Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 071
Chapter 71
Chen Qi had originally wanted to go catch a few fish today because he was being pestered by the few people to make fish to eat, but it began to snow after breakfast, so he could only go another day.
For breakfast, everyone ate fried fish balls and sliced meat porridge, so the large fish was eaten by the few of them in one meal. At noon, Aze went to help take care of Ake and the baby female. Ka Luo took advantage of this time to come over to learn. He said that he would be able to cook for Ake after learning for a few days.
Chen Qi was speechless and repeatedly reminded him not to let Ake have too much fried food at this time. Hearing that fried food was not good for Ake in his current condition, Ka Luo quickly nodded and recorded it in his heart.
Since Chen Qi no longer planned to go fishing today, he decided to make fish tofu. Making fish tofu was a very time-consuming task. Moreover, since everyone had just eaten fried fish balls that morning, Chen Qi naturally didn’t want them to eat fried foods at every meal. The beastmen didn’t have the concept of a balanced diet, so Chen Qi had to be the one to help them watch that.
Azhang finished mashing the raw fish. He wasn’t sure what was going on with this fish, but most of the fish bones couldn’t be crushed. Azhang could only use the dragon-horn knife to carefully remove them cleanly while mashing the meat.
Because they were specially set aside to dry early, the rice berries were ready to be used by this time. Chen Qi added some rice berries into the mashed fish meat and mixed an egg in. Then, he mixed it evenly by hand until the meat became a golden color and set it aside for later use.
“Azhang, go and pound some hydrochoerus dragon meat. Get more of it. And it’d be better to choose some with a little bit of fat on it.” Chen Qi instructed.
Ali also went over to help thaw the meat. Chen Qi thought for a moment and then asked Azhang to mash up another piece of the cured wartpork. Ka Luo watched for a while but couldn’t bear it anymore and went back to sleep. There was no chance for him to sleep at night since he was taking care of the baby female. If it weren’t for his brother and Ali being around to help take care of the baby, it was estimated that he wouldn’t have been able to survive on his own.
“Chen Qi, why do you want so much minced meat?” Ali asked with puzzlement. There was minced fish meat, minced hydrochoerus dragon meat and minced wartpork. Were all these going to be fried?
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Chen Qi smiled mysteriously, “You will know when it’s done.” Ali had no choice but to let Azhang mince them slowly, while he stayed by Chen Qi to offer his assistance.
The oil in the pottery dish had already started to bubble. Chen Qi used a smaller spoon to scoop the round pieces of minced meat into the oil. The white fish meat that had been mixed with egg tumbled about in the oil. A short moment later, they began to expand, one by one. At first, they were still a yellowish white. Then, they gradually turned into a beautiful golden brown.
In order to prevent them from sticking together, Chen Qi used the wooden spoon and stirred gently. When they were almost done, he asked Ali to bring over a pottery dish. The mouth of the pottery dish was loosely tied with a piece of cloth, which was intended to absorb the oil.
As soon as the bloated fish tofu came out of the pan, they slowly shrunk down in size. Ali felt a little disappointed at the sight, though the smell from the fish tofu was very fragrant.
Chen Qi didn’t intend to let them eat the fish tofu to fill their stomachs, so he didn’t prepare very much of the ingredients to make them. Only about 400 or 500 pieces were prepared, and their size after they shrunk wasn’t much. Using chopsticks, he picked out the failed pieces and put them aside, before allowing the few of them to try them while they were still nice and hot.
A bowl of fish tofu was only enough to be shared with two people. Azhang licked his lips, still wanting to have more. “Chen Qi, why can’t we eat those over there?”
“Eating too much of these things can easily cause excessive internal heat. In a little bit, they’ll be used to make other dishes.” Chen Qi replied.
Chen Qi intended to stuff these fish tofu, similar to the stuffed large intestines from before. However, this time he didn’t prepare as many different fillings, and only chopped cabbage was added to the meat filling to reduce some of the tedium.
Chen Qi taught the two men how to stuff the fish tofu. Ajing also put down his pen and washed his hands, looking eager to try. Seeing that, Chen Qi could only ask him to help. En, four to five hundred fish tofu would be plenty for them to stuff for a long time.
Chen Qi took the remaining fish meat and mixed it with the hydrochoerus dragon meat. Then, he broke the last iguanodon egg into a pottery bowl, separated the egg white and the yolk, and stirred the egg white into the minced meat mixture, before adding a bit of the semi-dried rice berries for extra stickiness. When he finished that, he prepared a piece of cloth and kneaded and patted it into rectangular pieces. He kneaded at it and patted it into rectangular pieces. Chen Qi intended to steam fish cakes.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
He laid the cloth over a pottery dish to prevent the fish cake from sticking to the dish, then brushed the remaining egg yolk over them while steaming. When the surface of the fish cake turned into a beautiful golden brown, he took them out and let them cool for a few minutes, before cutting them into pieces with the dragon-horn knife and serving them in another pottery dish.
Aside from the fish that were boiled in the soup and those that were fried into fish balls, of the remaining two fish, half of one was set aside to make fish filet porridge for Ake and the rest was minced into stuffings. Although there was not much variety of food, the quantity was sufficient. There were three big pottery dishes of stuffed fish tofu alone. The few of them were extremely satisfied with this fish feast today.
As he ate, Azhang was already looking forward to when Ake was fully recovered. If they caught more fish, he wondered how Chen Qi would fiddle with them to make other kinds of dishes. As long as the fish bones were carefully removed, these fish tasted very good.
