When Did Her Cooking Get So Good?

He reached out to take the fish ball and wild vegetable soup that An Yao handed him. Though it was hot enough to burn his tongue, he finished it in a few bites like a child who was really hungry.

“Delicious, what kind of meat is this?” Jin's long eyes brightened. He wanted more.

This round thing looked like a fruit, but when he took a bite, it was bursting with juicy meat.

It was made of meat.

He had never tasted meat so tender and flavorful before.

“These are fish meatballs, made from fish meat.” An Yao mumbled while eating, and in fact, for her, this bowl of soup was just average.

However, the natural taste of the fish meat in the beast world was delicious, even without adding too many seasonings.

“Fish meat?” Jin's eyes flashed with surprise.

“Yeah, fish might have many bones, but as long as you remove the bones from the fish properly, it's really tasty. It won't poke your throat or make you sick. You can make fish soup directly with fish meat, and you can also make fish balls, or braised fish, grilled fish, sweet and sour fish, and so on. I'll make them for you when we have the chance.”

Seeing his surprise and confusion, An Yao smiled. She then served him another bowl of meat soup from the stone pot.

Jin finished it quickly.

The appetite of the beastmen was quite large. They could eat a whole pot a meal.

An Yao thought to herself that she would need to get a bigger pot in the future. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to afford to feed her wolf cub.

River shrimps and river crabs needed to be kept in a water tank for a day or two to get rid of the sand.

An Yao took out the five or six pounds of crabs and shrimps they caught last time from the tank.

She first used a coarse bamboo sieve to separate the shrimp and small prawns, which could then be dried and crushed into shrimp powder seasoning. A little shrimp powder added to stir-fry or soup could enhance the flavor.

And those half-palm-sized river prawns were directly put into cold water and blanched by An Yao.

The environment of the beast world was good, without pollution, and the river prawns had been rested, so there was no need to remove the sand vein. They could be blanched with a little bit of onion, ginger, and wild vegetables, and they'd be delicious.

An Yao went outside and picked up two clean wooden sticks to use as chopsticks, then stirred the boiling water in the stone pot.

The shrimp shells turned reddish, and their backs started to curl.

They were done! She quickly fished out a dozen or so white-boiled prawns from the stone pot and put them in a stone bowl before passing it to Jin.

“What is this...”

The young man hesitated as he looked at the bowl of “water insects” in front of him.

No beastman had ever eaten these “water insects.”

However, the rich aroma wafting from the bowl made him unable to resist picking up a shrimp and put it in his mouth.

Hmm, it tasted strange.

He chewed on it twice, struggling to swallow it, and then said slowly, “It's so tough, it's choking my throat.”

“Tough?”

An Yao paused in her actions, staring blankly for a moment.

When she raised her head, she saw him picking up another white-boiled shrimp and directly stuffing it into his mouth.

That's when she realized that Jin hadn't removed the heads or shells of the shrimp. He was eating the shrimp as this!

Although beastmen had good teeth, this wasn't how shrimp were supposed to be eaten.

How naive he was!

She suppressed her urge to laugh, quickly reaching out to stop him.

“It's not supposed to be eaten like this. You need to remove the head and shell first before eating it. Like this, let me show you...”

She peeled a white-boiled prawn as a demonstration, put it in her mouth, and exclaimed with a muffled voice, “It's tender!”

Jin was quite clever. After watching her do it twice, he learned quickly.

Mimicking An Yao's technique of removing the head and tail, he exposed the pale, tender, pink flesh of the shrimp and put it in his mouth.

The juicy and tender texture exploded on his taste buds. His eyes lit up, pleasantly surprised. He swallowed several bites in quick succession. It was even more delicious than the vegetable fish balls from earlier.

"Where did you learn all this?" Jin licked his lips, his gaze shifting to An Yao, who was busy with her tasks. He furrowed his brows in bewilderment.

She had somehow managed to find a dozen dried reed stalks from somewhere, then proceeded to wrap them around the large crab with its bluish-gray shell, after draining its blood. She bound its claws and legs with the reeds, fashioning a makeshift rack with several wooden sticks placed over the stone pot.

Could this even be eaten?

Jin's eyelids twitched slightly. Suppressing the profound doubts in his heart, he scrutinized the female before him once more.

...It seemed like she had undergone a significant transformation in both her behavior and culinary skills since that last incident when she had knocked herself unconscious. Moreover, she had improved her cooking to the point where she could make these rejected foods, deemed inedible by the beastmen, taste even better than wild boar.

An Yao's heart skipped a beat, fearing that he had figured out something.

However, she maintained her cheerful smile, acting as if nothing was amiss. She replied calmly, “Well... I usually have a lot of free time at home, so I like to study some odd and interesting things. Through a series of coincidences, I discovered many delicious foods.”

“And you're usually out hunting, not often at home. So, it's normal that you don't know about these things.”

Her explanation sounded reasonable and coherent, which left Jin pondering.

Indeed, he rarely stayed at home.

An Yao had never liked him since they were young, and she treated him with disdain and violence every day, so he naturally kept his distance.

He really didn't take the initiative to get to know her much.

After both of them had their fill, An Yao heard someone calling her name from outside.

Going out, she saw a few beastmen sent by the chieftain bringing... half of a wild boar, along with a few small wild animals and chickens, all piled up in the courtyard.

The hunting team members divided their hunted food into two parts: one half for the grain storage and the other half for their own consumption. This rule encouraged the beastmen to hunt more diligently.

The half-carcass of the wild boar had already had its entrails removed, but the blood was still oozing, and the beast world's scorching sun had caused a foul smell to fill the air, attracting flies and mosquitoes.

“It stinks so bad...”

Overwhelmed by the stench, An Yao’s eyes watering.

At this time, Jin also walked out of the house. Seeing the scene before him, he frowned.

“Keep your distance and go back inside. I'll handle it.”

With those words, he took off his beastskin skirt, transformed into his beast form, a nearly three-meter-long black wolf.

The large black wolf was lean in build, with symmetrical and slender limbs. The scar on his left face added a touch of fierceness to his bearing.

The black wolf carried the nearly hundred-kilogram half-wild boar and ran to the riverbank.

An Yao didn't want to lag behind, so she followed with a kitchen knife, a piece of beastskin cloth, and a backpack.

By the time she caught up, Jin had already returned to his human form. He quickly put on his beastskin skirt to avoid revealing anything unsightly. He spat out a mouthful of blood, then crouched by the river to wash the blood from half his face.

Later, the two of them worked together to clean the wild boar. An Yao skillfully cut the half-carcass into dozens of pieces of meat with varying degrees of fatness and put them into a large basket.

Jin shouldered the basket and carried it back home.

This wild boar not only had a plump build, but its meat was also of good quality. Even after removing the entrails and bones, the remaining meat pieces weighed nearly 50 kilograms, enough for them to eat for quite a while!

Jin nodded.

He was lucky this time. He rarely encountered such a large wild boar.

When the two returned home, it was already dark. The basket of wild boar meat couldn't be processed in time, so they left it at the door for now.

After a day of hard work, An Yao was tired.

She rubbed her sore arms and legs, then climbed onto the bed covered with soft beastskin and fell asleep.

Jin, on the other hand, remained in his beast form and squatted at the door to sleep. His wolf ears remained perked up, and his eerie green wolf eyes flickered like two dancing will-o'-the-wisps in the vast night, guarding against other nearby beastmen or wild animals that might sneak into the tribe to steal the meat.