Chapter 24: Salt Making
The campfire for roast meat was quickly lit.
The werewolf was busy processing the white-headed sheep that had just been skinned.
Probably because it saw Su Ran’s thought yesterday about wanting to keep the animal hide, today when the werewolf was skinning this white-headed sheep, its actions were exceptionally careful and meticulous. Even after skinning, the first thing it did was not to look at the mutton, but to fold the entire animal hide neatly and set it aside.
The werewolf’s actions warmed Su Ran’s heart. Who could not love such a thoughtful and attentive little gray wolf!
However, looking at that white-headed sheep hide placed there still with blood threads, Su Ran suddenly remembered that the dwarf deer hide she had put in the river yesterday, she forgot to retrieve it!
She didn’t know if she went to get it tonight, whether she could still find it.
While the werewolf was processing the white-headed sheep, Su Ran found a few palm-sized stones near the beach.
She arranged the stones into a circular shape, just big enough to fit her stainless steel mug on top, and left a gap on one side of the stone circle for adding firewood, to add fire under the mug.
After finishing all this, she first placed the empty stainless steel mug on top, then reached back, fumbled to remove the hat from the back of her clothes.
The thermos was already filled with seawater by her. Su Ran shaped the hat into a pouch using its own form and placed it into the mug, then slowly poured the seawater from the thermos into it.
After all the seawater was poured, she set down the thermos, pinched the four corners of the hat, and lifted it up like a bag.
The material of her stormsuit had waterproof properties, and at this moment, with a pouch of water inside, it looked just like carrying a water bag.
However, this so-called waterproofing of the stormsuit could only fend off drizzle.
After Su Ran soaked it in seawater for a few minutes, the outermost fabric of the hat finally became saturated.
Su Ran hurriedly picked it up and ran back to the side of the stainless steel mug, suspending the hat water bag over the mug’s opening, waiting for the seawater inside to fully seep into the mug below.
Due to the hat fabric, the seawater seeped very slowly, but Su Ran was very patient.
At this time, the werewolf had already set the whole skewered white-headed sheep on the wooden rack over the campfire, and at its feet was a package wrapped in leaves.
After setting the white-headed sheep in place, it looked toward Su Ran.
When it clearly saw the hat water bag in Su Ran’s hand, its curiosity surged again.
It squatted down beside Su Ran, pointing at the hat in her hand that was acting as filter paper and let out “ao wu ao wu” calls.
But this time, Su Ran didn’t know how to explain to it, and both her hands were occupied, so she couldn’t even use body language.
She could only give the werewolf a comforting smile, say nothing, and turn back to focus on the bag of seawater in her hand.
The werewolf could still understand the difference between Su Ran doing serious work and just playing.
Seeing Su Ran’s serious and focused expression at this moment, it could probably guess what she was doing, so while Su Ran was here holding the sleeping bag waiting for filtration, it squatted beside her and kept watch.
After a good while, the trickle from the hat gradually stopped. Su Ran opened the hat to check; the deepest part had a little fine sand that had filtered through, but not much.
That makes sense! In such a primitive continent, it would be hard even if there were environmental pollution issues.
Now that the seawater filtration was complete, it was just waiting for the seawater to boil and then slowly evaporate the water.
Su Ran stood up, preparing to rinse the sand from the hat.
As she stood, she turned her head to check on the werewolf’s situation.
Just now, after being ignored due to filtering seawater, the werewolf beside her had been completely quiet, not knowing what it was doing.
Su Ran curiously turned to look, but was stunned upon turning, then felt a mix of amusement and exasperation.
At this moment, the werewolf’s hands were full of mud, and its sitting legs and feet were also covered in quite a bit.
In its hands was a dark, shapeless lump of mud.
Su Ran quickly walked over. Hearing the movement, the werewolf immediately lifted its head, its light brown ears on top of its head twitching along.
Upon seeing it was Su Ran, it instinctively smiled at her. Then, realizing something, it moved the hand holding the mud lump, a guilty look in its eyes.
Seeing the werewolf like this, Su Ran suddenly recalled a phrase that was hugely popular online for a while: when the child is quiet, they’re either pooping or causing mischief…
Although the werewolf in front of her probably didn’t intend to cause mischief, looking at those mud-covered hands, Su Ran felt the result was no different.
But she figured out what the werewolf was trying to do.
It was probably trying to imitate her from yesterday, wrapping the internal organs in mud and throwing them into the campfire to roast.
But the leaves it used were too small, and the mud wasn’t clay, so of course the leaves couldn’t wrap the food inside.
Thus it ended up like this: the leaves burst open, and the mud got onto the things inside.
She reached out to take the mud lump from the werewolf’s hand and discovered it had even added kelp bits inside.
But at this moment, she suddenly remembered that when she and the werewolf came out, they didn’t bring sweet leaf vein tree leaves, no wonder the werewolf used these palm-sized leaves that couldn’t wrap anything.
“Ao wu~”
While Su Ran was looking at the mud internal organs she took from the werewolf and thinking, the werewolf had come close to her face, lowered its head, and let out a aggrieved call to her.
The beastman’s tall figure stood before her, almost completely blocking the sea breeze behind. But the seeking-comfort expression on its face was completely mismatched with its tall and sturdy build.
“It’s okay, it can still be eaten.”
Su Ran raised her hand, originally wanting to touch the werewolf’s ears, but after seeing her own hands were also covered in mud, she had to lower it.
So she simply grabbed the werewolf’s palm directly and pulled it to the seaside.
She first washed her own hands clean, and while washing, stretched her hand toward the werewolf to let it see the process, saying to it, “Wash hands oh.”
Watching Su Ran’s scrubbing finger actions and the mud decreasing on her hands, the werewolf quickly understood, letting out a soft “wu~~” from its throat, and also stretched its hand into the seawater.
After letting the werewolf wash its hands, Su Ran picked out the edible internal organs from the mud lumps set aside.
Among them were the white-headed sheep’s intestines and kidneys that the werewolf hadn’t discarded. Su Ran didn’t eat these things and didn’t plan to let the werewolf eat them either, so she directly picked them up and threw them aside.
Finally, she cleaned the remaining sheep heart, sheep liver, sheep lung, and sheep stomach, held them in hand, stood up, and returned to the campfire side.
In the pile of dry branches, she found a few finger-thick branches, sharpened one end of each, cut the internal organs into small pieces, and threaded them one by one onto the branches…
