Chapter 56: Malan Grass Use
Su Ran used the scallop knife to cut a piece of beast meat from the basket, then skewered it with a branch and vigorously rubbed it inside the stone pot that Xiao Ju and the lion beastman had brought.
After rubbing for a while, she held the piece of meat in front of Xiao Ju and the lion beastman.
The piece of meat, which had just been bright red, had rotted halfway in just a dozen seconds or so, turned black, and emitted a very unpleasant burnt smell.
“Mii!!”
Upon suddenly smelling that odor, Xiao Ju and the lion beastman were choked and abruptly stepped back.
Although the werewolf beside Su Ran did not escape, it couldn’t help but reach out and pinch its nose.
The strong reactions from the beastmen stunned Su Ran for a moment, and then she remembered their sensitive sense of smell and couldn’t help but chuckle.
After a while, once the initial strong reaction passed and the unpleasant smell in the air dissipated a bit, the beastmen slowly gathered back to Su Ran’s side.
Xiao Ju looked incredulously at the piece of meat skewered on the tip of the branch, its round eyes looking at the meat and then at Su Ran, its voice filled with deep confusion and disappointment:
“Ran Ran? Miwu~~”
It was probably saying, “Ran Ran, why is it like this?”
Su Ran guessed, walking to the place where Xiao Ju and the others had made fire, picking up a lump of used black-flowered Malan grass mud with the branch, and walking back.
Then she picked up a palm-sized stone from the ground, placed it in front of them, smeared the grass mud on the stone, waited a moment, and hollowed out the softened part of the stone.
Then she cut another small piece of meat, rubbed it a few times inside the freshly hollowed stone, and took it out; sure enough, the meat quickly turned black again.
Seeing this, Xiao Ju’s expression changed a bit.
The tail behind her, which had been held high, slowly drooped down, and the black pupils in her eyes kept contracting and dilating, as if thinking.
At this time, the werewolf nudged Su Ran’s wrist and pointed to the half-hollowed stone in her hand, asking, “Ran Ran, stone, water, wu?”
Su Ran was delighted upon hearing this!
At the critical moment, this werewolf was still very smart!
She nodded quickly, went to the seaside, filled the stone with seawater several times, and carefully rinsed the hollowed inside of the stone.
Once she felt it was about enough, she took the part of the freshly cut meat that hadn’t touched the Malan grass juice, skewered it with the branch, and rubbed it on the stone wall.
This time, the difference was very obvious.
It was still just a dozen seconds or so, but the meat only had a slight blackening on the surface.
Seeing this, Xiao Ju and the lion beastman showed thoughtful expressions on their faces.
Before Su Ran could say anything, the werewolf was already chattering a long string of “Ao ao wu wu ao ao~” to the lion beastman.
While speaking, it occasionally mentioned the words “water” and “stone pot.”
After listening to the werewolf’s long speech, the lion beastman’s brows furrowed for a moment, then relaxed, then furrowed again in thought.
Finally, it nodded to the werewolf, then leaned down and softly “ao ao”ed twice to Xiao Ju beside it, before leaving with Xiao Ju.
After the two beastmen left, Su Ran still watched their backs worriedly for a while.
Only when she saw the lion beastman dump all the salt crystals out of the stone pot and fill the stone pot with seawater as if washing it did she breathe a sigh of relief.
What reassured her even more was that the other beastmen had already proactively gathered around Xiao Ju and the lion beastman, asking them something.
This meant she no longer had to worry that the other beastmen, after making the stone pot, would encounter danger during use due to not receiving proper usage teaching.
Su Ran glanced at the werewolf sitting beside her digging in the sand.
Clearly, the werewolf had just been telling Xiao Ju and the others the method of using Malan grass.
Su Ran checked the time and felt it was getting late.
She hesitated a bit between refining some animal oil right there by the seaside and going back to do it, and finally chose to go back.
Otherwise, if she sent the werewolf hunting now, it would have to carry the prey back, which would be an extra burden for it.
Although the werewolf’s physical fitness was very strong, Su Ran didn’t want to make it work too hard.
So she began packing things and called the werewolf:
“Hui.”
The werewolf, squatting by the water’s edge picking seashells, twitched its ears and looked up at her: “Wu?”
“We’re going back~”
Su Ran smiled at it: “Back to the bird’s nest tree!”
“Back?”
The werewolf was stunned for a moment, but upon hearing “bird’s nest tree,” its eyes lit up, and it immediately shouted “Mm!” loudly, got up, ran to Su Ran’s side to help pack things.
When Su Ran and the werewolf returned to the bird’s nest tree, it was exactly five in the evening.
At this time, the characteristics of the seasonal transition were even more obvious.
Su Ran looked up at the still bright sky overhead, remembering that when she had just arrived in this world, every day just after four in the afternoon, she had to hurry back to that small cave halfway up the mountain.
Because at that time, by five in the evening, it was basically pitch black.
After returning to the bird’s nest tree side, she and the werewolf went straight to the river beach where the other stone pot was placed.
As for the stone pot at the seaside, she had hidden it in the corner of several large reefs by the seaside and hadn’t brought it back.
Su Ran lit another campfire by the river beach.
Looking at the campfire in front of her, she sighed, feeling that she hadn’t done anything else that day except making fire over and over.
The other beastmen also returned from the beach one after another, but at this moment, there weren’t many beastmen preparing to eat dinner.
Because at the seaside, these beastmen had eaten roast meat and also roasted a lot of seafood in several intermittent fires.
Probably their bellies were still full.
Actually, Su Ran wasn’t particularly hungry either, but with some time left, she wanted to boil more animal oil.
Like a little hamster facing the coming cold winter, not knowing how long the winter would last, always wanting to stockpile the cave with rations in the shortest time.
Su Ran was in that state now; facing this unfamiliar world, she always wanted to collect and make everything she might possibly use, just in case.
The werewolf had been sent out by her to hunt white-headed sheep.
Before leaving, it had puzzledly pointed to the pieces of meat from various animals exchanged with the beastmen in the basket and muttered, “Ran Ran, meat, roast meat?”
That expression seemed to puzzledly say, “Ran Ran, we still have uneaten meat!”
But after seeing Su Ran insistently telling it to go find white-headed sheep, it swished its tail and still spread its wings to fly out hunting.
After the werewolf went out hunting, Su Ran went to the stone pile she had found yesterday and rummaged out two stones from it.
These two stones weren’t big; she planned to hollow them out to make jars for holding animal oil.
She moved the two stones to the campfire side with hands and feet, then found the pile of unused black-flowered Malan grass from yesterday, sat by the river, and began hollowing out the stones.
While digging, she thought about the things she needed to do in the next few days…
