The moment they heard it was wild boar meat, both brothers were delighted.
After the initial excitement, Huo Yuhui asked in confusion, “Little Daddy, where did the wild boar come from?”
“Your dad went into the mountains to hunt with some people and got this much meat as his share.”
As Luo Mingchen spoke, he processed the wild boar meat and planned to make braised meat and roasted meat with it, saving some to braise tomorrow.
After hearing that, Huo Yuhui asked nervously, “Dad didn’t get hurt, did he?”
Huo Yan replied, “No.”
Huo Xinyue, who wasn’t very good at speaking yet, waved her arms around as she tried her best to explain to her brothers.
“Daddy…”
What followed was a string of incomprehensible babbling. Finally, she spread both arms wide and bounced once.
“Big!”
The brothers had spent so much time with her, yet neither of them understood what their little sister was trying to say.
Seeing that they didn’t understand, Huo Xinyue anxiously acted it out again.
“Yueyue, what are you trying to say?” Huo Xiang asked, completely baffled.
From the courtyard, where he was building the frame for the stone mill, Huo Yan said, “She’s trying to tell you that your Little Daddy punched a huge wild boar to death with one punch.”
The brothers: “…!!!”
Huo Xiang stared with his mouth hanging open.
“Where’s the boar?”
Luo Mingchen said, “Anyway, there’ll be meat to eat. We hauled it to the county and sold it for several dozen taels of silver.”
“Wow…”
Huo Xiang couldn’t even imagine it.
That evening, the braised meat and roasted meat Luo Mingchen made were completely wiped out.
After dinner, Huo Yan continued working on the stone mill frame.
Huo Yuhui washed the dishes, then took Huo Xiang to bathe before reviewing their lessons together.
After washing Huo Xinyue, Luo Mingchen sent her to bed, shut the chickens and ducks into their cages, grabbed a small stool, and sat nearby eating an apple while watching Huo Yan work.
Huo Yan glanced at him and asked, “Only one?”
Realizing he meant the apple, Luo Mingchen took out another one and casually rubbed it against his clothes before handing it over.
“Here.”
Huo Yan leaned forward and took a bite directly from the apple in his hand without stopping his work.
Luo Mingchen: “…”
Still, he couldn’t be bothered arguing over something so trivial. If Huo Yan wanted him to feed him, then fine.
Thinking of something, Luo Mingchen said, “Those two kids are getting bullied at the academy. Shouldn’t we help them?”
“How?” Huo Yan asked. “Are you going to sit beside them and attend classes with them?”
Luo Mingchen felt speechless, but he knew Huo Yan was right.
“So I just wait?”
“With Yuhui’s personality, the fact that they haven’t told us yet means whatever those children are doing is still within his tolerance. Once they’ve learned some martial arts for self-defense, a fight between children might even improve their relationship.”
As he spoke, Huo Yan gestured for the apple again.
Luo Mingchen handed it over.
“When I was growing up, if anyone dared bully me, I’d definitely beat them up.”
Just hearing that the two children were being bullied made him uncomfortable all over.
Huo Yan looked at his thin arms and legs.
“When you were little, could you even win a fight?”
“Don’t underestimate me, okay? I started looking for work at construction sites when I was young. There’s no way they could beat me. Besides, my grades were good, and the teachers favored me. As long as they hit first, their family would be the ones paying compensation.”
Hearing that, Huo Yan roughly guessed that Luo Mingchen had lost his parents very early and had no elders looking after him. That was probably why he handled conflicts with classmates in such an extreme manner.
He likely hadn’t had many friends, either.
Huo Yan said, “Listen to me on this matter. Let’s stay out of it for now.”
“Oh.”
Thinking about it carefully, Luo Mingchen realized that while he had won those fights and achieved the final victory, his school years had indeed been lonely.
Not that he regretted it.
He had always been different from those people. He had to earn his own tuition and living expenses. They were from completely different worlds. There was no need to force himself to fit in, nor did he have the time.
But Huo Yuhui and Huo Xiang were different.
Luo Mingchen still hoped they could have a few close friends and not end up with barely anyone to contact when the apocalypse came.
Once the stone mill frame was finished, Luo Mingchen took out the soaked soybeans and got to work with his water tentacles. The process was fast and steady.
Seeing Huo Yan staring at the water tentacles, Luo Mingchen grinned and deliberately used one tentacle to poke his hand.
Huo Yan immediately grabbed it.
“They have substance?”
He found it rather strange. There seemed to be nothing there, yet when he grabbed it, the water didn’t flow onto his hand. Instead, it felt slippery and cool, as though it were wrapped in a thin membrane.
“They can take all kinds of shapes.”
As Luo Mingchen spoke, the tentacle in Huo Yan’s hand burst into countless tiny droplets. The droplets then transformed into oddly shaped water spheres of various sizes before reforming into a water tentacle.
Although his ability wasn’t powerful enough to overturn rivers and seas, transformations of this level were easy.
Abilities were like physical strength. The only difference was that the power stored within crystal cores was much greater than one’s own.
Using water tentacles for work was therefore much easier and more convenient than doing everything by hand.
After watching for a while, Huo Yan praised, “Very impressive.”
Luo Mingchen’s eyes shifted mischievously.
He deliberately tried to scare him.
“When I run into those man-eating monsters, I use these tentacles to pierce straight through their heads. Swish. That’s all it takes. I can skewer seven or eight of them at once.”
Imagining the scene, Huo Yan suddenly laughed.
“Wouldn’t that look like candied hawthorn skewers?”
Luo Mingchen: “…”
This man’s psychological resilience was ridiculous.
This was a peaceful era, after all, and this place was far from any war zones.
Seeing that he couldn’t scare him, Luo Mingchen said gloomily, “Next time I’ll buy you a stick of candied hawthorn.”
Huo Yan calmly agreed.
“Alright.”
After grinding the soybeans, they poured the mixture into boiling water and filtered the soy milk.
For Luo Mingchen, filtering soy milk was extremely simple.
With ability control, the soy milk came out perfectly clean without the slightest trace of residue.
Once the soy milk was boiled, he added an appropriate amount of gypsum water and stirred it evenly.
After it turned into tofu pudding, he scooped it into molds and pressed it with a suitable weight for a period of time.
The soybean pulp leftovers could also be eaten. Stir-fried with pickled long beans, they had a rather unique flavor.
The two of them each ate a bowl of tofu pudding.
After washing up, Huo Yan noticed that Luo Mingchen still had no intention of sleeping.
“How long does the tofu need to be pressed?”
“Probably two hours.”
After saying that, Luo Mingchen looked at Huo Yan and corrected himself.
“About one shichen.”
“…You’re going to stay up waiting the entire time?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go to sleep before midnight. You should get some rest first.”
Once the tofu was done, he could store it in his space, where it wouldn’t spoil. Tomorrow would be the perfect opportunity to see if it could be sold.
If it sold well, he could soak more soybeans.
Besides, he had plenty of soybeans in his space and could finally put them to use.
There was also plenty of gypsum in the supermarket he had absorbed into the space—probably enough to last a year or two.
That meant the only costs were firewood, the large stone mill, and the fee for renting a stall.
Huo Yan said, “How about I keep watch instead?”
Luo Mingchen shook his head.
“I’m not even sure it’ll take exactly one shichen. I need to keep checking it. Making tofu isn’t as simple as you think. If it’s pressed too long, it’ll become hard. If it isn’t pressed long enough, it’ll be too soft. It’s been a long time since I’ve made tofu, so I need to experiment a bit.”
After hearing that, Huo Yan stayed up with him and waited together.