WS - Chapter 42

Chapter 42

No matter how indignant the viewers on StarNet were about the Production Team keeping the boxed meals all to themselves, that anger could never reach Wilderness Planet in time.

Director Zhang unhurriedly gnawed the last of a plump, tender five-spice chicken leg, shoveled in a couple mouthfuls of rice, then his chopsticks reached once more for the tomato-sauce pork chop in his lunchbox.

"Director Zhang, is Wang Daming still not back?" Feng Qianqian, holding two lunchboxes, interrupted Director Zhang's meal.

"Mm, set his aside for now," Director Zhang said dismissively. His chopsticks, which had paused for a moment, swiftly stabbed into the pork chop.

Feng Qianqian thought for a moment, then swallowed the words about how food from the Thermal Storage Box would soon go cold. Silently, she set Wang Daming's boxed meal and the one left for Captain Yang together under a tree on a spot she had covered with leaves.

Forget the food getting cold—Director Zhang probably wouldn't care at all even if others didn't get to eat.

Gazing at the two lunchboxes sitting side by side under the tree, Feng Qianqian again recalled the Thermal Storage Box they had unearthed earlier. Inside, after taking the Production Team's share and Zhao Da and Zhao Er grabbing an extra two each, four boxed meals were left in the Thermal Storage Box, destined to be cleared out once the program ended.

They'd rather throw them away than give them to the cast to eat, huh.

Was it really okay to change the plan on the fly like this because of that earlier snake encounter... Feng Qianqian couldn't quite understand.

The boxed meals in the Thermal Storage Box were tasty and ample. After a chicken leg, a pork chop, a few more mouthfuls of rice, and a couple sips of soup, Director Zhang was just about full.

Director Zhang casually closed the lid and set his lunchbox on the ground, then spoke to Feng Qianqian not far away: "I'll go check on Wang Daming. After you finish eating, gather the leftover lunchboxes and put them back in the case later, so whoever comes to clean up can deal with them easily."

Feng Qianqian nodded.

Director Zhang clasped his hands behind his back and was about to take a leisurely walk to digest his food and check on Wang Daming's progress by the stream, when the Dog, who had been tearing around the woods in wild, zigzagging sprints, suddenly bolted to his feet. Bowing its head, it tried to nuzzle the lunchbox he had left on the ground.

"Shoo, shoo..." Director Zhang frowned and nudged the Dog away with his foot, then raised his voice to Feng Qianqian: "Keep an eye on it; don't let it rummage through the trash. If it makes a mess everywhere, what will the cleanup crew think when they see it?"

Feng Qianqian set down her chopsticks and first went to tidy away Director Zhang's lunchbox.

The Dog, nudged twice by Director Zhang's foot, seemed to recognize the refusal to share any food. It whimpered a couple of times and then dashed off like a puff of smoke.

Feng Qianqian picked up Director Zhang's lunchbox; it felt heavy in her hand. She thought to herself that less than half of the food inside had probably been eaten.

The Wilderness Journey...

Over here, food was wasted like this; over there, they were even eating a venomous snake they'd killed...

Feng Qianqian heaved a gentle sigh.

To Feng Qianqian, eating a venomous snake compared to eating a boxed meal was a truly miserable affair.

But for the cast, who had no idea boxed meals even existed, just having something to eat was already a delight. And Yu Nianbing's cooking had undoubtedly given them an enormous surprise.

As they say, plans can never keep up with changes.

Originally, Song Shiyue had thought that fishing up two Stone Pots from the stream and getting a fire going to cook the snake meat would be a matter of less than two or three minutes. An hour-long noon break should be more than enough for them to enjoy a nice snake soup.

However, after Zhuang Jiachuan and Guan Yongyi successively followed her down to the stream, Song Shiyue had her reservations after all, and the back-and-forth ended up wasting quite a bit of time.

Moreover, the snake meat needed to marinate for a while. By the time it was actually ready to go into the pot, only about half an hour of the break remained...

"If we stew the snake soup now, isn't it a little too late..." Yu Nianbing, who had originally planned to roast first and then stew, was now uncertain. She flipped the snake meat with a twig, leaned forward to sniff it twice, then hesitated, "And this snake meat is fishier than I expected. I don't know if it's because we lack cooking wine, but even after marinating so long, there's still a bit of a smell."

"A little fishiness like that—after we roast it, you probably won't smell it," Song Shiyue said, glancing at the water that had been boiling for a moment in front of her. "But if we make soup, the taste might be stronger. How about just roasting all of it? Let those jicama cook by themselves? Would that taste good?"

"Plain vegetables certainly won't be as tasty as a meat soup, but if there's no other way, it can't be helped—and stewing definitely won't cook the snake as fast as roasting." Yu Nianbing didn't want to disappoint Song Shiyue, but she still had to say it up front.

"Wait, I remember..." Song Shiyue strained to recall some knowledge from when Earth was still normal. "What if we just stew the bones? Half an hour should be enough to draw out the flavor, right? Frying fish helps remove the fishiness—so what about frying the snake bones?"

