Lu Shiyu wiped the water droplets off the plant. Seeing that the others had returned, she ignored their strange looks and began to explain her discovery with great excitement.
“I know why this thing is so good at hiding,” Lu Shiyu said, grabbing the plant and pointing out the leaves to the group. “There are many fine hairs on its leaves. These hairs can sense very subtle movements in the air, allowing it to judge the direction of an attack and dodge in advance. However, as long as it gets drenched with water, the weight of the droplets on those hairs causes it to lose most of its sensory ability. The result is that it can only run around aimlessly.”
“So that’s how it is,” Yan Hong said, lifting the few plants still struggling in her hand. “No wonder even I had a hard time catching them.”
“In that case, catching them was all thanks to me,” Shao Xingyang began to show off again. “If it weren’t for me, there would have been no way to catch them.”
“Heh, it really was all thanks to you,” Yan Hong said coldly. “And thanks to you, this is what we’re eating tonight.”
“Actually, it’s not like there are no other ways,” Lu Shiyu thought for a moment. “Rain or early morning should have a similar effect. Naturally formed dew and frost in the morning can also make them lose their sensory abilities.”
“Using hairs to sense the environment and being able to move—it’s practically like an animal,” Chen Yunliang said, looking at the twisting, struggling plants. “Is this even still a plant?”
“While it appears to possess some animal characteristics, the overall structure is still more leaning toward a plant,” Tang Zeyu offered his own perspective.
“Alright, let’s get ready to cook.” Lu Shiyu pulled a large pot from her bag.
“Wait, what about these things?” Yan Hong asked, holding up the “living” plants. “We can’t just keep holding them.”
“That’s true, that’s not a solution.”
Lu Shiyu thought for a while, took a cloth bag from her pack, and removed the plastic string from the top. The originally wide plastic string was torn into several strips. Lu Shiyu used the torn strings to tie the branches and leaves of the plants together, carefully placing them on the ground.
Yan Hong was about to tell Lu Shiyu that these things would run if placed on the ground, but the scene that followed surpassed their expectations. After being placed on the ground, the plants remained obediently still, just as they had been when held. They lay quietly on the ground without trying to burrow into the soil to escape.
“I see,” Chen Yunliang pushed up his glasses. “By tying the branches and leaves together, the hairs on the leaves can’t function normally. The hairs collide with each other, constantly transmitting incorrect information, so it won’t move because it doesn’t know which way to go.”
Lu Shiyu tied up several plants one after another, finally freeing everyone’s hands.
She sharpened her kitchen knife and began to process these moving ingredients.
First, she needed to shave off the branches and leaves from the root, along with any extra moving parts of the rhizome, leaving only the cylindrical main body. Using the knife, she made a shallow downward cut, rotated it half a turn, and made another—four cuts in total. The depth was just past the outer skin, barely touching the internal flesh. Then, she could directly peel the skin off. The technique was similar to peeling a banana, though the connection between the skin and the fruit was quite tight, requiring some effort to tear it away.
After the preliminary processing, Lu Shiyu diced the fruit into small pieces, put them in a pot with honey and sugar, and added just enough water to cover the cubes. She simmered it until it thickened, added a bit of starch water, and continued to simmer.
Lu Shiyu pinched a piece of the fruit; it turned into a paste with a gentle rub of her fingers. This meant it was finished simmering. she scooped out the cooked fruit pieces and let them cool.
She then rummaged through her bag for materials to make other food.
Two spoonfuls of flour and half a spoonful of starch, a small spoonful of oil, and a few grams of salt were mixed evenly with water and kneaded into a smooth dough.
Lu Shiyu divided the large dough into several smaller ones, making them into circular flatbreads as if she were pinching dumpling skins. Then, she placed a spoonful of the simmered fruit filling in the center of the dough, covered it with another circular skin, and pressed the edges firmly. She used a simple dumpling-pinching technique to create a pleated edge to prevent the filling from leaking.
Next, she needed to prepare a batter: a spoonful of flour and a bit of starch, with water, cooking oil, and white sugar added. After mixing it evenly, she coated both sides of the prepared round pies in the batter.
Lu Shiyu found Tang Zeyu and asked him if he could make the fire a bit larger.
“I can, but how big do you need it?”
“Big enough to let the oil temperature reach 180°C. Can you do it?”
Tang Zeyu estimated and replied, “I definitely can’t do it with just the heat from the campfire, but I can use my ability to adjust it directly to around that temperature.”
“Great!” Hearing that it could be done, Lu Shiyu took out a smaller pot from her bag, poured a layer of oil into the bottom, and said to Tang Zeyu, “Please help me heat the oil to 180°C and keep it at that temperature.”
Lu Shiyu set up the pot. Tang Zeyu placed a hand beneath it, and a ball of fire instantly burst from his palm. It gathered on his hand, and just as it was about to leap upward, it was suppressed by the bottom of the pot, barely flickering out from the sides. In a short while, the oil was truly heated. Lu Shiyu used chopsticks dipped in a bit of batter to test the oil, confirming the temperature was just right.
She dropped a batter-coated pie into the pot. Dense small bubbles instantly rose in the oil. The pie floated halfway in the oil, surrounded by bubbles from the reaction. Slowly, the pie seemed to expand a bit, and the originally white outer skin gradually transformed into a golden color under the action of the hot oil.
Lu Shiyu used chopsticks to pick up the fried pie from the pot. Both sides were fried golden and crispy, as perfect as the food in a promotional poster.
“It really fried perfectly, and there’s no charring at all.”
Lu Shiyu marveled while inspecting the crispy fried pie, then dropped a few more in.
