CH 5.1

Beautiful Dusk included all three meals, and they usually ordered all the vegetables from a farm, Lu Chenfeng asked in confusion, “You came out to only buy mushrooms?”

Lin Chaosheng walked off the dock in the front and the two climbed up the sloped road together, “The farm doesn’t have the types of mushrooms I want, and they are Yunnan’s specialty, so I have to get them myself.”

One pushed the bike along and the other followed, both wearing big straw hats. Lin Chaosheng kept some distance from Lu Chenfeng as the rims of their hats always bumped into each other.

They made many turns until the spacious roads slowly changed into thin paths, the scenery on both sides of the roads turned into low brick houses with tiled roofs. Everything around them seemed to suddenly become noisy in the long and narrow street, every house had a simple stall set up in front of their doors.

“I guess you haven’t seen anything like this before,” Lin Chaosheng walked slower than the normal speed, “‘Chaotic’ would be the word to sum it all up, but the good side is that they sell everything here.”

Lu Chenfeng glanced around him and indeed, all sorts of things were available here. Food, drinks, daily necessities, pots and pans, bowls and plates, books and stationaries were all sold in the most traditional way that they weren’t even wrapped up in plastic.

He looked up, the door to the front yard of a house on the right side of the stall was opened, and many bottles and jars of different colors filled the three-layer shelf. It was a small workshop manufacturing pottery.

“Mr. Lu, I might need your help,” Lin Chaosheng stopped as he supported the bike with the left side of his body and expressed his request in the middle of the crowd, “Could you please push the bike for me for a while?”

Lu Chenfeng wanted to help him a long time ago, but he couldn’t find an excuse to open his mouth. Although Lin Chaosheng didn’t look sick, his skin color was healthy, he breathed and sweated normally, but he found that Lin Chaosheng’s movements were small, and he was intentionally controlling his breath to avoid feeling tired.

Lu Chenfeng switched position with him, “No problem.”

Lin Chaosheng joked, “Since you helped me, I won’t charge you extra for the tour guide. This is one of the plainest tourist spots in Shuanglang, but very few tourists can find this place.”

Perhaps because Lu Chenfeng stood in the midst of a lively crowd, or perhaps Lin Chaosheng’s light and relaxed manner of speaking made him feel at ease, he joked too, “Isn’t this part of the VIP treatment?”

Lin Chaosheng smiled and casted a side glance at him, “I see what you are thinking there.”

They passed through the lively laughters and chatters and the noise slowly faded down to quietness. The door to a house at the next crossing was wide open. The rain had stopped, Lin Chaosheng put both of their hats on the handlebar after leaning it against the wall steadily and brought Lu Chenfeng into the yard.

The construction of the house was similar to Beijing’s traditional house with a fully enclosed courtyard, but it was constructed simple and plain, looking rather ragged as it was built many years ago. There was a fully grown Japanese honeysuckle tree on the right side, an old lady sat under the tree with a silver bracelet carved with sophisticated patterns, and she was sorting out the mushrooms in a bamboo bucket.

Lin Chaosheng was a regular customer; the old lady knew what kinds and how much he wanted as soon as he passed his bag to her. Lin Chaosheng bent down and picked up a flat and chubby mushroom that looked like an umbrella and leaned in to smell it. All these small movements reflected clearly in Lu Chenfeng’s eyes.

“This is the type of wild mushroom I cooked for you last night,” Lin Chaosheng passed it to Lu Chenfeng before bagging it up, then he warned seriously, “Remember to go to big and proper restaurants to eat for the remaining trip. There are way too many people who die in Yunnan because of mushroom poisonings, the type of mushroom that causes most deaths is called ‘lurid bolete’.”

Lu Chenfeng noted down Lin Chaosheng’s reminder earnestly.

“But it’s a shame,” Lin Chaosheng continued to pick out mushrooms from the bucket without looking away, but he seemed like he didn’t have the intention of saying this, “My specialty is pineapple fried rice.”

He took a bag of fresh mushrooms from the old lady and weighed it in his hands, “But I’m afraid Mr. Lu won’t have a chance to try it.”

If he didn’t say this, Lu Chenfeng wouldn’t check his watch and realize that it was almost time to check out. He fixed his gaze on Lin Chaosheng, who was talking to the old lady patiently and slowly put down his arm without speaking.

When they stepped outside the door with two fully sealed bags of mushrooms, an unknown object flew in their direction quickly. Lin Chaosheng quickly reacted and caught it accurately without any surprise as if he was expecting it. It was a feathery shuttlecock used for a game.

Lin Chaosheng threw the shuttlecock in the air and caught it again steadily, “Xiao Gu.”