National Highway 334 stretches like a flowing ribbon, winding through the Tianfozhi Mountains on the eastern slope of Changbai Mountain in Northeast China's Jilin Province. Higher up the mountains, dense forests of red pine and Mongolian oak thrive, creating a natural habitat for matsutake mushrooms.
Stepping down from the vehicle, a chill mountain wind rushed toward me, and the shadows of the trees flickered in the headlights, like an unforgettable moment swaying gently before my eyes. Today, I finally met the person I had come to interview - an elderly man of Korean ethnic group named Yin Hucheng. I had long hoped that he could open a door and lead me into the secret woodland where matsutake mushrooms grow.
But to my disappointment, Yin told me that I had already missed this season's matsutake mushrooms. The last one in the forest had been picked half a month earlier. Therefore, I had no choice but to sit and listen as he recounted his stories with this tasty mushroom.
Forestry staff present explained that today humans have successfully "domesticated" the fine-haired enoki mushroom and achieved factory-scale production. Even the morel mushrooms can be cultivated on a large scale in intelligent, temperature-controlled greenhouses. However, when it comes to matsutake mushrooms, despite more than a century of scientific effort, researchers still have not fully unlocked the secrets of its reproduction.
Though barely literate, Yin possesses an intuition that ordinary people cannot match, an intuition for matsutake mushrooms. Even when the earth has barely awakened in early spring, he can accurately predict which patch of forest will be the first to push out new matsutake mushrooms.
In the past, Yin contracted a section of forest on Tianfozhi Mountain. He was well versed in the characteristics of matsutake mushrooms: only the immature "young mushrooms" are truly delicious. Once the caps open and begin releasing spores, no one wants them anymore.
At that time, in order to maximize the economic value of the forest, Yin relied on his skills to harvest every matsutake mushroom before its cap opened. Within just a few short years, he lifted himself out of poverty through mushroom picking.
Normally, once a "matsutake nest" forms, it can last for decades, expanding 10-15 centimeters each year along the direction of the pine roots and producing new generations of fungi. But on Tianfozhi Mountain, the matsutake mushrooms were growing fewer and fewer. In several spots, not a single mushroom had emerged for consecutive years.
Staring at the increasingly "barren" forest, Yin fell into deep thought. Then one day, he suddenly understood: It was humans' unrestrained harvesting that had disrupted the already fragile reproduction of the matsutake mushrooms. If things continued this way, the day would inevitably come when Tianfozhi Mountain would no longer produce matsutake mushrooms at all.
From then on, each year Yin would leave several strong matsutake in every "matsutake nest," allowing them to grow into spore-releasing "mother mushrooms."
His family did not quite understand this, because it takes at least five years for a fallen spore to grow into a small matsutake - long enough for a forest-contract period to expire. He could "leave seeds," but would not be around to enjoy the "returns."
But Yin told his family, "This forest has sustained us; we cannot let it become barren in our hands." Later, Yin simply put away the bamboo knife he had used for many years to harvest matsutake mushrooms and never again spoke of his experience running the mountains in search of them.
Many years later, the forest changed hands several times before eventually being contracted by Yin's grandson, Liu Jianguo. One sunny afternoon, Liu spotted a light-brown shape beneath a layer of decaying leaves - an enormous matsutake mushroom. Its cap was full and thick, its stem sturdy and upright, nearly twice the size of an ordinary matsutake mushroom.
Holding his breath, Liu carefully used a bamboo knife to loosen the surrounding soil, lifted the "treasure" into his palms, and rushed straight to Yin's house.
His entire life, Yin had never seen a matsutake mushroom so big. His eyes instantly reddened.
He told me that he was 80 years old that year and had laid down his knife for 20 years. The moment he saw that "king of matsutake," he knew the mountain was revealing a secret to him - a secret about the matsutake mushroom.
I felt that it was the forest's deepest gesture of gratitude to a mushroom picker who understood restraint and reverence.
After bidding farewell to Yin, I drove alone along the National Highway 334. The mountain wind brushed past white birch, red maple, smoke trees, and green pines, carrying the forest's simplest message: millions of matsutake spores were beginning a new cycle of life beneath the decaying leaves.
Source: Global Times:
Company: Global Times
Contact Person: Anna Li
Email: editor@globaltimes.com.cn
Website: https://globaltimes.cn
City: Beijing
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