Snow did not fall for very long today, and only a thin layer of white was covered on the ground. Chen Qi used some straw to make a broom and swept the snow off the paved roads in the yard.
Chen Qi was not short of water, and the room was warm, so he still kept the habit of taking a bath every day. He even had Aze following suit to bathe every day.
Aze, who was still steaming as he just came out from his bath, saw Chen Qi checking the bow and arrow he’d made before, and wondered out loud, “Chen Qi, what are you doing with a bow and arrow?”
Chen Qi turned his head to look at him. Aze would automatically retract his partial beast form at night since the temperature in the house was not low, and he was wearing pajamas that Chen Qi had asked Ali to make. The pajamas were dyed with indigo blue dye-fruits, which made Aze’s healthy wheat-colored skin look paler in the light of the fire. The sleeves were loosely rolled up and revealed a section of ruddy skin. Chen Qi Adam’s apple could not help but move.
“Let’s go catch some more fish tomorrow. It would be safer for me to bring a weapon.” There were not many nutritious things here. Chen Qi wanted to get some more different foods to help Ake supplement his body.
Aze sat down beside Chen Qi. “Or, I can go catch them on my own. I was able to catch them last time, so it should be fine this time as well.”
Chen Qi put his hands on his waist and looked at him with amusement. “Do you dislike me for dragging you down?”
“No, no.” Aze hurriedly denied it. When he saw that Chen Qi was not wearing a serious expression, he let out a breath of relief.
Chen Qi lightly flicked Aze on the forehead, “I’ll be fine since you’ll be with me.” It had not been easy to discover such a fun activity as harpooning for fish, and furthermore it wasn’t dangerous. How could Chen Qi give up the chance? If he doesn’t do some activities, he’d feel like he was living like an old man.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Before dragging Aze to bed, Chen Qi thought, should he find something entertaining to do? The days here were really too monotonous.
For breakfast the next day, Chen Qi cut up some pieces of champsosaurus meat and added them into the porridge, but the result was a big disappointment. The champsosaurus meat was too tough and tasted a little woodsy. This was really the most unpalatable prey Chen Qi had eaten since he got here.
Maybe next time he would try to mash it into a filling and wrap it in some rice berries to be fried.
“Aze, you have to bring back a lot of fish. Little Wolf wants to eat some too.” Ajing ran out early in the morning to send off the two men. Seeing Aze carrying Chen Qi, prepared to set off, he hurriedly stepped forward and offered this earnest reminder, his small face looking like he was worried that they would not be able to catch fish this time.
“Sigh. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before Ake is better.” Azhang sighed for the nth time.
Ali rolled his eyes angrily, “If you want to know, you can give birth and try it out.”
Azhang turned a pair of sparkling eyes at Ali and leaned a little closer to him. “Do you want to have a baby with me?”
Hearing Azhang’s words of hooliganism, Ali blushed, “I don’t have such an ability.” Having said that, he ignored him and went back to the house. He had to prepare Ake’s food and take over for Ka Luo in caring for the baby female, so he was actually quite busy.
Azhang rubbed his nose, then switched gears to head up onto the wall and started his routine guard duty.
“I thought they were already together.” Chen Qi whispered into Aze’s ear.
Aze smiled. He had no interest in inquiring about the matters of these two elders of his. After all, it was his first time seeing two females getting together. But he didn’t know how they would be treated by the tribespeople that would come back and hoped that they wouldn’t be alienated like he had been.
Sometimes silent alienation was the most hurtful. Aze’s eyes darkened as he remembered the past.
“It’s too cold outside. Hurry and take Little Wolf back into the house.” Aze touched Ajing’s little head and with those few words, he left with Chen Qi on his back.
Perhaps it was because of the snow, the temperature was lower today and the footprints that Aze had made the day before yesterday had been covered up with snow again.
The two men headed to the place where the hole in the ice was made before. Chen Qi had placed branches in the hole, in hopes that it wouldn’t freeze again. Otherwise, they would have to spend some energy to make it again.
Before they got close, Aze suddenly stopped and went to hide their figures behind a tall acacia tree.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Qi asked curiously.
“It seems that someone is coming.” Aze pointed to the front and said in a low voice.
Chen Qi looked at the direction Aze pointed to. Sure enough, he saw a small black dot slowly moving towards them. “What should we do?”
“Let’s observe the situation first.”
Chen Qi nodded. The two men were already very close to the Chishui River. But because of the snow, the river was covered with a layer of white snow so Chen Qi could not tell exactly where it was. Aze, however, had a good sense of direction. Even if it was completely buried under the snow, he would still be able to pinpoint the location of the previously made hole in the ice.
The little black dot came closer and closer to the two of them. However, when it reached the Chishui River, it suddenly disappeared into thin air. Chen Qi blinked, and blinked again, thinking he must’ve hallucinated. He asked uncertainly, “Where did that person go?”
Aze paused. “He seems to have fallen into the hole in the ice that we made previously.”
……
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: I LOL’d. I had this imagery of one of those comic strips where there is a blank white space and just the blinking outline of a person, showing that it just suddenly disappeared.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: MushroomNight73
Proofreader: Yume
Editor stepping into the realm of MTL translating, starting with CLWP. Support this translation with a Ko-fi. Three Ko-fis will add an extra chapter from the stockpile to the next weekly release.
Lol
While I do find the imagery funny as well, my mind wanders to the thought: snow doesn’t get absorbed or changes form or what and floates on water?
I haven’t seen snow in a long time and the rivers are covered with ice most of the time when it snows so I don’t know.
Hahahhahahahahha