Feng Si’s face was pale. Her body was frozen in place, as if targeted by a predator. The group of Gray Mouse beastmen before her were as large as small cars. ’How could I ever escape if they chased me?’
’If I don’t run and they find out who I am, will they capture me, lock me up, and force me to have cubs?’
Just as Feng Si thought she was done for, the male Gray Mouse beasts looked away. One of them, Shu Mu, who was carrying a slab of meat on his shoulder, laughed and said to his companion:
"That gave me a start. For a second there, I thought a female had appeared in such a dangerous forest. Turns out it’s just a short, newly adult gray wolf sub-female."
Feng Si: "..."
’I’m the one who really got a scare!’
"She has wolf ears, and she doesn’t have a female’s pheromone scent..." Shufeng wrinkled his nose. "But, strangely enough, she has a very faint aura that I find frightening."
Feng Si raised a hand to touch the fluffy ears on her head.
’She had observed this before. Both sub-females and females had the appearance of human women. Although sub-females were taller and stronger than females, the most significant difference was that sub-females had some beast-like features.’
’Don’t panic. This should be fine.’
Feng Si lowered her hand, composed herself, and looked back at them with a bewildered expression.
"Probably a mixed-blood from the Wolf Clan and some other powerful Beast Clan," someone in the crowd said, looking at the pair of gray wolf ears.
Hearing this, Mouse Ridge thought it made sense and dismissed his lingering doubts. This new sub-female named Feng Si had spent a fortune to buy one of the top-level houses.
It wasn’t uncommon for powerful male beasts to give their offspring a large sum of money and send them out to live independently.
"Your timing is good. Take these meat scraps and divide them among yourselves," Mouse Ridge said, pointing to some chopped meat resting on a large leaf.
Usually, the Beastmen who went hunting would each take their share of the meat home, but today they had hunted a huge creature.
The team of one hundred Beastmen had taken down a thick-armed beast. After removing the skin and bones, there were 5,000 kilograms of meat. One thousand kilograms were contributed to the clan, and each member received 40 kilograms of meat.
Given the appetite of a Gray Mouse Clan Beastman, five kilograms of meat a day was enough to feel full, so they didn’t care much about the few kilograms of scraps on the ground.
These scraps were insignificant to the Beastmen, but to the sub-females who couldn’t hunt for meat, they were a luxury that could only be bought with coins.
"Yay! Thank you, Uncle Ling!"
The cat-eared sub-female thanked him joyfully, then nudged Feng Si as a hint. She and the other two then strode forward happily.
The Beastmen weren’t interested in the four sub-females before them. They shouldered their meat, formed up, and started following the main group out of the forest.
The group quickly bent down and divided the meat into four portions, wrapped them in large leaves tied with grass stems, and clutched the bundles to their chests like treasure.
Feng Si deliberately dawdled, walking at the very back while lugging two heavy bags of green potatoes. She tried to keep her distance from the Beastmen as she made her way toward her sub-female companions.
The round-eyed sub-female was especially happy and handed Feng Si her share of the meat. Having received the unexpected prize, the group followed the Beastmen out of the mountains.
Just then, the communicator on her wrist started to ring. It was a message from Bai Qingqing, telling everyone to regroup and head home.
Feng Si returned to the sub-female group after her first foraging trip, which had been tense but ultimately safe, and then returned home without further incident.
After nearly having her identity as a female exposed and witnessing this world’s cruel laws of survival firsthand, her heart couldn’t settle down.
Carrying the two large bags of green potatoes, she walked straight to the kitchen. The cookware was clean and tidy, giving off the characteristic smell of iron.
Feng Si took a deep breath, placed the green potatoes on the preparation counter, took one out, washed it, and snapped it in half. Beads of moisture quickly formed on the white, broken surface. Leaning in for a sniff, she noted its sweet aroma.
’It’s like a sweet potato.’ This ingredient was common everywhere; one coin could buy two large roots. She had only picked about twenty, which wasn’t a lot.
’I might as well cook them all, slice them, and sun-dry them to make Green Potato.’ Feng Si quickly began to prepare the food. The act of cooking helped to calm her uneasy heart.
While waiting for the green potatoes to cook, Feng Si took all the food out of her storage space and sorted it into piles by category.
Pine cones took up the most space. The remaining jicama took up a small portion, and the rest consisted of some wild vegetables, wild fruits, and the ginger and garlic sprouts she had picked for seasoning.
She took the pine cones upstairs to dry on the lawn and put the jicama in the storage room. She set aside a few days’ worth of wild vegetables and fruits to eat and put the rest in a cloth bag. Feng Si planned to take them down to the first-floor market to have a look around later.
After she finished all this, the green potatoes were cooked. A sweet fragrance filled the entire kitchen. Feng Si made do with what she had, eating half a green potato to fill her stomach.
Twenty or so green potatoes weren’t many. She spread a clean, two-meter-wide sheet on the upper floor and laid them all out to dry.
Half an hour later, Feng Si arrived on the first floor.
It was like a giant marketplace. The doors to every shop were wide open, displaying all sorts of meats, vegetables, and fruits—they had everything imaginable.
Regular meat was 110 coins per kilogram, and organs were 180 coins per kilogram. Feng Si bought 5kg of well-marbled meat, spending 550 coins. Other types of meat were even more expensive, depending on their fat content and tenderness.
Compared to the expensive meat, vegetables were very cheap. You could buy a large bunch for a single coin, and a basket of wild fruit was only two coins.
Moreover, for someone like her who wanted to sell things here without a storefront, she would have to pay a five-coin stall fee.
She had to spend money before she’d even earned any.
The key issue was that her little bit of produce wasn’t worth much.
Feng Si estimated that her two bags of food were only worth about twenty coins. After looking around the first floor, she carried her two bags back home.
Her trip wasn’t a total waste, however.
There were also a few eateries on the first floor. The food inside was very expensive—500g of plain cooked meat cost 150 coins, three times the price of the raw ingredient. Despite the high cost, the places were packed with people.
This meant that as long as the food tasted good, there was no shortage of money to be made.
And since she was familiar with all sorts of signature dishes from the modern world, she was confident she could capture the appetites of the Beastmen here.
After returning home, even in a world where seasonings were so basic they consisted of only coarse salt, Feng Si had already decided what she was going to make.
She took out the bag of meat scraps and picked out the larger, more intact pieces. After washing them, she placed them in a pot of cold water. Then she took out the ginger, washed and peeled it, and threw the slices into the pot.
Meanwhile, she cut up a small piece of fatty meat and fried it in an iron pan with some ginger to render the fat. She then removed the solid bits and ginger. The minced garlic was briefly rinsed with water before being fried in the oil until fragrant and golden-brown. She then turned off the heat and added salt.
By this time, the meat had stewed long enough to be easily pierced with a chopstick. Feng Si picked up a piece, cut it into a smaller chunk, dipped it in some of the crispy garlic, and popped it into her mouth.
’The flavor can’t compare to food from my old world, but it’s definitely much better than what I smelled in those eateries. I can sell this tomorrow!’