Chapter 94: Another Deer Skin

Arriving at Han Dajiugang's house again, Wang An handed the four pieces of knees to Han Shuisheng.

Han Shuisheng was naturally very happy and handed a piece of deer skin to Wang An.

The deer skin was not big, about one-third the size of the small piece of deer skin in Wang An's hand.

Wang An took the deer skin and was stunned. Why is it this thing again?

This thing is hard to be some secret book? The key is that this thing has no practical value!

Finding that Wang An seemed not to know what was going on, Han Shuisheng explained with a smile:

"This is the address of that old den. Uncle won't lie to you, rest assured! Hahaha!"

Wang An looked around, but didn't see anything

He then asked with confusion, "Grandpa, how do you look at this thing? Isn't this just a map of a mountain range!"

Han Shuisheng said with a chuckle, "You have to look at it against the sun."

Wang An did not suspect anything else, so he held it up to the sunlight to look.

Looking at it this way, oh my god, it turns out the mystery is actually so damn simple!

The deer skin itself is thin, and the characters on this deer skin are just where it has been worn even thinner!

In fact, even without looking against the sunlight, if you examine it carefully, you can also discover that the surface of the skin with characters is different in thickness from the surface of the skin next to it!

It is just that the deer skin itself is soft and thin, and because of the tanning process and the fact that it is quite old, this deer skin has become filthy.

No matter how you look at it, it looks like a dirty rag that has been used countless times!

And as for this deer skin, you should try your best not to get it wet; once it gets wet, it shrinks, and it will also make the drawn lines on it blurry, so no one dares to wash it!

This makes people who see it not pay attention to these details at all!

Facing the sunlight, Wang An clearly saw written on the deer skin in real handwriting: 215 li west and 26 li north of DJ County, and there is also a dot on the north slope of the mountain range.

Immediately, Wang An read out the words he saw.

Han Shuisheng explained with a chuckle, "Right, that's correct, the Old Anzi is right in that place."

Wang An was instantly overjoyed, not because of this piece of deer skin, but because of the two pieces at home!

How many Old Anzi must this be? How many ginseng roots must be dug out? Isn't this just going to be incredibly awesome!

Suppressing the joy in his heart, he began to ask Han Shuisheng about some knowledge regarding ginseng and some rules for digging it.

Wang An listened and asked, but he didn't know until he asked; once he asked, it really gave him a huge fright!

For example, the ginseng hunters need to be an odd number, and the ginseng must be counted as a person!

Because ginseng is precious and hard to find, and one has to face various wild beasts in the mountains, the meaning is to enter in odd numbers and return in even numbers, implying that good things come in pairs and that one will be able to dig up ginseng upon entering the mountains!

For another example, before entering the mountains, one must worship the Mountain God, the Old Leader; the Mountain God, the Old Leader here, is a person named Sun Liang.

Legend has it that this person was loyal and righteous, insisted on searching for his lost brother Zhang Lu in the mountains, and finally starved to death, turning into the Mountain God after death.

He protects the safety of the ginseng hunters, helps them find ginseng, and points the way home for those who get lost in the mountains!

Things like these are still very normal, representing people's beautiful visions that everyone can have a harvest when entering the mountains!

There is also what everyone hopes for: that all who enter the mountains can be loyal and righteous, not stab others in the back, and that everyone can be safe and sound whether entering or leaving the mountains!

But some rules are very speechless; for example, after entering the mountains, one can only eat vegetarian food and must not touch meat!

Climbing mountains and crossing ridges is already arduous and dangerous, consuming a lot of spirit and physical strength; without good physical strength, let alone digging ginseng, just staying alive is a struggle!

With the life in this era, the staple food is basically coarse grains, which are not filling to begin with, and if there is no meat, one can imagine how people would be tortured after entering the mountains once!

There are also many miscellaneous rules, such as that apart from the leader of the ginseng hunters, others cannot talk much!

