Li Yu slowly walked over, guessing in his heart that Li Yuan must have seen a lot of mushrooms.
Sure enough, as Li Yu approached, he saw a patch of mushrooms growing in the spot Li Yuan had cleared.
These small, off-white mushrooms, wet with rain, looked very clean and smooth, quite delightful to behold.
"Brother, these mushrooms should be edible, right?" Li Yuan asked Li Yu, her eyes full of anticipation.
Li Yu squatted down, picked a mushroom, and examined it carefully. He smiled and nodded, saying, "They are edible."
Upon hearing this, Li Yuan's face broke into a happy smile. She squatted down and began picking the cute little mushrooms one by one, placing them in her basket.
While everyone was picking mushrooms, they would all ask Li Yu to identify them. At first, some people would pick the wrong ones, but as Li Yu explained, everyone started to pay more attention when picking.
Gradually, almost all the mushrooms people brought to Li Yu were edible.
In the rain, some wild fruits also grew abundantly, such as ground raspberries and wild fruits that looked like strawberries but were smaller. There were many of them.
Everyone was also experienced enough to distinguish them; there was a similar-looking one called snake fruit, which was inedible.
Originally, cutting grass would have taken only half an hour, but now everyone's enthusiasm for picking mushrooms was high because there were simply too many after the heavy rain.
Mushrooms have a very short life cycle, grow quickly, and are highly nutritious. When Li Yu saw so many mushrooms, he returned to the residential area and brought out the younger children as well.
Recently, his cousins, both paternal and maternal, and the children of the former workers, had all been cooped up indoors.
With the rain outside, only his fourth uncle's youngest daughter, who was a bit older, went to monitor the control room.
The others could only stay indoors.
Hearing they could pick mushrooms, the children were all very excited to go up the mountain and pick mushrooms!
With Li Yu and the others watching, there wasn't much of a problem. Besides, the entire base was surrounded by a wall.
Just like that, everyone picked mushrooms for about an hour, and the harvest was astonishing.
Two huge snake-skin bags were filled to the brim by everyone's continuous picking.
Everyone carried the fodder back, still dripping with water. Li Yu directly took some of the grass and put it into the cattle and sheep pens. The remaining fodder was hung from several large crossbeams in the air, where it hung down to the ground under gravity, with rainwater dripping off little by little.
Because it was still raining, the fodder was difficult to dry, and if it didn't dry, it wouldn't last long.
So, they could only hang the fodder. This way, at least it wouldn't get rained on, and occasionally some wind could blow, which could help dry the fodder as much as possible. Perhaps it wouldn't be as dry as after sun exposure, but once the water had dried, it could be stored for a period of time.
Immediately, the mushrooms were carried back.
In the base, Grandma and others were preparing dinner. They knew Li Yu and the others were cutting fodder and that some children had been taken to pick mushrooms.
But what they didn't expect was that there were so many mushrooms. The quantity was too large. They definitely couldn't use all of them for one meal. If the rest weren't processed, they would easily spoil and rot.
This worried Grandma. In the end, she washed these mushrooms, tore them open down the middle, and then placed them next to the stove to dry.
The base had many types of energy sources. These included solar power generation, hydropower generation, several small wind turbines for electricity, which was directly used for cooking, and so on.
There was also some coal, but not much. A biogas digester had also been built and was used occasionally.
But they also frequently used dead branches and leaves from the mountains for burning, so a traditional wood-burning stove was also built. The stove was very large, and each time they steamed rice, they could use a huge five-layer wooden steamer.
Li Yu and the others helped process the mushrooms, placing them next to the stove, and then drank a bowl of ginger soup that had been prepared earlier.
These past few days, everyone had been drinking ginger soup. With so much rain and heavy humidity, getting caught in the rain made it easy to catch a cold.
Li Yu was about to walk to his room when he was suddenly called by Xiao Lata.
He turned around, curious, to look at Xiao Lata. After taking off her rain gear, Xiao Lata's body was a bit damp, revealing her graceful curves.
"I... that, that," Xiao Lata, who was usually cheerful and generous, was now at a loss for words. She wanted to chat with Li Yu but couldn't find a reason.
It was... very difficult.
"Thank you for the gloves," Xiao Lata said softly, her face flushing.
Li Yu smiled and casually said, "It's nothing."
"..."
What else was there to say next???
Li Yu had never been in a relationship and didn't feel much about matters of affection.
However, sometimes, seeing pretty young girls always made him feel happy.
Xiao Lata was beautiful, had a good figure, and a compatible personality. Li Yu enjoyed being with her.
His innate sensitivity was very high; he could perceive the emotions of others. Now, he could feel that Xiao Lata was a bit nervous.
So he said softly, "Go back to your room early and take a hot bath. You got rained on just now, don't catch a cold."
Xiao Lata nodded and said okay, her body relaxing, feeling a bit slumped.
Seeing this, Li Yu said, "Come to the game room later, let's play a versus game."
Xiao Lata's face instantly brightened, and she nodded like a pecking chick.
Li Yu smiled and walked towards his room, and Xiao Lata also returned to her own room.
The underground game room was a place Li Yu had specially built in the villa where he lived. Some people in the base still didn't know about this place.
Later, Li Yuan once brought Xiao Lata there, and only then did Xiao Lata learn about it.
In the game room, the two were playing games. Many single-player games had been downloaded before, as well as some story-based games.
This time, they revisited classics, starting with Contra and King of Fighters.
Xiao Lata played very happily, without any nervousness at all. She even laughed uninhibitedly when she beat Li Yu.
Li Yu watched Xiao Lata laugh, and a smile also appeared on his face. He was a person who was very casual and easygoing with people he was familiar with and considered to have good relationships with.
He was naturally unrestrained, and he didn't want too much conflict or struggle in life. What he admired most about Xiao Lata was her cheerful and generous personality; it was as if nothing could make her sad. Sometimes she was gentle like water, sometimes she was a bit dazed and adorable. More often, she was direct and frank.
Xiao Lata, in her earlier life, actually didn't have many friends. Her family consisted only of her grandparents, and later she was left alone.
Li Yu was also a casual person. Sometimes his maternal grandparents would treat Xiao Lata as their own granddaughter, and Li Yu was also very good to Xiao Lata.
"Again!" Li Yu said.
"Okay!" Xiao Lata smiled, her eyes narrowing, and two small dimples appeared, making her look like a little squirrel.
