Chapter 10

Page 1 of 3

“Yes, yes, yes, I took your money.”

Cen An smiled and sent him off to look for seasonings. He described several that he knew, then added, “You can also bring back any other nonpoisonous plants with a strong smell for me to identify.”

Su Rui was brimming with confidence. “Don’t worry. Within a hundred-mile radius, there isn’t a plant that can escape my nose!”

Cen An thought to himself, What a waste of that nose on a human being.

Watching him stride into the forest with his fighting spirit ablaze, Cen An shook his head speechlessly.

He reached down and stroked the head of the puppy abandoned by its owner. “He’s so immature. Can he really take good care of you? How about I take you off his hands?”

Silver Echo did its best to pretend it was merely a puppy incapable of understanding human speech. It enthusiastically rubbed itself against him, its tail, covered in a thin layer of white fuzz, whipping back and forth with a crackling blur.

Yet inwardly, it was thinking: Why don’t you come back to the mountains with us? Our cave is much better than your shabby little house!

Cen An placed the puppy in the bamboo basket, gathered up the timber and tree resin, then began searching for food along the path.

Vegetables were not a concern. He still had more than a hundred bok choy plants. What mattered were staple foods, seasonings, and meat. If he could find a few more wild chicken eggs, that would be even better.

The puppy poked its head out of the basket and whimpered twice, stretching its neck toward a certain direction.

“What is it?” Cen An did not understand at first. Once he realized what the puppy meant, he followed its gaze and unexpectedly found a patch of wild wheat beneath a dense thicket.

The wheat must have been from the previous year. Its stalks had already turned yellow, and the withered ears swayed in the breeze.

Cen An was delighted. “There’s so much! How has nothing eaten it?”

He immediately drew his iron sword, harvested the entire patch of wild wheat, tied it into three large bundles, stacked them together, and put them into his backpack.

Silver Echo grew increasingly puzzled. Did this human possess an ability or not? He looked as though he had a spatial ability, yet Silver Echo could not sense the slightest fluctuation of power.

Cen An, of course, had no idea that he had already exposed himself to the puppy. He continued searching the forest for herbs needed to tan rat hides.

When the sun reached its zenith, a haystack came gliding toward him from the distance.

Cen An: …

He drew a deep breath. The haystack shuddered, dropped to the ground, and revealed a sharply defined face.

Su Rui lifted his chin slightly. “I found everything you wanted.”

Cen An looked at the haystack, then at him. What was this supposed to mean? Were they eating vegetarian today?

Then he spotted three rabbits still kicking inside the haystack. Including the one from before, there were four in total.

Cen An remembered how he had mocked the dog’s owner last time, saying, “Wouldn’t it be better to leave all those plants for the rabbits in the mountains?” This time, the man had gone one better and plucked up the rabbits along with them.

Rubbing his temple, Cen An crouched down and began sorting through the heap of assorted junk.

The first thing he did was throw aside the dead branches and rotten leaves that could not be eaten.

Su Rui frowned beside him. “What’s wrong? These can’t be eaten?”

He sniffed them. “They’re not poisonous. And they smell really strong!”

He sniffed again. “They really can’t be eaten? They smell just like the grass you cooked last time!”

Cen An could not be bothered to answer him and concentrated on dealing with the haystack.

There was still quite a lot that could be eaten. Several wild onions and wild garlic, and even a small handful of wild chives.

There were even more seasonings: green peppercorns, fennel, two large pieces of ginger, several star anise pods…

As he sorted through them, a sudden hot, stinging pain spread across his fingers. He lowered his head and saw several yellow fruits that looked somewhat like cherry tomatoes. One had split open, its juice smeared across his palm.

Cen An picked one up and sniffed it. It seemed a little spicy. He put it into his backpack—

[Congratulations! You have obtained 1 chili fruit.]

It was a chili fruit!

Page 2 of 3

Delighted, he continued rummaging and, sure enough, found many more yellow fruits underneath.

There were so many that he certainly could not finish them today. He could buy the rest from the dog’s owner. At last, he would be able to eat spicy food!

After clearing away the pile of leaves, he called Su Rui over. “This pile is edible. You can gather more of it in the future. These aren’t edible, so don’t pull them up again.”

