After returning from He Family Village, He Yi resumed work on the house. The interior was nearly finished. Now and then he picked flowers and grasses, set them in bamboo plant stands or woven flowerpots, and brought a few indoors for decoration. The results were not terribly out of place, though they looked rather rustic.
The courtyard still lacked a pond. He did not need an elaborate landscape garden, but he did want to dig a pool and plant lotus flowers. Spring was the planting season, so for now he planned to excavate the pond, keep a few fish that could survive without artificial aeration, and let the big goose paddle in it. Then the bird would not have to travel all the way to the river so often.
Looking over the site, He Yi wished he had an excavator. A pond this size would have taken only one scoop of a mechanical bucket. Reality was less forgiving. He and Xue Ci had only their hoes, which they had to raise and bring down again and again.
It took them two days to finish digging. The calluses on He Yi’s palms grew thicker, while Xue Ci’s hands remained as soft as ever. His own hands had become so rough that he worried about scratching Xue Ci’s delicate skin when he touched him, though Xue Ci did not seem bothered.
They finally dug a rectangular, inkstone-shaped pond in the southeastern part of the courtyard. All that remained was filling it, but the river was far away and carrying water back and forth would be difficult.
Just as He Yi was fretting, a light rain began to fall.
Xue Ci asked how they were supposed to fill their newly dug pond. He Yi said, “It’s raining at exactly the right time. Let’s see how much water it collects and leave it alone for now.”
Then he remembered that Tang Huai had recently been coming down the mountain carrying baskets full of mushrooms. He asked Xue Ci, “How about taking advantage of the rain and going up the mountain?”
Xue Ci’s eyes immediately lit up. “Yes!”
He did not even ask what they would be doing there. Smiling, He Yi went indoors to prepare baskets and bamboo poles.
The rain was very light, and the clouds were thin. They had only one straw rain cape, so He Yi put it on Xue Ci. He fashioned himself a makeshift umbrella from a large leaf and carried it up the mountain.
It had been quite a long time since their last visit. The scenery was very different from summer. Red and yellow leaves lay on grass washed bright green by the rain. There were few flowers, but fruit hung from many shrubs and saplings. The fragrance of rotting fruit mingled with the heavy smell of damp soil, creating a particular autumn sense of decay and abundance.
They climbed higher than the hunter’s hut before beginning to search the surrounding forest for mushrooms.
Before long, He Yi spotted a brilliant red mushroom among the leaves. Its round cap was four fingers across. He crouched, pushed the sharpened end of a bamboo pole into the dark mud beneath it, and levered the mushroom out of the soil before picking it up.
Rainwater had left the cap gleaming, its red almost excessively vivid. Beneath it was a white stalk. He Yi studied it for a moment but could not recall Tang Huai ever describing anything similar.
He was about to put it back when Xue Ci approached and asked for the red mushroom.
“This is so pretty!” Xue Ci rubbed the white stalk with his fingers, trying to remove the clinging dirt. “Is this a mushroom?”
“It’s one kind. But it probably isn’t safe to eat. You can play with it if you like.”
“So it can’t be eaten…” Xue Ci sounded disappointed.
He could not bear to throw it away, however. He placed it in his own basket and announced proudly, “Look. I’ve found one too.”
He Yi laid his large hand on Xue Ci’s head. “Mushrooms mostly look something like this. Some are large, some small, and they come in every color. Just look for shapes like these, Ci’er.”
“Mm!” Xue Ci nodded seriously beneath his hand.
Mushrooms hidden beneath decaying leaves were not easy to spot. He Yi searched quite a few places without finding any, while Xue Ci called him over four or five times.
When He Yi arrived, Xue Ci was holding several mushrooms: pinkish white, bluish green, violet, and pale yellow. They all seemed to have the same shape. He Yi had no idea how Xue Ci had managed to gather so many colors in such a short time.
“What are these called?” Xue Ci asked curiously.
He Yi recognized the type with flat caps. “I think they’re called rice-soup mushrooms. Tang Huai picks a lot of these.”
“Can we eat them?”
“Yes, but not raw. And in case I’ve identified them wrongly, let’s ask Brother Tang to inspect them when we get home,” He Yi said cautiously.
Xue Ci lovingly stroked the mushrooms before putting them in his basket. Then he immediately spotted another white rice-soup mushroom. He Yi stared for some time without seeing it at all. Only after following Xue Ci and pushing aside a heap of rotten leaves did he finally spot it.