Upon discovering ginseng, one must shout "Ginseng" loudly, and the people around must respond in time with "How many leaves," and then the person who discovered it must shout how many leaves it is!

Getting up in the morning, the leader must ask the members of the ginseng team what dreams they had, to use as an omen!

You cannot sit on a tree stump when you encounter one, because that is the Mountain God's seat!

After digging up the ginseng, you must backfill the soil and peel off the bark on nearby trees to mark the omen, and so on and so forth!

Marking the omen means peeling off a piece of bark on a tree; on the left, cut horizontal marks, with as many marks as there are people. On the right, cut horizontal marks, with as many marks as there are leaves on the ginseng, and some also need to cut the year, month, and day.

This is to tell those who come later how many people were here and what grade of goods they took; when there are many trees with marked omens like this, this area is called an "Anzi," and those with a long history are called "Old Anzi"!

Only ginseng with a long history will grow big, so it is called big ginseng; the bigger the ginseng, the more valuable it is!

And the older the Anzi, the greater the probability of producing big ginseng!

The old saying goes well: hang around the Old Anzi, and you'll eat your fill every meal!

The ways and rules here are simply more numerous than the rules and regulations of those factories in Wang An's past life; they are tedious and long-winded!

When it was mentioned that the Mountain God's position was conferred by Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, Wang An was even more speechless.

That "Da Qing" with the big blue nose and swollen face? How many years ago did that dynasty perish?

But fortunately, in the end, Han Shuisheng said that apart from those visions and hopes, basically no one follows these rules later on, and Wang An felt that it was normal for no one to follow them!

Otherwise, if you discover ginseng and suddenly shout that loudly, you still have to say how many leaves it is!

What if there are people with evil intentions nearby, or a gang of bandits robbing the goods...!

Damn, I'm not one of those people, but I'd want to rob it too!

Furthermore, regarding marking the omen, people are all selfish!

If there are strict rules and everyone follows them, that might be easy to say.

But in this day and age, the law doesn't even work well, and there are scoundrels everywhere! What do rules even count for?

Besides, when there is an opportunity to become an official, get rich, or get a job, people are all thinking of their own relatives, friends, and descendants!

And who would still perform the selfless act of marking the omen, which benefits others but not oneself? Why mark it? Isn't that just telling others: "There are big goods here, come and dig quickly!"

It's simply impossible!

After finishing the rules, he talked about ginseng again.

Newly grown small ginseng only has 3 small leaves, called Three-Leaf Ginseng.

Slightly larger, it will have 5 leaves, three big and two small, called Five-Leaf Ginseng.

Larger ones will split into two branches, with 5 leaves on each branch, called Two-Branch Ginseng.

Even larger, it will split into 3 branches, with 5 leaves on each branch, called Lamp-Stand Ginseng, also called Third-Grade Leaf. It is relatively valuable.

Those with 4 branches are called Fourth-Grade Leaf, which are quite valuable.

5 branches are called Fifth-Grade Leaf, which are not many in number, and six branches are called Sixth-Grade Leaf.

And normal ginseng, no matter how many years or decades it has grown, has at most six leaves, which is to say, it will only split into six branches!

Of course, there are extremely rare exceptions to this situation; when the growth environment is very good, there are also records that ginseng will grow seven leaves!

But that is only a record; no one has ever seen such ginseng!

There is also a special situation where ginseng can also be trampled or eaten by wild animals during its growth, or bitten by insects; if this ginseng does not die, it will enter dormancy.

The branches that grow out after ending dormancy have a high probability of being Third-Grade Leaf, which is Lamp-Stand Ginseng!

So some people might dislike Two-Branch Ginseng for being too small and give up temporarily to wait a few years before digging, but no one will let go of Lamp-Stand Ginseng; besides, Lamp-Stand Ginseng itself is also very valuable!

If you have tickets, throw some over! Thank you!

(End of chapter)