Su Rui looked deeply displeased. “Fine. Just don’t forget to blow the whistle next time.”

Cen An smiled at him. What whistle? A dog whistle?

—

The two brothers and the dog returned home together.

After several days apart, the shabby little house had changed dramatically, and both Silver Moon Wolves were extremely surprised.

After turning into a puppy, Silver Echo seemed to feel that its personality had been affected as well. It ran around the house without the slightest restraint, poking its head beneath every wooden rack to investigate.

Su Rui found his little brother’s behavior embarrassing and secretly kicked him several times. Even so, he could not help saying, “Looks like building a house wouldn’t be a bad idea. When the time comes…”

When it was time to cook, he skillfully took the iron sword and began processing the rabbits, showing no awareness whatsoever of the meaning of courtesy.

He finished dressing all four rabbits in less than half an hour. The meat was chopped into suitably sized pink chunks and piled on broad, freshly washed leaves, bright red like a small mountain of meat.

Cen An was just about to praise him for doing such a fine job—the four rabbit skins had been stripped exceptionally clean, without a single trace of blood—when Su Rui gave a light cough.

“We’ll eat together today. You get a share of the rabbit meat too.”

Cen An was startled. “Me?”

Su Rui exchanged a glance with his little brother. “That’s right. We’ll eat together. I specially hunted one for you.”

Cen An instinctively refused. “No need. I have food…”

Su Rui grew impatient. “If I tell you to eat, then eat. If you really don’t want to, just give me two crystal cores in return!”

His little brother bit him on the calf. Wasn’t the plan supposed to be luring the human back to their mountain cave one step at a time? What was this business about returning crystal cores?

Cen An gave him a long look. Returning crystal cores?

Su Rui coughed awkwardly. “…It’s no fun for three people to eat at two separate tables, especially when there’s plenty of rabbit meat. Besides, you don’t blow the whistle anymore. Are you really unwilling to eat the prey I hunted?”

By the end, he sounded a little aggrieved. He was so powerful! In the Vast Mountains, there were barely any mutant beasts capable of defeating him. He was the uncrowned king! Yet this human actually did not believe in him.

Cen An looked at him and thought for a moment. “All right. We’ll eat together.”

He could treat it as though he were running a private kitchen and having a meal with his employer. There was no harm in that. The two of them might eat a lot, but they had brought plenty of food as well. He would not be losing out.

The two brothers grinned foolishly and nodded at the same time.

The plan to bring the human home had achieved its initial success!

After asking Su Rui about his preferences, Cen An decided to divide the rabbits in half: one half would be cooked spicy and numbing, the other braised in soy sauce.

He could have made cold-eaten rabbit as well, but there was not enough time today.

To save time, Cen An simply lit two separate campfires and cooked on both stoves at once.

He removed the steamer basket from the pot and used it to braise the rabbit meat. Since they were eating together, there was no need to separate everything so carefully. There were still several bamboo shoots left from yesterday, so he peeled and washed them, chopped them into large pieces, and tossed them into the pot to simmer alongside the meat.

Six earth fruits remained, each as large as a fist. But considering the appetites of one man and one dog, Cen An did not hold back. He peeled and chopped them all, threw them into the pot, and soon had one brimming cauldron.

As for the spicy rabbit meat, that naturally went into the large iron wok.

Onions, garlic, sliced ginger, and chili fruits took up half a cutting board. Along with peppercorns, fennel, and several bay leaves, there were nearly more seasonings than rabbit meat.

Cen An was worried that the dog’s owner would not be accustomed to spicy food, so he used only a small amount of seasoning—barely enough for each of them to have a little.

Besides, rabbit meat contained no fat and needed plenty of seasoning to taste good.

As soon as the seasonings hit the wok, a violently numbing and spicy aroma exploded outward.

Page 3 of 3

Cen An heard a succession of sneezes behind him. When he turned around, he nearly burst out laughing. The man and the dog were both so overwhelmed by the fumes that they could barely keep their eyes open.

Su Rui was still unwilling to admit defeat. “I think—achoo!—your judgment—achoo!—isn’t necessarily—achoo!—correct. This dish smells like it can’t—achoo!—possibly be eaten.”

