Ch67 – Barley Flatbread
Xiong Ye and the people of the Little Brook Tribe dug out a good many traps, but they were still unable to encounter any dinosaurs that they could drive into the traps despite searching for several days.
Life was miserable!
That day, the hunting team once again brought back many edible plants and fruits. Xiong Ye selected several of the tastier types to bring back to the cave for Zhou Ji to eat––after the past few days, the people of the tribe were all basically sick of eating fruit, and nobody placed much value on these things. Xiong He simply set the food to one side of their tribe, and everyone helped themselves as they liked.
Xiong Ye was listless as he entered the cave. His spirits only rose slightly when he saw Zhou Ji, “Zhou Ji, I brought you back some fruit. Give it a try.”
Zhou Ji accepted the fruit, then asked, “Were you still unable to get enough meat today?”
Xiong Ye nodded gloomily, “I haven’t eaten meat in a long time!”
Zhou Ji: “……” In fact, Xiong Ye had some meat to eat every day, it was just that there wasn’t that much of it…
However, he had been very busy recently and had been cultivating all the time. He needed a lot of energy for these things, so it was normal for him to feel hungry.
“If only some dinosaurs would come!” Xiong Ye continued.
Zhou Ji felt a little guilty when he saw Xiong Ye like this.
If he hadn’t gone into a frenzy, Xiong Ye wouldn’t have ended up with no meat to eat…
“Zhou Ji, I’m going to go out for a bit and see if I can catch anything by the river.” Xiong Ye said, then sped quickly out of the cave, heading towards the river.
Zhou Ji watched him go, then brought out a handful of barley, using his abilities to produce more and looked at the resulting grains in his hands.
On the way to the river, Xiong Ye passed by the place that the tribe was using to farm and raise livestock.
Earth eggs and barley could be harvested once every three months. The second batch of earth eggs had already grown abundantly and could be harvested in a month. The first batch of barley had already sprouted and would be ready in two months.
Xiong Ye used to love eating earth eggs, but now… He had already lost all interest in earth eggs.
He wanted to eat meat, a lot of meat!
It was indeed true that it was difficult to accept a hard life after enjoying the good life. He had eaten very poorly before he joined the hunting team, and at the time, he had been happy with just being able to fill his stomach. Now… He would actually feel unhappy if he couldn’t eat what he wanted to eat!
Xiong Ye felt that he shouldn’t be like this, but he couldn’t resist swallowing back saliva when he looked at the fat little dinosaurs that were being raised on the other side of the fence.
When would these little dinosaurs grow up…
Xiong Ye spent a while feeling unhappy because he didn’t have enough meat to eat, but his spirits recovered by the time he reached the river.
However, he didn’t know if it was because he had been fishing more recently or something else, but he was actually unable to catch any fish!
Finally, after Xiong Ye had stayed in the river for a long time, he decided there was really no other way and could only dive to the bottom of the water and pry up several mussels.
This kind of thing was also edible, but people in the tribe didn’t like it because a big mussel often only yielded a small piece of meat after being roasted, and it was tough and difficult to chew.
Additionally, they were hard to find… Xiong Ye had brought many different things to Zhou Ji for him to eat, but he hadn’t brought him any mussels before.
After prying up a few river mussels, Xiong Ye returned back to the tribe.
The tribe had already begun to prepare dinner. As usual these days, it was earth eggs cooked with vegetables and pieces of meat that had been cut into very small pieces.
Xiong Ye felt hungry when he smelled the food, but he also didn’t really want to eat.
He first brought the mussels back to the cave while waiting for the food to be cooked.
“Zhou Ji, these are river mussels. Have you had them before? Do you want them?” Xiong Ye asked.
Zhou Ji looked at the river mussels and was actually quite interested in them.
He had eaten river mussels before, and although they weren’t that delicious, for better or worse, they didn’t have much taste…
“I don’t like to eat roasted things. Kill it and take out the meat inside.” Zhou Ji instructed.
Xiong Ye hadn’t known that river mussels could be eaten like this. He was rather surprised as he picked up a stone and smashed the shell of the river mussel.
Zhou Ji: “……”
Although Xiong Ye’s method of killing the mussels was a bit simple and crude, it was very efficient. After a while, he extracted the meat from several mussel shells and washed them clean in a nearby bowl.
Zhou Ji glanced over, and then handed a piece of stone to Xiong Ye, “Help me grind down this stone to make the middle a little flatter.”
This stone was round, a little thicker around the edges and thinner in the middle. It looked a bit like a round plate.
Xiong Ye ground at it with another stone and asked, “Zhou Ji, what are you grinding this for?”
“Making a pot.” Zhou Ji said.
“Isn’t this pot too shallow?” Xiong Ye asked. Such a flat pot couldn’t hold anything.
“A shallow pot has its own benefits.” Zhou Ji spoke as he began to deal with the river mussel meat.