"..." Yu Nianbing thought about it, then shook her head. "Frying means we'd need to find a thin stone slab and heat it up—that's too time-consuming. And we don't have oil. If we used the drippings from roasting the snake meat, it'd be too little and too much trouble."

"Fine..." Sitting ramrod straight, having racked her brain to the fullest, Song Shiyue let her shoulders slump in disappointment.

Yu Nianbing "..." Why did she hate seeing this person like this so much?

It was like a fine lamp covered in dust, a beautiful moon troubled by dark clouds. Why couldn't she just stay bright and energetic all the time?

"Let's roast it. If we can separate the snake bones, roast them and see—the principle should be similar—see if we can remove the fishiness, then stew them after roasting." As she spoke, Yu Nianbing tossed the ginger slices she had earlier washed, sliced, and set aside into the Stone Pot boiling in front of her. "Then add extra ginger, and leave the rest to fate."

"Can we do it that way?" Song Shiyue, like a little dog spotting a bone, leaned her whole head a bit closer toward Yu Nianbing.

Yu Nianbing suppressed the urge to tap her on the head and urged, "I don't know how to separate the snake meat. If you can, hurry up—we don't have much time."

"Okay, of course I can." Song Shiyue quickly stood up, picked up the Stone Knife that Ning Chuyang had left aside after chopping the jicama, and grabbed one of the snakes. She inserted the knife through the lower opening, cut upward to the left and right, then set down the Stone Knife. Taking the snake in both hands, with two swift motions she tore the meat off both sides, leaving a complete snake spine with only a little meat clinging to the tail tip.

The three snakes had already been scored with many small slits by Yu Nianbing during marinating. The way Song Shiyue tore them apart made it look like two bonito flakes being peeled off, quite an amusing sight.

Without another word, Song Shiyue cut and tore, tore and cut, then cut and tore again. In no time, the three snakes had become six strips of snake meat and three snake skeletons.

Around this time, Guan Yongyi and Mu Xingzhou, who had gone to look for more firewood, and Zhuang Jiachuan and Ning Chuyang, who had gone to find eating utensils, all returned one after another.

Song Shiyue selected a few branches of appropriate thickness from the firewood. She also took several large leaves—which Yu Nianbing had washed earlier while cleaning the seasonings—rolled them into cups, ladled some boiling water from the other Stone Pot that was slowly cooling, and used it to rinse the branches.

The lemongrass had also been washed by Yu Nianbing earlier; now they just needed to pick out long, intact pieces and use them to tie each snake bone and snake meat strip to the branches.

With firewood and an open flame already going, setting up another campfire beside the two Stone Pot stoves was a matter of minutes.

Soon, the aroma of roasting meat began to fill the air.

With not much time left, Yu Nianbing couldn't strictly follow the timing and sequence she used to stew chicken soup. The snake bones were not roasted long, only until they started to take on a bit of color, before being tossed into the pot. Along with them went the one large and two small jicama that Ning Chuyang had cut into chunks earlier.

There was about a pound and a half of jicama. Once cooked, each person could get a little over two ounces, along with the snake meat—it counted as a decent supplement.

Mu Xingzhou and Guan Yongyi had brought back plenty of firewood, and now they put all their effort into stoking the fire high. Soon the soup began to turn cloudy and white. But for the moment it was unclear whether the snake bones deserved more credit or the jicama played the bigger role.

Zhuang Jiachuan glanced a few times at the boiling soup, thought about it, and then quietly walked down the slope.

When he reached the stream, he saw that Wang Daming was still standing in the middle of the water, bent over, scooping here and groping there, as industrious as someone at an agri-planet farm-stay experience hand-planting rice seedlings. On the bank beside Wang Daming, three or four rather large stones had already been piled up.

Zhuang Jiachuan swept a cursory glance over the scene and quickly lost interest in Wang Daming and his stones.

Too round, too big—none of them were suitable...

When Director Zhang, hands clasped behind his back, sauntered over to the stream to digest his meal, he discovered someone else in the water besides Wang Daming. He immediately gestured for Wang Daming to come ashore to talk nearby.

"What's he doing down there?" Director Zhang remembered that just as he left the woods, he had glanced at the Camera Central Control System; Zhuang Jiachuan had still been up on the slope then.

Only now, hearing Director Zhang's words, did Wang Daming notice Zhuang Jiachuan. To Director Zhang's question, he could only shake his head.

"Tsk." Director Zhang clicked his tongue with a touch of disdain, then looked at the stones Wang Daming had piled on the bank. "All these stones—you fished them out?"

Wang Daming nodded rapidly. "Yeah, they all look like stone pots, right? Can I eat now? Director Zhang, have you eaten?"

Director Zhang crouched down and scrutinized the stones. Indeed, they all had rough exteriors with a fairly smooth depression, and although they might be a bit less practical than the two Song Shiyue's group had found, their appearance was quite similar.

"They do look pretty alike. Alright, you can stop groping around now." Director Zhang stood up as he spoke.

"So can I eat now?" Wang Daming could smell the aroma of food on Director Zhang. Having done hard physical work, his stomach was about to start growling.

