Chapter 40
Early the next morning, Lang Shuo woke rather early. The first thing he did after waking was check the honey that had been filtered yesterday.
He had originally been worried that without gauze, the filtering effect would be poor. Unexpectedly, it was quite good. There were almost no impurities inside. After one night, the upper basket was basically only left with beeswax. Lang Shuo washed his hands clean and squeezed it again, trying his best to press out all the honey. He packed the honey into bamboo tubes, while the remaining beeswax was left in the basket.
“Shuo, should we throw this away?” Lang Nuo, who was squatting nearby to watch, asked. When they were around Lang Shuo, the group of young wolves always had more work in their eyes than at other times. The sub-adults had their own little calculations in mind. The more work they did, the more free time Lang Shuo would have. If Lang Shuo had free time, he would make them delicious food, so they were especially enthusiastic.
“No need. We’ll melt the beeswax later.” At this, Lang Shuo suddenly asked, “When you found the hive, were there any dried hives nearby? The kind without honey.”
A hive without honey only had beeswax left and could be brought back to use.
The members of the tribe, especially the sub-adults, could always immediately accept the new names Lang Shuo gave to various foods. Lang Shuo’s cooking was so delicious that he could call things whatever he wanted. This time was no exception. Yesterday, Lang Shuo had only said it a few times, and Lang Nuo had already remembered.
Recalling the scene when they found the hive yesterday, Lang Nuo nodded. “Yes. There was a big empty patch.”
Lang Shuo said, “Next time you pass by, break off some of the empty hive and bring it back. Don’t break off the honey-filled ones for now. Leave some for the bees.”
If they took all the honey at once, the bee colony would be unable to continue reproducing, and future honey production would definitely decrease. It was better to collect it once in a while.
Lang Nuo agreed, “We’ll go today.”
Lang Shuo shook his head. “The beeswax from these honeycombs is enough for now. Go again in a few days.”
It was better not to approach the hive in the next few days. What if bees held grudges? He did not want to see young wolves with swollen heads and faces.
Lang Nuo obediently nodded.
The gathering team set out early and had already finished breakfast and left. The hunting party was resting today. Lang Shuo counted the number of people, then calculated the current amount of honey, and planned to make a simple version of honey-glazed meat tonight.
According to the recipe for honey-glazed meat, he chose marinating ingredients. Some seasonings could be replaced with foods in the tribe that had similar flavors. Those they did not have could only be omitted. He mixed a sauce and poured it into a stone pot, then marinated the sliced pork belly and marbled shoulder meat.
This was prey the hunting party had brought back yesterday. Perhaps because plants had increased after breeding season began, the prey had been eating well recently. The prey brought back these past few days all had some fat on them. Pure fat was kept for rendering oil, and the pieces with both fat and lean meat were kept for eating. All the pork belly cut yesterday was here.
Palm-sized meat slices were thoroughly mixed with the sauce and divided into baskets lined with large leaves. The stone pot still had to be used later, so other tools could only be used for marinating. Fortunately, now that all things were reviving, these large leaves that could serve as waterproof paper were everywhere. A few leaves picked and spread flat in a basket worked about the same as pots and bowls, as long as they were not used to hold sharp foods.
The longer the marinating time, the more flavor the meat would absorb. Moreover, the gathering team was not here yet, so this dish would definitely only be eaten at night. Lang Shuo covered the baskets with leaves and had several sub-adults move the meat to a cool place.
The temperature during breeding season was rising day by day. The temperature under the sun was still rather high. If it were placed outside, it would probably spoil by night. A cool, shaded place had a low temperature and was suitable for storing food.
After breakfast, Lang Shuo took the sub-adults to move the dried camellia seeds from before.
Unlike the hunting party, which could not hunt continuously, the gathering team only rested once every few days. They brought back large quantities of food, and the varieties were also extremely numerous.
When they had come here last year, it had been snow season, and most of the time, they could only pick fruit from trees. However, the team leader Lang Rong was meticulous and could always discover other foods. Aside from the yams they had eaten before, there was also a kind of food similar to camellia fruit. After harvest season ended, it would fall to the ground. If they found a fruit tree and dug through the snow beneath it, they could find many fruits.
However, dried-up camellia fruits were not as popular as other foods. At that time, Lang Shuo had been busy leading everyone to help the Black Wolf Tribe process food, so he simply placed the fruits outside to dry. After the fruit skins cracked, they took out the camellia seeds inside. Later, since the heated beds in the cave had been constantly burning, they placed them on the beds to dry for a while, storing them together with walnuts, chestnuts, and other foods.
Before this, the tribe had used oil rendered from fatty meat. Usually, they only used a little for stir-frying, and most of the time, they directly stewed or steamed food, so it had barely been enough. But using it to fry food was somewhat tight. They might as well take out the camellia seeds to press oil.
