In the valley beneath the cave, where tall trees and grass are intertwined, Yu Qian'er and her brother are looking for a fairy-like spice - Sichuan pepper.

Yu Qian'er didn't know what peppercorns were, and her brother told him that it could give food a flame-like taste.

The woods are a little cold at sunset, and the peppercorns are hidden in the sparse gaps of the trees, and their short bodies are covered with sharp thorns in the struggle against nature, guarding their own taste.

The thorn pierced Yu Qian'er's fingers, frowned and put his fingers in his mouth and sucked, watching his brother skillfully pluck the pepper leaves.

Its seeds are still in the process of being born, and when they are ripe, it will be the flavor that condenses all the essence.

On the contrary, the pepper leaves are not heavy, but they have an extra fragrance, and they are matched with the tender white mutton to give birth to a unique taste.

Half a bag of pepper leaves fell into a simple cloth bag, carrying the clansmen's first pursuit of food.

A few hundred meters away, a plant that has been densely spread across the land since the Jurassic period stubbornly stretched out its young shoots, like a clenched fist, showing its strength to the earth.

Bracken, a plant that the tribe eats in the spring, but today it is not the woman who collects it, but the wolf skin and a few younger brothers.

They took the slippery bones moistened with sweat and dug up the roots of the bracken according to Ken's instructions.

The dense and tangled roots are the source of their strength and naturally the most nutritious place.

The wolf skin was not careful, so white juice gushed out of the mud-stained wound.

It takes a lot of effort to dig up the bones, but the most important thing about wolf skin is strength.

Bracken fights against nature, and so do wolf skins and people.

It's just that from now on, the bracken has one more enemy.

The white juice was both their blood and their tears.

Since it is tears, the taste is naturally bitter.

Bitter is not a taste that the clansmen like.

So Yu Qian'er's mother and sisters carried their fiber bags to the densest part of the woods, and the spring rain a few days ago convinced her that a strange smell had sprouted on the branches.

As the gatherers of the tribe, they know the location of each fruit tree and the young shoots that can be eaten, which is the memory left by their ancestors with their lives and the most valuable wealth to pass on to their descendants.

The thorny buds, a thorny plant that had left many scars on the women of the tribe, but the sweet smell made the tribesmen quickly forget the sting, and they hooked the branches with sticks, plucked the freshest parts and put them in their backpacks.

Sometimes, because of too much force, the brittle branches will break. But the women of the tribe knew that the next spring, new life would bloom beautifully under the branches of death.

Death is only the beginning of a new life.

Not only the young branches, but also the ancient trees that cannot escape the invasion of time.

The rot begins in the heart of the tree, and may have been nothing more than an insignificant insect that escaped the woodpecker's ding.

But on the rotten wood, new life is also quietly born.

Under the open umbrella cover, there was already a small insect devouring the delicious juice, which was taken away by a rough hand, and the small insect was also thrown off, and he bowed his body to vent his dissatisfaction, but his fingers flicked away from afar.

Mushrooms that have absorbed the nutrients of rotten wood are also a taste that the tribe likes, but no one dares to try those unfamiliar ones, and the old grandmother has told her daughters what they can and can't eat.

As for why anyone knows what not to eat, it is a story from a long time ago, and it is also a bitter story accompanied by the tears of the family.

Stories also have a flavor, not just bitter, sometimes sweet.

After collecting the pepper leaves, Yu Qian'er was experiencing a sweet story at this time, and the sweet juice overflowed from the tip of her tongue and flowed down her throat.

She knew the taste of sweetness, but it was the first time she had experienced it for so long.

The juice in the clay pot had been drunk clean by her, and she licked the corners of her mouth with her tender little tongue, but her brother doted on her hand to wipe the remnants of her mouth.

On top of the pot was a freshly sprouted maple tree, and a broken pottery shard had been stuck in it, piercing its sieve and severing its arteries.

Those who had accumulated sugar for the winter of budding and embarked on this road that had never been walked before.

For the first time, I saw the world outside the bark and smelled something other than sweetness, and I didn't like it, but I couldn't go back.

Reluctantly, he and his friends fell into the pale red clay pot, and gathered more and more.

Dozens of clay pots await under different trees, and both maple and birch are sweet in spring.

Sweet, but not as greasy as honey, the extra sweetness is actually spring.

Spring is sweet, and naturally there is no love.

The singing birds guard the crystallization of their love, looking forward to the life that beats inside breaking out of their shells.

The warm fluff carries the body temperature, guarding the child who is still sleeping in the eggshell, the couple looks at each other and screams, and the wife opens her mouth and waits for her husband to bring food.

However, this warmth is disturbed by the footsteps of the hairless monsters, and they shout to distract the hairless monsters.

However, the hairless monsters in animal skins were unaffected by the cry of sadness and warning, and reached out and snatched the eggs......

Life thrives in such a cruel competition.

The lives of the dead gathered in the caves of the tribe, condensing different flavors and blooming on the tongues of the tribesmen.

The clay pot was surrounded by flames, the water inside had boiled, the lamb was sliced into large pieces, and the milky white soup gave off an umami taste that the tribesmen had never smelled.

The mushrooms are diced with stones and mixed with lamb to create the ultimate in freshness.

The numbness of the pepper leaves is also diffusing in the boiling, invading the already soft white tender meat.