Director Zhang glanced at Zhuang Jiachuan, who had rolled up his sleeves and was groping about in the stream, then shook his head and said, "Wait. See what he pulls out, then go check the spot where he found it, and then come back to eat. Don't worry, your food's been saved."

The hopeful little flame in Wang Daming's eyes puffed and went out.

Zhuang Jiachuan had actually just come down to grope around casually, not really expecting to find anything.

But perhaps when you walk through enough bad luck, you eventually step on a lucky break.

Wang Daming had been squatting alone on the bank for less than two minutes when he saw Zhuang Jiachuan's face light up with joy as he hauled something like a stone slab out of the water. Before Wang Daming could go over for a closer look, Zhuang Jiachuan quickly rinsed it with stream water and hurried ashore, heading toward the slope.

That... was just a stone slab, right...

Wang Daming hesitated, feeling that the smile on Zhuang Jiachuan's face just now didn't seem like someone who'd picked up a slab of stone, but rather someone who'd pulled out a gold ingot.

As it happened, it really was a "gold" slab.

With a lid on the stew pot, the speed of the soup-making doubled.

Zhuang Jiachuan had finally played the hero successfully, earning everyone's sincere praise.

Yu Nianbing, however, studied the thin stone slab covering the pot again and again. The slab was slightly smaller than the pot and very flat; once placed on top, it left just the right gaps for steam to escape. Aside from its ordinary shape, its practicality was practically perfect. She had certainly thought about how a lid would allow the pot to stew faster. It was just that she hadn't dared to say so, afraid that Song Shiyue would go back into the water and fish out a matching lid.

In the end, Song Shiyue hadn't gone. Zhuang Jiachuan had felt around and brought back a lid...

Could it really be such a coincidence... Yu Nianbing couldn't help looking at Song Shiyue again.

The latter was beaming with genuine delight, chatting with Zhuang Jiachuan about stone-groping techniques in the stream.

Was it her?

It probably... wasn't...

But still, could it be such a coincidence?

Blame it on Song Shiyue for having exploited that little stream too thoroughly before; even when she did nothing now, it still invited some suspicion from Yu Nianbing.

The snake skewers tied with lemongrass sizzled fragrantly. From the covered Stone Pot, the rising steam gradually brewed a rich, savory soup aroma.

Seeing the food nearly done, especially the skewers that looked just about ready to eat...

Zhuang Jiachuan sighed inwardly and finally voiced the long-brewing words that were destined to break the current harmonious mood: "Captain Yang should be considered one of us, right? I've seen him all morning—he hasn't gone over to the Production Team's side. Shouldn't lunch count him in too?"

Because Zhuang Jiachuan's earlier water-groping had brought back the pot lid that greatly boosted the soup-making, his face-saving remark didn't cause anyone's expression to sour too much; however, the looks cast at him mostly carried a sentiment along the lines of "Are you dense?"

"I think Captain Yang belongs with the Production Team. Did you see him lift a finger while we were cooking? He was just sitting against a tree over there, resting with his eyes closed." Ning Chuyang tilted her chin toward the higher slope in the distance and added, "The team leader can't mean someone who just sits back and enjoys the results, right?"

Everyone had worked pretty hard on this meal. Ning Chuyang always drew a clear line between right and wrong and was unwilling to tolerate any sand in her eyes.

"But along the road ahead, there might be times when we need to rely on him. Also, the wild scallions we're using—Captain Yang was the one who led us to find them, right? That counts as his contribution too." Zhuang Jiachuan knew very well that these were all nice words, not honest ones. But for the sake of getting the program back on track, he had no choice but to say them.

Even without him, I could have seen them too... Yu Nianbing grumbled inwardly, but didn't voice it.

Actually, what Zhuang Jiachuan said wasn't unreasonable; Yu Nianbing could understand that. If the setting and the people were different, she would have been willing to agree.

But for some reason, thinking that most of this had been painstakingly obtained by Song Shiyue at the risk of being discovered for her unusual strength, Yu Nianbing felt reluctant. Sharing with the ones who counted as teammates and had put in some effort was one thing. But Captain Yang... recalling his earlier unprovoked provocation at Song Shiyue, Yu Nianbing simply couldn't bring herself to second Zhuang Jiachuan's words.

Even...

Yu Nianbing glanced at the Dog, who was scurrying up from below the slope.

To put it bluntly, she'd rather feed the Dog than give any to Captain Yang...

The world was vast, the sky was high. The Dog ran and ran with abandon, bouncing and leaping.

So what if the fragrant boxes were off-limits? There were tasty things in the water, too.

What could possibly thwart a Dog who wanted to eat?

Maybe it was too free, too joyful.

By the time it caught the scent it should have stayed away from, it was already a bit too late.

Eyes met.

Song Shiyue blinked.

The Dog shuddered with fright. Before its blustering bark could come out, the little fish in its mouth plopped onto the ground.

"Fish, huh..." Song Shiyue let out a meaningful, soft sigh.

Yu Nianbing looked at Song Shiyue in some shock.

Although... once the snake was eaten, there wouldn't be much food left.

But... we haven't reached such desperate straits that we need to take the Dog's food, have we?

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