The camellia seeds first needed to be picked through once, removing broken shells and other impurities inside, then placed in a pot and roasted.
There were many camellia seeds, so all the pots in the tribe were used to roast them together. This would make the process faster.
Roasting camellia seeds did not require much technical skill. Lang Shuo demonstrated once, then handed the remaining work to the sub-adults. There happened to be four pots, so they worked in pairs.
Lang Shuo went to find the members with good weaving skills and taught them to weave fish traps.
Yesterday, he had promised Lang Shi that they would weave fish traps today and fry fish chunks tomorrow. Naturally, he could not go back on his word. Besides, he also wanted to catch some small fish and fry them. Although fried fish chunks did not require spitting out bones either, the texture was different from palm-sized small fish.
Those Lang Shuo taught all had foundations. In addition, the weaving method for the first half of the fish trap was similar to weaving back baskets, large baskets, and carrying baskets, so it was not difficult to learn. The second half was weaving the top cover, then fixing the two parts together. After watching Lang Shuo demonstrate twice, several people basically learned it and began weaving quickly and skillfully.
Both sides of the work were progressing well. Lang Shuo only needed to check from time to time and did not have to watch constantly. He went to the other side to trim the clay blanks.
After several days of shade-drying, the clay blanks’ moisture content had dropped a lot. After trimming, they would continue drying. The pottery kiln was also almost dry. In a few days, they could try firing one kiln.
After finishing the work on this side, he went to check the sub-adults’ progress roasting camellia seeds. They had already roasted two back baskets, with three back baskets remaining. Aside from these, there were still several back baskets in the cave. Lang Shuo had kept those for next time. The tribe had too few cooking tools, and if they moved everything out at once, they would not be able to finish in one day.
In truth, the amount of camellia seeds had not originally been this large. A large portion had been moved over by the Black Wolf Tribe’s sub-adults after they saw their tribe had stored these. During that period, Lang Shuo had suspected every day that they would empty out their cave, yet the next day, that group of sub-adults would move over another pile of supplies. Only after repeatedly confirming that what they brought over was only a portion of the Black Wolf Tribe’s stock did he feel reassured.
The next step after roasting was grinding them into camellia seed powder. Lang Shuo took out stone bowls and taught them how to grind. Adding a smaller amount each time made it easier. The only drawback was that it was a little troublesome.
At first, the sub-adults followed his method and placed two handfuls each time. After grinding twice, they found it too slow and directly doubled the amount. The finished product they ground was not bad either.
Lang Nuo said lightly, “Just use more strength.”
According to the amount Lang Shuo had placed, only three parts strength were needed to grind them. After doubling it, it required seven or eight parts strength, but the speed was faster.
Lang Shuo: “…Fine. Grind slowly.”
The sub-adults, unaware of the seriousness of the matter, buried themselves in hard work. Four people roasted, four people ground. Grinding powder was more tiring, so after grinding for a while, they had to switch people.
After grinding one back basket, the sub-adults silently reduced the single amount to half more than what Lang Shuo had said.
After finishing the contents of the second back basket, the sub-adults silently ground according to the amount Lang Shuo had said.
By the time half of the camellia seeds in the third back basket were gone, the sub-adults’ speed became slower and slower. When it was their turn to tend the fire, they were happy and excited. When it was their turn to grind, they looked dejected.
Seeing their listless appearance, Lang Shuo knew they were tired and said, “All right. Rest for a while. Let Shi and the others help.”
Hearing this, the sub-adults immediately stopped moving and called people over to help. Usually, they would definitely not admit they had run out of strength, but today was too tiring. They did not want face anymore. How could face be more important than life?
The hunting party needed to go out hunting tomorrow and could not use up all their strength like the sub-adults. A group of people took turns coming over and soon ground the remaining camellia seeds into powder.
After the crushed camellia seeds were placed in the pot to steam, this step did not need Lang Shuo watching. He took people to the river to place the fish traps.
They placed some earthworms dug up by the riverside into the fish traps. Several were specially left with fish innards inside. They tied the fish traps with rope, tying the other end to trees by the river. Where there were no trees nearby, they tied them to large stones for fixing.
“Come check once at night. If there are fish, pour them out and bring them back. Remember to be careful. First check whether there are any snakes,” Lang Shuo instructed Lang Shi and the others who had followed him over.
“What are snakes?” The members did not know what kind of creature Lang Shuo was talking about. Lang Shi was the most familiar with Lang Shuo, so he directly asked.
“They’re long strips. They bite people. Some are poisonous.” Lang Shuo could help treat some small illnesses and external injuries, but if someone was bitten by a venomous snake, even ten of him added together would be helpless.
After listening, Lang Shi waved his hand. “It’s fine. If we see them, we’ll bring them back and roast them.”
