Chapter 102: Field Training Fish Party
Seeing that the fish was almost processed, Xiang Chuan returned to the camp and began preparing to fiddle with the kitchenware.
Grilled fish doesn’t require much effort; branches will do. The problem is the fish soup, or more precisely, the pot for boiling the fish soup. The pot just used for steaming fish wasn’t small—otherwise, the meal box with a whole fish inside couldn’t have fit—but now they had to handle dozens of fish. Even assuming half would be grilled, there were still at least a dozen for boiling soup, and this one pot wasn’t enough.
She mentioned this to the Class President, and he immediately raised an eyebrow before ducking into Class Eight’s small tent for storing tools. When he came out, he was carrying a… large pot?
“This should be enough, right?” The Class President placed the pot in front of her. It was more than twice the size of the one she had been using, with a diameter of nearly one meter and a height of about half a meter.
“The size is sufficient…” Xiang Chuan squatted down to touch and tap the pot. The texture felt similar to the one used at home, but how was it so big? “How do you have this?”
“The training base issued it to us for drinking water, and it came with this large filter.” The Class President said as he opened the pot lid, revealing a filter of the same model as the one she had just used, fitting perfectly between the lid and the pot.
It feels like it could cover a whole person. Xiang Chuan thought, looking at the soft gel nano robots inside the filter.
Now that the kitchenware was settled, all that remained was—finding firewood.
“This little bit of firewood isn’t enough to boil the soup. Go find more branches.” With that, Xiang Chuan turned to wash the ginger.
Time returned to the present. After hearing the story from Liang Gong, who was grilling fish, Mandy suddenly understood and regretted deeply: During the battlefield cleanup earlier, there had been plenty of broken branches and such; she should have brought them back.
How about going again in the afternoon!
The afternoon itinerary was thus decided.
So everyone cheerfully turned around and went to help the boys’ group, who had been guarding the camp in the morning, pick up branches.
“…Macho men picking branches?” Xiang Chuan, who was sprinkling salt into the soup, watched the group of boys run off to gather branches and suddenly recalled a popular game nickname from a certain period in her previous life.
When the main group returned, each carrying over ten jin of branches scavenged from who-knows-where, the center of the camp had been completely cleared of a grassless area. Although Xiang Chuan said it wasn’t necessary to clear it, Labor Committee Member Fu Chengkai insisted on it due to concerns about the grassland catching fire, forcing the remaining male members in the camp to clear a patch of open ground. Xiang Chuan had no choice.
Wood in place, pot in place.
The pot was lifted using two spare parts from the warehouse for securing tents—cylindrical with a hollow center, perfect to use as a firewood rack. Xiang Chuan had initially worried that the seemingly thin steel wouldn’t support the large iron pot needing two people to lift, but after setting it up, the rack didn’t budge, not even bending on the surface, which finally eased her concerns.
“Light the fire.” Xiang Chuan directed everyone to set up the firewood, then took two torches from the neighboring grilling fire pile and threw them under the rack onto the wood. Only then did the second soup pot begin preparing to simmer the broth.
Busy until around 12:30, by the time Ouyang Yating and the other two finally returned to the camp, two pots of fish soup and over ten skewers of grilled fish were finally ready.
Everyone clutched their solid food, drooling as they eyed the fish laid out on the simple outdoor table in front of them. The reason they held solid food was that after much thought, Xiang Chuan decided to have them pair it with the grilled fish and fish soup.
“Eating only fish won’t last until evening; the body needs a certain intake of starch.”
Under Xiang Chuan’s insistence, the Class 8 Members, already tired of solid food, had no choice but to go back and retrieve their solid food. At this time, Xiang Chuan also took out her meal box and sat in a corner with the A Bite of China Club members, Chou Manman, Nancy, and others.
“Everyone worked hard this morning. Let’s start lunch.” At the Class President’s command, the group cheered and began scrambling for the grilled fish and fish soup.
Xiang Chuan first targeted the fish belly of the grilled fish. The carefully roasted fish skin was very crispy; with a clip of the chopsticks, it made a crisp sound and separated from the other parts. Xiang Chuan placed the lifted fish belly on a just-split steamed bun, the fish oil seeping into the bun. Even without brushing oil, it smelled very sweet. Biting into the fish and steamed bun together, the fish oil and fish nearly burst in her mouth. The crispy fish skin even brought a pleasurable sensation reminiscent of junk food from her previous life, unconsciously bringing a smile to Xiang Chuan’s face. Seeing her expression, Ouyang Yating and the others couldn’t hold back and followed suit, serving grilled fish on steamed buns or buns, enjoying the symphony of fresh fish and starchy food on their taste buds.
This scene truly stung the hearts of the Class 8 crowd who only had solid food to gnaw on, but what could they do? Except for the three who returned just before mealtime, the others had been bustling about for this all-fish banquet, so they had no grounds to ask for a share of buns or steamed buns…
So they could only turn their gaze to the other food—the fish soup.
Thanks to the fish fat and the plump volume of the fish, two pots with four fish filled them to the brim. The simmered milky-white broth looked especially appetizing. Xiang Chuan took a bowl first, and the results of her repeated tastings now showed: the perfectly seasoned saltiness and slight pepper flavor enhanced the inherent fresh sweetness of the fish while being particularly appetizing. She downed the whole bowl in gulps. The benefit of the soup was that it gave the Class Eight Students, stuck gnawing solid food, something to wash it down with—not leaving them with fiery grilled fish in one hand and dry solid food in the other, only to sprout acne on their faces by meal’s end.
“This grilled fish is so good! The crispy outer layer is really fun to eat!”
“Wow! Wow! The transparent layer under the fish skin is so hot… but kinda fragrant?”
“That’s fish oil,” Xiang Chuan interjected. “Savor it; fish oil usually only appears on sea fish from good environments. It’s rare to see it on river fish, let alone grass carp.”
“Really! Then this piece is mine… Mandy! Don’t you have some over there? Why come snatch ours!” Fu Chengkai saw a pair of chopsticks quickly reaching over and hurriedly grabbed the grilled fish from his group’s serving plate. He didn’t need to look to know it was Mandy from the neighboring group coming to snatch food.
“Hehe, not satisfied yet. Give us a little piece, for our hard work all morning.”
“In your dreams. The Stalwart Group worked hard too—with all this fish and firewood, plus preparing kitchenware.”
The Class President nodded while listening nearby, muttering softly: “Mm, this form is pretty good. Both groups have tasks, ensuring area safety and three meals’ diet, mm…”
Everyone was eating grilled fish and fish soup, so the pre-planned liquid food naturally went ignored. Fu Chengkai, in charge of captives’ meals, thought for a moment and simply took it to give Class Two and Class Ten an extra meal.
Thus, the students from the two classes in the captives’ tent stared at the suddenly extra portion of compressed liquid food, full of question marks: What did Class Eight mean by this? Why the sudden extra meal? Didn’t they eat it?
Sharp-eyed students even found flavors of fish and beef raw materials in the variously packaged compressed liquid food, thinking Class Eight was really generous to casually leave such good stuff here—their class had lucked out.
Little did they know these had become things Class Eight didn’t even want to look at now. If not for the lack of plans for the next few days’ meals, they would have simply thrown all the liquid food to Class Two and Class Ten, then followed Xiang Chuan to fish and eat fish—how carefree!
