Chapter 82: “ran Ran, Fish!”
Hui was very happy today.
Not only because early this morning, all the food Su Ran made was food it liked, but most importantly, Su Ran’s spirits were very good today.
Moreover, the bloody smell on her body had already become very, very faint.
It very politely ate up all the food Su Ran had busily made all morning, then very consciously ran off to clean the red-skinned pig hide they had newly obtained today and hang it out to dry.
Su Ran took out the two animal hide blankets she had brought from the bird’s nest; she laid one right next to the rain shelter on the ground, and draped the other over her legs, then leaned her upper body’s back against one of the rain shelter’s pillars, lazily sitting on the ground to bask in the sun.
The temperature at this moment was just right.
Sunlight sprinkled on her body, warm without being excessively scorching. The air in the woods was fresh, and every breath made one feel the air was incredibly clear and clean.
Su Ran idly looked at the sparkling river water directly in front of her, and as she watched, the idea of eating fish suddenly popped into her mind.
There were indeed fish in this river.
Occasionally, she could see cat-type beastmen splashing in the river to catch fish.
It was just that later, after she found those seafood at the seaside, she temporarily forgot about catching fish.
But at this moment, she suddenly really wanted to drink fish soup.
She remembered that her backpack still had the fishing line from the survival gear kit.
Thinking about it, she became even more hungry for it.
So soon, Su Ran was carried by Hui from the river beach to the bird’s nest to get the fishing line, then flown back from the bird’s nest to the river beach, going around in a circle.
Su Ran had never fished before, so when using the fishing line, she could only rely on her own imagination.
She tied one end of the fishing line to a wooden stick, then hung the fish hook on the other end, with a small piece of meat strip on the fish hook, and threw the fish hook with the meat strip into the river, waiting for the fish to bite.
The fish in this river were all not small.
Su Ran thought it was probably because there were few natural enemies.
After all, from observation, the beastmen occasionally caught one to eat just to whet their appetite, and not all beastmen liked it.
And besides the beastmen, other animals, because they feared the beastmen’s scent, basically didn’t come to this area at all.
After all, even those obviously carnivorous fierce beasts were just prey on the beastmen’s recipe in their eyes.
So the fish living in this river almost had no species threats throughout their lives.
Therefore, not only were there many of these fish schools, but the fish were also large.
Including every morning and evening, Su Ran often saw large fish continuously leaping out of the river water surface.
Su Ran moved the blanket she was sitting on to a place not far from the riverbank, convenient for her to observe the situation of fish biting the hook.
Then, with nothing to do, she had Hui cut a large bundle of willow branches and bring them back; she sat by the riverbank, fishing on one side and weaving a few winnowing baskets on the other.
She didn’t mind having too many of these daily necessities.
Considering that she would often hang things out to dry later, Su Ran also didn’t want to always waste sweet leaf vein tree leaves.
She sat on the blanket with her legs crossed, holding willow branches in her hands, her fingers moving quickly.
And Hui also imitated her, sitting on one side of her, quickly glancing at Su Ran’s actions with its eyes while holding a few willow branches in its hands, crossing and weaving them.
It was just that the few willow branches in its pair of large hands, after several windings, insertions, and twists, were almost twisted and broken into several segments.
Su Ran glanced at it from the side, then curved up the corners of her lips.
The beastmen’s intelligence wasn’t actually low; whatever things she usually made or did, they could quickly learn.
Including her rain shelter.
Although the beastmen hadn’t figured out how to make the mortise and tenon structure yet, some beastmen had already groped their way to making small low triangular shelters by propping wood together.
But compared to those things that were obviously more laborious to make, in terms of weaving, whether it was slightly more difficult winnowing baskets or simple wooden baskets, baskets, or backpacks, they all seemed as hard as climbing to heaven for them.
Even Hui, who lived with her all the time and was taught hand by hand every time, had so far only managed to weave a strangely shaped wooden basket as its greatest achievement.
And on the next day after finishing weaving it, it immediately forgot the starting method for weaving the wooden basket, which made Su Ran laugh.
Su Ran was quickly weaving the winnowing basket when the corner of her eye flashed, and she suddenly felt the water surface move.
She was delighted in her heart and quickly dropped the half-woven winnowing basket in her hands, got up, and walked to the fishing rod.
The fishing line hanging in the water was already taut, and the clear water surface already showed the dark blue-black fish back of that large fish.
“Ran Ran, fish!”
When Su Ran got up, Hui immediately curiously followed over.
When it saw the water splashes from the hooked fish thrashing in the water, it slightly widened its eyes, its black pupils dilating, immediately filling with eagerness to try.
Hui didn’t like fish this kind of food that much.
Among the seafood brought back from the seaside before, there were occasionally a few small fish, but Hui had always been uninterested in those fish.
At this time, seeing this fish in the river, Su Ran didn’t see much drooling expression on its face either.
But perhaps because this fish was big enough, a hunting desire stirred on its face.
This fish was quickly flung onto the river beach by Su Ran.
The fish wasn’t small, and its strength was even greater.