Cen An chased the two of them outside.

The two pots of rabbit meat still needed to simmer for a while, so Cen An turned his attention to the newly harvested wild wheat.

No matter how delicious the earth fruit was, he had been eating it for several days now. He was craving rice, and he was craving flour.

He used one piece of timber to craft a wooden stick, then found a reasonably flat stone slab by the roadside. He stripped the grains from the ears of wheat and rubbed them against the stone.

The ears had hung from the stalks for an entire year and were completely dry. After he rolled them with the wooden stick, a gust of wind blew away the husks, and plump golden grains spilled out.

Cen An gathered up the grains and rubbed them again with the wooden stick…

This time, he could not crush them at all. If he wanted wheat flour, he would have to make a stone mill. Or he could wait until the farm was upgraded and build a proper mill…

He was wondering whether he should simply steam a bowl of wheat rice to satisfy his craving when Su Rui came over.

“What is that? Let me try.”

Before Cen An could react, Su Rui had already taken the wooden stick and rolled it over the wheat grains.

Cen An watched in astonishment as the grains, which had remained as unyielding as copper peas beneath his own hands, were ground into powder by Su Rui after only a few strokes.

His slightly narrow eyes instantly widened into perfect circles.

?

“This is pretty easy!” Su Rui grew enthusiastic. He grunted and huffed as he ground away, producing five pounds of wheat flour in no time.

“All right, stop. Any more and we won’t be able to finish it.” Cen An hurriedly called a halt.

He glanced at Su Rui’s not particularly bulky arms and marveled once again: What a waste of that physique on a human being!

Cen An kneaded the wheat flour with water. Too lazy to bother with anything fancy, he pinched off small portions, shaped them into flat cakes, and stuck them around the edge of the pot containing the braised rabbit meat.

The pale cakes formed a ring around the pot. In the center, the brownish-red broth bubbled with tiny fish-eye bubbles. Unexpectedly, the whole thing looked rather attractive.

“It’s ready. We can eat in another twenty minutes.” Cen An calmly reassured the man and dog, then took out three heads of bok choy.

He suddenly remembered that the two of them had not yet tried the bok choy he had just harvested. Besides, as a person with supernatural abilities, the dog’s owner would benefit from eating it.

He sliced the tender bok choy into fine shreds, mixed them with seasonings, and arranged them on a large plate. White and green, it was almost too pretty to eat.

Although Cen An had said twenty minutes, the two brothers felt as though they had waited an eternity before finally hearing the heavenly words:

“Dinner’s ready!”

Su Rui shot outside in an instant. He was not afraid of the heat at all, and in two swift trips, he carried both pots to the table.

The little square table was suddenly packed to the brim with two large pots and a plate of bok choy.

Cen An brought out bowls and chopsticks, first fishing out some rabbit meat for the puppy, then sat down and began eating.

A heaping spoonful landed in his bowl. Soy-brown gravy coated chunks of rabbit meat as they tumbled down. Even the bamboo shoots and earth fruit had been stained the color of rabbit meat, as though trying to pass themselves off as something else.

Cen An happily picked up a large piece and stuffed it into his mouth. At first, all he tasted was meat. It was only when he bit down that something seemed wrong. Clear, fragrant juice flowed out…

It was bamboo shoot?

He had never expected bamboo shoots braised with rabbit meat to taste so delicious!

The earth fruit had already been cooked until it fell apart, melting into the broth and making it even richer and more aromatic.

The young man took a sip of meat broth, then instinctively picked up one of the wheat cakes and bit into it. A dense fragrance of wheat rushed into his nose.

The side of the wheat cake pressed against the pot had baked into a golden-brown crust. It gave a crisp crackle when bitten, and Cen An could not bear to let the crumbs fall away. They had to be caught in his bowl…

After eating a couple of bites, Cen An dipped the crescent-shaped cake into the meat broth and bit into it again.

How could he describe a wheat cake soaked with meat broth?

It was like frozen tofu in hot pot, chewy noodles in cold noodle dishes, or a fried egg in river-snail rice noodles…

Every pore was filled with rich, savory broth.

As he ate, Cen An suddenly sensed that something was off. Why was there a hissing sound of someone repeatedly drawing in breath beside him?