Chapter 59
A salty and moist vapor filled the air, and a strong fishy smell rushed to their faces.
Before he even reached the camp, Chief Mu smelled a certain odor. Especially after passing by the tree hollows where the red sheep and rabbits were kept, the fishy smell and the smell of fermented droppings intertwined, rushing straight to his head, making him dizzy.
The firelit camp was a silvery expanse. The back baskets were filled, the winnowing baskets were drying, and the bamboo poles were hung with fish everywhere. He had thought the “fish mountain” he had seen by the river in the afternoon was shocking enough, but who would have thought that when he returned in the evening, the number of fish had more than doubled, densely packed and with nowhere to put them.
It was too exaggerated. Not to mention fish, even with wild vegetables and fruits, they had never picked so many at once… Chief Mu and the sub-beastmen who had returned from their outing were stunned.
Without even putting down his back basket, Chief Mu wandered around, found Hua Shi’an squatting by the river cleaning fish and shrimp, and hurried over, panting. “Lord Priest, why are there so many fish again? Did you guys go drag the net again in the afternoon?”
He twisted the head off a small fish as thick as his little finger, and with a gentle squeeze on its belly, the internal organs immediately gushed out. He threw the internal organs into a back basket lined with leaves, rinsed the small fish clean, and placed it in a winnowing basket. Hua Shi’an looked up at Chief Mu and nodded with a smile. “Yes, we dragged the net three more times in the afternoon. The harvest was quite good. These fish will be enough for us to eat for a while.”
“No, why didn’t you take me with you?”
The heavy back basket hung behind him. He couldn’t stand or squat. Chief Mu grabbed the back strap, took off the back basket, and squatted beside Hua Shi’an, saying with a resentful expression, “I asked you in the afternoon, and you said you weren’t going, that you would go tomorrow. Then as soon as I left, you guys went again. What’s the meaning of this? Did you deliberately not take me?”
He picked up another small fish from the ground. Hua Shi’an chuckled softly. “You really can’t blame me for this. You should blame the beastmen. We dragged the net twice in the morning and got a lot of fish. I thought the weather was still cold, so I decided not to go in the afternoon and stay in the tribe to process the fish.”
“But they got addicted to it. As soon as you guys left, they started clamoring to go and drag for fish, saying something like, ‘If it’s going to be cold, let it be cold enough. Let’s catch a lot of fish at once.'”
“Those little brats!” Chief Mu was so angry he was blowing his beard and staring. He slapped his thigh in frustration, then moved closer to Hua Shi’an and smiled fawningly. “Why don’t you call me next time? Tomorrow, are you going again tomorrow?”
Hua Shi’an shook his head. “No, not for a short while.”
It’s understandable not to go tomorrow, but not for a short while? Chief Mu raised an eyebrow in surprise and quickly asked, “Why not? Who would complain about having too much food? Smoked and roasted into dried fish, it can also be preserved. Isn’t it good for us to stock up and eat slowly?”
As they talked and laughed, the last few small fish were cleaned.
Hua Shi’an rubbed his hands in the cold river water, then looked up at Chief Mu again, his expression a little more serious. “Chief, fish don’t just appear out of thin air. Big fish give birth to small fish, and small fish grow up and give birth to more small fish. That’s how they multiply. If we overfish, they might disappear, and we won’t be able to eat fish anymore.”
“It’s spring. The weather will warm up soon, and the fish will start to reproduce. If we don’t disturb them at this time and let them grow up healthy, we’ll be able to eat more fish in the future. We also caught a lot of small fish today, and we’ve already put them back in the river.”
A full meal now versus a full meal every meal. Chief Mu could tell the difference. He nodded and was about to speak when he heard Hua Shi’an add, “Actually, there’s another reason.”
“What?” Chief Mu asked.
Hua Shi’an shrugged and spread his hands. “The fishing net is broken.”
“It broke so quickly?” Chief Mu was shocked. More than ten people had spent so long weaving it, and it broke after just one day?
Hua Shi’an: “There’s nothing we can do. There are withered branches and stones in the river. It accidentally got snagged while we were dragging it. But don’t worry, it’s just a few holes. We can patch it up and still use it.”
“That’s good.” Chief Mu patted his chest and breathed a sigh of relief. But his peripheral vision accidentally swept over the small fish and shrimp in the winnowing basket. His eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened again. “Didn’t you say you put all the small fish back? What’s in the winnowing basket then? It’s so full it’s about to fall out.”
