Ch14 – Delicious
After Xiong Ye left, Zhou Ji took a look at the fish.
He had still been in college when the apocalypse came.
His parents were both researchers and had no time to look after their home, so they had hired a nanny. He had basically never entered the kitchen prior to attending college and hadn’t had any opportunity to use the kitchen after starting college. After the apocalypse hit, he had learned how to cook things, but his skills halted at the stage where he would put everything together and cook it all at once.
Right now, this fish…
Zhou Ji was contemplating whether he should use the simplest method of putting it into the water and boiling it.
However, it seemed that fish needed to be lightly fried with oil? With spring onions or ginger or something to deal with the fishy smell?
He hadn’t found spring onions or ginger yet, but as for the oil…
The meat that Xiong Ye had hung up had fat, but Zhou Ji was worried that the oil would have its own taste and ultimately chose not to use it. The good thing was that he had collected some plants that had vegetable oils while wandering around outside and spent some time squeezing out some oil–Some vegetables weren’t appetizing when raw, and he would stir-fry them or blanch them in water before mixing in a little oil.
After washing the stone pot, Zhou Ji poured a little oil inside. He had just gotten everything ready when Xiong Ye returned.
Xiong Ye carried in a lot of firewood and even a bucket of water… Zhou Ji said, “Rinse the fish and put it inside the pot.”
“Alright!” Xiong Ye responded. He yanked off the fish head and then rinsed the fish before tossing it in. The snake was a bit long and wouldn’t fit inside, so he tore it into several pieces and threw them all inside the oiled pot.
Zhou Ji kept a straight face as he looked on, and after the sound of sizzling from water meeting the oil had stopped for a while, he tried to use chopsticks to flip the fish over and discovered that the fish had become stuck to the pan.
Stone pots, particularly stone pots that weren’t smooth enough, were really difficult to use after all.
“What is this?” Xiong Ye asked, pointing to the oil inside the pot.
“Oil.” Zhou Ji said.
“Why is the oil like this?” Xiong Ye was amazed. Shouldn’t oil come in white pieces? How had Zhou Ji made it become like this?
Xiong Ye stood to the side and didn’t dare move as he watched Zhou Ji. He felt that there was too much he didn’t know.
“If you put fat into an empty pan, you can reduce it into this kind of oil.” Zhou Ji explained.
Seeing that the fish in the pot was about to fall apart because it was stuck to the sides, Zhou Ji expressionlessly poured some water inside.
The stone pot transferred heat very slowly, so the water in the pot only began to boil after a long time. Zhou Ji then added a little salt.
However, he didn’t put in any vegetables. He couldn’t expose his abilities, and he hadn’t prepared any vegetables in advance, so it was better not to add any.
More importantly, he didn’t know what vegetables to add to the fish to make it more tasty…
“It’s ready.” Zhou Ji said.
“You eat first. I’ll only eat if you can’t finish it.” Xiong Ye sucked in a mouthful of the rich fragrance coming from the soup in front of him as he spoke.
This fish was really aromatic! The milky white broth also looked very clean.
Zhou Ji didn’t refuse. He brought out his chopsticks and picked out a bit of fish and snake meat, then said, “I’ve had enough.”
“These two sticks are supposed to be used like that?” After Xiong Ye saw Zhou Ji’s movements, he copied Zhou Ji and clumsily used the chopsticks to pick up some fish to eat.
When he ate fish as a child, he had eaten it raw for a while. Later on, he had learned how to roast it to eat, but the taste of roasted fish wasn’t great–It was particularly easy to burn!
This fish right now… Xiong Ye’s eyes lit up after he tasted it.
This fish was really flavorful, and it didn’t have that fishy taste at all!
Xiong Ye chomped, chewed, and ate the entire fish, bones and all, only bothering to spit out some of the larger pieces of bone.
Zhou Ji, who had carefully spat out even the small bones, “…”
“I hadn’t thought that you could make such delicious food!” Xiong Ye finished the soup along with the fish and looked admiringly at Zhou Ji.
Zhou Ji really didn’t feel that the fish he had cooked was tasty. Of course, this fish was still a bit more palatable than dinosaur meat, and at the very least, it was quite tender.
However, seeing Xiong Ye eating so happily also put him in a great mood.
Feeding others was a very enjoyable thing.
