“Shao Xingyang, which part of your brain has short-circuited now?”
Yan Hong simply assumed Shao Xingyang was acting like a clown again and shot him down without mercy.
“They’re real! Come see for yourself and you’ll know.”
Seeing Shao Xingyang so insistent, Yan Hong grew curious. She set down the fruit and walked toward where everyone was gathered.
Indeed, several white “buns” were growing out of the ground. The bizarre sight left Yan Hong stunned.
“What are these?”
“They should be some kind of mushroom,” Lu Shiyu said, using her hands to brush away the soil around a “bun” to reveal the mushroom stalk beneath. “It seems to be a type of mushroom that grows half-buried in the dirt. I remember seeing them in a book; let me look.”
With one leg propped up to support her book, Lu Shiyu began flipping through the pages at lightning speed. After just a few flips, she successfully found the page describing this mushroom.
“Found it.”
“Giant White Mushroom… that is truly a name with zero effort put into it.” Yan Hong critiqued the name, though she had to admit it perfectly matched the physical appearance.
“The book says these mushrooms are poisonous and inedible once they turn black, but since these are still white, they’re safe to eat.”
Lu Shiyu tucked the book away and harvested all the mushrooms.
After searching for a long while, the group only managed to find a few wild greens in a damp patch of soil. Beyond that, no other edible ingredients were found.
“Wild fruit, mushrooms, wild greens,” Shao Xingyang sighed. “No meat today.”
“You can’t expect to have meat every single day. Having anything to eat is good enough.” Chen Yunliang was quite content. Although he was a connoisseur, he was also capable of eating anything; he could critique the exquisite dishes of a high-end restaurant, but he could just as easily accept a simple meal boiled for sustenance.
Lu Shiyu glanced at the small amount of ingredients and said, “This probably won’t be enough. Why don’t we add some flour and make Dough Drop Soup?”
“Fine, I can live with Dough Drop Soup.” Shao Xingyang slumped to the side, listless.
Tang Zeyu set up the stove, and Lu Shiyu rolled up her sleeves. Once she was ready, she began preparing today’s dinner.
Lu Shiyu scooped a large bowl of flour from the bag and fetched a bowl of fresh water. She dipped her fingers into the water and flicked droplets into the flour, stirring it with chopsticks. She repeated the process—dipping, flicking, and stirring—until the flour formed small dough drops.
The mushrooms and wild fruit were diced, and the wild greens were shredded. Once the oil was hot, she tossed them all into the pot to stir-fry. After they softened and released their juices, she poured in an appropriate amount of fresh water and added a few spoonfuls of salt, light soy sauce, and dark soy sauce for seasoning. Once the water boiled, she poured in the dough drops, stirring with a spatula to prevent them from sticking and to break them apart. After simmering for two or three more minutes, a version of Dough Drop Soup—not exactly authentic or complete, but edible—was ready to be served.
“It’s a pity we’re out of eggs, otherwise I could have swirled one in,” Lu Shiyu said with a hint of regret.
On the other side, Chen Yunliang was leaning against the stone wall with his eyes closed to rest. Suddenly, he felt a drop of liquid land on his forehead.
“Hmm? Is it raining?”
Chen Yunliang opened his eyes, only to see a massive four-legged creature clinging to the stone wall directly above him.
“Crap!”
Chen Yunliang scrambled to his feet to get away from the wall. The others, who were holding their bowls and waiting for Lu Shiyu to serve the soup, turned their heads at his shout. Everyone saw the hideously ugly creature.
“Ah! That’s the thing I was talking about—the one that looks like a crocodile!”
With just one glance, Yan Hong recognized it as the mutated creature that had been sunbathing above. She had thought it would leave on its own after a while, but it had actually come down to find them!
Tang Zeyu stepped in front of Lu Shiyu. “Since it’s come down, let’s clear it out so we don’t have to wait anymore.”
