiest time for farmers, who love to be in the fields no matter what.

Her little cousin has also gone to the fields. In the current field edges, it’s the time when some small wild fruits are ripening. The village children love to go to the fields to pick wild fruits and play with a group of small companions, but naturally, Yun Shuangshuang, who must stay at home to help with housework, does not have such a benefit.

For the current Yun Shuangshuang, not being able to go to the fields is a good thing, as it allows her to act alone easily. Carrying the basket she used to collect wild vegetables, Yun Shuangshuang headed directly to the mountain behind her house.

This is a small hill, not a place people from the village visit often. That’s why there are plenty of wild vegetables in the field. Occasionally, you can even encounter wild chickens or rabbits. This mountain is close to Yun Shuangshuang’s home, and she used to come here to dig wild vegetables, saving herself a lot of effort.

This time, Yun Shuangshuang didn’t plan to dig wild vegetables when she entered the mountain. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and carefully distinguished the smells in the air.

With her eyes closed, Yun Shuangshuang seemed to enter another world instantly! A world composed of various smells, with different scents from every kind of plant, the smells from all sorts of animals, even each insect has its unique scent, and then, the various fungal scents!

Within these fungal scents, Yun Shuangshuang discerned a few subtle, rarer fungal scents. She followed these delicate scents through twists and turns and quickly found a cluster of high-value mushrooms!

This cluster of mushrooms is in perfect condition and quite large, though their value is nowhere near that of truffles, these mushrooms are worth at least seven or eight dollars, even when sold cheaply.

Yun Shuangshuang was in a great mood as she carefully picked these mushrooms. Then she meticulously covered the root area with soil. Mushrooms grow quickly, and after a small rain, they could be harvested again.

Next, Yun Shuangshuang followed the detected rare fungal scent, moving little by little. Each time, she only picked the best-looking mushrooms.

After picking the mushrooms, Yun Shuangshuang pulled out many weeds to line her basket, carefully separating the mushrooms to avoid damaging their appearance. Mushrooms are naturally delicate and easily broken.

Soon, Yun Shuangshuang’s basket was full of mushrooms, all of which were large, thick, and clean, with many varieties. At the same time, Yun Shuangshuang also found her primary target this trip, a faint fishy smell appeared in the air, mixed with a hint of dung.

Yun Shuangshuang’s lips curled into a big smile. She followed the scent, running quickly, full of anticipation. She parted a hidden clump of grass and saw on a patch of crushed grass two beautiful green-shelled wild eggs lying there!

Yun Shuangshuang carefully reached out, picked them up, and cradled them like treasures in her palms, feeling a warmth. These wild eggs still carried the faint warmth of the mother bird; they must have been laid not long ago.

Yun Shuangshuang sensed the air again, analyzing the scent information to deduce that the egg-laying wild chicken had already flown away. She felt a bit disappointed. Although she knew catching a wild chicken with her small frame would be difficult, missing this chance with the wild chicken still pained her.

Her mother’s health is not good now. Although she was only locked up for more than two years, her health suffered, but it’s not at the point of becoming irreparable like in the past, where no amount of nourishment helped, always appearing so frail she could be blown away by a gust of wind.

Feng Jinyan’s health can still recuperate now. If Yun Shuangshuang could catch a wild chicken, no matter how stingy her grandmother was, causing a scene might just force a few pieces of chicken meat out of her, allowing her mother to eat!

After a moment of regret, Yun Shuangshuang stopped dwelling on it. Now that she had learned to use her sense of smell, although she couldn’t do everything, it was still easy enough to make a small meal for her mother.

When Yun Shuangshuang returned home, no one was back yet. Knowing the family wouldn’t be back at this time, Yun Shuangshuang dared to bring the wild eggs home without fearing her biased grandmother would snatch them away to give to her cousin from her uncle’s family.

She hurriedly started a fire and boiled water, cracked the wild eggs into a broken bowl, and quickly ran outside to bury the eggshells to prevent her family from finding out.

After burying the eggshells and coming back, the water had boiled. She poured the boiling water into the bowl with the wild eggs, stirring them with chopsticks as she poured, soon cooking the wild eggs to form into strands.

Once the wild eggs in strands cooled to a warm temperature, Yun Shuangshuang took out a hollow grass stem she had prepared earlier and placed it in the bowl. She then quickly ran to where her mother was locked up.

"Mom! Come over, I brought something tasty! Come eat!" Yun Shuangshuang knocked on the door and called to Feng Jinyan, who curled up under a tattered quilt from which even the cotton wadding poked out.

Feng Jinyan had been sleeping drowsily but heard her daughter’s voice calling. Though Feng Jinyan was not mentally clear, she remembered she loved her daughter’s voice the most. As soon as she heard Yun Shuangshuang’s call, she immediately turned over and crawled towards Yun Shuangshuang using her hands and feet.

Feng Jinyan wore only simple underwear, and her skin was covered in a thick layer of grime from not bathing for a long time. Her hair was also dirty, tangled together in clumps.

Having been locked in a single room for too long, Feng Jinyan could barely walk now; crawling was her most common movement. The only fortunate thing was that the muscles on Feng Jinyan’s thighs had not yet begun to atrophy.

In her previous life, after Yun Shuangshuang took Feng Jinyan out, it took two full years for Feng Jinyan’s severely atrophied legs to barely stand and walk.

Watching her mother in such a pitiful state, Yun Shuangshuang’s eyes burned, almost letting her tears fall again, but she forced them back.

Crying is useless because tears cannot solve any problems. They only prove your weakness and uselessness. In this lifetime, she would not stand by and let her mother suffer like this ever again. She would rescue her mother as quickly as possible!