After Xiong Ye finished eating, he took the initiative to clean up the cave and even washed the stone pot outside–Zhou Ji’s body was so thin that he might not be able to handle the stone pot. How could he let Zhou Ji wash it?
When he finished cleaning up, Xiong Ye generously cut off half of the Scelidosaurus meat he had cured himself and gave it to Zhou Ji, “This meat is for you!”
Zhou Ji thought about it and accepted it, then watched as Xiong Ye took down the roasted Pentaceratops meat that he hadn’t finished eating yesterday and directly started gnawing on it while holding it in his hands.
Zhou Ji: “……” What a big appetite!
However, his own appetite was also very big, and he had to eat a lot in order to be full recently. Of course, he could eat less if he chose to eat plants that were full of energy.
“You… Why are you willing to let me live with you?” Zhou Ji suddenly asked.
Xiong Ye was stunned, then immediately replied, “I have space here anyway.” Actually, his offer for Zhou Ji to live with him today had been a bit impulsive.
The smell of Lang Yin on Shi Li’s body had made him very upset, and Zhou Ji had been standing there all alone, which made him feel like they were very similar.
Since Shi Li was living together with someone else, he had gone ahead and invited Zhou Ji.
“You’ll have to move out if I find a mate.” Xiong Ye added, “But I probably won’t be looking for a mate for the time being.”
“Oh.” Zhou Ji responded.
Xiong Ye then asked, “How did you hang up your curtain?” It wasn’t until now that he finally noticed the animal hide curtain that Zhou Ji had hung up in front of his bed… Xiong Ye looked at it curiously as he spoke, then noticed that a hole had been made in the stone wall of the cave that a rope could be tied to.
“I drilled two holes up there and tied a rope.” Zhou Ji replied. The words he spoke came out much more smoothly and no longer sounded strange to others like it had at the start.
“You must have spent a lot of time drilling those holes, right? Are you tired? You should sleep earlier.” Xiong Ye said.
Zhou Ji, who had slept for the entire afternoon, nodded and went to his ‘room’ to sleep.
Xiong Ye also laid down inside his cave.
After another busy day, he was quite tired, but after lying down, his thoughts turned to Shi Li and he couldn’t fall asleep–Shi Li must be with Lang Yin right now…
A pleasant smell wafted over, and Xiong Ye suddenly felt tired, falling quickly into a deep sleep.
Zhou Ji observed Xiong Ye’s situation for a while, then followed suit and went to sleep.
The next day was a day where the tribe went on collective hunts and foraging outings, and it was raining.
The gathering team generally wouldn’t go out if it rained. After all, the team was filled with the elderly, the weak, and children, and it was easy for them to get sick in the rain.
When Xiong Ye woke up, there was no movement from Zhou Ji’s side – he probably hadn’t gotten up yet. He didn’t try to wake up the other party and went out on his own.
During the time when he had just had a fight with Shi Li, Xiong Ye had been in quite a bad state, and felt low-spirited. Yet over these past two days, he had eaten a lot and slept well, and was now full of energy. He was very proactive about the hunt and began to discuss hunting plans with the others as soon as he arrived at the valley.
Shi Li felt inexplicably irritated when he saw this.
He had thought that Xiong Ye would be very heartbroken, but unexpectedly, Xiong Ye didn’t seem to be affected at all…
Also, Xiong Ye was actually living with Zhou Ji!
Although it had been a long, long time ago, he still remembered that Xiong Ye’s cave was very well laid out and very beautiful. He had been very happy for a while after he had moved in.
Later, people in the tribe felt that he was relying on Xiong Ye for everything, and he had grown angry.
But as it turned out, he hadn’t remained angry for long. Half a year later, he had become the tribal chief.
“Xiong Ye.” Shi Li walked towards Xiong Ye.
“What’s the matter?” Xiong Ye asked.
“Let’s work together for the hunt.” Shi Li said. They had always been together for the hunts before.
“No need. I’m going with Hu Yue.” Xiong Ye refused without a second thought. Although he cooperated better with Shi Li, he didn’t want to be with Shi Li now.
“You don’t have to be like this even though we aren’t going to become mates!” Shi Li frowned. He was extremely dissatisfied with Xiong Ye’s alienation of him.
