Chapter 87 87 Surprise

Chapter 87 An unexpected surprise

Luo Ning stared at the white oval "Ginkgo" in his hand, and fell into a state of complete astonishment for a moment.

If his guess was correct, the so-called ginkgo was none other than something that Luo Ning had often seen in his hometown on Earth and had participated in raising when he was a child - silkworm cocoons.

"What's wrong?"

Irene blinked and stared at Luo Ning. She didn't understand why the other party was so surprised. Could it be that she thought the ginkgo was too delicious and couldn't help it?

Luo Ning came back to his senses and asked quickly: "Is the ginkgo you mentioned made from a worm? Also, when you said you peeled it open, did you eat the pupa inside?"

"Is that thing called a 'chrysalis'? We always call it a 'nucleus'."

Knight Horn spoke. Compared to Jenny, who didn't work much, he often traveled outside and knew more about Ginkgo.

"Sir, as you said, ginkgo is indeed made from insects. I don't know if the insects exist elsewhere, but there are quite a few in the purple fruit tribe."

Luo Ning's eyes lit up, "Quick, tell me."

Knight Horn said: "When Jenny and I led the team here, we discovered the purple fruit forest outside. I saw a lot of gray fat insects under the leaves. I named them 'Big Gray' insect'."

"Later we settled here, I observed them for a while and found that these bugs feed on the leaves of purple fruit trees. When they grow up, they will spit out this white pulp and wrap themselves in it. One day, out of curiosity, I picked up the white slurry. The shell was peeled off and the core inside was found.”

Speaking of this, he chuckled, "It was too difficult when I first settled here and there was nothing to eat, so I tried to cook and eat this thing. I found that not only was it not poisonous, but it could also replenish the body, so this thing became It has become a unique food of my purple fruit tribe.”

Luo Ning finally confirmed that this so-called ginkgo was a silkworm cocoon.

The "big gray worm" that Horn Knight calls is probably a silkworm, but it is different from the domestic silkworm, which grows outside.

As for the so-called purple fruit trees and purple fruits, Luo Ning guessed that they should be mulberry trees and mulberries.

The yellow forest he saw on the top of the crater should be the mulberry forest, and the fallen mulberry leaves happened to be yellow.

Ronin's heart pounded.

Silkworms are a good thing. The cocoons they spin can be used to spin silk threads to make silk.

Silk is even better.

In ancient China, the price of this item was so high that only high-ranking families could wear it. When sold outside, it was even more expensive.

In this world, Luo Ning does not have any memory related to sericulture.

There are generally only three materials used to make clothes here: wool, leather and cloth.

The fabrics are basically coarse linen, fine linen, etc. made of linen as the main material.

Ordinary people usually wear coarse linen clothes, while nobles wear clothes made of fine linen, wool, and precious furs to show their status.

It is said that cotton cloth is still available in the south, but it has not been widely cultivated and is also very rare.

As for silk, I had never heard of it.

Luo Ning never expected that there would be sericulture in the Ziguo Tribe. If he could make these silkworm cocoons into silk, it would become the signature industry of Shanlin Town in the future, much more reliable than the black iron tree.

"How many more of these ginkgo do you have?" Luo Ning asked.

"There are many more!"

Erin gestured exaggeratedly, "There are still several more boxes!"

"Come on, take me to see you."

As Luo Ning said that, he took Eileen's hand and hurried towards the house where the other party just entered.

Jenny and Horn looked at each other, and the latter was confused, "Why is the Baron so interested in Ginkgo? He didn't even hear about your plan for the Gray Earth Tribe."

Jenny shook her head, "I don't know, but I feel that adults should know Ginkgo better than us. Let's go and have a look."

This room is more like a warehouse, with many wooden boxes placed inside.

Erin opened all four wooden boxes, which were filled with silkworm cocoons.

"My father will leave a box of seeds every year. When next spring, the ginkgo will sprout and give birth to more offspring!" she said.

so many!

Luo Ning squatted beside the box and observed carefully.

A small part of the cocoons here are grayish-yellow, but most of them are white, and there is no dirt like broken leaves on them. They must have been cleaned by Horn.

These cocoons are at least half a circle larger than the cocoons formed by silkworms in Luo Ning's impression. According to Horn, they are gray bugs and should be different from ordinary silkworms.

"Horn, do you know how to breed?" Luo Ning turned to look at the following knight.

"You know...a little bit, right?"

Horn scratched his head, "Sir, you also know that life in the mountains is very boring. I study them when I have nothing to do. Those big gray worms form shells and hide themselves in them for the winter, and wait until next summer Will come out of it!"

Speaking of this, Horn seemed to be getting excited.

"Sir, you may not know that those bugs turn into moths when they come out! Although the moth exists for a very short time and dies after laying eggs. But it leaves behind dense eggs, and they will grow into more Lots of big gray worms.”

He said, pointing to a box in the house, "You only need to keep a small part of the box every year, and it will be enough to harvest several boxes of ginkgo next year!"

Luo Ning listened and thought.

He had determined that these were silk cocoons, and what they ate were the silkworm pupae inside.

However, the silkworms here were different from what he knew.

The silkworms he was familiar with usually hibernated in the spring and autumn as silkworm eggs.

But the silkworms of the Ziguo tribe were not like this. They became cocoons in the autumn, pupated inside, hibernated as silkworm pupae, and would not break out of the pupae until the summer of the following year.

The reason for this difference, Luo Ning guessed, should be caused by the temperature.

Shanlin Town is located in the northernmost part of Wushan Territory, where the climate has four distinct seasons.

The temperature in spring and autumn is about 5~15℃, which is not suitable for the growth of silkworms;

Only the summer of 20~30℃ is suitable for silkworms to hatch and grow.

Since September, Luo Ning felt that the temperature was dropping, but he was an intermediate knight, so the feeling was not so obvious.

Speaking of which, in the Ziguo tribe, silkworms can only be raised for one season a year under natural conditions.

Unless the ambient temperature can be changed and a suitable environment can be created in spring or autumn, it can be raised for multiple seasons.

But this is obviously unattainable.

Roning squatted beside the box, picked up a few silk cocoons and played with them, asking, "Horn, how many silkworm seeds do you keep every year, uh, that is, the white fruit you mentioned as seeds?"

Horn pondered for a moment, "About a dozen, no more than twenty."

"Why not keep more?"

Horn spread his hands, "Sir, I also thought about keeping more, but there are not enough purple fruit trees on the mountain, and too many can't support them."

Roning nodded slowly, forgetting about this.

He held up a silk cocoon and introduced it to Horn and the others: "The white fruit you are talking about is actually called a silk cocoon, and the fruit core inside is called a silkworm pupa. The silkworm pupa can be eaten, but the silkworm cocoon has other uses."

"Oh, by the way, and the purple fruit tree should be a mulberry tree, and the purple fruit is a mulberry."

Jenny and Horn looked at each other. They really guessed right. The baron in front of them knew a lot about purple fruit.

"We are deeply impressed by your erudition, sir!"

Jenny smiled and said, "From today on, we will revise these names."

Erin blinked her eyes and was a little surprised, "Should we call it the 'Mulberry Tribe'?"

Roning couldn't help but smile after hearing this.

"It doesn't matter what it's called."

He said, "I was going to move all of you to Shanlin Town to live, but now I've changed my mind. Since the Purple Fruit Tribe has silkworms and mulberry trees, we must make good use of these resources!"

Roning has already made up his mind, he will change wheat to mulberry trees in the Purple Fruit Tribe.