Chapter 106: Bai Bai’s Plump White Bean Fruit
Nowadays, the scene at the upstream area in front of the river bend is completely different from how it was at the very beginning.
On the lush grassland, a gray-white stone brick house quietly sits on the slope.
When people walk around looking at the house, the seashell roof on top of the house will refract brilliant yet subtle shimmering light under the sunlight.
Although there is only the stone brick house near the river beach, it does not look desolate at all.
On the left side of the house, two clothes racks are set up with a few branches, and now a small animal hide sling is still hanging on them.
In front of the clothes racks is a rain shelter, which is now stacked full of neatly piled firewood and various tools made from bones and stones.
Opposite the rain shelter, on the right side of the house, the owner has set up a tree trunk table more than ten meters long.
At this moment, half of the table is covered with green soap fruits that are being dried, as well as seafood and various dried wild fruits.
In addition, in front of the rain shelter, there is a barbecue grill piled up with stones.
At this moment, a wolf-type beastman is holding several large pieces of meat and placing them on the barbecue grill.
At a glance, the first feeling is that this family’s life is very lively!
Gray is roasting meat outside the house.
After Su Ran puts away the sea salt brought back from the seaside, she takes a small basket and a small shovel made of bone, and heads toward the woods behind the house.
Now, as Su Ran walks around this area near the river beach, Gray is no longer so nervous.
Probably because it has already figured out the situation in the nearby woods, so it feels at ease about the safety here.
Of course, if Su Ran is gone for too long, it will still come trotting over happily.
Before Su Ran even enters the woods, she has already spotted what she was looking for at the edge of the woods—white bean fruit grass.
And there is a lot.
Looking at this large patch of white bean fruit grass covering the ground, Su Ran feels that even if she eats nothing else but white bean fruit now, she could stay in this woods for a lifetime without worrying about starving to death.
This is practically rations delivered right to her door.
Only collecting them is a bit troublesome.
Su Ran uses the bone shovel to loosen the soil under the white bean grass, then pulls up several white bean grasses together with force.
A handful of plump white beans like big pearl beans are uprooted from the ground.
Su Ran feels this is like harvesting peanuts.
She picks off the white beans she pulled up and puts them into the small basket beside her, then continues to pull up another large handful of white bean grass.
In less than twenty minutes of picking like this, she has already filled more than half the basket.
Seeing that it’s about enough, Su Ran picks up the basket and turns to walk back toward the front of the house.
From the edge of the woods here to behind the house, there is about seven or eight meters of open space.
Su Ran has already decided that in the next couple of days when she has time, she will dig up this plot of land and plant things.
Now with white bean fruit, green soap fruit, and so many animals.
If the winter weather is not the kind that keeps people indoors, or where you can’t find prey even if you go out, then she won’t have to worry about starving, and won’t need to do large-scale planting.
As long as she stocks up enough food before winter comes every year!
For the open space behind the house, Su Ran plans to directly transplant some wild fruit trees from the forest at that time.
For shrubs like chili fruit, finger onion, and vinegar fruit, she can also transplant some directly.
She has also kept many seeds from collectible wild fruits and wild vegetables.
For things like green soap fruit and red fruit, she has already cleared a two-square-meter patch of ground behind the house and planted the seeds.
If the seeds sprout, they can be transplanted near the woods behind next year.
That way, when she wants to eat these two kinds of wild fruits, she won’t always have to go deep into the woods to find them.
Especially green soap fruit.
Gray likes roasted green soap fruit, she can also eat green soap fruit as a staple food, and the pits of green soap fruit can be used as soap, so she definitely wants to plant a lot of this fruit tree.
The open space near the house is spacious, and she has long decided to plant a green soap fruit grove in this area!
After picking the white bean fruit, Su Ran goes directly to the riverside, soaks the basket in the water, and scrubs the white bean fruit inside with her palms.
Actually, there is a large stone water vat in the house, but now it’s summer, the river water is not cold, and she still prefers washing things by the river.
The clear river water directly rinses away the dirt, it’s clean, convenient, saves carrying water, and makes people feel good just looking at it.
After washing the white bean fruit, Su Ran carries the small basket back into the house.
Gray has already set up the roast meat, and is now sitting in the rain shelter, avoiding the sunlight while watching the roast meat.
Su Ran enters the house, first props up the window on the back wall of the kitchen, then closes the sliding door in front of the kitchen, and only then lights a fire at the stove.
Now in summer when it’s hot, Su Ran does all her cooking fires in the west room stove.
If she used the east room stove, then at night she and Gray wouldn’t even think about sleeping—they’d just make pancakes on the kang!
Light a fire under the stove, pour the cleaned white bean fruit into the pot, add clear water covering the white beans, then cover with the pot lid and wait for the pot to boil.
The pot lid on the stone pot is made by directly carving down a whole tree trunk from a bird’s nest tree.
It doesn’t look very pretty, but it works fine.
After doing this, Su Ran picks up the wooden basin that Gray had placed early on the long stone table under the window.
In the wooden basin is a two-tailed beast that has already been skinned and had its internal organs removed.
The two-tailed beast wasn’t big to begin with, and after removing the fur, it looks even smaller.
If she roasted it to eat, Su Ran thinks there wouldn’t be much left after roasting!
She looks at the two-tailed beast in the wooden basin and thinks for a long time, finally recalling a dish.
Spicy rabbit meat!
The bone structure of this two-tailed beast looks quite like a rabbit.
Su Ran takes the two-tailed beast out and puts it on the cutting board, then takes a bone knife from a wooden jar on the table and chops down on the two-tailed beast.
Now Su Ran has two tools for cutting vegetables: scallop knife and bone knife.
The scallop knife is sharp and light, suitable for cutting vegetables and meat.
The bone knife, after being sharpened, is also fast and not prone to breaking, so Su Ran usually uses it to chop bones.
The cut two-tailed beast, Su Ran sets aside, waiting to stir-fry it in the pot after the white bean fruit is cooked.
Taking advantage of this time, she takes several finger onions and chili fruits, as well as a few small peach fruits for sweetness, cuts them into segments, and puts them on a plate.
Now is the season for chili fruit in the woods to bear fruit.
Su Ran picked all those chili fruits that were fully ripe and would spoil if not picked.
She strung those chili fruits on sheep wool yarn and hung them under the eaves and the rain shelter to dry in the sun.
This chili fruit is bright red from when it forms until full maturity, hanging outside the house, giving it a unique charm that looks especially nice!