The river mussel meat was cut into small pieces and smashed with a stone a few times to make it more tender before being fried lightly with oil. He then added water to make river mussel soup.
In fact, fried mussels were also delicious on their own, but it was best if there was pepper, onion, garlic, or other such seasonings when they were fried. If they were fried with nothing but salt, the taste certainly wouldn’t be ideal.
The river mussel soup smelled particularly fragrant. Xiong Ye who was busily grinding out a pot grew even hungrier…
Thankfully, the soup was soon ready.
Zhou Ji ate this soup with earth eggs. As for Xiong Ye, he only drank the soup.
River mussels basically didn’t have any meat at all. Xiong Ye gulped down a large bowl of soup and became even hungrier and greedier for meat…
“It’s time to eat!” Xiong He’s voice rang out, saying the words that the people of the tribe most liked to hear.
Xiong Ye immediately abandoned Zhou Ji and rushed outside.
Although they were eating grass every day, mealtime was still a very happy event!
When Xiong Ye returned from the meal, Zhou Ji asked him to continue polishing the flat stone pot. As for himself, he used a stone stick to crush some barley inside a stone bowl.
Nobody else had obtained any barley from the first batch of barley, but he had taken some… Of course, he had already finished with that barley. What he was using now was barley he had secretly produced with his own abilities.
“Zhou Ji, what are you doing?” Xiong Ye was puzzled as he watched Zhou Ji’s actions––Zhou Ji was actually crushing the barley to bits!
The barley grains were already small, but now it was like a powder… How could this be eaten?
“I’m making barley flour. I’ll cook it for you tomorrow.” Zhou Ji said.
He had been a little upset with Xiong Ye because of Yang Ying a few days ago and had messed around with Xiong Ye a bit because of it, but Xiong Ye had been so busy running here and there over the past few days that that bit of anger had dissipated a while ago. Seeing that Xiong Ye was just eating the things being cooked in the big pot down in the tribe’s valley every day, he felt quite bad and wanted to think of something nice for Xiong Ye to eat.
For example, barley flatbread.
Barley wasn’t suitable for making bread, but it could be used to make flatbread. The resulting flatbread was quite delicious.
Of course, both a pan and barley flour was required for flatbread.
When Xiong Ye heard that Zhou Ji was making food for him, he immediately became delighted.
Recently, not only had he been unable to catch prey, Zhou Ji hadn’t felt well and hadn’t cooked anything good to eat in a long time. Today’s river mussel soup was a rare occurrence!
Tomorrow’s barley flatbread… Xiong Ye was already looking forward to it.
The next day, Xiong Ye was still unable to catch any prey.
Even so, his mood was very good as he went to Xiong He as Zhou Ji had suggested and told him that he wasn’t going to have dinner tonight but instead wanted a piece of smoked meat.
“I can give you and Zhou Ji a total of 2 kilos of meat.” Xiong He took out a piece of meat for Xiong Ye.
“Thank you, chief!” Xiong Ye was excited as he rushed back to the cave in time to see Zhou Ji adding water to the barley powder.
The barley was originally yellow, but turned white after it had been ground into powder. After adding water and kneading it, it clumped up into a white mass.
Xiong Ye watched as Zhou Ji fiddled with that white clump and an impulse rose up in his heart. He wanted to pinch it…
Just as he was thinking that, Zhou Ji retrieved his hands, “You do it.”
He might as well have Xiong Ye do this kind of manual task while he started working on the filling… Zhou Ji brought out the pickled vegetables he had made after the salt team had returned. He used a stone knife to chop up both the smoked meat and pickled vegetables, then lightly fried them together.
This smoked meat was made from arthropleura meat. It didn’t have any of the strange odour that dinosaur meat had and just smelled like smoked meat. After adding pickled vegetables, it smelled even more fragrant.
Xiong Ye kneaded the dough vigorously, but when he smelled the scent of the frying meat and vegetables, his eyes immediately popped wide open as he looked over, “Smells so good!”
Zhou Ji ignored him and pulled the dough over. He wrapped some of the dough around a bit of the filling, flattened it, then set it to the side.
“Is this barley flatbread?” Xiong Ye picked up the prepared dough and looked at it curiously.
Zhou Ji said, “Yes.” He didn’t actually have experience making flatbread, but Xiong Ye had recently eaten nothing but a mixture of vegetables and earth eggs every day. He guessed that even if he gave him the worst tasting flatbread in the world to eat, Xiong Ye would still like it.
Zhou Ji’s craftsmanship was in fact very poor, but he came off as a master chef when compared to the primitive people of the tribe.
“This dough is very cute.” Xiong Ye flipped it around and inspected it, and after staring at it for a while, he took a bite. “It’s delicious! The filling inside is particularly tasty, but the barley outside isn’t very good.”
