After the group had trekked over mountains and back for more than two hours, they returned to their temporary living quarters around 1:30 PM, carrying heavy buckets of honey and feeling ravenous. Everyone was tired and hungry.
Grandma and Wen Rou Niang, seeing everyone back, quickly brought out the food they had kept warm in the pots, urging everyone to eat.
Grandma, observing everyone eating, curiously opened a lidded bucket. A sweet fragrance mixed with the fresh scent of linden flowers wafted out. She quickly closed the lid, saying, "The honey you've collected is truly genuine linden honey. It has that fresh aroma of linden blossoms, and its color is quite beautiful, a transparent light amber. It should be considered top-grade. If we can collect more and store it this year, it will be an excellent tonic for when they return to give as gifts or for us to drink steeped with water."
Grandma stood up and turned to Chen Lan, who was eating. "Xiao Lan, I see you've collected so much in just half a day. Are there many linden trees with honey over there?"
Chen Lan quickly swallowed her food and replied, "There are many linden trees with honey, but the path is a bit far, and carrying a bucket of honey back is quite strenuous!"
Grandma immediately declared with bold authority, "What's to fear from a long path? We'll just walk slowly. As for carrying the honey buckets, let the men help with that. Xiao Lan, how about this: except for those building the house, whose construction schedule is quite tight and they can't leave, starting tomorrow, everyone else will go with you to collect honey for a few days. What do you think?"
Chen Lan quickly asked, "Shouldn't Teacher Zhou and the others go? Their five sets of solar and wind power generator units haven't started running yet. It's already July, and Changbai Mountain's winter will be here in two months. Their work is also quite pressing."
Grandma thought about it and agreed. "Let Uncle Fu and Uncle De go help with building the house, and swap Xiangxi, Xiaoshan, and Linmao to come with you. How about that?"
Chen Lan considered it and thought it was a good idea. Building the house just involved handing things over, not heavy lifting. Uncle Fu and Uncle De helping out shouldn't be a problem.
She nodded in agreement, "Grandma, you always have a way!"
She continued, "Perfect! Xiaoshan and the other boys can climb the trees to help pick some linden flowers to bring back."
Grandma asked, puzzled, "Xiao Lan, what do you want linden flowers for?"
Chen Lan quickly replied, "We can dry the picked linden flowers, and they can be steeped to drink as tea."
Grandma asked, somewhat perplexed, "I've never heard of linden flowers being used for tea before! I only know about jasmine tea and chrysanthemum tea, but I've never heard of linden flower tea. Does drinking linden flower tea have any benefits for people?"
Chen Lan nodded and replied, "Yes! Grandma, linden flower tea is quite similar to the chrysanthemum tea you just mentioned. Linden flower tea is not only fragrant and delicious but also has health benefits such as calming the nerves, aiding sleep, and preventing colds."
Upon hearing about so many benefits, Grandma immediately said, "Tomorrow, bring more large bags, and have them pick more. Let's dry a lot of it and all steep it as tea. It's good for everyone's health and prevention, and there's no harm in it." Grandma chuckled to herself as she spoke.
Grandma's mention did indeed remind Chen Lan of the travelogue she had read.
Chen Lan remembered that in that travelogue, a passage specifically mentioned that during the 1957 French flu pandemic, the French consumed a record-breaking 500 tons of linden flowers as medicinal tea, effectively preventing a wider outbreak of the flu.
After that event, linden flowers became even more popular in Europe. In Europe, linden flowers are the most commonly consumed ingredient for beverages.
Every year, when linden flowers bloom, the trees are covered with pale yellow linden blossoms. People often collect fresh linden flowers and dry them to make flower tea. Linden flower tea is somewhat similar to Chinese chrysanthemum tea and has good health benefits.