Two pieces of mint and three tubers, boiling is not only the taste, but also the pursuit of life and the desire for the continuation of life.

In another clay pot, the white greasy mutton fat melted into oil, and the pale cyan smoke soared.

Yu Qian'er stood aside and watched her brother fiddle with two branches in the oil.

In the clay bowl next to him is a mixture of egg mixture, which is mixed with a slightly bitter fern root juice.

The tender green thorny buds and toon leaves rolled in the egg mixture, and the body was tightly surrounded.

Two branches caught them, and when they slashed in the sheep fat, they immediately turned brown, and the sun had already set, but the color of the setting sun appeared.

The pottery bowl was piled up with fried thorny buds and toon rolls, and the enticing taste finally made Yu Qian'er understand why her brother drooled when he saw these pottery before.

In another small clay pot, the sap of the maple and birch trees is gradually concentrating the essence inside.

The water dissipated into a white mist, leaving behind a sweet maple syrup, now viscous.

The two pieces of wood were placed on the ground early, and small eyes were carved out of stone tools.

Pinch the clay pot with a cloth and pour the sticky sugar juice into the small eyes on the wood, waiting for it to cool into lumps.

Yu Qian'er, who had tasted a jar of birch sap, swallowed her saliva, wondering what kind of sweetness these condensed sugar juices would have?

But her mind was soon drawn to another taste, and the tubers cut into large pieces were thrown into tumbling mutton fat and fried to a yellow color.

The sweetness of the starch when it is fried is different, but this is not the end.

After taking it out, most of the remaining half of the maple syrup was poured into the oil, and the sound of sizzling continued to come out, and the splashing oil splash made Yu Qian'er feel pain, but he was reluctant to leave, wanting to see the birth of a new taste.

Sugar is mixed with oil, which is another viscous.

When the stickiness is so thick that it leaves silk threads on the branches, the fried tubers are placed inside and quickly tossed to allow the sugar to coat all the skin......

For the first time, the people knew that rice could be eaten like this, and just by smelling it, they could already imagine the beauty of these flavors when they bloomed on the tip of their tongues.

Waiting turned from silence to anxiety, and the clansmen knocked on the clay bowls and pots in their hands, waiting for the last moments.

The old grandmother watched all this with joy and handed over the right to distribute food today to Jian Chen.

And Chen Jian's reward was the white juice of fern roots poured in the boiling soup.

The white juice containing a lot of starch quickly condenses into a ball in boiling water, and is fished out with a fiber cloth, which is soft, transparent and smooth.

I carefully filled a bowl, as if it might break at any moment, and I didn't dare to use the slightest strength.

Pour a little sour juice over the herbs, with a few spicy leek leaves, add the smashed dogwood to bring out the spicy taste, put a little syrup, serve with two slices of mint, and pour a little fried lamb fat from pepper leaves.

The moment you enter the mouth, there is a hint of numbness in the spicy, the taste buds bloom quickly, and the blood flow accelerates, but it intensifies the rest of the flavor.

So the sourness of sour berries, the sweetness of maple syrup, and the smell of mutton fat mix together to form a new flavor that coats the slightly bitter cold skin of the fern root.

I was about to taste it, but it was replaced by the coolness of the mint leaves, so I had to take another bite to experience the sensation of the moment......

The elders of the clan and the aunts with bad teeth had a bowl of fern root powder with half a boiled bird's egg.

The scorching heat of late spring is dissipated by sour berries and mint, and the bitterness turns into sweat on the forehead, leaving the bitterness between the teeth and fighting the sweetness.

After a few bites, they hurriedly called the children and fed them to them, so that they could also feel the strange taste.

The adults each drank a bowl of mutton soup.

Fresh, originally the taste of sheep, with the taste of spring rain mushrooms, it stimulates people's appetite.

The wolf's skin was scalded and kept sticking out his tongue, but after drinking one bowl, he served another bowl, and there was a piece of cooked mutton in it.

He had never eaten boiled meat, but he found a different taste from roasting, slightly sweet, and more tender.

In the clay bowl next to it, the golden fried prickly sprouts and toons wrapped in egg wash are children's favorites.

The outside is charred and the inside is tender, although it has a slight fishy smell of mutton, but it is harmless.

The oil is immersed in the young shoots, which is the first time that toon pigment is fused with oil within a radius of 100 miles.

But they are born together, and the entrance is sweet.

Yu Qian'er ate a clump of prickly old buds, and turned her gaze to the bowl of tubers.

The elder brother picked up a piece with two branches, and the sticky sugar juice on it stretched out into a long silk, and the children clapped their hands and applauded.

But the thread grew longer and longer, and the children stopped shouting, staring at the thread for fear of breaking.

After finally breaking it, he let out another cheer, curiously learning from Jian Chen's example, tying up a piece with a branch and pulling out the sugar silk.

After entering the mouth, it is even more glutinous and sweet, melting the sugar from the outer skin, and the tip of the tongue is sipped, and the fine sand-like tubers are smeared on the tongue coating, looking for sweet taste buds.

Laughter and laughter echoed in the cave, and the flavors that Jian Chen liked temporarily gathered in this humble cave, and then combined with each other, lingering between his lips and teeth, rippling on the tip of his tongue.

In the colorful, only a brother named Salty is missing, and I don't know where to be lonely......