Chapter 98: Field Training – Steamed Fish Comes Out Of The Pot
“Liang Gong,” Chou Manman leaned close to Liang Gong and whispered, “What if we just throw this away directly?”
What she was pointing at was the raw fish laid flat on the meal box.
“Huh?!” Liang Gong was startled, then quickly covered his mouth, glanced toward the riverside, where Xiang Chuan was still washing ginger by the river, definitely couldn’t hear this conversation, he slightly relaxed, looking worriedly at Chou Manman: “That wouldn’t be good, after all, it’s the fish Xiang Chuan caught herself, she just busied herself for so long… and maybe the club president really has a way to make that river fish tasty? After all, she made the chicken so delicious.”
“But if we don’t stop it, we’ll have to eat that fish later!” Chou Manman said, gradually showing an anxious expression, “Xiang Chuan isn’t omnipotent! During Xiao Xue’s live stream, she made her eat the pork she cooked, and it made Xiao Xue so disgusted she lost her temper. If she wants people nearby to taste it this time too, with Nancy and the others not here, we’ll be the first ones to suffer!”
“M-maybe there’ll be a miracle…?” Saying this, Liang Gong’s tone wasn’t as firm as at the beginning.
“If there really were miracles, river fish would have become mass food long ago… Ah, she’s back!”
When Xiang Chuan returned to the camp with the washed ginger, she saw everyone around looking at her with dry laughs, leaving her puzzled: What was this about? Whatever, think about it later, deal with the fish first, if left too long it really would get an unbearable fishy smell.
She placed the ginger on the meal box, sliced off most of it into ginger slices, then shredded ginger, then took out the seasoning set from another meal box that she brought just in case. Using 21st century methods, just add shredded ginger and salt, marinate briefly and it could go into the pot, but considering no soy sauce or such seasonings to drizzle after steaming, she needed to adjust the marinating method.
After slashing a few cuts into the fish to break the skin and flesh, she took pepper powder and salt from the seasoning set, spread them evenly on the fish, then took chopped scallions segmented from the small bottle in the seasoning set—this was Xiang Chuan’s idea, she worried about not finding scallions or garlic in the forest, so she specially got the best-preservation seasoning bottle, stuffed it with segmented chopped scallions and minced garlic. She laid the chopped scallions under the fish, then covered the meal box with a lid that had good breathability.
Seeing Xiang Chuan sitting still without moving, Chou Manman and Liang Gong exchanged glances: Could something have gone wrong?
“Xiang Chuan, why aren’t you continuing?” Chou Manman cautiously walked up, and upon getting close she found the fishy smell wasn’t as pungent as before, the ginger scent in the air faintly masking the fishy smell.
“Needs to marinate a bit before going into the pot.” Xiang Chuan casually replied, while constantly looking around, asking: “Where’s the class president? How come he’s not around?”
“He just left the camp.” Health Officer (Labor Committee Member) Fu Chengkai replied, covering his nose, “Do you need him for something? Also, remember to clean these up later without leaving any odd smells.”
Xiang Chuan was embarrassed, modern people couldn’t stand even this bit of fishy smell, how could they eat that liquid food? “I want to find some heating tools, if not, I want to find some firewood to make a fire, not sure if I can get permission.”
“Heating tools… I think the insulated sleeping bags we got have a heating function?”
“What good would that do, forget it, I’ll handle it myself.”
Xiang Chuan dove into the tent with a speechless expression, and soon came out with a familiar-looking board and a pot.
Chou Manman watched stunned: Where did this pot come from? Last night when they sorted luggage, they didn’t see this thing in Xiang Chuan’s luggage?
For steaming fish, need to get some water… Xiang Chuan thought, then went back into the tent to get the simple liquid filter her brother forced into her bag before departure, good thing this thing was disassemblable and assemblable, otherwise this thing almost as big as a pot lid she would’ve died before bringing it. The filter was more like the filter screen from biology lab experiments common for 21st century high schoolers, with two layers of filter screen sandwiching some gelatinous substance, which according to Xiang Qi could adsorb impurities in the liquid, so even outdoors without drinking water she could use this to barely drink spring water or river water.
