Chapter 6: Mutton?
Fortunately, the other party didn’t ask for fish meat.
The girl named Cheng Yue told Chu Jiu that she wanted some “mutton.”
The back mountain of Bean Village was relatively safe, with no magical creatures inside. Villagers could occasionally go up the mountain to hunt a wild rabbit, or even catch a wild chicken.
But there were no wild sheep in the back mountain.
Cheng Yue said that many years ago, her family had made a mutton soup.
The fresh, fragrant, and fatty taste made Cheng Yue drool just thinking about it, and she had told her younger brother more than once: Mutton was the most delicious meat in the world.
Her brother, Cheng Lin, was ten years younger than her and had never eaten anything good, let alone knew what mutton tasted like.
So Cheng Yue had promised her brother that when it was his birthday this year, she would definitely go to the town to exchange for some mutton.
However, the harvest from the fields this year was very poor, and the price of mutton in the town had also risen. The remaining beans and corn in the house were not enough to exchange for mutton.
Originally, Cheng Yue had given up. Later, she heard from Aman in the village chief’s house that the new pioneer had found edible mushrooms in the Forgotten Forest. Those mushrooms actually tasted like chicken.
She also heard from Granny Zhu that the new pioneer had caught a big fish in the Forgotten Forest, which was longer than an arm and couldn’t be finished in several meals. That fish smelled so good when it was boiled in clear water.
So, Cheng Yue hesitated for two days, thinking “why not give it a try,” and wanted to ask Chu Jiu for help to see if he could find mutton in the Forgotten Forest.
After listening to Cheng Yue, Chu Jiu supported his chin with one hand, trying to recall the material illustrations in his memory.
After a moment, he said, “I can try.”
“But it won’t be too fast, probably a day or two.”
There really weren’t any ordinary sheep that ran around and ate grass in the illustrations.
However, there was a magical creature whose meat was comparable to mutton, and even tasted better.
Of course, Chu Jiu didn’t forget to make it clear to her that what he could find was “mutton-flavored magical creature,” not real mutton.
Cheng Yue said it didn’t matter, as long as it tasted like mutton.
*
After accepting Cheng Yue’s commission, Chu Jiu took the kitten home.
He roasted some potato fruits for himself and fed the kitten some roasted fish jerky.
He thought that the kitten had eaten such a large piece of roasted fish jerky in the morning, and hadn’t done anything but sleep all morning, so it shouldn’t have much of an appetite now.
As a result, the kitten ate two large pieces of fish jerky in one go. After eating, it jumped onto Chu Jiu’s hand on its own, then walked with its short legs, climbed into Chu Jiu’s shirt pocket, closed its eyes, and continued to sleep.
…It only eats and sleeps.
It’s easy to raise.
Chu Jiu smiled, touched the little guy’s warm and furry head, and started making furniture.
Using the “Recipe Comprehension” skill to work reduced the time spent on building itself, but it still took a lot of effort to understand the recipe and think clearly about the steps in his mind.
After several hours, Chu Jiu obtained the recipes for a wooden table, a wooden chair, a bedside table, and a storage rack.
Although he was tired of constantly reading books and thinking about recipes, Chu Jiu couldn’t contain his excitement and “squandered” all his remaining spirit points, creating a small square table, a fairly sturdy chair with a backrest, a simple bedside table, and a storage rack that could be used to place small items.
The storage rack was placed against the wall, the bedside table was next to the single bed, the square table was placed in the center as a dining table, and the chair with a backrest was placed next to the table—
The shabby and empty hut instantly added a lot of life, looking like a place where people could live.
Chu Jiu sat on the chair with a backrest, his elbows propped on the very smooth tabletop, and said with a smile, “That’s great, we can have dinner at the table now.”
Perhaps his laughter made his chest vibrate, and the kitten, which had been snoring, raised its face from its pocket and let out a puzzled “meow.”
Chu Jiu touched its little head and said with a smile, “We have tables and chairs now.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t forget you—I’ll make furniture for you now.”
There were naturally no chapters on how to make “cat furniture” in this “Furniture Manual.”
Besides, Chu Jiu didn’t have any spirit points left.
He took out the wood directly, first slowly carved out two small plates with a machete, which were considered cat food bowls and cat water bowls; then he dug out a canned-sized wooden cup and spread some dry grass inside.
While he was doing this woodworking, the kitten watched quietly, its ice-blue eyes wide open, as if wondering what this human was doing.
After the woodworking was finished, Chu Jiu breathed a sigh of relief and placed the kitten in front of the small plate: “Here, this is your food bowl and water bowl. We’ll use this to eat from now on.”
The kitten lowered its head and sniffed, not too interested.
Chu Jiu led the little guy to the wooden cup and spread the scarf he wore around his neck inside.
The kitten sniffed the scarf that carried Chu Jiu’s body temperature again, and before he could explain, “This is your little cat nest,” it had already climbed into this simplified version of an ultra-small cat nest, curled its body into a circle, and purred twice from its throat.
It rested its head on its paws, looked at Chu Jiu with its side face, and gradually couldn’t keep its eyes open.
