According to Manager Gao, he can take personal leave as long as the team leader agrees and thinks work can be arranged, then it will be approved by the manager.
Team Leader Huang agreed but said He Kao could only take a maximum of two weeks off, any longer was absolutely impossible!
Two weeks was already long enough, exceeding He Kao’s expectations. Manager Gao approved but also told He Kao that personal leave would an a deduction in pay... deduct away, he could continue his journey north anyway.
Gao Xue’e had of course long known about his self-driving trip to Kuan Chun, and upon hearing that he planned to continue north, she privately asked him if he was going to Da’anling to harvest wild ginseng.
He Kao replied with a smile: "Yes, if I get the chance to find a hundred-year-old ginseng king, this trip would be fully paid for and could earn many tis over!"
Joking aside, this really wasn’t the season for harvesting ginseng.
In this season, there were many evergreen plants in the Great River Basin, and after a rain, a stretch of water bamboo might even sprout, but rivers north of Kuan Chun were still frozen, the hills and wilds covered in snow.
The best season for local people to harvest wild ginseng is in autumn, after the plants dry and before the ground freezes. By then ginseng stores nutrients to survive the winter, and its quality is at its peak,
but this window is short, so so people harvest in early spring or sumr when the branches and leaves on the surface are more easily recognizable and efficiency is higher.
In winter here, heavy snow often blocks the doors, the frozen ground beneath is hard and ordinary people can’t even dig it with hoes. Such cold weather offers little farm work to do, especially in the countryside where people gather around the kang chatting the day away.
The Northeast’s kang culture has been advanced since ancient tis, a bunch of people chatting together is almost like a skit performance.
He Kao replaced the car’s antifreeze, fitted it with snow tires, before daring to drive forward, fortunately, the car is a hybrid, as pure electric ones would be more affected.
The next major city he stopped in was Acheng, where his uncle once went to college; he found there were quite a lot of tourists this year, coming to see the ice and snow scenery and enjoy various ice and snow activities.
He Kao had already taken leave and spent a day here playing.
Upon leaving Acheng and heading further north, driving beca increasingly difficult, main roads still had municipal plows clearing snow from the surface, but on other rural roads, his SUV couldn’t traverse.
Upon reaching Crane Ridge, he finally found a hotel to stay in, parked his car in a heated garage, while he himself trekked out with gear... temperatures were icy, often tens of degrees below zero at night, so he donned professional cold-weather clothing.
He Kao pre-paid a week’s deposit at the hotel front desk, giving the impression of staying there continuously, when in reality he had entered the vast Da’anling.
The mountains rolled endlessly, not densely wooded, and where the terrain was flatter, snow was thicker.
If not for He Kao’s cultivation, it would be impossible to walk far in such a place. Besides carrying essential supplies, he had a pair of skis on his back, skiing downhill saved much effort.
In fact, he could return to other locations at any ti, such as resting at a secret base and fetching supplies, then returning to continue his journey, experiencing sothing entirely different from the Great River Basin.
He collected quite a lot of tasty things along the way, not for dicine, but for cooking. Not to ntion water bamboo, there were many unnad roots and shoots, all exceptionally delicious, especially their unbeatable tenderness.
Attention must be paid to cooking thods and ingredient pairing to bring out the best flavors...
Even amid snow-blocked Da’anling, He Kao still found many tasty things, such as pine nuts mature in autumn, so cones still hung on branches, others could be dug out from the snow.
Besides nuts like pine nuts and acorns, there were also so unnad berries.
They might have been unpalatable or inedible when just mature in autumn, but after remaining on wintry branches undergoing natural freeze-drying, they beca incredibly tasty, often with a unique flavor.
Most ingredients still hide beneath the soil in various roots, which require the Divine Sense to discern.
This was a significant workout for the Divine Sense, given the thick snow layer and hard frozen earth, sotis requiring clearing a patch of snow to sense what lay beneath, and sensing distance was greatly limited.
He Kao found many things tasty, as did squirrels, wild boars, and even bears.
Wild boar herds would root under oak trees to eat fallen acorns, their taste wasn’t great and processing was complex, even for brewing, as they contained high levels of fusel alcohol, so He Kao wasn’t interested.
But the wild boars didn’t know that; whenever He Kao passed by and encountered them, they seed to think he was coming to steal food, either fleeing in fright or warning him to detour.
Bears were still hibernating during this ti, but they didn’t sleep soundly; during good weather, they occasionally road. He Kao saw them from a distance and avoided them promptly... he didn’t want any conflict.
It’s said bear paws are a delicacy, and bear gall is a precious dicine, but unless necessary, he didn’t want to harm these wildlife.
Each day on the snowfield at sunrise, he perford Dragon Tendon Training, often scaring away many animals, while so smaller creatures watched from afar, like squirrels in tree hollows wondering—what’s this nut doing?
In the forest, He Kao finally saw traces of wild tigers and leopards, to avoid danger he had to remain vigilant and brought a weapon along.
The weapon was still made of Purple Jade Bamboo, extrely tough and elastic, but not like a long spear; resembling more a non-lethal restraint tool.
Danger wasn’t exclusive to He Kao; for the tigers and leopards, He Kao was actually more dangerous.
For safety’s sake, he carried a gun with him, not intending to use it, but had to have it at the ready.
**
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