The old guide had originally been an honest, down-to-earth elderly man. Unfortunately, even he had failed to resist the production team’s monetary temptation. The agreement he had signed required the guides to cooperate with the show’s acting and schemes against the guests.
Beginning with the ginseng-digging activity, one trap had been nested inside another. The production team had said the more miserable the guests were, the more entertaining the show became. They absolutely could not allow the guests to complete their foraging mission smoothly.
So even though Tang Can had practically seen through him, the old guide could only grit his teeth and try to stop him. “Young man, don’t you trust me? That’s just an old worthless bracket fungus, completely rotten and cheap. Nobody even bothers picking those things. Why waste your strength running over there? Didn’t you say you were tired and in a hurry to go down the mountain?”
“Hey! Young man! Wait for me!”
“Why are you running so fast? You’ll fall with the child!”
But the more the old guide tried stopping him, the faster Tang Can ran. He looked nothing like the pale, coughing weakling who had just insisted on descending the mountain.
It was as if he had suddenly gained the inexhaustible strength of an ox. Give him a vine and he could start swinging through the jungle on the spot, yelling like Tarzan.
Come to think of it, father and son both became rather monkey-like whenever they got excited. For a time, even the old guide—who knew the mountain paths well but had weaker legs—could not catch up and could only follow behind, panting heavily.
As for the “old bracket fungus” the guide mentioned, Tang Can had seen it while researching. It was also called artist’s conk, one of the cheapest local members of the Ganoderma family. Sometimes you could not sell it even for a few yuan.
Most people simply kept it, dried it, and burned it as mosquito repellent. Occasionally an especially gigantic specimen might be used as a decorative curiosity. Either way, it was worth almost nothing.
But Tang Can clearly remembered that artist’s conk was gray-brown, not the vivid red he had seen.
By the time the old guide finally caught up, he looked at the cluster of Ganoderma mushrooms growing along the broken log. There were four or five visible on one side alone. He immediately cried out, slapped his thigh in regret, and wished he had never led this brat down this route!
To be fair, he had chosen it out of convenience. Rainfall had been heavy this year and his arthritis kept flaring up. Since they were already taking a different route, he had thought he might as well choose the path closest to the purchasing station at the foot of the mountain so he could finish sooner too.
Who could have imagined that in a place with so many people passing through, an entire patch of valuable mushrooms would remain undiscovered? This young man’s eyes were unbelievably sharp!
Thinking about it more carefully, however, it was really the locals whose thinking had become fixed. They always assumed that in a heavily traveled area, the moment a Ganoderma sprout appeared, someone would immediately pluck it.
Besides, Ganoderma needed enough time to accumulate nutrients. Nothing had been visible here during the previous two years, so people had gotten used to not searching this area. Heavy rainfall this year had also affected Ganoderma growth, which made everyone instinctively assume there would be even less here. Who could have expected such a fine cluster to remain undiscovered!
Even without his agreement with the production team, watching such a large cluster of premium Ganoderma get harvested right beside a path he often walked felt almost like some young outsider had snatched treasure from his own doorstep. The old guide felt both heartbroken and embarrassed.
The more he thought, and the more regret and complexity appeared on his face, the more certain Tang Can became that his guess was correct.
They had the shape of Ganoderma, their color leaned red, and the old guide looked so regretful he practically wished he could replace Tang Can on the spot. They were most likely the most expensive Ganoderma in Changyun Mountain: red Ganoderma.
Tang Can thought about Wei Kai’s painstaking scheme to lure him deeper into the mountains and make him suffer, then remembered the earlier grudge over the malicious trending topics. Facing the livestream camera, he clapped his hands loudly.
Beaming, he raised a thumb. “Oh, thank you for the lucky blessing, Director Wei! I really did stumble across a whole patch of red Ganoderma! Director Wei, your mouth must be magically blessed—you’re a living lucky koi. I thank eight generations of your ancestors!”
Then he turned toward the old guide and deliberately added, “If I can harvest this much right at the foot of the mountain, then those people bringing Director Wei, this blessed lucky koi, deep into the mountains must be about to fill entire baskets, right?”
The old guide’s face immediately went gray, wearing the miserable expression of someone with suffering he could not explain.
【Holy crap?! He actually found some???】
【The three groups going deeper haven’t touched so much as a hair, and Tang Can is this lucky? As a chronically unlucky person, I feel personally attacked!】
【Hahahahaha, what kind of “thanks” includes thanking eight generations of someone’s ancestors? You’d better actually mean gratitude. [dog-head]】
【No way. Does anyone seriously believe Tang Can is just purely lucky? This is too absurd. I refuse to believe there’s no script.】
【Aaaaah, point the camera straight at Dengdeng’s face! Our baby’s shocked expression is too adorable!!!】
Brother Guo, the cameraman following Tang Can, was one of Wei Kai’s longtime crew members and naturally knew every production-team trick. Hearing Tang Can’s “thanks” extend all the way to Wei Kai’s ancestors nearly made him burst out laughing.
The child blinked his bright eyes, his baby voice full of disbelief. “…Ling… Ganoderma? Is it really real!?”
Tang Can smiled and nodded, then turned to confirm with the old guide, who looked close to shattering. “Uncle, this is red Ganoderma, right? I’m not mistaken?”
The old guide sighed. “It is…”
Tang Can immediately lifted the child high and cheered, “Dengdeng, father and son are getting rich!”
At the exact moment father and son looked at each other and burst into wild laughter, a vaguely worded but clearly Tang Can-directed topic—#Mistress#—had ridden natural traffic into the tail end of the trending-topic rankings.
