Chapter 1632: Fishing Day (25)_1

Natasha swept into the cabin like a whirlwind, quick and wild. Just as she was about to dash upstairs, she spotted Loki, who had just come in with Gwen Spiderman, holding a deck of cards, heading upstairs.

"Loki, wait a moment." Natasha rushed over to intercept Loki, staring into her green eyes, asking: "What are you going upstairs for?"

"To find Gwen, of course." Loki shrugged, showing Natasha the deck of cards in her hand, saying: "She promised to teach me how to play this card game before the food was ready, but was called upstairs by Shiller to edit an essay before we could start."

"Eh, are you sure she's just going upstairs to edit an essay?"

Loki gave Natasha a somewhat skeptical look, then licked her own lips, pulling a slightly incredulous face: "Natasha, you're not serious? You've fallen right into Shiller's hands, haven't you?"

"I... OK, listen, Loki, I know Shiller is unlikely to lay a hand on a minor, but you also know how wild Miss Gwen's style is. I don't want her staying too long in Shiller's room."

Loki slowly took a couple of steps back, looking at Natasha with an expression that was akin to when they first met. Before she could ask more, Natasha grabbed her arm, saying, "You're going up to find her, right? Then hurry up, preferably bring Gwen back here, that way Shiller is free to prepare the food."

Loki pursed her lips, looking a little stymied, but in the end she just shrugged and headed upstairs. After a short while, she came back down with Gwen Spiderman, who was continually grumbling.

"Gosh, you came just in time, Loki. I almost thought he was gonna eat me." After saying this, she laughed lightly and wrapped an arm around Loki's shoulder, drawing her closer, revealing a mouth of white teeth as she chuckled: "This time we're sisters in adversity, c'mon, let me teach you this card game."

Loki gave a speechless glance, hugging her arms as she quickly went to the couch, saying, "Thirty-plus spelling errors in a five-hundred-word essay. You're really something."

Natasha gives a sigh of relief, but then Shiller emerges from the room again, eyes falling on Gwen and Loki. Natasha quickly steps in between them, forcing a fake smile and saying: "Actually, I was wondering how to play this game as well. Do you mind teaching me?"

"You don't know how to play German Heart Attack?!" Gwen Spiderman looked somewhat surprised, her eyes bulging: "Am I the only party girl here?"

"I'm afraid so, Miss. You can't expect a woman spy from the former Soviet Union to regularly attend crazy American parties. Come on, tell me the rules, perhaps we can team up to win."

Gwen Spiderman immediately rolled her eyes and said: "Quit kidding around, this isn't poker, there's no teamwork involved. Simply put, this is a game that tests responses..."

Gwen Spiderman gave Natasha and Loki a brief introduction to the rules of German Heart Attack. In short, the fifty-six cards each have a different number of fruits printed on them. Everyone takes turns to play their cards and as long as there are more than five of the same fruit on the table, you ring the bell. It's the simplest party game ever.

Gwen Spiderman showed a mysterious smile, waving the deck of cards in her hand, saying: "Sounds a bit childish, doesn't it? You wouldn't understand why it's fun sitting around here, but once you start playing, you'll get it."

Natasha and Loki were both a little puzzled, thinking that this oversized fruit deck of cards would have complex rules, but they were surprisingly simple. So simple it was close to being called idiotic. Who can't do addition and subtraction within five?

Both women, who were older, were full of question marks. They were both confused and deeply concerned about the intelligence of Americans.

"You probably don't have a good sense of it from what I said, so why don't we give it a try." Gwen Spiderman pursed her lips to reveal a mischievous grin, to which Natasha and Loki exchanged glances and reluctantly nodded.

By now Shiller had moved to the bottom of the stairs. Gwen Spiderman waved vigorously at him, saying: "None of us can cook, we'll leave dinner to you guys. We're going to play for a bit, goodbye."

Shiller shook his head, looking somewhat helpless, but still put his hand into his trench coat pocket, then walked out the door.

After Shiller left, Natasha let out a sigh of relief. At the very least, she managed to keep tabs on Gwen Spiderman and Loki. Meanwhile, Gwen Spiderman started to prepare the cards.

The three of them took turns flipping the cards. The first card had two plums, the second card had three bananas. Natasha hesitated for a moment, then remembering the rules that there needed to be five of the same fruit, she retracted her hand.

The fourth card had one lemon, the fifth had two lemons. Everyone took turns playing a round without getting five of the same fruit. It inevitably seemed tedious and bland.

But when the sixth card was thrown out, suddenly there were five bananas. Natasha hesitated for a moment and was thus too slow, but Gwen Spiderman, who was more familiar with the rules, and Loki, who had faster reactions, both reached out to ring the bell at the same time.

Loki was a little quicker, or perhaps Gwen Spiderman held back on purpose since she had spider-sense, either way, Loki's hand reached the bell first, followed by Gwen Spiderman.

It was supposed to be a perfectly normal gesture, but Loki suddenly felt stiff, because she could feel Gwen Spiderman's suggestive stroke on the back of her hand, tracing an arc with her fingers.