Xiang Chuan: River water is one thing, why spring water too? Are modern people that idle, even replicating spring water?
From Xiang Chuan’s angle, directly taking half a pot of river water to boil was no problem, but some germophobic modern people probably couldn’t accept unfiltered river water, she didn’t want to eat a whole steamed fish alone without soy sauce, that would be quite tormenting for picky 21st century people.
She filled the water bottle full, placed the filter on the pot, poured the water in, though visually no difference, the gelatinous substance in the middle of the filter screen visibly turned black, Xiang Chuan wasn’t surprised, river water naturally had all sorts of bacteria and microbes, after all it was 30,000 years later, if impurity filtering tech was worse than the 21st century that’d really be inexplicable.
Carrying half a pot of water back to camp, the fish meat was about marinated through, so she disassembled the meal box into a small meal box about the size of a normal plate, with a small rack below just above the water level, leaving the people around stunned: When could meal boxes be disassembled and freely assembled?
Xiang Chuan: Dad’s new product trial sample, have to write a usage experience report for Dad after using, such a hassle.
She put the meal box into the pot, next was to start the fire… Xiang Chuan expressionlessly opened the terminal light screen, took out the portable heating plate operation guide Xiang Weiguo sent her earlier, poked at the board with her fingers like a computer newbie typing on a keyboard to finally set it up. To prevent the heating from affecting nearby grass and trees, Xiang Chuan also moved over the empty large meal box from yesterday to pad under the heating plate.
After fussing for half a day, it finally started properly steaming the fish.
Xiang Chuan clapped her hands, looked at the fish scales and fish innards in the nearby meal box, tilted her head: What to do with these?
After running through animations and TV series she’d seen in her mind, she thought of an idea, turned to Fu Chengkai: “Labor Committee Member, do we have anything here for digging soil?”
“I’m the health officer.” Fu Chengkai corrected, “Wait a sec.”
Saying that, he ducked into his group’s tent, came out with something shaped like a shovel, handed it to Xiang Chuan: “You know how to use it?”
Actually no!
So the digging work was handed to Liang Gong standing nearby, no choice, Chou Manman didn’t know how either.
After digging a small pit, Xiang Chuan called to stop, threw all the fish scales and fish innards in, buried them with soil, habitually stomped a couple times to confirm it was packed tight, then under Fu Chengkai’s dumbfounded gaze ran to the riverside to wash the meal box and kitchenware.
Seeing Xiang Chuan fuss like this, Chou Manman and Liang Gong lost interest in continuing their walk, simply brought over three small stools, and together with Xiang Chuan each held a water bottle with fruit milk and chatted, classmates seeing this also came over hugging water bottles (with drinking water) and small stools to chat.
“Xiang Chuan, how did you think of burying the fish innards and fish scales in the soil like that?” Fu Chengkai asked curiously.
“Saw it in ancient literature, ancient people recorded that in the ancient era there were no trash cans, so people dug a soil pit to throw garbage into.” Xiang Chuan replied biting her straw, “But the ancient era had no so much industrial garbage, the garbage back then was mostly kitchen waste… that is, the excess parts left after processing ingredients, plus grass and trees, stones and such, so could directly use burial method to handle, microbes or insects in the soil would digest those things, without polluting the environment, but ancient and modern have many things mixed with industrial or chemical processing, like plastic and metal, in that case can’t use digging and burying, would be bad for the environment.”
Oh—
Everyone suddenly understood, turns out this was ancient era wisdom, unexpectedly could really be put into practice! Some students were eager to try, wanting after going home to have the kitchen AI cook then take the kitchen waste to dig a pit in the downstairs grassland to bury and try. Xiang Chuan broke out in sweat hearing this: That would get accused by the community’s environmental robots for damaging the environment, right?
While everyone chatted about this and that, time flew by, twenty minutes passed in a flash, the heating plate’s timer end sound rang, attracting everyone’s attention: Almost forgot about this thing.
What would it be like? As failed and inedible as the pork Chou Manman mentioned? Or like the chicken, turning decay into magic? Everyone in Class Eight except Xiang Chuan held their breath.
Cliffhanger resolved, now it flows smoothly
