The Legend of Fangren

At night, when everyone had gone to sleep, Fang Shi volunteered to sit by the fire outside the cave to keep watch, along with Elder Yun Yue.

Why is Junior Brother Fang so obsessed with mushrooms?

Watching Fang Shi fiddling around, Yun Yue, who was sitting to the side, cupped her face and asked.

Unlike during the day, now that it was late at night, she called out to him more affectionately.

"Probably because they don't want to waste food."

Fang Shi thought for a moment, then set up a gray iron bucket over the fire and started adding ingredients to it.

Unlike others, he doesn't spend a lot of time practicing his martial arts every day, so he wants to explore more secondary skills.

Take the handling of the spirit meat for example. He originally planned to add a meat dish to Luohe's meal that night, which was a few pieces of Cangzhi deer spirit meat ribs, but when the time came, he felt that he couldn't do that.

The smoke furnace is undoubtedly powerful, but it only perfectly combines the spiritual energy of the meat with the meat ribs, without changing its nature. If this is used to supplement Luo He's meal, how is it any different from the food he has been eating these past few days?

When He Zi ate a lot of wood-elemental spirit meat, she overindulged in the wood-elemental liver, which also damaged her metal-elemental energy, resulting in more harm than good.

The elders failed to consider this point, perhaps because the zodiac sign of Luohe is rare in the Eastern Boundary, but as his childhood friend, he could not stand idly by.

"Yin wood silk... Yang wood silk..."

Having failed to find mushrooms in the literature, Fang Shi decided to try a different approach this time.

This book is three palms thick, and you can find the species even inconspicuous wild grasses by the roadside. So why is there no mushroom?

When asked, other people were also familiar with mushrooms; even if they had never seen them, they had at least heard of them, which shows that they are not uncommon.

Therefore, he wondered if "[wood silk]" might be the proper "scientific name" for mushrooms in the Xuan Realm.

If mushrooms are called "wood silk," and the literal meaning is similar, then perhaps the description of their shape in classical texts is not an umbrella-shaped mushroom.

"Elder Yun, please call me when the water boils."

"Okay." Yun Yue nodded, and seeing that he was about to bury himself in the book, she suddenly said, "You can just call me Senior Sister in private."

"Uh? Oh." Fang Shi didn't react for a moment, nodded perfunctorily twice, and then buried himself in the book.

Yun Yue smiled faintly at this, but unusually, she did not meditate or rest. Instead, she sat to the side, tilting her head to look at Fang Shi and her book.

How should I put it? Their recent interactions had made her involuntarily curious about this junior brother. He was completely different from ordinary disciples; his thoughts were always strange.

Perhaps due to his special physique, unlike others who only think about cultivation all day long, he seems to care a lot about "life".

But was he indulging his desires like an ordinary mortal? No, he studied all sorts of unorthodox methods related to cultivation, such as food and household items... but they weren't as "high-end" as the robes with magical patterns; they were all basic details that were beneficial to cultivation.

Few people bother to delve into these details, simply because they offer little help to personal cultivation; they neither increase one's strength dramatically nor provide additional methods.

If you try to explain to others that these details only become apparent over time, how many people have the patience to experience them? It's far more convenient to simply find some better natural treasures to consume.

If it were someone else, Yun Yue might have thought that such a person was always neglecting his duties. But seeing him use his detailed research to take care of his childhood friend along the way changed her opinion of him.

After all, any girl in the group would unconsciously imagine herself in the shoes of Junior Brother Fang when they saw him taking care of Junior Sister Luo, and she was no exception.

Under such circumstances, those meticulous attention to detail are actually seen as good character traits, which can all be summed up in four words: being caring.

"Junior Brother Fang, the water is boiling," Yun Yue gently reminded him.

"oh oh!"

Fang Shi had no idea what Yun Yue was thinking. He was excited because, after changing his thinking, he finally found something that looked like a mushroom in the vast collection of texts, and its name was indeed wood silk.

[Wood Silk]: It grows mostly on dead and rotten things. It belongs to Yin Wood. It is tasteless and has no effect on cultivators of any zodiac sign.

The text contains only a few words, which, though not explicitly stated, essentially imply that this thing is useless.

In textual records, the zodiac signs of spirits and mythical beasts are usually only described in terms of their basic zodiac signs, without specifying yin or yang.

If it is marked, it means that it is an adjective used to emphasize its nature - the word "tasteless" after the zodiac sign is evidence of this, which is similar to the way Zhang, the high-EQ immortal, said that his aptitude was Yin and belonged to the Wood element.

It means that this thing is not very useful, but since it can grow, it can be considered alive, so it is labeled as Yin wood out of courtesy.

Even so, it sounds more respectable than Fang Shi.

But is what's written in the book necessarily true? This is a mushroom that grew on his body; no matter what, it has to be his fate.

Put it in the pot, put it in the pot! The time to test the truth has come!

(Mushroom: Ah, right, right, this is my fate.)

The mushrooms were quickly softened after being added to the boiling water. Fang Shi eagerly opened the lid of the bucket, only to be greatly disappointed.

These mushrooms really don't have any aroma at all.

"It can't be that bad..." He reluctantly picked up a flower, put it in his mouth, and chewed it.

Yun Yue, standing to the side, said with a grin, "How about it? I told you it had no taste at all."

"..." Fang Shi swallowed the mushroom in silence, becoming even more silent, as if a piece of the future was missing, life had lost its hope, and his whole being had turned gray.

"It can't be that serious..." Yun Yue didn't understand why her junior brother cared so much about mushrooms.

Could it be that they have similar aptitudes and empathized with each other?

Uh, it all sounds so far-fetched... Maybe I should offer some comfort?

Yun Yue cautiously reached out her hand, but unexpectedly, Junior Brother Fang suddenly cheered up and swept away the gloom.

"It's not over yet."

His remaining knowledge of chemistry from his past life told him that in some material changes, what may seem like a third party's observation is actually indispensable.

Cooking, though not as rigorous as chemistry, is still a chemistry of "flavor".

The principle of transformation and integration is inherent in all things.

The past life is gone, so let's use the logic of this life to deduce—the excited Fang Shi decided to ruin some other ingredients and stew them with mushrooms to see if he could make a different flavor.

Now, in the dead of night, he stopped pretending and poured out a large pile of meat chops and spiritual plants from his body, startling Yun Yue.

"Where did you get so much stuff?"

I found it while scavenging trash.

Hearing Fang Shi's casual and perfunctory reply, Yun Yue blinked.

Where can you find a bunch of spiritual herbs (organs)? These things are very attractive to mystical beasts in the wild. Unlike humans, mystical beasts can't just swallow these things whole, so there won't be any left over.

Fortunately, the campsite was located on a mountaintop, which was alright. Even a snake or python of about the second rank could occupy it, indicating that there were no powerful mystical beasts around. Yun Yue did not stop them and let Fang Shi ruin things.

Unfortunately, Fang Shi did not have the habit of wasting food.

Then something even more astonishing happened than when he pulled out a pile of medicinal herbs: he ate all the cooked herbs, and whatever amount of meat was reduced beside him, he ate as much of it.

"...Can you just take elixirs directly? And so many of them at that."

Yun Yue stretched out her hands and gestured exaggeratedly to Fang Shi. Then she noticed his belly, which showed no signs of movement, and couldn't help but touch her own, feeling puzzled.

Fang Shi explained, "The elixir is simply because one zodiac sign is too dominant. So as long as I consume the elixir for each zodiac sign, no zodiac sign will be dominant."

"..." Yun Yue fell silent.

That's so reasonable and convincing... what a load of rubbish!