Zhou Ji, who hadn’t been paying attention and therefore hadn’t been able to stop Xiong Ye from ‘making a move’: “……”
The filling had already been cooked, and he wouldn’t get sick eating the raw dough like this, but even so; Zhou Ji snatched back the uncooked flatbread from Xiong Ye’s hands, “This flatbread isn’t finished yet!”
Xiong Ye: “How is it not finished?” It’s already so well done! It looks so cute!
Zhou Ji placed the uncooked flatbread into the pre-oiled ‘flat pot’: “It hasn’t been cooked yet.”
Xiong Ye: “……”
Xiong Ye had no idea that this thing still needed to be boiled.
No, it wasn’t being boiled… Zhou Ji had added a bit of oil to the pot, and then placed the flatbread on top… After that, a very fragrant scent wafted out!
It was really particularly fragrant!
Xiong Ye couldn’t help but swallow hard. His eyes were locked on the flatbread, and he couldn’t move his gaze away.
The flatbread that Xiong Ye had bitten into before was soon ready. Zhou Ji gave it to him, “Eat.”
Xiong Ye didn’t care how hot it was as he took a big bite. His eyes brightened and shone.
This flatbread was so, so delicious!
The previously raw flatbread had already been delicious, and after it was cooked… the barley skin was slightly crispy after being lightly fried, the cooked dough was a little chewy, and the taste of the filling was just right.
The earthy taste of the flatbread and the flavorful filling mixed together was simply incredible!
Xiong Ye finished it in a few bites and stared eagerly at the pan as he waited for the next one.
Zhou Ji made one; and Xiong Ye ate it. In the period of time that followed, he ate twenty in one go.
He wanted to share some with Zhou Ji, but Zhou Ji didn’t want any with filling… Instead, he made himself plain flatbread and ate it slowly.
Making barley flatbread was very troublesome, so Zhou Ji simply made a big batch in one go and made a full forty pieces with filling. He gave twenty to Xiong Ye and planned to save the remaining twenty for Xiong Ye to have for breakfast tomorrow morning.
“Can I eat two more at night?” Xiong Ye asked.
“Of course. The ones with filling are all yours.” Zhou Ji said. Xiong Ye trained hard every night. If he was hungry, he should be able to eat whatever he wanted to!
Zhou Ji thought that Xiong Ye had asked because he wanted to eat them himself. Unexpectedly, that night when he picked up Xiong Ye to go and cultivate, Xiong Ye took out two flatbreads and handed them to him.
“My lord, this is the flatbread my mate made. It’s especially delicious. You should try it.” Xiong Ye said.
Zhou Ji: “… No need.”
Xiong Ye felt somewhat at a loss as he placed the flatbread into his own mouth and turned into his animal form so that Zhou Ji could carry him.
Since this man didn’t want to eat it, he could only eat it himself… It was really tasty!
Xiong Ye truly knew how to share. The next day, he ate twelve of the remaining eighteen flatbread and split the last six between the priest, Xiong Qi, Xiong Bai, Xiong Mao, Niu Er, and the others. Everyone had half a flatbread.
When Zhou Ji woke up the next morning, he had reheated the flatbread in oil so that the flatbreads were still hot, fragrant, and delicious when they were distributed to the others.
The priest broke a tooth while eating it.
But he didn’t even care. Instead, he looked at Xiong Ye, “Little brat, I taught you so many things, but you only gave me half of one. Do you still want to live?”
The priest’s speech had always been a little full of holes, but now it was even more obvious.
Xiong Ye: “Grandpa Priest…”
“Is there any more?” The priest pressed.
“No.”
“Then, can you make more?” The priest continued asking. This flatbread was really too delicious!
“There’s no more barley, so it can’t be made.” Xiong Ye replied. He had seen that Zhou Ji’s barley had been used up.
“This was made with barley?” The priest looked at Xiong Ye in surprise.
Xiong Ye nodded, then watched as the priest practically flew as he ran off, “I’m going to go look after the barley!”
Xiong Ye suddenly also had the urge to look after the barley!
It was a little strange, but the amount of meat in this flatbread was really quite limited. Even so, eating it was very satisfying, particularly satisfying!
Xiong Ye suddenly had the energy to work!
However, there was only one such good day.
That night, he had no choice but to eat the mixture of earth eggs and vegetables again.
At first, everyone except for Xiong Ye and a small number of people were able to accept this hodgepodge of food, Now, however… A lot of people were starting to crave meat!
However, Xiong He was concerned about not having enough food to eat in the future and was reluctant to take out the smoked meat for everyone to eat as much as they liked.
Unable to eat large amounts of meat, the young people in the tribe could only continue to drool as they continued to raise those little dinosaurs.
Xiong Ye, who cultivated at night and hunted during the day, and also occasionally got pulled into study sessions by Zhou Ji when he had spare time, also dreamed about eating meat when he slept.
And this was when the people of the Giant Tiger Tribe finally managed to get a hold of quite a few dinosaurs.