Chapter 87: 87. An Unexpected Joy

Luoning stared at the white, oval-shaped "White Fruit" in his hand, falling into a state of complete bewilderment for a moment.

If his guess was correct, this so-called White Fruit was nothing else but something Luoning had often seen in his hometown on Earth, and something he had even participated in raising as a child—a silkworm cocoon.

"What's wrong?"

Ailin blinked her eyes as she stared at Luoning, not understanding why he was so surprised; could it be that he felt the White Fruit was too delicious and couldn't help himself?

Luoning finally came back to his senses and hurriedly asked, "This White Fruit you speak of, is it made by a worm? Also, when you said to peel it open just now, are you eating the pupa inside?"

"Is that thing called a 'pupa'? We have always called it the 'Core'."

Hong Knight spoke up. Compared to Jennie, who did not do much manual labor, he often traveled outside and knew more about the White Fruit.

"My Lord, just as you said, the White Fruit is indeed made by a worm. I don't know if that worm exists elsewhere, but there are quite a few of them here in the Ziguo Tribe."

Luoning's eyes lit up, "Quick, tell me about it."

Hong Knight said, "When Jennie and I first brought our team here, we discovered that Ziguo Tree forest outside. Under the leaves, I saw many fat gray worms, which I named 'Big Gray Worms'."

"Later, we settled down here. I observed them for a while and found that these worms feed on the leaves of the Ziguo Tree, and after growing up, they spit out this white, viscous liquid to wrap themselves up. One day, out of curiosity, I peeled open the white shell and discovered the Core inside."

Speaking of this, he chuckled, "It was too hard when we first settled here, and there was nothing to eat, so I tried boiling this thing to eat. I found that not only was it non-toxic, but it could also nourish the body, so this thing became a unique food of my Ziguo Tribe."

Luoning was now completely certain that this so-called White Fruit was a silkworm cocoon.

The "Big Gray Worm" in Hong Knight's words should be a silkworm, only it was different from the domestic silkworm; this kind of silkworm grew in the wild.

And the so-called Ziguo Tree and Purple Fruit, Luoning guessed, should be the Mulberry Tree and Mulberry.

The yellow forest he saw on the peak of the ring-shaped mountain should be the Mulberry Tree forest; the fallen Mulberry Tree leaves were exactly yellow.

Luoning's heart pounded.

Silkworms were a good thing; the cocoons they spun could be used to spin silk thread, which could then be made into Silk.

Silk was an even better thing.

In ancient China, this stuff was priced extremely high; only the families of high-ranking officials and nobles could wear it, and when sold abroad, it was even more exorbitantly expensive.

In this world, there was no memory of anything related to sericulture in Luoning's memories.

The materials for making clothes here generally only consisted of three types: wool, leather, and fabric.

Among them, fabric was basically made of coarse linen, fine linen, and so on, with flax as the main material.

Commoners generally wore coarse linen clothes, while nobles used fine linen, wool, and precious furs to make clothes to show off their status.

It was said that there was cotton cloth in the south, but this thing was not widely promoted for planting and was also very rare.

As for Silk, it hadn't even been heard of.

Luoning never expected that there would be sericulture here in the Ziguo Tribe. If he could turn these cocoons into Silk, it would be the signature industry of Shanlin Town in the future, much more reliable than the Black Iron Tree.

"How much of this White Fruit do you still have?" Luoning asked.

"There is still a lot!"

Ailin gestured exaggeratedly, "There are still several crates!"

"Let's go, take me to see."

As Luoning spoke, he pulled Ailin's hand and walked hurriedly toward the room she had just entered.

Jennie and Hong Knight looked at each other, the latter completely puzzled, "Why is the Baron so interested in the White Fruit? He didn't even listen to your plan for the Huitu Tribe."

Jennie shook her head, "I don't know, but I feel that the Lord should know more about the White Fruit than we do. Let's go take a look too."

This room was more like a warehouse, with quite a few wooden crates placed inside.

Ailin opened all four wooden crates, which were piled full of cocoons.

