On the way home, Gu Shiyi’s attention was caught by a patch of mushrooms in the grass. She stopped, bent down, and picked up these cute little mushrooms one by one, placing them into her basket.
While continuing forward, she kept searching for any kind of edible food. After walking not far, she was pleasantly surprised to find several jujube trees.
The jujubes were not fully ripe yet, but they already had a faint red color.
Gu Shiyi couldn’t resist picking one to taste. To her surprise, it was unexpectedly sweet.
Overjoyed, she picked two baskets of jujubes and carefully stored them into her space.
There were still many jujubes on the treetops. Gu Shiyi decided not to pick them for now. She would wait until they were fully red, then come back to harvest them and dry them into dried jujubes. She could use them later when stewing soup, adding a bit of sweetness and nutrition.
The trio—one person and three dogs—finally returned to the tree beside the cave entrance.
Gu Shiyi placed Xiao Hua into her space, then quickly climbed the tree herself. With a leap, she landed steadily at the cave entrance.
Ah Hui and Ah Hua were not to be outdone. They nimbly jumped onto the tree, then lightly leapt down in front of Gu Shiyi.
After entering the cave, Gu Shiyi lit a lantern, and its faint light illuminated the surroundings.
She carefully restored the dried grass at the entrance, covering it thoroughly to prevent anyone from discovering this hidden place.
Gu Shiyi did not want others to know about this location. If possible, she would rather spend her entire life in this mountain, living a simple and peaceful life with her adorable dogs.
With enough food and a water source, such a life was already more than satisfying to her.
After returning to the small courtyard, Gu Shiyi set aside the items she had gathered and first lit a fire in the stove, boiling a pot of water.
This water was used for scalding the chickens to remove their feathers. Once the water boiled, she could begin processing the plump wild chickens.
She also lit the stove and filled a copper kettle with water, carefully placing it on the stove. The flames quickly licked the bottom of the kettle, producing crackling sounds.
The water in the copper kettle would be used for drinking.
While waiting for the water to boil, Gu Shiyi took a large basin into her space and poured all the fish from the smaller basin into it at once.
Then she also poured the fish from the basket into the large basin.
The fish swam happily in the basin, as if they quite liked their new home.
Looking at the fish, Gu Shiyi couldn’t help but marvel at how magical this space was.
The fish in the basket, without any water, had remained lively and active for so long.
She then turned her attention to the pile of dead wild chickens and rabbits.
The sight of their bodies made her feel a bit uncomfortable, and she couldn’t help but frown.
The bloodstains and scattered feathers on the ground were truly hard to bear.
It seemed she could not sleep in the space tonight—the bloody smell was unpleasant.
Gu Shiyi began handling the greenish potatoes.
She carefully selected the sprouted ones, cut them according to the positions of their buds, and planted the cut potato pieces into the soil in her space.
After planting the potatoes, she went to the stone monument and checked their maturity time, discovering that, like chili peppers, it was twenty-four hours.
After coming out of the space, she heard the water in the pot had already boiled, making bubbling “gurgling” sounds.
She quickly brought two wooden buckets, threw the wild chickens into them, and poured the boiling water from the pot into the buckets, allowing the chickens to be fully soaked.
Today, she planned to remove all the feathers from the wild chickens and store them in her space. When she wanted to eat them, she could simply take them out and cook them directly, which was very convenient.
After the chickens had been soaked in hot water for a while, she began plucking their feathers.
Gu Shiyi quickly removed the large feathers from the chickens, but some fine down feathers were difficult to clean and required more time and patience.
She focused on one chicken first, carefully removing all its fine feathers completely.
After finishing, she picked up a kitchen knife and sharpened it repeatedly on a sharpening stone to make the blade even sharper.
Holding the knife, Gu Shiyi skillfully and precisely cut open the chicken, removing the liver, gizzard, and heart, and carefully setting them aside.
As for the intestines, after some consideration, she decided to discard them. Although stir-frying them would taste good, cleaning them was too troublesome.
She then rinsed the processed chicken meat in clean water to ensure there were no remaining feathers or impurities.
After washing, she cut the chicken into evenly sized pieces and washed them again to ensure each piece was clean and hygienic.
Next, she added an appropriate amount of water to the pot and blanched the chicken to remove blood and any fishy smell.
During blanching, she stirred occasionally to ensure the chicken was heated evenly.
After blanching, she scooped out the chicken and drained it for later use.
She sliced a few pieces of fresh ginger and took out some dried chili peppers, carefully removing the seeds to save them for planting.
She scooped a spoonful of lard into the hot pan. The lard quickly melted under high heat, releasing an enticing aroma.
Gu Shiyi added the chicken, ginger, and chili peppers into the pan together, stir-frying quickly so they fully contacted the hot oil and released their fragrance.
After stir-frying for a moment, she poured in hot water from the copper kettle, enough to cover the chicken.
She covered the pot and let the chicken stew in the hot water for a while so it could absorb the flavors.
After washing a clay pot, she transferred the chicken soup from the pot into the clay pot and placed it on the stove to continue stewing.
While the chicken was stewing, Gu Shiyi began cooking rice.
With such delicious chicken soup, she decided to cook a pot of fragrant plain rice.
During the cooking process, she did not remain idle.
She went into her space again to wash some fresh mushrooms, which she would later add to the clay pot to stew together with the chicken, enhancing the flavor of the dish.
The chicken still needed to stew for quite some time, so Gu Shiyi took the opportunity to start plucking the feathers of another chicken.
Her technique was skilled. In no time, she had completely removed all the down feathers from one chicken.
She then repeated the same process for all the chickens, removing their feathers one by one. After processing them, she placed the cleaned chickens into a basin and arranged them on a bamboo rack inside her space.
At this moment, the chicken in the clay pot had been stewed to a good point. Gu Shiyi opened the lid, and a rich aroma immediately wafted out.
She nodded in satisfaction, then added the washed mushrooms into the clay pot and continued stewing.
After a while, the chicken soup was finally ready.
Gu Shiyi scooped a spoonful of soup, blew on it, and tasted it.
“Mm, not bad,” she couldn’t help but smile.
The flavor was extremely delicious.
Gu Shiyi noticed that the dogs were all sitting nearby, staring at her eagerly, drooling on the ground—their appearance was truly…