The pies bobbed in the pot. Lu Shiyu kept flipping them until they were fried to a light golden yellow, then scooped them out onto a plate. She took out the ant honey and the jam she had simmered last time, scooped up a spoonful, and drizzled it over the pies in an “S” shape, serving as the honey and ketchup. The sauce dripped onto the pies and flowed slightly; the translucent glaze reflected the light from the campfire, appearing to sparkle.
“Done!”
Lu Shiyu picked up a pie and handed it to Tang Zeyu. He pinched both ends of the pie and broke it open; the soft fruit flesh and viscous sweet liquid inside were squeezed out, slowly flowing down along the crispy outer skin.
Tang Zeyu lowered his head and took a bite. The outer skin was so crispy that the sound could be heard. He finished half in two or three bites.
Seeing Tang Zeyu eating, Shao Xingyang also started to crave it and asked, “Captain, are those fruit pies delicious?”
“Delicious, sweet and soft,” Tang Zeyu said, as if to prove it, and finished the other half in a few more bites. He then asked Shao Xingyang, “What? You’re not eating?”
“I’m eating!” Shao Xingyang immediately grabbed a pie and stuffed it into his mouth. The next second, the mucous membrane of his mouth let out a sharp, explosive scream.
“Hot, hot, hot, hot!” Shao Xingyang opened his mouth wide and panted frantically. Heat continuously billowed out of his mouth, and his expression was one of great pain.
“Hey, why did you take one from the last batch out of the pot?” Only then did Lu Shiyu notice that Shao Xingyang had taken from the later plate. “That plate is still too hot. If you want to eat, you should take from the batch that came out earlier.”
“You should have said that sooner!”
Chen Yunliang picked up a slightly cooler pie. The skin had been fried completely crisp; a gentle squeeze produced a “click” of a snap. The outer skin shimmered with oil. Chen Yunliang broke the pie open, revealing the steaming inner filling. Small bits of crispy skin fell from the break like golden sand.
The filling inside could be seen clearly: orange-yellow square chunks of fruit and a viscous liquid filled the entire interior of the pie, flowing out slowly like lava while emitting a bit of steam. Chen Yunliang blew on the filling and took a bite that felt as if he were biting into a toasted marshmallow.
Once cooked, the fruit became soft and delicate. One could hardly feel any solids upon entry; it almost melted on its own without needing the tongue. The sticky, stretchy texture was wrapped with some fragments of the outer skin, adding a layer of complexity.
The sauces drizzled on top also brought out their respective flavors. The ant honey was a sweetness with a unique floral fragrance that didn’t feel cloying, while the jam was an appetizing sweet and sour without a hint of bitterness. Every bite allowed one to taste different sauces, making it impossible to stop. Soon, Chen Yunliang had also finished a piece.
Because the filling was so fluid, one needed to eat quickly; otherwise, the fruit filling would drip onto the ground. As a result, they all looked like they were in a bit of a hurry while eating. Yan Hong had originally been hesitating, but seeing that they were all focused on eating without a word, she wavered even more on whether or not to eat.
Although it looked delicious, the thought of the original appearance of those plants made Yan Hong feel a bit nauseated. Finally, Lu Shiyu handed her a piece as well.
“Stop thinking about it. When you eat, you should focus on eating; otherwise, even the most delicious food will become tasteless,” Lu Shiyu said.
Yan Hong shook her head and decided to temporarily forget the appearance of those things. Pushing the messy thoughts out of her mind, she took a large bite of Lu Shiyu’s pie and was immediately captured by the sweet flavor.
“This feels just like the desserts I ate when I was little!” Yan Hong crunched through the pie. Seeing the filling overflow, she hurriedly took another bite, the deliciousness showing directly on her face.
“I remember when I was little, my parents used to buy me all sorts of cookies to coax me,” Shao Xingyang licked the sticky sweetness from his fingers. “Later, they even learned how to make cookies themselves. I got so tired of eating them.”
“The old days were better,” Yan Hong sighed. “Now that I think about it, days without mutated creatures were so easy. You didn’t have to run around all day just to stay alive, and you didn’t have to worry about being killed by a monster appearing out of nowhere.”
Lu Shiyu took a bite of the crispy, fragrant pie and asked, “Do you think the mutation apocalypse will ever end?”
“Maybe. Might be ten or twenty years from now, or maybe decades,” Yan Hong said, leaning against her backpack while eating a pie. “But it’s not something we’ll see. It’s a long way off. We’ll be lucky to see it within our lifetime.”
“We can’t even find the source of the mutation disaster, let alone talk about a solution,” Chen Yunliang broke open a pie; the filling had begun to solidify slightly as it cooled. “This kind of illogical disaster—it’s impossible to judge whether it’s a natural calamity or a man-made one.”
“Look on the bright side. At least humanity survived,” Tang Zeyu wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. What’s more, now we’re even treating mutated creatures as food. A complete solution is only a matter of time.”
“The Captain is right!” Shao Xingyang slapped his thigh. “If nothing else, we’ll just eat the mutated creatures into extinction!”
Yan Hong rolled her eyes. “Think before you speak. Stop talking such nonsense.”
Chen Yunliang smiled and said, “Maybe in the future, mutated creatures really could develop a food supply chain? After all, the taste is quite good, right?”
Lu Shiyu handed Tang Zeyu a towel to wipe off the oil. Hearing Chen Yunliang’s words, she was suddenly stunned. While the speaker was casual, the listener was intent; Lu Shiyu kept thinking about the feasibility of converting mutated creatures into a mass-producible food source until she fell asleep that night.