Lang Shuo was silent for a moment. He had almost forgotten that this was the Beast World, and in beastmen’s eyes, most animals were edible.
Lang Shuo had never eaten snake meat and did not want to eat it. He reminded them, “Then when the time comes, take them farther away.”
He could not accept getting close to creatures like snakes.
Lang Shi saw his fear and immediately agreed. “No problem. We definitely won’t bring them back and scare you.”
Some tribes’ beastmen had nasty personalities. They clearly knew that younger beastmen in the tribe feared certain creatures, yet they deliberately brought them back to scare people. Their tribe did not have this bad habit.
Only then did Lang Shuo feel reassured.
Because they had to dig earthworms, they spent quite a long time by the river. When they returned to the residential area, the camellia seeds had already been in the pot for most of the afternoon, and they could stop the fire and prepare to press oil.
Lang Shuo’s method was relatively primitive. The tools were a large stone bowl with a hole in the bottom and a stone. The steamed camellia seeds were wrapped with clean grass stalks and placed in the stone bowl. A stone was placed over them, and they pressed down hard. The camellia oil would slowly flow out of the small hole at the bottom. There was no technique, only brute force.
This step required help from hunting party members. Lang Shuo let them slowly press the oil while he went to cook.
“Go, go.” Lang Shi, who had the greatest strength and was also the first to start, waved his hand, letting Lang Shuo hurry and cook. This kind of thing could absolutely be left to them.
“Brother, watch this side.” Lang Shuo called Lang Yu.
Lang Yu agreed. “Go prepare dinner.” Lang Yu glanced at the impatient sub-adults not far away. From the moment Lang Shuo returned, this group of sub-adults had been asking when he would cook.
When Lang Yu looked over, Lang Nuo spoke again. “Shuo, I’m hungry.”
The sub-adults had eaten quite a lot of food at noon, but today’s work all required strength. After an entire day, they were tired and hungry and only wanted to eat.
“Soon, soon.” Lang Shuo pointed at the stone pot where oil had already begun heating. “I’m cooking now. Eat some jerky first to cushion your stomachs.”
The jerky made during snow season had long since been eaten, but jerky was truly too convenient. After breeding season began, the tribe made another portion. These days, every time they caught prey, they separated a portion, cut it into strips, and dried it. They had successively accumulated quite a lot, and could distribute some at any time to fill stomachs.
“We don’t want to eat jerky.” The sub-adults shook their heads. If it were usual, they would have eaten it, but today they had anticipated the food Lang Shuo was going to make with honey for an entire day. At this moment, they could not eat anything else.
Seeing them look forward to it so much, Lang Shuo sped up his movements.
The marinated pork belly was placed into the pot and fried until both sides were golden. The bottom of the stone pot was relatively small. After frying one pot-bottom’s worth, he served it out. After all of it was fried, he placed it all back into the pot, added water until it covered the meat, poured in the remaining marinade, and slowly stewed it over low heat. Finally, he raised the heat to reduce the sauce.
Every piece of meat was covered in thick sauce. Before they even ate, the sub-adults beside him had already started drooling. Lang Shuo swiftly divided it into portions.
When marinating the meat, he had already calculated the quantity. Three pieces of meat per person. He only had to divide it by number.
This amount definitely would not fill them. Tonight’s dinner actually had three dishes. Aside from honey-glazed meat, there was also sliced meat stewed with leafy vegetables and roasted meat skewers. It was just that this dish was too fragrant. Even after the stewed meat and roasted meat were divided, no one rushed to take them. Everyone waited for the honey-glazed meat, wanting to eat the best dish first.
Everyone understood that eating it earlier or later was the same, but with something even more fragrant tempting them, they always felt they could not eat other foods.
Lang Shuo understood their thoughts and simply had Lang Yun serve while he served as well, dividing as they went.
The sub-adults were closest and stood at the front of the line. After receiving their bowls, they shot away without a trace. Lang Shuo had only said half of “be careful, it’s hot.”
The next instant, a clear “awoo” sounded behind him.
“Eat slowly! It’s too hot. If you can’t bear it, spit it back out,” Lang Shuo said.
“We can bear it, we can bear it.” The sub-adults answered while holding the bowls before them with great devotion.
Lang Shuo: “…”
Lang Shuo had Lang Yu help watch them, then turned back to continue dividing the meat.
Behind Lang Shuo, several sub-adults lowered their heads and sniffed the meat in their bowls, enduring their saliva as they blew hard, wanting the meat to cool faster.
After blowing for a while, they could not resist. They used chopsticks to dip a little sauce and put it in their mouths. If they could not eat the meat, they could eat a bit of sauce to satisfy their cravings. Lang Shuo had not said they could not taste it.
Lang Yu: “…”
He could not bear to watch.
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