Chapter 16: 7th Grade King Ginseng
Translator: Little_Dragon_ Editor: TheSloth
“DXAL (Da Xin An Ling)” is like the giant dragon lying at the northeast part of China. I believe most of the audience is familiar with this name. It always appears in the textbooks of primary and secondary schools. However, people hardly know how it got its name. The correct interpretation is not using the Han language but the Man language. “Xin An” in Man language means “The very cold place”. Due to its cold weather, it got this name. Meanwhile, “Ling” in Man language means mountain.”
In front, the trees were thick and closed to each other, B-Dog had to slow down. In the meantime, he gave some explanations to the audiences while chatting.
After some distance, the 800 thousand audiences could view from the camera, his hat, collar and the short forehead hair were so frozen that white ice flew out. It was white snow and black branches everywhere on the difficult mountain road.
Less and less people made fun of him; the coldness in the wild was not funny at all. Even if you were sitting in front of the computer with the heater, you could feel the coldness, let alone Chen B-Dog who was in the jungle.
He was feeling a bit difficult to breathe so B-Dog stopped and drank some water. The thermal bottle provided by the System was extremely awesome. The water he filled this morning was still warm. The hot water warmed up the stomach, eliminating some of the coldness and he continued his broadcast journey.
He held onto his professionalism and continued introducing what he felt. “The one-word feeling of the winter over here is “cold”. The lowest temperature that was achieved is the record of negative 53 degree Celsius.”
“Although it is my first time, I can tell you undoubtedly, I like being here.”
“You can imagine when winter comes, with the northwest wind blowing like it dances. The golden yellow leaves are falling, whirling around the wind, and roaring. The wind then stops, the thick fallen leaves are everywhere. Everyone is wearing thick winter clothes out there, rushing to their destinations. Just in a while, everyone would seem to have turned into old men, the beard, the eyelashes, the eyebrows and the exposed hair are getting the white frost. When it reaches the coolest time, there would be a white haze covering the whole village. The local usually call this weather as “White Smoke”.
“In such weather, the visibility is very poor. The scenery is very blurry and hard to see. If you spit out there, it will turn out to be a small ice piece very quickly. Only in the afternoon will the “White Smoke” slowly fade but the weather will still be very cold.”
“Here, the only scenery in winter is “snow”. When it is snowing, I feel very comfortable and joyful. Snowflakes in the sky are not in order. At a glance, it turns out to be a silvery white world. After a heavy snow, the ground turns white, the house turns white, the tree turns white and the tree branches are hanging with thick white snow. Looking from far, it looks like silver chains hanging on the tree, very beautiful.”
“For the friends who stay at southern region and seldom see snow, isn’t it incredible?”
The pop-up comments in the broadcast room were very busy. “I am amazed at this explanation!”, “I did see snow before, my hometown snows every year but it is my first time seeing such heavy snow, everywhere is snow.”, “I stay at Guangzhou and I have never seen snow, so I yearn to have a snowball fight and make a snowman.”, “Lord B-Dog, your composition exams in secondary school must be very good.”
B-Dog laughed, “Crazy Wind, you’re right. My composition result during high school was pretty good, out of 50 marks, I always scored 45 marks. The snow is pure white, the world is pure white. Staying at the pure white places, it will make you forget those unhappiness and troubles; you will enjoy the snowy wonderful world greedily.”
He paused and shook his head hard, “But it is too cold, giving you no time to enjoy the scenery. I have wasted too much energy. The jungle is covered by winter snow, making it harder to seek for food. Hence, I need to pay attention to any edible plants or animals that might be appeared along the way. This is the primitive jungle that is least developed; it is a giant botanic garden in a cool temperature zone. If you could recognize the plants, you can find many are edible and delicious.”
While he was talking, he made a sudden brake. The snow splashed and the ski board stopped in front of a bald tree trunk. He aimed the camera, “Let’s guess what I found.”
The audiences could only see a trunk covered by the snow, nothing else. A wave of question marks flooded the screen.
“Wow, I notice that the Question Mark Army is really scary, can’t you ask humbly? What is the meaning of sending question marks? It sounds threatening to me.” It was better if he didn’t ask. After he finished talking; there were no more words but a lot of question marks.
B-Dog surrendered, “All right, cut the crap, anyone knows what the Three Treasures of Dongbei are?”
There still remained a lot of question marks. In between, there were a few answers. Somebody said “Ginseng, marten, Carex meyeriana”, some of them could not wait to surf for the answer.
B-Dog explained, “Ginseng, marten, Carex meyeriana, it was the outdated version. The latest version of three treasures is ginseng, marten and pilose antler. The origin of the outdated three treasures was because the poor people used to put carex meyeriana in their shoes during winter time to keep their foot from freezing; hence, carex meyariana is the treasure of the poor. Nowadays, people are wearing cotton boots, so they don’t think that carex meyeriana belongs to the three treasures of Dongbei anymore. Anyway, it is not the carex meyeariana that I discovered, let’s see…”
He cleared the snow. There were a few diamond-shaped leaves that had yet to wither covered by the snow. He touched them gently and now, its true look had appeared.
“Wow, ginseng!!!”, “Incredible, 6, 7 root trunks, it is 7th grade leaf ginseng. Lord B-Dog you are rich!”
Somebody recognized it; it was the seven leaf ginseng. It lay like the fairies showering flower petals, at the middle, the root stem was connected with seven branches.
“Big fortune! Lord B-Dog I will pay you one million, save the ginseng for me.” “Dream on, one million to buy a 7th grade King Ginseng? I will pay ten million.”, “Is this millennium ginseng? Why is it so expensive?”, “This thing, if you buy it, you could keep it as a family heirloom!”
Ginseng could not tolerate coldness, the leaves would fall during frost period. This ginseng was most likely encountered with sudden snow, the leaves were frozen in the snow before falling thus explained how the leaves were perfectly protected.
B-Dog shook his head and explained, “There are two types of ginseng, radix type and planted type. The wild is called as radix ginseng; they grow broad-leaves jungles and coniferous jungles deep inside primitive jungles. It enjoys the sun rays and requires scattered sunshine, humus and good ventilation soil to grow. The northeast is the rich land of ginseng.”
“Why it is so precious? Because the growth is very slow, a 50 grams radix ginseng needs forty, fifty years or up to one hundred years to grow. Due to the increasing demand of the people, wild ginseng is getting lesser. It is getting rarer, so the search becomes harder. I could actually discover it thus have to admit my eye power is excellent!” he praised himself to make the atmosphere more active. However, at this point, everyone’s attention did not fall on him.
“Freelance Cowboy treats Chen B-Dog 10 Buddha Jumps over the Wall, everyone quickly grab the treasure box!” He added a striking remark, “B-Dog, keep it for me, any amount as you wish.”
“Chen C-Dog treats Chen B-Dog a Buddha Jumps over the Wall, I want it too, but can’t win over Chief Cow.”
“Crazy Wind treats Chen B-Dog 10 lobsters!”
…