He Yi could not imagine how Xue Ci had seen it. His eyesight was truly astonishing.
Watching Xue Ci reach out to touch the cap reminded He Yi of nature documentaries in which mushroom gatherers sometimes tapped the caps, supposedly helping disperse the spores.
He did not know how to explain spores to Xue Ci, so he described the tapping as helping mushrooms have babies. When they returned another time, perhaps new mushrooms would have grown.
Xue Ci had obediently tapped the milky-white cap twice, but now he drew back his hand and looked at He Yi in bewilderment. “Huh? But I don’t want to have babies with it.”
“?” He Yi froze too, then realized his explanation had been ambiguous. He could not resist laughing. “What are you thinking? The mushroom has its own babies.”
“Then why does it need me?”
“…At most, you’re helping deliver them.”
“All right, then.” Xue Ci stopped tapping the cap, plucked the mushroom, and dropped it into the basket. He began counting the colors and varieties he had found.
Fine rain pattered dully against the thick mushroom caps. The sky was gray, and no wild animals could be seen. They were probably hiding from the rain.
The two wandered slowly through the forest, collecting mushrooms here and there. Xue Ci had the sharper eyes while He Yi was more careful about handling what they found, so they decided to search together rather than separately.
They found some dainty, delicate mushrooms with thin stalks, and others resembling lingzhi fungi, with huge caps clustered together. Whenever He Yi recognized one and thought it might be edible, he carefully levered it out of the soil and let Xue Ci put it in the basket.
He Yi recognized quite a few. Yellow chanterelles looked like little flowers and smelled fruity. There was a plain but handsome brown mushroom that released milky-white sap when damaged. He had seen something similar on his travels and thought it might be a milk-cap mushroom. They also found a fungus that turned indigo blue when touched. Xue Ci was fascinated, but He Yi would not let him pick it. It was the famous blue-bruising jian shou qing. It was not necessarily poisonous, but He Yi had forgotten how it needed to be prepared for eating. Rather than risk a mistake, he left it.
Before they knew it, the baskets were half full of an assortment of mushrooms. Xue Ci was having a wonderful time, selecting the prettiest and cutest specimens. Of the mushrooms they believed to be ordinary edible kinds, the rice-soup mushrooms made up the largest share.
“There’s plenty here that we can eat,” He Yi said. “We still need Brother Tang to check them when we get back. Let’s go home.”
Mushrooms would not keep for very long. If they wanted more later, they could always come up the mountain to collect them.
Even on the way down, Xue Ci did not stop searching. His extraordinary eyes found mushrooms tucked into the most unlikely corners. Any unfamiliar variety that looked pretty went straight into his basket.
Seeing how much he loved collecting them, He Yi let him indulge himself.
Halfway down the mountain, the rain stopped. Xue Ci was still busy gathering mushrooms, while He Yi tossed aside his leaf umbrella, took hold of his bamboo pole, and quietly walked toward a particular place.
Perhaps rainwater had flooded their burrows, for several white rabbits were moving homes. One turned its red eyes in He Yi’s direction, and a bamboo pole with a sharply carved tip suddenly flew toward them.
With a muffled pfft, the pole struck two rabbits, piercing one through the body and the other through a hind leg. The second rabbit struggled so violently that it nearly pulled free of the pole. He Yi hurried over and pinned it down.
The moment Xue Ci smelled blood, he stopped collecting mushrooms and turned to look for He Yi. A few steps later he saw He Yi approaching with two wild rabbits in his hands, the bamboo pole still dripping blood.
He Yi tossed one rabbit to Xue Ci. “Want to eat it?”
Xue Ci caught it and thought for a moment. Then he transformed into a snow leopard. He Yi hurried to catch the falling rain cape and clothes before they hit the ground.
“Awoo.” The snow leopard held the rabbit in his paws, unsure where to begin. At first He Yi could not understand the problem, but then he saw Xue Ci trying to pull out the rabbit’s fur with his teeth. After a good while, the rabbit had lost hardly any hair and still looked like a fluffy white marshmallow.
The snow leopard licked and licked, then stuck out his tongue with a tuft of rabbit fur clinging to it. He stared at He Yi with an innocent expression.
“…” What a delicate little creature.
Helpless, He Yi walked over to rescue the rabbit from the beast’s mouth, tossed it into his own basket, and said, “I’ll cook it for you when we get home. Come along.”
The snow leopard was delighted. He rose abruptly, rubbed his face hard against He Yi’s, and swept his thick, long tail back and forth.