Chapter 83: You’re So Weird!
Gray was awakened by the rich aroma of fish soup.
It let out a big yawn and sat up, rubbing its eyes in a daze, then immediately sobered up upon seeing Su Ran.
It “whoosh!” stood up and darted to Su Ran’s side, where she was scooping fish soup with a wooden spoon by the stone pot.
At this time, a bowl of prepared soup was already placed on the nearby stone.
The soup was milky white, steaming with heat.
The fish soup had a nice color, requiring freshly boiled hot water when adding water. For this, Su Ran had boiled a large mug of water in a stainless steel mug beforehand before making the soup.
At this moment, the fish soup Su Ran scooped out contained no fish meat, just pure fish soup.
Because she was afraid there might be stray fish bones inside, and if Gray recklessly swallowed it down its belly and got a fish bone stuck in its throat, she specially stirred it twice with the wooden spoon.
Although the possibility of fish bones was actually very small.
Because this type of fish actually only had one main bone in the middle, with no small bones at all.
Confirming there was no problem, Su Ran handed one of the bowls to Gray, who had already started swallowing saliva nearby.
Drinking fish soup in this weather was actually a bit hot.
After downing a bowl of fish soup, a thin layer of sweat formed on Su Ran’s nose tip, but her whole body felt very comfortable.
Looking at Gray on the side now, it already knew the process of blowing on the soup first to dissipate the heat, but it was still sweating profusely from drinking.
The fresh flavor in the fish soup was very rich; Su Ran had only added a little salt, so the salty taste was faint. The essence simmered out in the soup slid down smoothly like hot milk with one sip.
It was a different taste from the thick fresh sweetness of seafood soup.
After finishing a bowl of fish soup, Su Ran picked a piece of fish meat into her own bowl.
The fish meat was milky white; from the cut cross-section, one could see the main bone embedded in the meat, with the bone being slightly translucent white.
Su Ran poked the chopsticks into the middle of the whole piece of fish meat, and the fully cooked fish meat immediately split off a small piece along the direction of the fish bone growth.
The split fish meat was smooth, forming a sharp pointed shape, so tender that it was visibly obvious even to the naked eye.
Su Ran used chopsticks to shave out the entire fish bone, then carefully checked that there were really no other small bones on the fish meat before putting the now-split-into-three-pieces fish meat into Gray’s bowl—Gray who had long been squatting beside her and had already put a whole piece of fish meat into its mouth, chewing it up directly with the fish bone.
At this moment, Gray was chewing fish meat in its mouth, but its hand movements didn’t stop.
It was awkwardly half-poking and half-picking with chopsticks, maneuvering another piece of fish meat into its own bowl.
It looked like this silly wolf would soon fully master using chopsticks, bidding farewell to the semi-primitive eating method of grabbing hot food with hands.
Su Ran thought to herself, but the chopsticks in her hand picked up the fish bone she had shaved from her bowl and held it in front of Gray.
“Woo? Ran Ran?”
Gray was struggling with the chopsticks in its hand when suddenly a small section of fish bone appeared before its eyes; it doubtfully lifted its head.
“Gray, fish bone!”
Su Ran shook the fish bone in her hand and said to Gray.
Logically speaking, beastmen had high intelligence, so she actually didn’t need to worry so much about Gray getting a fish bone stuck in its throat.
But thinking of the previous times eating fish, where those fish had soft and numerous bones, Gray’s eating method each time was to bite into its mouth, chew a bit, and then around the right time spit out the small bones along with the crushed fish meat residue—essentially just tasting it.
Including now, even though this fish only had one main bone, it was still using the previous eating method.
It seemed it still had a deep impression of the previous fish’s many bones, so it hadn’t thought of a way to pick out the fish bones.
So Su Ran felt it was still necessary to teach the method of eating fish.
However, there were more than this kind of fish in the river; by then they could pick and choose, and for fish with many bones, they didn’t have to eat them unless they were really short on food.
“Fish bone…”
Gray repeated after Su Ran; probably because it had spoken more in Su Ran’s language lately, now when learning new words, it was much smoother than at the beginning.
For most words’ pronunciations, it could say them accurately on the first try.
“Mm, fish bone, cannot eat.”
Su Ran nodded and gestured for Gray to look at the fish bone clamped in her chopsticks, shaking her head.
Gray followed her gaze; after a while, Su Ran suddenly felt that its gaze toward her was a bit strange.
That expression seemed to say: “I know fish bones can’t be eaten, why are you telling me, you’re so weird!”
Su Ran felt embarrassed by its gaze and couldn’t help but cough lightly.
That fish bones can’t be eaten wasn’t the point; how to pick fish bones was the point.
Su Ran ignored Gray’s strange gaze, reached out to take the chopsticks from its hand, and demonstrated the method of picking fish bones for it.
After a few actions from her, the entire section of fish bone came out clean of meat, and Gray’s eyes widened instantly.
Two seconds later, it didn’t try to eat this piece of meat again but had already understood the meaning of Su Ran’s actions.
It turned its head to look at Su Ran, grinning, then pointed at the fish meat in the bowl and said: “No bones left, Ran Ran is so awesome!”
Su Ran: …
Just picking a fish bone, what’s so awesome about that…
With the fish bone trouble gone, Gray’s interest in eating fish immediately surged.
The bowls Su Ran made were large, similar to the bowls used for small noodle bowls in noodle shops.
After she drank a full large bowl of soup and then ate a piece of fish meat, she was stuffed and couldn’t eat more.
So the remaining fish soup and fish meat all went straight into Gray’s belly.
After eating, Gray very consciously took the bowl and chopsticks to the riverside to wash them clean, then extinguished the campfire and walked back to Su Ran’s side.
After eating, Su Ran continued weaving the winnowing basket.
One finished one was already placed in front of her.
By now the time was leaning toward noon, and the sun was a bit hotter.
The shadow under the rain shelter had shifted; the shadow under the eaves where Gray had been before was gone with the movement of the sunlight.
It squatted in the rain shelter at the position directly opposite Su Ran, scratching its ears and cheeks for a while, finally couldn’t resist flying to the nearest tree behind the shed, finding the thickest tree trunk and lying down on it.
After a while, Su Ran looked up at Gray side-lying on the tree.
It had its eyes closed, looking very relaxed.
Its fluffy big tail dangled down from behind, occasionally twitching the tip twice due to some noise Su Ran made, indicating it hadn’t entered deep sleep yet.
This made Su Ran breathe a slight sigh of relief.
After all, it was on a not-very-wide tree trunk; she was quite afraid of its side sleeping posture, in case it accidentally fell to the ground.
Because of the wings, although the wings didn’t affect Gray lying down to sleep, it was still somewhat uncomfortable, so usually when sleeping, Gray preferred sleeping on its side.