Su Ran pressed it to the ground several times, but it thrashed and slipped away each time; finally, she simply picked up a stone and smashed it directly on its head, and after two hits, this large green fish finally stopped moving.
Only now could Su Ran properly examine this fish.
This fish weighed about three jin, with a blue-black fish back and white fish belly; it was the kind of fish that cat-type beastmen often hunted.
This kind of fish had a very large fish head, and Su Ran thought it was very suitable for making spicy fish head.
But she didn’t want to eat fish head today; she only wanted to drink soup.
Su Ran rebaited the fish hook and continued fishing.
At the same time, she brought over a large wooden basin from the rain shelter, filled it with water, planning to put newly caught fish in it later.
Now, the things placed in the rain shelter were no longer just firewood.
Su Ran had taken out many bottles and jars, baskets and wooden baskets that were previously in the bird’s nest and placed them in the rain shelter.
Otherwise, the bird’s nest was such a small space; if there were too many things, it would not only be inconvenient for her and Hui to move around, but she would also always worry that the bird’s nest couldn’t bear the weight and would break.
Anyway, the beastmen here were simple and pure, not even understanding the concept of “stealing,” let alone doing sneaky things.
Then Su Ran took out the scallop knife and began scaling the green fish she had caught.
This kind of green fish clearly had more fish scales than the fish Su Ran had eaten before; from the fish back to the belly, it was covered layer upon layer with fish scales.
And the fish scales were very hard, a bit difficult to scrape.
Su Ran spent quite a while before finally scaling the entire fish.
The fish head had already been smashed by her two hits, and she didn’t plan to keep it, directly cutting it off and throwing it away.
Then she cut open the fish belly and dug out the guts bit by bit, throwing them away together.
Fishing was another novel thing for Hui.
While Su Ran was processing that fish, it had already forgotten about learning to weave the winnowing basket and directly squatted by the fishing rod set up at the riverbank, refusing to leave.
Its long big tail slowly swept back and forth behind it, its ears on top of its head straight and erect facing forward, the ear tips twitching from time to time.
Its pair of light green eyes tightly stared at the clear river water; every time it saw a school of fish swim by, it would excitedly lean its body forward uncontrollably, as if the next second it would reach out to grab!
Although a wolf was always guarding by the fishing rod, making excited noises from time to time that scared away fish about to bite the hook, the second fish still hooked very quickly.
This fish was even bigger than the previous one.
Hui imitated Su Ran and flung this fish onto the ground too; Su Ran hurriedly ran over to grab it.
Then she found that this fish’s body was so thick that her two hands couldn’t even encircle it, and in its strenuous struggle, she couldn’t lift it at all.
In the end, Hui picked up this fish and, under Su Ran’s direction, threw it into the wooden basin that was already filled with water.
Then Su Ran discovered that this fish directly filled the entire wooden basin.
So she simply put away the fishing rod.
These two fish were enough anyway; the fish in this river didn’t seem very smart, constantly coming to the riverbank to watch the excitement even with Hui messing around like that. She thought that if her strength were enough, next time she could just catch them by hand.
This summer was still very long; Su Ran felt that guarding this river meant she wouldn’t lack fish to eat.
When she had time, she planned to flip over the stones in the river to see if there were river shrimp or something.
Although there was a lot of seafood found before, perhaps due to the living environment, she had hardly found any shrimp.
Su Ran quite liked eating shrimp.
Time soon reached noon.
The sun at this time was a bit scorching.
Su Ran moved her sitting position back to the rain shelter, but this time she sat directly under the rain shelter.
The large green fish kept in the wooden basin was also moved by her into the rain shelter with Hui’s help, to avoid it being sun-dried to death by the scorching sunlight.
Although it would die by dinnertime anyway, living a bit longer was a bit longer!
A small campfire had already been lit not far in front of the rain shelter, and the fish soup was already boiling.
Usually, Su Ran and Hui, including the other beastmen, generally followed a two-meals-a-day system.
This pot of fish soup today wasn’t much in quantity, and Su Ran didn’t make other food either, so it didn’t count as a proper meal.
Su Ran had considered whether to drag Hui to change their current eating habit to three meals a day, but after thinking about it, she gave up.
To be honest, in the more than a month since she came here, she had already started slowly getting used to the two-meals-a-day life herself, so there was no need to change the beastmen’s living habits.
Moreover, if they added another meal at noon, they would spend the whole day just cooking, with no time for anything else!
While the fish soup was simmering, Su Ran continued weaving the half-finished winnowing basket to completion.
At this point, Hui had lost its desire to learn weaving things; it imitated Su Ran by laying an animal hide on the ground under the rain shelter’s eaves, with the extending eaves casting a patch of shade on the hide.
Hui sprawled boldly on the animal hide and soon started snoring.
As for why it lay on the ground instead of inside the rain shelter.
It was really because the area inside the rain shelter was too small, already piled full with firewood and sundries.
Now, the only remaining small space was fully occupied by Su Ran and the pile of willow branches prepared for weaving in front!