In just a few seconds, its eyes became half-open and half-closed, and finally completely closed—it had obviously fallen asleep again.
It seemed that the kitten liked this canned cat nest very much.
Chu Jiu thought happily.
Hmm… speaking of which, he hadn’t had time to name the kitten yet?
Looking at the little black cat lying in the canned cat nest, which was almost perfectly integrated and natural, Chu Jiu’s heart moved: “How about calling you Little Can from now on?”
The kitten’s furry little tail suddenly cocked up and swayed twice.
Chu Jiu took this as “approval” on his own.
“Okay, then you’re Little Can. Sleep well, Little Can, there will be dried fish when you wake up.”
*
Arsa Star.
Lu Qingyan turned on the light brain’s projection mode in the study.
This was the third time he watched the boy’s live broadcast.
The boy in the video had more vivid eyebrows and eyes than the previous two nights, as if he had encountered something good.
Sure enough, the boy said with a smile that he had a very, very cute new partner today.
“But the new partner is very shy, so I won’t mention it too much here.”
New partner?
Lu Qingyan’s fingertips gently lifted and slowly tapped the armrest.
The boy gestured happily in front of the camera, saying that he had made a table, chairs, and even a storage rack today.
Lu Qingyan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Over the past two days, he had a rough guess as to what the boy was doing and saying.
The boy’s words just now confirmed this guess.
He contacted Adjutant He: “Adjutant He, do we have a way to send messages to the other party now?”
He Fang: “Not yet. We’ve tried various ways—Your Excellency, look at the right side of this live broadcast screen, our military investigators disguised as ‘viewers’ can indeed send barrages and messages like watching other live broadcasts.”
“However, these messages can only be seen by the ‘viewers’ themselves, and the other party cannot see the messages we sent.”
“We’ve also tried to project these messages with mental power, and the result is the same—we still can’t transmit them.”
On the right side of the screen, layers of barrages floated; on the left side of the screen, the area where the boy was actually broadcasting was clean.
He Fang’s voice contained self-blame and anxiety: “Marshal, I’m very sorry.”
“We haven’t made any substantial progress so far, we haven’t located the source of this video, and we can’t determine which space-time it came from…”
Seeing that Adjutant He was about to ask for punishment, Lu Qingyan said lightly, “Don’t panic.”
“This matter is not as bad as you think.”
Adjutant He: “…You mean…?”
Lu Qingyan: “…Let’s take another look.”
The boy’s live broadcast still didn’t exceed five minutes.
After the screen turned black, Lu Qingyan, as usual, took out a special mental stabilizer and prepared to inject himself with a shot.
But unlike usual…
Today’s headache seemed to be slightly relieved?
Lu Qingyan frowned slightly and looked at his mental landscape.
In that desolate mental landscape with only endless yellow sand left, the “big cat” that hadn’t closed its eyes for almost three years was curled up under the only remaining rock wall, purring as it slept with its paws tucked in.
The sleeping posture and sleeping appearance were unprecedentedly relaxed, even with a bit of sweetness. It was as if it had become a real cat.
Lu Qingyan: …?
*
Dawn.
Chu Jiu had already packed his backpack and set off with a machete.
When he went out in the morning, he didn’t plan to take Little Can with him.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he opened the door, Little Can, who had been sleeping soundly, jumped up from its canned cat nest, and then, at a speed invisible to the naked eye, jumped into Chu Jiu’s chest pocket.
The meaning was very clear: Wherever you go, I go! Don’t even think about leaving me behind!
Chu Jiu had to tell it that he was going deep into the forest, which might be dangerous, and there might be terrible insects…
It was okay not to mention insects, but as soon as insects were mentioned, the hair on Little Can’s back stood up, and it howled loudly, as if saying, “Then I should go even more!”
Even the system popped up a prompt:
[If the host forcibly separates from the spirit beast against its will, it will cause a significant decrease in the spirit beast’s hidden favorability. Please act cautiously.]
Helpless, Chu Jiu could only put Little Can in his chest pocket, and then repeatedly told it: Don’t run around, don’t stick your head out if there’s nothing to do, it’s best to sleep quietly all the way…
Little Can turned a deaf ear to his words, always raising its head, its eyes wide open, looking around.
Chu Jiu’s [Body Concealment] played a full role.
Little Can watched several [Spicy Poison Frogs] as tall as a person, with flame-like bright spots on their bodies, jump past in front of it, and then watched [Bloodthirsty Bees] with two-meter-long poisonous stingers on their butts fly away from the top, and then watched [Hungry Insectivorous Grass] slowly pass by Chu Jiu…
No magical creatures noticed them.
Chu Jiu followed the prompts on the illustrated card in his memory and walked along a small path to the east for about two hours.
When the map was 6% open, Chu Jiu finally found what he wanted:
In the lush green grass, there were several large trees with brown bark and dark moss crawling on the bark. Each tree was more than ten meters high, and the treetops swayed slightly in the wind.
Chu Jiu pointed to the big tree and said to Little Can, “Found it! That’s the ‘mutton’ we’re looking for!”
Little Can tilted its head: “…Meow?”
Mutton, on a tree?
What was this human talking about?