As soon as Tang Zeyu spoke, Yan Hong’s long blade was out of its sheath. However, she didn’t expect the mutated creature to turn and flee in a panic the moment she charged. Seeing it about to slip away, Yan Hong threw a dagger that pierced straight into the creature’s tail. In the next moment, something unexpected happened.
The creature’s tail snapped off cleanly from a point near the base. The cross-section was even smoother than if it had been cut by a knife. After the tail was pinned to the wall by the dagger, it continued to writhe and thrash in an attempt to struggle, while the creature itself took advantage of the group’s focus on the tail to scramble up the wall and escape.
“Ah, I know what it is,” Lu Shiyu realized the moment she saw the tail break. “It’s not a crocodile; it’s a lizard.”
“A lizard?” Yan Hong accepted the answer instantly. “It does look like one. Is that in the book too?”
“Yeah, though calling it a lizard isn’t entirely accurate. It’s a mutant fused with other things, but it’s closely related to a lizard,” Lu Shiyu explained. “This kind of lizard isn’t aggressive and doesn’t eat meat. On the contrary, they like eating fruit that grows on trees. The fruit provides them with hydration. Because they are herbivores, they don’t like to move much and conserve their energy by staying still.”
“So this lizard is actually a vegetarian,” Shao Xingyang remarked. “Isn’t that a bit tragic? Just because it’s a little ugly, it gets targeted even for being a vegetarian.”
“Can you worry about your teammate before you pity the lizard?” Shao Xingyang said with a dark expression, wiping his forehead with a wet towel. He looked like he wanted to scrub the skin raw where the lizard’s drool had touched him.
“Being a vegetarian doesn’t change the tragic reality that its breath stinks.” Shao Xingyang said this through gritted teeth.
Yan Hong stepped forward and pulled out her dagger. This blade was technically a medium size—longer than the one she gave Lu Shiyu, but shorter than her main weapon.
The dagger was out, and the lizard tail skewered on it was still twitching. Yan Hong thrust the tail toward Shao Xingyang’s face and said:
“Here. Didn’t you say you wanted to eat meat?”
“Gross! I am not eating that thing,” Shao Xingyang said with a look of utter disgust, pointing at the moving tail. “What could possibly give you the delusion that this is edible?”
“Why wouldn’t it be edible?” Yan Hong waved the tail in her hand. “It’s all meat. Is lizard meat not meat?”
Lu Shiyu stayed silent for five seconds before saying, “You’re right.”
“Huh?”
“Lizard meat is meat; it’s edible,” Lu Shiyu nodded to herself. “As long as it’s cooked properly, any meat that isn’t poisonous can be made delicious.”
“Wait, wait a minute. You’re not actually planning to use a lizard tail for dinner, are you?”
Yan Hong finally realized what a massive hole she had dug for herself and tried to backpedal. “Actually, the Dough Drop Soup is plenty! There’s no need to add another dish.”
“It’s not enough,” Tang Zeyu said, crouching by the pot with his bowl. “This probably won’t be enough for all of us.”
“You’ll get malnourished if you don’t eat meat,” Lu Shiyu said. “A meal should focus on balanced nutrition.”
Can we focus on the ingredients before we focus on balanced nutrition?! Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang ranted and protested frantically in their hearts, but it was useless. Lu Shiyu simply told them calmly not to be picky eaters.
Lu Shiyu used a kitchen knife to scrape away the lizard skin and chopped the entire tail into several sections. She placed them in a pot of cold water with ginger and cooking wine to remove the gamey smell, skimming off the foam before scooping them out for later. She heated oil in a pan and tossed the tail sections in to stir-fry. While doing this, she realized the sections were too large; some of the bigger pieces needed individual attention. She used chopsticks to press them against the pan, flipping them constantly to ensure every side was seared. After that, she added the “universal formula” of light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce, plus a spoonful of ant honey. She poured in a bowl of water and let it braise.
As they waited for the lizard tail to finish stewing, the aroma from the pot began to drift out. Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang fell into a strange silence. Rationally, they didn’t want to eat that thing, but physically, the moment they smelled the fragrance, their stomachs began to growl, frantically signaling to their owners that they were hungry.
