Sold immediately after wearing it? I took my family and fled the famine.

At the end of the arched ditch, a shrub about the size of a bowl was entwined with vines. The leaves of the vines had withered, but the stems, about the thickness of a thumb, were still wrapped around the trunk, their bark grayish-brown, climbing all the way up to the canopy. She looked down along the vines; the roots were embedded in the humus, and there were several marks of being arched nearby, but they hadn't been completely dug up.

Yam vine.

She looked up and glanced around at the trees. In this dense forest, at least a dozen trees were entwined with the same vines. Some had been pushed aside, but most were still intact and growing in the soil.

The wild boar rooted around in a few spots and then stopped; this area looked more like a granary the wild boar had stored for itself.

Dr. Gu finally caught up, panting, and stood beside Jiang Xing. Following her gaze to the tree, his brows furrowed: "What is that?"

Jiang Xing squatted down and dug down along the root of the yam. He used a short knife to cut through the rotten leaves and loose soil. About the depth of his palm, the yam's skin was exposed. The outer skin was grayish-brown, and the cross-section was white. He broke off a small section, and the sticky sap stretched out in thin strands.

The wild yam has been growing for at least seven or eight years and is of excellent quality.

Dr. Gu squatted down, took the piece of yam from her hand, examined it from all angles, and a look of surprise appeared on his face: "This is... yam? It looks quite good, but it's just the most common yam, and its medicinal properties are not as good as Atractylodes macrocephala and Codonopsis pilosula."

Dr. Gu is a veteran doctor with decades of experience in medicine. He has far more knowledge about medicinal herbs than the average person, but he knows almost nothing about the edible value of wild yam.

He only knew that yam was a low-value medicinal herb, and pharmacies generally didn't like to buy it.

He flipped the yam over, examined the sap at the broken end, and clicked his tongue. "Wild ones are rare, but their medicinal properties are mediocre; it's better to have nothing at all. Miss Jiang, what do you need this for?"

Jiang Xing didn't explain. She stood up, put down her basket, walked to the side, picked up a pile of dry branches, and gathered a handful of dry pine needles from under the pine tree. She lit them with a tinderbox and built a small bonfire.

The flames flickered a few times in the rain and mist, but quickly stood firm, and the pine branches crackled as they burned, releasing a wave of heat.

She threw a few thick yams into the edge of the fire, half-burying them with firewood. Doctor Gu squatted beside her, warming his hands, watching her actions, his doubts growing deeper.

"You're... roasting it?"

"Um."

"Why roast it? Yams need to be processed. They need to be washed, sliced, and dried in the sun. Only after being steamed and dried nine times can they be used as medicine."

Jiang Xing didn't answer. He used a branch to turn the yam in the fire over. After roasting it for a quarter of an hour, the yam's skin turned black and cracked open, revealing the white flesh inside, steaming hot.

She waited a few more moments before using a twig to pull the yam out of the fire. Once it had cooled slightly, she picked one up, broke it in two, and found the outer skin charred black, the inside soft and glutinous, and a sweet aroma wafting out.

She took a bite; the texture was similar to a potato, grainy, but with a sweeter, more delicate flavor.

As Dr. Gu watched her eat, his lips twitched. He had never heard of such a way of eating. Raw medicinal herbs, roasted and eaten directly? Yam could be eaten like this?

But he saw Jiang Xing finish half a porridge and then pick up the other half. His chewing motion was very natural, his face was expressionless, and he ate much faster than he usually ate porridge.

He was tempted; the sweet aroma of roasted yam kept wafting into his nose. He swallowed hard, picked up the other half of the yam from the ground, broke it in half, blew on it to cool it down, and put it in his mouth.

"This...this..." He chewed twice, his eyes widening suddenly, his white beard trembling with each chew: "This is yam? Yam actually tastes like this? This stuff tastes like pastry, sweet and glutinous. It's also filling; half a yam will fill you up."

Jiang Xing was a little surprised when he saw the shocked expression on his face.

Surprisingly, no one here had ever eaten yams. Even an old doctor who had practiced medicine for decades didn't know that yams could be eaten as a staple food. She said, "People in the mountains have eaten them; it's been passed down by word of mouth."

Dr. Gu didn't care about the perfunctory explanation. He broke off another piece and put it in his mouth. While chewing, he looked down at the yam in his hand, then looked up at the vines entwined on the surrounding trees. A complex expression gradually appeared in his eyes. It wasn't the excitement of finding a treasure, but something else, something deeper.

"Miss Jiang," he swallowed the yam, his voice lowering slightly, "how many yam vines are there in this patch?"

When Jiang woke up, she had already estimated it. She walked around the arched ditch and looked at all the trees around which the yam vines were wrapped. There were yam roots under each tree. The wild boar had dug up a few trees, but the rest were still intact.

"We could easily dig up at least two thousand catties from this area." She paused, then added, "There's definitely more further in this forest."

Dr. Gu fell silent. He squatted beside the fire, still clutching half a yam in his hand. His beard and hair were illuminated by the firelight, and his expression changed from shock to solemnity.

He was a doctor and also a refugee from famine, so he knew what the phrase "two thousand catties" meant in today's world.

"Miss Jiang, what do you plan to do about this news?" Doctor Gu asked.

Jiang Xing stood up, kicked the remaining yam to scatter the fire, and covered the embers with soil.

Old Doctor Gu tapped his pipe on a rock, sending sparks flying which were swallowed by the rain and mist. He looked up, his gaze piercing through the sparse rain and into the depths of the dense forest: "I've lived most of my life, and this is the first time I've ever known that this stuff is edible. The yams in this whole forest are enough to feed everyone in our cave for ten days to half a month."

"So we need to think this through," Jiang Xing said. "Without a fair solution, these yams could be a death sentence."

Dr. Gu was silent for a moment. He looked at Jiang Xing's expressionless face and suddenly understood what the girl was thinking.

She is neither selfless nor stingy; she is very intelligent and has a clear understanding of what she is doing, and everything she does is for her own reasons.

We need a good way to turn this batch of yams into a life-saving food for everyone, while preventing our own family from becoming the target of public criticism.

"What ideas do you have?"

"These yams aren't mine; they grow in the mountains. I can't dig two thousand catties by myself, and I don't plan to do it alone." Jiang Xing's voice wasn't loud, but every word was firm: "I'll gather a group of people who can still walk, and we'll go up the mountain first thing tomorrow morning. Each family will get what they dig, based on the amount of labor they contribute. If they're willing to work, they can; if not, they shouldn't bother coming to get a share."

After listening, Dr. Gu nodded. This was the least hateful method.

He stood up, slung his medicine kit over his shoulder, patted the dirt and pine needles off his blue cloth robe, and said, "Alright. Then we'll go back and tell Captain Ma to call some men tomorrow."

The two walked back along the same route. The rain gradually subsided, turning from a fine drizzle into scattered raindrops.