Chapter 100 Grilled Oyster with Garlic (c)
Translated by Gumihou
Edited by Gumihou
After tidying herself up, Shiyu popped out of her space and was immediately assaulted by a foul smell. The smell was so repulsive that she nearly collapsed to her knees. She cursed her enhanced senses.
Bleh! What happened? Isn’t she still at Feng Luo’s treehouse?
Confused, she looked around her but sensed very few human lifeforms around. Curious, she leapt out of the treehouse and ran through the Feng Estate. The entire place was very quiet. She rushed through the gate and stopped in the middle of an eerily silent street.
Where are all the people? [1] [1] Suddenly, she spotted someone hurrying over. They were clearly guards with weapons strapped to their waists. As they passed her, she saw they were carrying some injured people on their backs.
Instinct made her look towards the sea and suddenly, she understood. The Eastern Sea Turbulence has started. Spiritual Sea Beasts were now attacking the beach.
Without hesitation, Shiyu ran straight for the beach. When she arrived there, she encountered several familiar faces. Imperial College students were huddled together in a loose circle. The fresh blood on their bodies indicated that they had just been in a fight against Spiritual Beasts.
One of them spotted Shiyu and greeted her familiarly, “Little Miss Shi, you’re here too! Are you looking for Feng Luo and Lin Fan? They’re over there in that little forest.” He pointed at a cluster of coconut trees. “Just go that way and you’ll see them.”
“Many thanks!” said Shiyu gratefully. She was about to leave when the ground below her feet trembled. Suddenly, a giant octopus tentacle burst out from the sand and wrapped itself around one of the resting Cultivators. The rest of the giant octopus forced itself out of the sand, and they could finally see the bulbous head and more importantly, the giant mouth with needle-sharp teeth between its eight legs. The octopus was currently pulling the screaming College student towards its mouth.
It was the same College mate that had greeted Shiyu earlier.
“Mother f*cker!” the people around them reacted and all kinds of weapons appeared. They rushed the octopus and slashed at the tentacle that had caught their friend. However, for some reason though the tentacle looked soft and flexible, the various bladed weapons could not cut into its surprisingly durable body.
Supreme Indifferent appeared in Shiyu’s hand. The horrified expression on her College mate’s face made her curse and she leapt towards the tentacle.
“Use Spiritual Power!” Fat Cat’s voice snapped.
The first cut barely made a scratch. The second cut, imbued by Spiritual Powers, lopped off the whole tentacle.
“ROAR!!!!” the octopus rolled over in pain, nearly crushing some of the Cultivators next to it. It soon got to its feet and began stretching the rest of tentacles towards Shiyu. Its malevolent eyes staring right at her.
Shiyu, however, had used up her bravado for the day. She secured the cut off tentacle into her space ring, turned around and ran for it! The group behind her stared, dumbfounded.
That girl just cut off a whole tentacle leg with a single slice!
The rescued College mate screeched, “What are you standing there for?! Kill that octopus! I want grilled octopus tonight!”
The commotion caused by the octopus monster soon brought out the people hidden within the coconut grove. Lin Fan led the charge. The moment he spotted the giant octopus, he threw the long sword in his hand and pinned the octopus to the ground. The immobile creature was immediately mobbed by other Cultivators and was sliced to pieces.
Cruel?
Perhaps.
However, if you come out here to eat people. Don’t be surprised if you’re surrounded by humans and be eaten in return. Benevolence and kindness have their limits. Being too kind-hearted would only bring suffering to one’s head.
“Are you alright?” Lin Fan leapt over to where Shiyu had stopped and noticed that she looked very bright-eyed and energetic. Her aura had changed, she must have successfully broken through. Relief suffused through him.
“Even if that guy’s alright, I’m not alright, ah…” a weak and miserable Feng Luo draped himself over one of Lin Fan’s shoulders. He sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and whined, “Lin Fan, there are so many Sea Beasts on my side, I’m dying from exhaustion. Dying!” Then, his tired eyes finally registered Shiyu’s presence.
In a flash, he straightened up as though given a shot of vitality…
… only to drape himself tearfully against Shiyu’s shoulder, “You’re finally here!!! I miss you so much! Especially your Grilled Matsutake, Grilled Rabbit, and Grilled Pork Rind. Elder bro, you must take charge of our noontime meal, ah!” he wailed unrestrainedly.