That afternoon, Chen Lan began preparing for the next day's trip. First, she purchased the beekeeping equipment for the three people who would join her tomorrow, Xiangxi and the other two, through the system. She also bought a honey bucket for each of them and stored a few extra honey buckets in the system's warehouse for use the next day. Today, she had been in Mingwei's group and hadn't dared to collect too much linden honey, fearing they wouldn't be able to carry it back and it would be all for naught.
Chen Lan decided to team up with Xiangxi tomorrow to collect more buckets of linden honey and store them in the system's warehouse. She would also collect more linden flowers and store them in the system's warehouse. Thinking of this, she realized she hadn't bought bags for the linden flowers and purchased several large snake-skin bags in the system to carry them tomorrow.
The next day, everyone was woken up early by Grandma. After breakfast, Grandma urged them to set off quickly.
Carrying their equipment and buckets, they bid farewell to Grandma and Wen Rou Niang and set off.
After another two hours of trekking over mountains and back, they finally reached the linden forest they had visited yesterday.
The group reformed into teams. Chen Lan chose to team up with Xiangxi, a decision she had informed Mingwei about in advance. Mingwei chose to team up with Xiaoshan, Lin Mai with her brother Lin Mao, and Cui Qiao and Zhao Xiaoyue with Hu Yuzhen. With their new companions, they began their beekeeping work like seasoned professionals, immersing themselves in the sweet endeavor.
At this moment, Chen Lan couldn't help but hum a familiar old song, "A sweet job, a sweet job, infinitely good, oh, sweet songs, sweet songs fly all over the sky, oh..."
While singing, Chen Lan used her mind to open the system's search function to scan for honey sources within a 500-meter radius. Soon, the system screen displayed many small red dots. Chen Lan selected a few locations with beehives that were close by and informed the other teams.
With the system's assistance, Chen Lan and her team quickly found a large beehive. While collecting honey with Xiangxi, she continuously hummed the lyrics, "A sweet job, infinitely good, oh, sweet songs, fly all over the sky, oh!"
Xiangxi, hearing the same two lines over and over, became annoyed. "Hey, Xiao Lan, you've been muttering these two lines repeatedly. What do 'a sweet job' and 'sweet songs' mean?"
Hearing Xiangxi's question, Chen Lan couldn't help but burst into laughter.
She quickly explained, "Xiao Xigua, I'm not babbling randomly. I'm singing!"
Xiangxi didn't believe her. "You're just fooling me! How can there be such a strange song with only these two lines: 'a sweet job, sweet songs'?"
Chen Lan saw that Xiangxi didn't believe her and didn't offer further explanation, as it was too difficult to explain. She couldn't exactly tell him that this song hadn't appeared yet, and the composer and lyricist were nowhere to be found. She couldn't tell him it was a theme song from a very popular movie called "Sweet Undertaking" that would appear twenty or thirty years from now!
Chen Lan didn't answer and continued humming as she quickly took honey. It was likely that no one had ever collected honey here before. The linden honey at the bottom of these beehives was very thick, even forming clumps. Chen Lan didn't care if the honey was thick or clumpy; she collected it all into the bucket, and soon it was filled with a large bucket of thick linden honey.
She quickly placed the full bucket of linden honey into the system warehouse and took out another bucket from the warehouse to continue collecting honey.
When everyone had filled all their buckets with linden honey, Chen Lan distributed the snake-skin bags, one for each team, and told them to climb the linden trees to pick linden flowers to dry and steep as tea.
Of course, she also cautioned each team not to climb too high and to be careful.
In Chen Lan's team, Xiangxi took a snake-skin bag and climbed high up the linden tree like a monkey, picking linden flowers with ease. Chen Lan repeatedly warned Xiangxi not to climb too high. Seeing that Xiangxi had stopped climbing higher and was sitting steadily on a thick branch picking linden flowers, she stopped worrying about him and began to wander around nearby. As she walked, she noticed a dead tree not far ahead with clumps of white things growing on it. When she got closer, Chen Lan was delighted; wasn't this tremella?