"My father keeps one crate every year as seeds. When next spring comes, the White Fruit will sprout as if it were germinating, producing more offspring!" she said.

So many!

Luoning squatted beside the crates and observed carefully.

A small portion of the cocoons here appeared grayish-yellow, but most were white, and there was no dirt like broken leaves on them; they must have been cleaned by Hong Knight.

These cocoons were at least half a circle larger than the cocoons formed by the domestic silkworms in Luoning's memory. Hearing Hong Knight describe them as gray worms, they should be different from ordinary domestic silkworms.

"Hong, do you know how to raise them?" Luoning turned to look at the Knight who had followed.

"I suppose... I know a little bit?"

Hong Knight scratched his head, "My Lord, you also know that life in the mountains is very boring. When I had nothing to do, I studied them. Those Big Gray Worms form shells to hide themselves inside for the winter, and when the next summer comes, they crawl out from inside!"

Speaking of this, as if he had reached the most exciting part, Hong Knight was somewhat excited.

"My Lord, you might not know, but when those worms come out, they actually turn into moths! Although the moths exist for a very short time and die after laying eggs, they leave behind dense clusters of eggs, and they will all grow into more Big Gray Worms."

As he spoke, he pointed to a crate in the room, "Every year, you only need to keep a small part of what's in the crate, and it will be enough to harvest several crates of White Fruit the following year!"

Luoning listened while thinking.

He had already confirmed that these were silkworm cocoons, and what they ate was the silkworm pupa inside.

However, the silkworms here were different from what he knew.

The silkworms he was familiar with usually had two seasons, spring and autumn, and overwintered in the form of silkworm eggs.

But the silkworms of the Ziguo Tribe were not like this; they became cocoons in the autumn, pupated inside, overwintered in the form of silkworm pupae, and would not break out of the pupa until the following summer.

As for why there was such a difference, Luoning guessed it should be due to the temperature.

Shanlin Town was located in the northernmost part of the Wushan Territory, where the climate had four distinct seasons.

The temperature in spring and autumn was about 5~15℃, which was not very suitable for silkworm growth;

Only the summer, with 20~30℃, was suitable for silkworm hatching and growth.

Since September, Luoning had felt the temperature dropping, but he was an Intermediate Knight, so he didn't feel it as obviously.

Having said that, in the Ziguo Tribe, under natural conditions, one could only raise one season of silkworms per year.

Unless one could change the ambient temperature and create a suitable environment in spring or autumn, one could raise multiple seasons.

But this was obviously unattainable.

Luoning crouched by the side of the crate, picked up a few cocoons to fiddle with, and asked, "Huoen, how many silkworm seeds do you keep each year, er, that is, the White Fruit you mentioned as seeds?"

Huoen pondered for a moment, "About a dozen or so, it won't exceed twenty."

"Why not keep more?"

Huoen spread his hands, "My Lord, I have thought about keeping more, but there aren't enough Ziguo Trees on the mountain; if there were more, they wouldn't survive."

Luoning nodded slowly, having forgotten about that.

He held up a cocoon and introduced it to Huoen and the others: "What you call White Fruit is actually called a cocoon, and the core inside is called a silkworm pupa. The silkworm pupa can be eaten, but the cocoon has other wonderful uses."

"Oh right, and that Ziguo Tree should be a Mulberry Tree, and the Purple Fruit is a Mulberry."

Jennie and Huoen couldn't help but exchange glances; their guess was indeed correct, the Baron before them knew a great deal about the Purple Fruit.

"Your erudition leaves us deeply impressed, my Lord!"

Jennie smiled and said: "Starting from today, we will correct these names."

Ailin blinked her eyes on the side, somewhat surprised, "Then should we be called the 'Mulberry Tribe' now?"

Hearing this, Luoning couldn't help but smile.

"Actually, what you are called doesn't really matter."

He said: "Originally, I intended to move all of you to Shanlin Town to live, but now I have changed my mind. Since the Ziguo Tribe has silkworms and mulberry trees, this resource must be put to good use!"

Luoning had already made up his mind; he wanted to replace the wheat with mulberry trees here at the Ziguo Tribe.

(End of chapter)