“… …” Shiyu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this.
She used to think that Feng Luo was a typical upright and noble young master, a gentleman to the core with a strong sense of nobles oblige. However, for some reason, he was acting really out of character today, ah. Something serious must have happened to make him go crazy…
Shiyu took a closer look at the two people before her. They looked haggard. There was dried blood on their person. Shiyu’s heart throbbed with pain at their miserable appearance. She must do her best to take care of them.
In fact… a quick look around showed that everyone on the beach has that exhausted, half-wild look in their eyes that was just a few steps away from going mad with exhaustion.
“Alright, you just wait. I’ll start a fire now. That’s right, what happened to my brothers and sister?” Shiyu asked.
“Don’t worry, Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu are under my mother’s care. Xiao Qi’s fighting the Sea Beast with us and she’s resting now. Wen Xian’s been looking out for her. I expect that she’ll soon bounce back more lively than ever when she sees you.” Feng Luo answered quickly, “You do your thing, just know there are a lot of us here. You’ll most likely get lots of ingredients too.”
“I understand. Since they offer themselves up so freely, let’s feast on them. Just place all the crabs, shrimps, fish and shellfish somewhere around here. I’ll take care of the rest.” With so many people taking part in the battle, she might not be able to keep up. She’ll have to think of ways to maximise her cooking capacity.
“By the way, do you know who has a cooking pot or cauldron here? The bigger the better,” Shiyu added.
When it came to cauldrons, most Cultivators would have one on their person. Especially those who like to refine medicines. Soon, five or six standard size cauldrons were handed over. An extra-large, man-height cauldron appeared with a resounding thump, contributed by Grand Elder Feng.
The idea was to make soup with these cauldrons. Soups are the best food for quick digestion and warming up a tired person. However, Shiyu did not plan to just make plain water soup. The fishbones and fish heads she had saved up from Fat Cat’s Sashimi were quickly thrown into the cauldrons, followed by mushroom slices [2] and other mountain treasures. She also pulled out some medicinal herbs from her space, checked their age and making sure they were the less conspicuous 800-year-old herbs before slicing them up and chucking them into the makeshift soup pots.
To speed up cooking, Shiyu used her Blue Spiritual Fire to heat up all the pots to the boiling point, before asking the logistics soldiers to build up some fire beneath the pots to continue the cooking process.
As for the other seafood, considering the number of people here even if she has three heads and six arms it would not be enough. Therefore, she called over the logistics staffers to help. Some people were sent to make chilli oil [3], others were in charge of cutting up aromatics and a larger group of people cleaned the seafood. Once she had set up this assembly line of workers, work would go much faster. To her surprise, she found Gan Ping among the logistical staffers too. Apparently, he came to curb the advancement of Sea Beasts when things became critical, but helped out here when things were calmer. With an expert knife master here, Shiyu’s job went much faster.
After teaching the logistical staffers to apply Mala Oil and chopped aromatics onto the seafood, it was up to Shiyu to grill them with her fire. Her fire is a very good thing to have. Anything cooked with her fire would taste good quickly. However, since she has to cook 200 portions of seafood at the same time, the fire could not be too strong or she would be left with ashes.
Therefore, Shiyu was very careful. The number of times her fire fluctuate uncontrollably gradually lessened and she grew more bold and proficient. Finally, she found it very troublesome to cook this way and had the logistics people just plate the seafood after which she just passes her fire over the food and grilling them directly. This way, one side was fragrant and crisp, while the other was nicely steamed. Having two types of texture in one dish gave off a perfectly balance dish.
[Gumihou: … fine, let’s just pass it off as Cultivation Cooking]
[1] Additional Information: Slow down the narrative for drama [2] Shiyu also threw in Matsutake mushrooms but… to be honest, Matsutake is famed for its rather distinctive smell that’s more of an ‘acquired taste’. So… please don’t, Shiyu.
Just because something is expansive and rare doesn’t mean it’s delicious, okay? Sharks fin is one example. It’s expensive and rare but has very little nutrition and no taste to it. It’s meant to show off one’s wealth and not for nutritional purposes!
[3] Chilli oil? Why chilli oil? Shiyu, why chilli oil?
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