Chapter 17: CH 17

Aze helped Chen Qi, while Ka Luo was sent by Chen Qi to cut the other potatoes into pieces. Ake separated several pieces of burning firewood from the big fire to a smaller pile and started a second fire. Chen Qi put the pieces of pig bone that Aze had broken previously into a pottery dish, filled it with water, and placed it over the small fire to make the bone soup.

After Ake finished making the small fire, he wanted to take over Ka Luo’s job, but Chen Qi ordered him to wash his hands before touching the potatoes. What a joke to want the hands that were just touching the firewood to directly touch the ingredients that were about to be cooked without washing them first. Would they still be able to be eaten then? Ka Luo playfully stuck out his tongue at Ake and acted as if he had seen nothing.

When cooking, it was natural to need some utensils to stir the food in the pot or pan. Currently, their home only had two pairs of chopsticks made from acacia branches, of which Aze’s were especially sharp. Although Chen Qi had taught him how to use the chopsticks, Aze was still not very proficient with them. Every time he tried to pick up something with them, it would fall off  several times, and he would end up still using his hands to directly grab roasted meat. There was no other way, so Chen Qi could only sharpen one end of the chopsticks so that Aze could at least eat the stew by using them as forks and stabbing the food.

However, the quantity of the dishes Chen Qi was going to cook was relatively large, so it was obviously inconvenient to use chopsticks as the stirring utensil. From a pile of wood, he chose a piece of wood from some type of tree that he wasn’t familiar with. The wood had a solid texture. Chen Qi drew the rough shape of a spatula on the ground with cooled charcoal to show Aze what to make, since Aze could cut faster than Chen Qi could with his knife.

Ake cut the meat quickly. When Ka Luo finished with the potatoes, Ake had already cut two big pottery dishes full of meat. Had it not been for Chen Qi noticing it, Ake would have cut up the whole warthog.

Chen Qi had used a lot of refined salt to marinate the meat yesterday, and now the remainder was just enough for this meal. Chen Qi took advantage of the time when Aze was making the spatula to put the potatoes and meat into a pottery dish. He added ginger slices and the last few pieces of the perilla leaves, mixed them with salt, and put them over the fire to stew. Because there was no pot lid, Chen Qi directly asked Ake to chop a piece of wood that had a very light scent. This wood would still have a little fragrance when burned, but if used to cover the pottery dish of meat and potato stew, the meat shouldn’t absorb any strange taste from the wood.

For the pig heart and kidneys, Chen Qi did not let them handle the processing. Instead, he took out his dragon-horn knife and sliced them himself. Although the appearance was not very even, the thinning effect was achieved. Later, he found that Ake was obviously better at this sort of meticulous work, so he asked Ake to cut them up like the meat slices. Needless to say, Ake was more consistent, even the thickness and the appearance looked much better than Chen Qi’s. Chen Qi comforted himself with the reminder that the taste of the food when it entered the mouth was the most important, and that his slicing looked good enough.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

At this time, Aze finished making the spatula. He also carved two more pairs of chopsticks exactly the same as those he used and washed them with figs. Although the shape of the spatula was a bit awkward, at least it still looked good. Satisfied, Chen Qi held it in his hand and waved it about a little, then rolled up his sleeves and prepared to cook.

The shredded potatoes were divided into three portions, which were for the fried pork slices, fried pork heart, and fried pork kidney. Chen Qi took a pottery dish to fry some wart-pork fat. There was not much fat on the wild boar, so Chen Qi could only use it sparingly. Fortunately, these beastmen were all eating stir-fried dishes for the first time, so Chen Qi did not intend to make too much, in case they were not used to eating this kind of food and it ended up going to waste.

Aze’s home really had a lot of potteryware. This room alone had more than a dozen, and that didn’t include the ones in the back room that was full of miscellaneous things. So Chen Qi set aside a pottery dish for each dish.

The three beastmen, like three curious spectators watching a performance, sat around with their eyes fixed on Chen Qi’s movements and the stir-fried dishes in the pottery dishes. Aze, who was sitting next to him, would occasionally hand Chen Qi ingredients and other things.

Chen Qi seemed to think of something and said to Aze, “Go chop down a piece of bamboo and bring it back. There were some in the area we passed last night. Just choose one that is not too thick and has many bamboo joints.”

“You want a piece of bamboo? Ake and I will go. We can’t understand the dishes you’re cooking and can only sit around anyway. Let my brother stay and help you,” Ka Luo suggested. He’d noticed that his brother’s expressions were a little unnatural. His eyes often fell on Chen Qi from time to time. He needed to ask Ake what had happened since he’d obviously been fine when he first returned home.

“En, that’s fine, then you two be careful.”

Ka Luo winked at Aze before pulling Ake away.

Chen Qi first poured the shredded potatoes into clean water and rinsed them. Then, because there really was a lack of seasonings, he put a little lard into the pottery dish that would be used as a frying pan and added some meat slices into it. After the meat slices began to change color, he added the shredded potatoes. When it was almost done, he just added a little salt and stir-fried it, then a simple dish of potatoes and meat stir-fry was finished. In fact, it should not have been called potatoes and meat stir-fry, but rather meat stir-fried with potatoes, because there were so many meat slices, and the potatoes were more like garnishes for the meat. The whole large plate was practically all meat.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

However, the other two potato dishes, fried with the pig heart and kidneys respectively, looked fine since they were not in large quantities. Chen Qi was afraid that the offal might taste weird, so he added two slices of ginger to help adjust the flavor.