“We aren’t going to mate, so why do we need to hunt together?” Xiong Ye answered his question with another question, then went to look for Hu Yue.
Shi Li had no choice but to go look for Lang Yin.
Lang Yin rolled her eyes when she saw the situation. She used to think that Shi Li was very strong and good-looking, and was very suitable to be her child’s father, which was why she had liked Shi Li a lot. But now… Shi Li was very cold to her, spent all his time sleeping in her home, and had even finished off all of her food. She now had some reservations about Shi Li.
It was probably a better idea to chase Shi Li out after she was with child, lest this person not only not help her raise her children, but also make trouble!
For this hunt, Xiong He divided the hunters into three groups and had them hunt separately.
Xiong Ye and Hu Yue voluntarily joined the same group. Part of their group laid in ambush while the others went to drive their prey over, and they had a great haul.
However, the other two groups didn’t catch much prey. At the end of the day, all the prey that everyone had caught didn’t add up to as much as the Pentaceratops they had caught the day before yesterday.
There definitely wouldn’t be a lot of meat distributed today.
Everyone was still full of vigor as they went back to the tribe and divided the meat up as usual.
Shi Li obtained his share of the meat, ate half of it, and brought the rest back to Lang Yin’s cave–These days, other than the mandatory hunts, he basically never went outside and was constantly at home cultivating.
The humiliation of losing to Xiong Ye when they fought before had been galling. He was eager to become stronger and then win against Xiong Ye!
Shi Li ate half of his food as soon as he received it, but Lang Yin was different. She only ate a quarter of what she’d been allocated.
The beastmen of the tribe basically all had the habit of storing food, not to mention that Lang Yin’s appetite wasn’t very big, and she didn’t eat much.
“Lang Yin, we don’t have enough food.” Yang Ying saw that Lang Yin had stopped eating and immediately walked towards her.
Yang Ying and Yang Su had often gone hungry in those early years, but in these two years since Shi Li had joined the hunting team, and they had become part of the tribe, they had never gone hungry and had even eaten very well–Not only did they have the food that the tribe allocated to them, when the tribe’s hunting team didn’t go out hunting, Xiong Ye and Shi Li would still go out to hunt!
They had constantly been eating and drinking well, and it had already been a long time since they’d gone hungry. Now however, Shi Li had run off to live with Lang Yin, and not only did they not share the food they were given, they hadn’t given them any additional prey!
The Pentaceratops from the day before yesterday had been very big, and they had been given quite a lot of meat. In fact, they hadn’t gone hungry at all, but… Yang Ying was anxious when she saw how Shi Li was acting.
“What do you guys not having enough food to eat have to do with me?” Lang Yin didn’t think twice before retorting.
“I am Shi Li’s mother!” Yang Ying said.
“Then go and ask Shi Li for food.” Lang Yin took her meat with her and left.
What right did Shi Li’s mother have to come ask her for food? Even if she had excess meat, she would only be willing to give it to her own parents.
Of course, her parents currently didn’t need her to take care of them either.
Yang Ying was choked by Lang Yin’s sentence and became a little angry.
In the past, Xiong Ye would share some meat with them without her having to ask. How could Lang Yin be like this?
Yang Ying suddenly felt a little regretful.
She had felt that Xiong Ye wasn’t all that good to her, which was why she hadn’t wanted Shi Li to move out and be together with Xiong Ye. But now… Xiong Ye was obviously much better than Lang Yin!
Xiong Ye noticed what had happened between Yang Ying and Lang Yin, but he didn’t intervene.
Regardless of whether it was Lang Yin or Yang Ying, neither of them had anything to do with him.
Xiong Ye roasted his own meat, then retrieved the tiny amount of meat that belonged to Zhou Ji from Xiong He and returned to his cave.
When the meat was being distributed, Zhou Ji hadn’t come to get his meat once again!
After Xiong Ye started living together with Zhou Ji yesterday, he felt that Zhou Ji was a pretty nice person, but the way that Zhou Ji remained separate from everyone else wasn’t very good and needed to change!
With this in mind, Xiong Ye started climbing faster. As a result, he had just reached the entrance of his cave when he smelled a whiff of something…
Juurensha: Ahahaha, now you all see how great Xiong Ye is, right guys?
xiin: *quietly slurping fish and tofu soup* … yep, i’m going to drag you guys into the food pit with me…