“These are not small fish, they are small miscellaneous fish.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes,” Hua Shi’an looked down at the winnowing basket and pointed to the small miscellaneous fish of various shapes, introducing them to the chief one by one. “This light golden one with dark stripes is called a gudgeon. This one that’s so white it’s glowing is called a white stripe fish… and this little shrimp is called a green shrimp. They’re just this big. They don’t grow any bigger.”
Chief Mu looked at them seriously and nodded thoughtfully. “I see. But these small miscellaneous fish probably don’t have much meat besides the bones. Can they be tasty? How do you eat them?”
The miscellaneous fish were small, and there really wasn’t much meat left after removing the bones. And they were extremely troublesome to clean. He had been cleaning this winnowing basket of miscellaneous fish since he got back, and Hua Shi’an’s legs were numb from squatting.
But it was worth it. The taste of the small miscellaneous fish was quite good. Hua Shi’an twisted his neck and stood up, then gestured to Chief Mu with his chin. “They’re very delicious. You’ll know in a bit. Come on, Chief, lend me a hand. Let’s carry them back to the camp first.”
“My back basket is still here.”
“Wait, we’ll come back for it later.”
…
Dinner was already being cooked. Tonight was naturally a full fish feast. The large grass carp and silver carp were chopped into pieces and stewed in a stone pot. The firm-fleshed and fatty black fish and catfish were skewered on wooden sticks and slowly roasted over a fire pit.
The fragrance drifted with the wind, gradually covering the fishy smell that filled the camp. The winnowing basket with the miscellaneous fish was moved to the front of the large stone pot, and Hua Shi’an also got busy.
Without vegetable oil, frying was out of the question. But there was another way to make the inconspicuous small miscellaneous fish delicious, and that was to pan-fry them, dry-fry them.
He washed the stone pot clean and dried the residual water droplets. Hua Shi’an dug out a piece of sheep fat and evenly spread it on the stone pot with a bamboo sliver. There were too many miscellaneous fish to pan-fry in one go. After the sheep fat had melted, he first put in a third of the miscellaneous fish.
The oil and the fish and shrimp collided, and the stone pot sizzled. Hua Shi’an used a bamboo sliver to spread out the small fish and shrimp, on the bottom and the walls of the pot, and then took some dry firewood from the fire and slowly roasted them over the smallest fire.
Dry-fried miscellaneous fish didn’t need to be flipped. You just fried one side and then the other. The fire had to be small.
The fragrance gradually burst out. It must have been because of the small shrimp. The fragrance was particularly strong and fresh. Hua Shi’an sniffed, and his mouth uncontrollably produced saliva.
“Lord Priest, what are you making?”
“Such small fish, so fragrant. The taste is different from roasted fish!”
He had been so focused on the food that Hua Shi’an hadn’t even noticed Yan Zhile and Hong Yinglan walking up to him with their back baskets.
When the two of them spoke, Hua Shi’an finally came to his senses. He pointed to the fresh miscellaneous fish in the winnowing basket and said softly, “I’m pan-frying miscellaneous fish, just this kind of small fish and shrimp.”
“It really smells so good!” Yan Zhile sniffed hard, then took off the back basket on his shoulder and came closer to the stone pot to take a closer look. “The little shrimp at the bottom have changed color. Are they cooked? Can we eat them now?”
Hong Yinglan didn’t speak, her straight gaze undisguised.
The two little gluttons had come for food. Hua Shi’an patted the empty space beside him and said with a smile, “They’re not cooked yet. They still need to be fried for a while. Sit down first. If you want to eat, just sit down and wait.”
“Okay.”
Yan Zhile sat on his left, taking the spot closest to Hua Shi’an. He then moved the back basket he had been carrying all along and placed it between the two of them, saying cheerfully, “Lord Priest, we’re not just being greedy and coming for food. We have something serious to talk to you about.”
Seeing the back basket, Hua Shi’an had guessed it. They must have found new plants in the forest again. A new discovery was a good thing, but when he thought of the reward, Hua Shi’an’s head started to hurt a little.
As if he had guessed his thoughts, Hong Yinglan, who was sitting on his right, her bright eyes slightly curved, suddenly smiled. “Don’t worry, Lord Priest. The tribe has been busy recently, and you’ve been busy too. There’s no need for a reward. It’s just that we picked a lot of wild vegetables today that we don’t recognize. We don’t know if they’re edible.”
A lot?
Hua Shi’an’s interest was piqued. He reached into the back basket. “Let me see first.”
The temperature was low in early spring, and he had thought there wouldn’t be many wild vegetables in the forest. But to his surprise, the gathering team had brought back quite a few, more than ten kinds in total. Unfortunately, after Hua Shi’an’s identification, only four were edible.