He finished cooking the potato dishes just as Ka Luo and Ake returned. Chen Qi instructed them to cut the bamboo into the required shape. Actually, it was to be cut according to the length of bamboo joints. The piece of bamboo was very long, but Chen Qi only asked Ake to cut four. Without bowls, he could only use the bamboo tubes as bowls. He could not have the four of them sharing one burnt laiche fruit husk to drink soup.

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After the bamboo tubes were finished, Chen Qi went back to continue working by the fire. Only a handful of dandelions needed to be cooked, so Chen Qi divided them into two parts, one to be stir-fried with the meat slices and the other to be stir-fried with the pig heart and kidneys.

After finishing the dishes, he moved to the hide blanket that Aze had already laid out for him. Eight large pottery plates served seven dishes and one soup, two of which held meat and potato stew. It was spectacular at a glance. There was still a warthog leg left, which he was going to roast later if the beastmen were not used to the food.

Chen Qi handed a bamboo tube filled with soup to each of them. Ka Luo already couldn’t wait to reach out and grab it for a taste, but Aze patted the other’s outstretched paws with the chopsticks.

Ka Luo looked at Aze bitterly and withdrew his hand. “Brother, what are you doing? Isn’t this dish ready?”

“Use the chopsticks,” Aze replied with a straight face.

Chen Qi smiled and handed the two pairs of specially-made chopsticks to the two guests. Ka Luo looked up and down at the two sticks. “How do we use these things?”

“I’ll show you how, look at how I’m doing it, hold it like this.” Chen Qi easily picked up a piece of meat and put it into his mouth. Perhaps because he had not eaten fried meat for too long, even with salt as the only seasoning, Chen Qi felt it was unexpectedly delicious.

Ka Luo mimicked Chen Qi’s action and sent his chopsticks into the meat and potato stew in front of him. Even after several tries, he still did not manage to grip the meat slices. In the most successful attempt, he was just about to put the meat into his mouth when it fell down, leaving a smudge of oil on the tiger-striped fur clothing. Ka Luo stared and glared angrily at the two sticks in his hand. He reached out his paw and picked up the piece that fell on him, then stuffed it into his mouth, chewing ferociously. Huh? The taste of this meat was very different from that of roasted meat, and it was not as bland as that of meat cooked in a broth. His angry expression eased instantly. After deciding not to try to use the chopsticks to pick up the food, he instead used one of them directly, and stabbed it into a large piece of meat before bringing it to Ake’s mouth with sparkling eyes. “Ake, try it. It’s not like roasted meat at all. It’s delicious.”

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

Ake took the meat off Ka Luo’s chopstick-fork and chewed it for a while. It tasted really good. He exclaimed, “I didn’t think that meat could be so tasty when cooked like this.”

Chen Qi smiled awkwardly. This was really the simplest way to cook it. In fact, the meal was not very good, but it was not bad. The beastmen probably had long been fed up with the taste of roast meat, so when they ate meat with other flavors for the first time, they felt that it tasted very good. “It’s good that you like it.”

Ake did not hold one chopstick-fork like Ka Luo and stab the meat, but learned to hold them like Chen Qi. Although he failed several times, he unexpectedly got better and better at it and was the first one to learn to use the chopsticks skillfully. Chen Qi was surprised. “You learned very quickly.”

“Of course, my Ake is very good.” Ka Luo straightened his back and puffed out his chest, as if the one Chen Qi was praising was him.

Aze glanced briefly at Ake and moved the meat and potato stew in front of him towards Chen Qi. He had tasted the dishes one by one just now and still felt that the meat and potato stew tasted the best. After moving the dish, he also stopped stabbing the meat with the chopstick-fork and changed to clamping it. He’d drop the meat several times before successfully grasping it once. As a result, Ake and Ka Luo had eaten a lot while Aze had only eaten a little, but he still did not change his method of holding the chopsticks.

Chen Qi helplessly looked at Aze, who was still showing an indifferent expression. He clamped a piece of meat onto a cattail leaf and handed it to the other man. “It will be more convenient to eat it like this.”

Aze paused, his ears slightly reddened and he whispered softly, “Okay.”

The meal continued in such a harmonious atmosphere. The three beastmen were obviously more interested in meat. All the meat in the dish of dandelions stir-fried with meat were eaten up, but only a single bite of the dandelions was tasted and then never touched again. Although they could eat the pig heart and kidneys, they were obviously not very interested in those either. But the potatoes, whether it was the potatoes in the meat and potato stew or the potatoes in the potatoes and meat stir-fry, were completely swept away by the three.

By the end of the meal, the warthog Aze hunted only had the one pork leg remaining that Chen Qi had planned to keep. The rest was all cleaned up. Ka Luo’s stomach was bulging. Ake massaged him anxiously, faulting him for eating too much and encouraging him not to eat so much next time. Ka Luo grinned and nestled coquettishly in Ake’s arms. It was unknown if he heard Ake’s words or not.

“Ake, I’ll cook like this for you next time,” Ka Luo said into Ake’s ear as he playfully bit it.

Ake patted his head. “Okay.”

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