Chapter 87: Fish Enthusiast
Stone brick making on this side of the gravel beach has already been going on for four days.
Su Ran had very good ideas at the beginning.
Making stone bricks twice the size of normal bricks on Earth, the stone bricks produced would all be about the same size.
However, after actually starting to make them, she realized that making the stone bricks exactly the same size was simply not realistic.
Because the stones on the gravel beach are all different sizes to begin with.
If she insisted on making the stone bricks uniform in size, she would need to select stones from those on the gravel beach.
But doing so would not only mean fewer selectable stones, but also waste more time in the process of picking them.
So in the end, Su Ran simply gave up on the idea of making all the stone bricks neatly uniform and exactly the same size. The stone bricks she made, aside from being cubic in shape and uniform in thickness, varied in size from one palm-length to half a meter long.
Su Ran’s stone brick making also went from being unskilled at the start to gradually speeding up.
While for Hui and A Huo and the others, their making speed was already twice that of Su Ran.
The most fundamental reason was still the issue of physical strength.
For the beastmen, stone bricks that they could easily lift with one hand required Su Ran to use both hands with effort to turn over.
For those half-meter-long giant stones, Su Ran wouldn’t even look at them.
Because she simply couldn’t flip them!
To prevent the helping beastmen from getting injured by the sap of black-flowered Malan grass during use, Su Ran made many thick animal hide gloves in advance for everyone.
And in front of each person was placed a stone bowl with fire lit inside.
After the beastmen finished processing each side of a stone brick, they first used fire to handle the side coated with black-flowered Malan grass sap, burning it for a few seconds.
The sap of Malan grass dried very quickly upon encountering fire, almost instantly bubbling upon touching the flame and then condensing into dry powder.
Once condensed into powder, the Malan grass sap no longer had corrosiveness.
This could prevent the beastmen from accidentally being injured by the Malan grass sap on the stones.
Su Ran felt that with one more day tomorrow, the number of stone bricks produced would be about enough.
After that, she could start preparing timber for the roof and doors and windows.
In the evening, as the scorching heat receded, golden sunlight scattered in the woods, casting patches of light and shadow.
At this time, Hui and A Jin, along with Qing Yu, had not yet returned from hunting food for dinner.
A slight wind rose by the riverside, and Su Ran dangled her gloved hands back and forth over the stone bowl with burning flames a few times—
The fingertips of the gloves had been corroded away a layer because they accidentally got stuck to Malan grass sap.
After waiting for the Malan grass sap on the gloves to be baked dry, Su Ran took off the gloves, raised her arm to wipe the fine sweat on her nose, then got up to wash her hands by the river, and by the way check the fish hook she had put in the river half an hour ago to see if it had caught any fish.
As a result, before she even reached the riverside, she already saw the fishing rod stuck in the ground, almost bent into a semicircle due to the pull from the fish biting the hook in the water.
Luckily, the willow branch used for the fishing rod was tough enough; otherwise, if it broke, she would lose both the fish and the hook!
Su Ran hurriedly quickened her steps to the fishing rod, grabbed it with one hand, then turned and ran up the river beach.
After running a few steps and turning her head, she saw a half-meter-long big fish already pulled ashore, bouncing high on the bank nonstop.
Just as Su Ran was about to go over and hold it down, she felt a golden orange shadow suddenly dart out from beside her, and then Xiao Ju’s figure appeared by the riverside.
It picked up the fish with one hand, held it in front of its eyes for two seconds, then happily carried the fish running to Su Ran, holding the fish in front of Su Ran and saying: “Ran Ran, fish, Xiao Ju wants to eat fish balls!”
These past few days, because they were helping Su Ran, Xiao Ju, Yao Yao, and the others also ate breakfast and dinner together with Su Ran and Hui.
During one dinner a couple of days ago, Su Ran made grilled fish and fish ball soup once.
As a result, these two ways of preparing fish meat instantly captured the hearts of Xiao Ju and A Jin, who already loved eating fish!
These two beastmen with feline genes liked the way Su Ran prepared fish meat even more fervently than Hui liked sausage!
“Okay.”
Su Ran nodded to Xiao Ju and took the big fish from her hand.
She had originally wanted to make fish balls to eat today.
The fish caught today was not the previous kind of blue fish.
But a type of fish that was light blue all over.
A few days ago, Su Ran had already tried making this kind of fish and found that compared to the previous blue fish, this blue fish’s meat quality was actually more suitable for making fish soup and fish balls.
The fish soup simmered from this fish was extremely rich and thick, needing only a little salt and no other ingredients to balance the flavor; when drunk, it had a sweet aftertaste with each sip.
And the fish balls made from this fish meat were also more chewy and tender compared to those made from blue fish meat.
Because these past few days they had been making stone bricks on this side of the gravel beach, for convenience, Su Ran and Hui had moved the cooking pot and tools, as well as some stored ingredients like dried seafood and dried fruit, to this side’s stone beach, making fire and cooking directly here every day.
Su Ran first threw the blue fish in her hand into the wooden basin.
Her own portion could be disregarded.
But even so, there were a total of nine beastmen who would eat dinner together tonight.
Among the nine beastmen, besides Hui, there were Xiao Ju and A Jin, Yao Yao and Qing Yu, A Huo and Bai Bai, and Xiao San along with Xiao San’s younger brother, A Feng.
A Feng was also a squirrel beastman.
Unlike beastmen like Hui and A Jin who carried fierce beast genes, A Feng, being a squirrel beastman, was not tall, only a bit taller than Yao Yao.
But its body was very agile, and its movement speed was also extremely fast.
When it moved quickly in the woods, its speed could almost match Hui flying at high speed in the sky.
With the appetites of these nine beastmen, even though this blue fish was large, it still wouldn’t be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth.
Especially with the existence of Xiao Ju and A Jin, these two extreme fish enthusiasts.
After setting down the blue fish, Su Ran turned and walked back to the river beach edge, baited the fish hook, and cast it back into the water.
After casting the fish hook, Su Ran did not leave immediately but squatted by the riverside, looking at the crystal-clear river bottom, pondering the possibility of catching fish barehanded.
Now the ingredients she had on hand were only that one fish, and there was no rush to cook.
Actually, given the number of fish schools in the water, the success rate of her catching fish barehanded was not small.
Mainly, not far away now, that orange cat Xiao Ju had already excitedly jumped into the water and was skillfully starting to splash around barehanded catching fish.
In just these ten-plus minutes, six or seven fish of various sizes and breeds were already thrown onto the river beach in front of her.
A few fish were unwillingly bouncing on the pebble-filled river beach, but in the end, they were all picked up by Bai Bai who ran over with the basin and put into the wooden basin.