There was the red-haired fern, as thick as a chopstick, with distinct stems and leaves curled into large rolls. There was the hollow plant stem that resembled a green onion, with reddish-purple spots on its skin, the Japanese knotweed.
What surprised Hua Shi’an the most were the last two. One was a thin and long bamboo shoot, as thick as a thumb. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was a water bamboo shoot. The other was green on top and white on the bottom, with leaves like a green onion and a stem like garlic, and a strong smell of onion and garlic—Chinese onion, also known as wild onion or wild garlic.
Chinese onion was a good thing. It could be used as a seasoning and a vegetable, and it was also a traditional Chinese medicine. Even in modern society, many people would search all over the mountains to eat it.
The seasonings he had been looking for for so long had come two at once. Hua Shi’an held the wild onion with great fondness, sniffed it to his heart’s content, and then looked up at the two of them. “I didn’t expect the wild onions to grow so quickly. Is there a lot of it? This one in my hand.”
“So it’s called wild onion!” Yan Zhile nodded. “A lot. This thing grows in patches. We just didn’t know if it was edible, so we only picked a little.”
“When you go out in the future, pick more, no, dig up more with the roots. We’ll plant them ourselves. This kind of wild onion is super delicious and can also be used as a seasoning.” Hua Shi’an handed the wild onion to Yan Zhile so they could remember what it looked like.
Hong Yinglan picked up the bamboo shoot and asked, “What about this, Lord Priest? I broke this off from under two bamboo stalks. It’s very, very thin, a bit like the small bamboo of the golden bamboo. Is it the bamboo shoot you mentioned before?”
Hua Shi’an: “This should be a water bamboo shoot. It’s different from what I said before, but it’s also very delicious. You can pick more if you encounter it. And this, the red-haired fern, bracken, the taste is also quite good. Just pick it.”
“Is this one not tasty?” Yan Zhile shook the Japanese knotweed stem.
It was edible, but not necessary. Hua Shi’an hesitated for a moment and said, “It’s called Japanese knotweed. It’s edible, but the taste is on the sour side. If we’re not short of wild vegetables, there’s no need to pick it. The others are not so good. They’re either poisonous or I don’t recognize them. Tell them not to pick them in the future.”
“Okay,” Yan Zhile and Hong Yinglan said in unison.
After finishing their business, they showed no intention of leaving. It seemed they were just waiting for a bite to eat.
Unfortunately, it had only been fried on one side. Hua Shi’an used a bamboo sliver to flip the small fish and shrimp in the pot. The other side, which had just been roasted over a low fire, had already turned golden and oily, crispy and crunchy.
The fragrance was even stronger. Hua Shi’an took a deep breath. Just as he was immersed in the fragrance of the food, Yan Zhile suddenly spoke, asking an inappropriate question, “Lord Priest, why do we have to dig a pit and bury the fish entrails and animal droppings around the tribe? Can’t we just throw them far away? It stinks. You can smell it from a distance when you pass by the sheep pen.”
His imagination was sometimes too strong, which was not necessarily a good thing. Before he could finish speaking, an image of a dirty and smelly compost pit, with droppings and entrails mixed and fermented, appeared in Hua Shi’an’s mind.
Do we have to talk about this now? The small miscellaneous fish suddenly didn’t smell so good anymore. Hua Shi’an rubbed his temples, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “Burying them there doesn’t mean we’re throwing them away. Animal droppings and fish entrails have great uses. They do smell a bit, but after a while of composting, they will become excellent fertilizer.”
“What’s fertilizer?” Hong Yinglan blinked blankly.
Hua Shi’an thought for a moment. “It’s for planting and watering crops. It’s a good thing that promotes crop growth. For example, for blueberries, fertilizer can make them blossom and bear fruit earlier, and the number of fruits will also increase.”
Hong Yinglan’s eyes widened. “Is it that useful? Then, then I can bear with it.”
Digging a compost pit around the tribe was not a wise move. Hua Shi’an’s brow furrowed slightly. “You don’t have to bear with it. The pit was dug by the beastmen, and the location was also chosen by them. I’ll have them dig a new one later, further away. Otherwise, it will be terrible in the summer, stinking to high heaven.”
Hong Yinglan and Hua Shi’an were chatting. Yan Zhile, who had raised the question, rested his chin on his hand and started on the next question, “Planting, Lord Priest, when do we start planting?”
“Are you very eager to plant?”
“Of course!”
Hua Shi’an: “Alright then, tomorrow.”