When she felt it was about ready, Lu Shiyu opened the lid. Billowing steam and fragrance emerged together. The lizard tail was now coated in an inviting caramel color, looking mouth-watering. At this point, a battle was raging in the hearts of the two; they wanted to eat it, yet because it was a lizard tail, they hesitated to be the first to move their chopsticks.
Tang Zeyu didn’t seem to care what the ingredient was at all. Under their watchful gazes, he picked up a thick piece of meat and put it into his mouth.
Lizard tail meat is firm, but after stewing, it became soft, chewy, and tender. The collagen had been braised until it was succulent and melted in the mouth. The smooth, mellow richness spread across the tongue; the skin, meat, and connective tissue felt as if they had dissolved during the slow simmer. As he swallowed, a lingering, sticky richness remained between his teeth. It was so tender that it pulled away from the bone easily, allowing him to spit out the central bone of the lizard tail with no effort.
“It tastes a bit like pork tail, but also like pork trotters. However, it’s more tender than pork.”
After Tang Zeyu finished speaking, he licked his lips as if he wanted more, cleaning off the residual sauce.
Seeing that Tang Zeyu’s review was positive, Yan Hong snatched a large piece of lizard tail before Shao Xingyang could and placed it firmly in her bowl.
“Dammit! Why did you take the biggest piece!”
“First come, first served. Don’t you know the rules?”
Yan Hong stuck her tongue out at Shao Xingyang, her mockery at full volume.
Yan Hong scooped a spoonful of sauce and drizzled it over the meat. The thick sauce flowed slowly down, crystal clear like honey glaze. She couldn’t wait to take a bite, and her mouth was instantly smeared with a large circle of sauce, looking as if she had grown a beard.
“The bone just slips right out,” Yan Hong said indistinctly with a large piece of meat in her mouth. “Delicious.”
“Pfft, hahahahaha! Yan Hong, you grew a beard! You look like an old man, hahahaha!” Shao Xingyang laughed, pointing at the sauce around Yan Hong’s mouth.
Chen Yunliang blew on his Dough Drop Soup. One mouthful and the warmth reached the bottom of his stomach. The freshness of the mushrooms and the sweetness of the fruit were fully brought out, and the wild greens emitted a faint, clear fragrance. Chen Yunliang picked up a piece of fruit; it had been boiled until soft, becoming both starchy and sweet. It didn’t feel out of place in the soup at all. Before this, Chen Yunliang had never eaten boiled fruit, so it was a bit of a novel experience.
After a few sips of the soup, Chen Yunliang scooped a spoonful of the lizard tail sauce and mixed it into his bowl. He pondered the flavor, feeling it was a bit like soaked rice, even though there was no rice, only dough drops.
“If you mix these two dishes together, the taste might actually be pretty good.”
Shao Xingyang served himself half a bowl of soup and half a bowl of braised lizard tail. Once thoroughly mixed, it became a hodgepodge of meat and vegetables. He began stuffing it into his mouth in large gulps. The taste was indeed excellent. Shao Xingyang ate with great relish, mouthful after mouthful, with sticky sauce smeared all around the corners of his mouth.
“Hmph. A pig eating slop.” Yan Hong wiped the sauce from her face and immediately shot back.
“I’m—not—listening—to—you.”
Shao Xingyang’s mouth was stuffed full, and some crumbs sprayed out as he spoke. Yan Hong immediately moved far away to dodge.
“No manners. Talking while eating.”
“I… was… just… saying…”
No one could understand what Shao Xingyang was babbling about. They all chose to ignore him and continued eating. Shao Xingyang wasn’t paying attention while talking and choked, crouching to the side facing away from everyone as he coughed incessantly.
“Captain, why don’t we kick this moron out of the squad?”
“I can’t. Even if he is an idiot, I can’t just kick a teammate out on a whim.”