Live Strong in the Wilderness-Chapter 228: Poisonous Celestial Star

"Be careful, these plants are poisonous, give me the Engineer Shovel," Xu Yi said, pointing to some plants on the ground. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Lu Ke nodded, then took the Engineer Shovel out of Xu Yi’s basket and handed it to him.

Lu Ke thought these plants looked pretty normal, but didn’t expect them to be poisonous.

"If you touch their sap, it will cause your skin to ulcerate continuously. If the area is large, amputation or even death is quite common," Xu Yi explained, as his experience in identifying toxic substances included information about this plant.

"This, that’s so terrifying, what kind of plant is it?" Lu Ke asked, her hair standing on end upon hearing Xu Yi’s words.

Xu Yi carefully dug one out and said, "Poisonous Celestial Star, used correctly, it can be a weapon."

"You go cut the flax; I’ll dig out these Poisonous Celestial Stars," Xu Yi handed his machete to Lu Ke, as there was indeed a patch of flax ahead.

"Alright, be careful; it’s too dangerous if you get any on you," Lu Ke reminded him, considering how dreadful Xu Yi described it.

"Hmm, this stuff is quite rare, so I’ll be careful," Xu Yi said with a smile, knowing well the terrors of the Poisonous Celestial Star and naturally being very cautious.

Luckily, the venom is only in the leaves; the liquid in the roots and stems isn’t dangerous.

Otherwise, Xu Yi might indeed hesitate to dig them up.

"Cut two or three bundles; any more, and we won’t be able to carry them back," Lu Ke called back to Xu Yi, given their limited time and not wanting to waste too much of it here.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t make it back to camp before nightfall.

"Hmm, we’ll come again tomorrow. Now that we’ve confirmed the location, we can save quite a bit of time," Xu Yi replied without looking up. He was busy digging out a Poisonous Celestial Star, wary of accidentally getting venom on himself.

The reason they took so long to come here today was because they needed to explore carefully, stopping occasionally to check if certain plants were edible or had medicinal value.

It naturally took up a lot of time, but if they come directly to cut flax tomorrow, they might save around two hours.

"Thirteen plants, pretty lucky," Xu Yi grinned, then packed the Poisonous Celestial Stars into his basket.

Then he and Lu Ke started cutting flax together.

After cutting four bundles, they called it a day.

After all, the return journey would take several hours, assuming no delays.

On the way back, Lu Ke shot a rabbit with a short crossbow.

By the time they got back to camp, it was almost dark.

"Lu Ke, you take care of the rabbit, I’ll go get the strawberries off the roof," Xu Yi said as he put down the flax and basket, preparing to take down the strawberries.

Xu Yi felt that after being exposed to the sun for so long, the strawberries were probably close to drying.

"Need my help?" Lu Ke asked after putting her things down.

"No need, you don’t have to take the winnowing baskets down, just leave them up there, I can manage," Xu Yi said, setting up a ladder against the top beam.

"Be careful up there," Lu Ke cautioned, since it was six meters high, and a fall would be very dangerous.

"Don’t worry, I got this," Xu Yi replied and climbed up.

Once on the roof, Xu Yi found that most of the strawberry slices hadn’t dried; instead, they had mostly rotted away.

"Failed to dry them?" Xu Yi picked up a slice and sniffed it, detecting a sour stench.

None of the strawberry slices in the two round winnowing baskets had dried successfully, leaving Xu Yi a bit disheartened.

He originally thought that after two or three days in the sun, they could harvest some dried strawberries. But it was a complete failure, not a single piece had dried.

So, Xu Yi stacked the winnowing baskets together and carried them back down.

They were soiled by the strawberries and needed cleaning.

"Xu Yi, why did you bring the winnowing baskets down, are the strawberries dried already?" Lu Ke thought they had dried, thus not needing to leave the winnowing baskets on the roof for the next day.

"No, they all rotted away, didn’t dry," Xu Yi said, showing some of the remaining strawberries to Lu Ke.

"How could this be, it was so sunny today," Lu Ke said, puzzled, since dried strawberries are available in markets.

"We probably used the wrong method; strawberries have too much moisture," Xu Yi said while washing the winnowing baskets.

"But grapes have a lot of moisture too, and we managed to make raisins, didn’t we?" Lu Ke remarked.

"Grapes have skins, they don’t soften easily. Touch a strawberry, and it’ll turn mushy after a while. So, it requires a different method; first, we need to extract the moisture before they can dry," Xu Yi contemplated and shared his thoughts.

"I see..." Lu Ke pondered, finding Xu Yi’s explanation reasonable, then asked, "So, how do we extract the moisture from strawberries?"

After all, with so many strawberries, they couldn’t eat them all in one day. If they weren’t dried for preservation, it’d be a waste.

Because, unlike others, they were from Huaxia, and unlike other people, they couldn’t bear to see things rot away when they could be saved for survival when needed.

"Salt, or sugar, should work, as long as it’s denser than water," Xu Yi suggested.

"Salt? But we don’t have much salt, just enough for regular use; using it to make strawberry preserves would be a waste. We have honey, can that work?" Lu Ke hesitated to use salt on this, knowing a trip to the seaside for more would take at least a day and night.

The salt they had was a gift from Wang Jin and Lu Yao.

"We can try a small portion, and if it doesn’t work, so be it," Xu Yi said. Even knowing salt and sugar for dehydration, they weren’t sure of the exact method.

"How about we redeem a book on making dried fruits? There are books available for exchange; perhaps there’s one specifically about that," Lu Ke suggested a new idea.

She felt it was too wasteful to throw away uneaten strawberries.

Waste is shameful.

At least, that’s how she saw it.

"See if there is one, and how many points it costs," Xu Yi considered whether it was worth it.

"Okay, I’ll find one later," Lu Ke said as she cleaned the rabbit, lifting it out of the water.

Then she chopped the rabbit into pieces to cook in a pot.

Xu Yi, having finished cleaning the winnowing baskets, returned to the Stilt House.

Lu Ke fixed the rabbit fur and started checking the Star Chart.