Gwen Spiderman withdrew her hand as if nothing had happened, and after a while, Loki leisurely took back her hand as well. Then, in the next two rounds of the game, Loki, known for her intelligence, couldn't correctly solve an addition or subtraction problem within five.

This brilliantly simple game is about 'lost focus resulting in slow reflexes'. If you play it with your best buddies, you might easily spank each other's hands red when ringing the bell, making you think twice the next time you want to grab the bell; otherwise, you might miss it and get another slap.

But, if you're playing with someone you're familiar with, but not too familiar; someone you're fond of, then the action of grabbing the bell, which may involve touching hands, might seem a bit suggestive, and even potentially act as a proactive opportunity for one side.

Natasha had no physical contact with the two of them throughout the game. If she had to ring the bell, it was because the cards she flipped over added up to five exactly, so she rang the bell quickly, or she didn't react at all and didn't even reach out her hand, so she was quite lonely throughout the game.

Then, Gwen Spiderman took out some other fun props she bought, and began to explain the rules of the game of Truth or Dare or Roulette. This was a little more interesting than the humiliatingly simple game of German Cardiac Arthritis, especially the gambling Roulette was very much to Natasha's taste, and the cabin echoed with the laughter of the female agents from time to time.

The atmosphere inside the cabin was getting hotter and the outside wasn't any worse, as the ladies left, the gentlemen known for their decent cooking skills started preparing a feast for the dinner, generally divided into meat preparation area, fish preparation area, and another for carbohydrates or vegetables area.

Nick and Steve, the two Americans, were handling the meat. Gwen Spiderman had gotten fresh cold beef from the S.H.I.E.L.D agents' supermarket. The beef didn't need to be defrosted, Nick had already cut it into small pieces and marinated it, but other parts like lamb ribs and chicken wings were still frozen and were placed aside to thaw.

Ivan brought over a bowl of chopped bell peppers, Nick skewered the meat and peppers together one by one, Steve was on the other side pounding beefsteaks on a chopping board made of tree rounds, sprinkling ground pepper on the surface of the beefsteak.

As always, Shiller was handling the fish, which is actually the hardest part, most people find it messy and tiring, after all, processing a fish involves blood and removing scales, gills, and entrails, the process speed also has to be quick, otherwise, the fish might not taste fresh.

But Shiller managed to exude a certain elegance and simplicity, even an artistic agility while performing such a mundane task.

He fetched a hose from inside the house and placed it next to the largest circular chopping board, picked out a fish from the water tank, picked it up by the tail and slapped it onto the board with a thud. When the fish was stunned, he precisely inserted the blade into the gill part, with a spin of his wrist, the gill was removed.

The boning knife in his hand lightly tapped on the chopping board and scraped the scales off with a few strokes. He pressed the flank of the fish on the chopping board, cut along the belly line, lifted up the blade and scraped from top to bottom, then pressed down the blade and scraped from bottom to top, the entrails slid down along the blade onto the board.

He stood the blade upright to scrape all the unwanted entrails, blood, and water off the board, laid the fish open, made thin lines on it with the blade to allow the flavors in, picked up the fish by the tail and threw it onto a pile of ice nearby, then moved on to the next one.

The whole process was not particularly fast, but Shiller's seriousness and focused attitude gave the sequence a captivating charm.

Without realizing it, Charles and Erik, sitting across from him, were so engrossed in watching Shiller handle the fish that they forgot their own tasks.

"I bet he's killed a lot of fish." Charles commented with exasperation: "Maybe he was a young fisherman once, or lived in a coastal city for a long time."

Erik glanced at Charles expressionlessly, speechless over his old friend's naivety. He just stirred the starch water in his hand with a fork and said, "You're totally wrong. Fishermen and fish sellers prioritize speed because that's their livelihood and only high efficiency would make them more money."

Charles turned to look at Erik, who kept stirring and speaking, "Clearly, the occasions that would allow Shiller to use a knife are not meant to provide him with a living, but to give him mental enjoyment, so the process is slow, but extremely focused."

"He must have enjoyed it many times. Every time is slow, elegant and full of indulgence, all of which he engraves in his heart, elevating it into a unique art form and training a distinctive aura."

Erik's words echoed in Charles' ears, causing him to begin to think and recall involuntarily. When he looked up again at Shiller across the aisle, he saw a youthful spirit hidden within the focused demeanor on his face.

Vague and elusive light appeared before his eyes. His mindset slowly drifted away and connected with his special ability. Like a scar on the face of the earth, an abyss-like crevice appeared in Charles' dazed vision, and he saw a youngster kneeling in a pool of blood, a knife in his hand.

The youngster was pressing something down with the knee he was kneeling on, and only when the blade moved downward, could Charles see clearly that it was a large bass-like fish, still alive, constantly twisting and struggling beneath the youngster.

Charles was involuntarily drawn into the intense observation, and then, he saw, inside the cut wound, exactly twenty-four ribs.

In an instant, a psychic storm swept across the Americas.