Chapter Eleven: Western Hills of Beijing
Su Qing fondled the crystal bear, although its purity was not high and its color was not very bright pink, Su Qing still couldn't put it down. After searching online for information about crystals and buying related books to learn more, Su Qing excitedly discovered that Beijing's Xishan is one of the producing areas of green crystal. Su Qing decided to go to Xishan to see if she could find some good crystals to make into beautiful accessories or decorations. The trip to Xishan was set, but of course, it would be a secret trip, without anyone knowing.
Green crystal was formerly known as Qing Shui Jing. In the Ming dynasty, Gu Yingtai wrote in his book "Ba Wu Yao Lan": "Its green color is like the white light under the moon, beautiful and lovely."
Natural green crystal is extremely rare. The common varieties on the market, such as Green Phantom and Green Hair Crystal, have a green coating, but the crystal itself is still colorless and transparent. Therefore, most of the green transparent crystals that appear on the market are treated, and many are synthetic crystals. Artificially cultivated green crystal ranges from light to deep green, transparent, with uniform purity inside. This type of crystal has good purity, shape, and beautiful color, and its material composition is the same as natural crystal, without distinction in international standards, but Su Qing insists on natural ones.
Green crystal is the lucky stone for May, which suits Su Qing very well. Green is considered a vibrant color, and green crystal is also seen as a precious color full of vitality, bringing good fortune in career development, wisdom, intuition, interpersonal relationships, calmness, and promoting interpersonal relationships. Additionally, some crystal healing practitioners believe that green amethyst has the function of bridging the gap between physical and spiritual bodies, enhancing one's spirit, willpower, and emotions.
At night, when the people were quiet, a small and agile figure quietly slipped out of the courtyard and headed west towards Xishan. Xishan is a general term for the western mountainous area of Beijing, belonging to the Taihang Mountains. It borders Gougou in the north near Nan Kou, reaches Fangshan District's Juma River Valley in the south, extends to the city boundary in the west, and adjoins the Beijing Plain in the east. The area is approximately over 3,000 square kilometers, accounting for nearly two-tenths of the total area of the city. It stretches northeast, about 90 kilometers long and 60 kilometers wide. The terrain drops gradually from northwest to southeast.
Su Qing's cultivation became stable with the help of the Gathering Spirit Array. From the Four Harmony Courtyard to the foot of Western Mountain, although she used her full strength and was a bit tired, it only took a moment.
Su Qing released her divine sense to search for the mine, and at the same time pulled out Xiao Bai who was sleeping soundly in space. As soon as the little fox came out, it rubbed its sleepy eyes and upon hearing that they were going to find treasure, it immediately became spirited. Su Qing hadn't even had a chance to say what they were looking for when Xiao Bai Fox darted into the forest. Su Qing helplessly followed closely behind in pursuit.
It's also thanks to Su Qing that she has super night vision and kung fu skills, otherwise if it were someone else running in the woods at midnight, who knows how many somersaults they would have taken, and maybe taking a few somersaults is just the lightest consequence.
Xiao Bai finally stopped near the top of the mountain, and Su Qing looked down to see that it was a wild ginseng, with over a dozen plants, the largest one looking like it was almost 200 years old. If this place wasn't so remote and difficult to reach, with no signs of human activity, Su Qing would have suspected that these ginsengs were cultivated by someone. In the spatial medicine field, there are hundreds of years old ginsengs everywhere, but now Xiao Bai has brought back over a dozen young ones, making Su Qing feel helpless. However, seeing Xiao Bai's excited and expectant expression, she couldn't bear to crush its enthusiasm, so she squatted down on the ground and started digging up the ginseng with her hands.
Since we've come to this place, we can't just dig up some ginseng and leave. We should take a look around and see if there's anything else worth collecting. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time climbing such a long mountain road.
A yellow rose entered Su Qing's line of sight, with golden petals, pure and bright colors, high and proud, beautiful flower shape, hard and straight flower stem and branches, and big red thorns. Not far away, there was also a pearl jasmine, its flowers as white and elegant as pearls. Girls always have low resistance to pretty things, bringing them back home to decorate the courtyard wouldn't be bad either.
After turning around, I found a few mulberry trees, picked some dark red mulberries, and they were very sweet. The bark of the mulberry tree is grayish-brown, with longitudinal cracks; the small branches are dark red. The leaf tip is gradually pointed or tail-shaped, the base is heart-shaped, the edge has coarse teeth, and the tooth end has a thorn-like point, about 2 mm long, and both sides are hairless. The fiber of the stem can be used to make high-grade paper, and after degumming, it can be used as a raw material for blending and single spinning; the root bark can be used as medicine, which is an anti-inflammatory diuretic; the fruit can be brewed into wine. Every part of the tree has its use, so I couldn't bear to leave behind the three or five trees that had already entered the space. I wonder if the silkworm babies in the space like to eat mulberry leaves.
There are many wild jujube trees on the mountain, with thin and loose fruit pulp, sweet and sour taste. Jujube has high nutritional value and medicinal value, it can be proven to have anti-disease, anti-aging and beauty effects. Drinking jujube juice regularly can invigorate the spleen, improve symptoms such as pale complexion, dry skin, weight loss, and facial edema. In addition, jujube contains a large amount of vitamin E, which can promote blood circulation and tissue growth, making skin and hair shiny and smooth out facial wrinkles. With so many benefits, it's not to be missed, let alone the higher nutritional value of wild ones. Later, you can also make jujube juice, jujube powder, jujube wine, etc., and collect young leaves to make jujube leaf tea.
These things were done, and a lot of time was consumed. Su Qing hurriedly instructed Xiao Bai to rush to the topic and find the green crystal. The dark night sky was lined with a bright and hazy moon, and one person and one fox crawled into an abandoned mine. Su Qing walked to the end and stopped her footsteps, "Are you sure that continuing to dig will yield crystals?" The white fox beside her nodded very seriously. The next moment, Su Qing had an iron shovel in her hand, and she began to bend down and dig like a mole. In fact, after some time, Su Qing could easily blast through the mountain and extract the crystal ore. But Su Qing was just an impatient person who couldn't wait, so at this moment, she was willingly doing mining work.
Su Qing's current strength can only penetrate about five meters into the mountain. Digging a few meters of tunnel and then penetrating again, seeing crystal ore early can also increase motivation. Su Qing has already dug over ten meters without seeing any sign of crystal, feeling somewhat disheartened, she rested her hands on the wall of the cave, when suddenly her eyes lit up. After digging another two meters or so, the ore appeared, and Su Qing could feel the faint spiritual energy emanating from it. Seeing hope, her actions became swift, making a concerted effort to dig, victory was within sight.
Su Qing put the large and small crystal mines directly into her space without checking them, leaving none in the cave. Su Qing looked at this huge cave with an area of over ten cubic meters, feeling a great sense of accomplishment. She sprinkled some spatial water on the trees above the entrance to promote their growth, as she didn't want her excavation of crystals to cause any disasters such as landslides or mudslides. Seeing that dawn was approaching, Su Qing hurriedly rushed back home.
Exhausted Su Qing went home and fell asleep in the small building in her space. Thinking of the crystal mine piled up into a small mountain by the stream in her space, Su Qing had a faint smile on her face when she slept at night.
