Ye Tianhe's two fellow disciples left that very night.
Upon learning that the Western Wilderness was about to descend into chaos again, Old Ye also grew somewhat restless.
The next day, he took Su Fan aboard a flying shuttle and returned to Shaoyang Market.
Ye Tianhe sent Su Fan home, directly tossed him a Storage Bag, and then left.
Su Fan held Old Ye's Storage Bag, his eyes going wide.
Sword cultivators were damn rich. Ten Directions had just given him a Storage Bag without a second thought.
Since it had been given to him, why be polite? He accepted it.
Su Fan swept it with his Spiritual Sense and saw that the Storage Bag contained two Ironhide Savage Bulls.
With a rumble, he tossed one Ironhide Savage Bull into the small courtyard. The courtyard could barely contain it.
Su Fan stared at the Demonic Beast that was like a small mountain and cursed furiously.
An Ironhide Savage Bull this huge weighed more than ten tons. Processing it was by no means an easy task.
Old Ye really didn't treat himself as an outsider. He had patted his butt and left, while Su Fan had to do all the work.
With the weather as it was, fresh meat wouldn't keep for long.
Su Fan slapped the Storage Bag, summoned a Magic Dagger, formed a hand seal, and pointed. The flying sword instantly cleaved toward the Ironhide Savage Bull.
He controlled the sword as it flew up and down, slicing the Ironhide Savage Bull into pieces.
The fresh brisket from the bull's belly was best made into soy-sauce meat.
He picked out the marbled portions, cut them into strips, and soaked them in boiled sauce for three days. Then they could be hung in the courtyard to air-dry.
He had specifically bought more than a dozen large vats from the market town. Otherwise, there truly wouldn't have been enough room.
The tenderloin along the waist and ribs, commonly called filet or beef tenderloin, was the most tender part of the beef. It could be pan-fried, grilled, or boiled in a hot pot.
Filet steak in particular, if merely fried to medium-rare or medium, could conquer the taste buds with its naturally tender and juicy flavor.
The marbled strip from the outer loin, ringed with a layer of white fat around the outside, was more fragrant and tastier when fried or grilled because of its fat.
The sirloin steak of his previous life came from this part.
When cutting the meat, he cut through the sinew and flesh together. The texture was resilient, the meat firm, and it had plenty of chew.
The rib-eye near the ribs was the boneless section in the middle of the bull's body, with fat in the center shaped like an eye.
This part had tender meat and abundant fat. It was fragrant, sweet, and juicy, and could be boiled in a hot pot, grilled, or pan-fried.
There was also the front shank. Though it had little fat, after being simmered over low heat, it developed a fine, tender texture. Its abundant tendons produced a rich, gelatinous quality after being braised, making it fragrant and deeply flavorful.
Su Fan neatly cut all the meat from these several sections and packed it into jars, then stored them in the Storage Bag.
As for the chuck, eye of round, brisket, cucumber strip, pepper strip, beef tendon, beef cheek, beef ladder, oxtail, tripe, beef tongue, beef heart, honeycomb tripe, and other parts, he cut them up as well and stored them in the Storage Bag.
Oh, right. There was also a bull penis more than a meter long. This was the penis of a Demonic Beast, after all.
Fresh Demonic Beast Meat could be preserved in the Storage Bag for quite a long time, allowing him to take it out and use it whenever he wanted.
Then there were the whole hides, horns, and other materials for refining artifacts. He could take those things to the market town and sell them.
They weren't worth much money, but even a grasshopper was meat.
He put the other miscellaneous parts into a Storage Bag and took them outside to throw away.
Su Fan's whole bout of hard work turned the small courtyard into a scene of blood soaring to the heavens, with severed limbs piled everywhere.
He worked until nightfall before finally finishing, nearly exhausted to death.
The entire courtyard was covered in blood and filth. It took several Cleaning Talismans to get it clean.
Su Fan didn't even have the strength to cultivate. He went straight back inside, collapsed onto the bed, and fell asleep.
Several days later, Ye Tianhe came again.
As soon as he landed in the courtyard, he caught an enticing aroma.
He turned his head and saw Su Fan sitting before an iron rack, frying meat.
When Su Fan saw Ye Tianhe arrive, he hurriedly waved him over.
"Old Ye, you came at just the right time. I just fried these steaks. Have a taste..."
Looking at the soy-sauce meat hanging all over the courtyard, Ye Tianhe was a little dumbfounded. Hadn't he said it would still take several days?
He came to Su Fan's side and watched the steak sizzling and oozing oil on the iron plate, then swallowed.
"What have you made this time?"
Su Fan used a pair of tongs to flip the steak over and sprinkled some seasoning on it.
"Filet steak. It'll be ready soon..."
He hadn't been idle these past few days either. He had commissioned a barbecue rack and Griddle Pan from a workshop in the market town.
He had also ordered several hot pots, including the Copper Hot Pot used in Old Beijing, a Sichuan-style Yuan Yang Pot, and several varieties of Cantonese hot pot.
He had bought a large batch of seasonings as well. Though many seasonings from his previous life didn't exist here, he had found substitutes for all of them in this world.
After mixing the seasonings, the flavor was more or less the same.
The Demonic Beasts of the Cultivation World were nourished by Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy. The Ironhide Savage Bull looked coarse and savage, but its meat was truly tender.
A filet steak more than two feet long had been cut over an inch thick.
After frying it for a while, it was nearly done.
He lifted the steak off the iron plate with the tongs, cut it in half with a Magic Dagger, placed the pieces on two plates, and poured the sauce from the iron plate over the steaks.
"This one's yours. Eat it while it's hot..."
Su Fan had just handed the plate to Old Ye when the fellow snatched it away and immediately began gnawing on it.
"Hey..."
Su Fan took out the knife and fork he had ordered from the market town, but before he could hand them to Old Ye, half the steak on the plate had already vanished.
Su Fan shook his head, then took a small knife and cut his steak into bite-sized pieces.
He speared a piece with a fork, dipped it in the sauce, and put it into his mouth.
"Tsk..."
It was damn fragrant.
He hadn't been so particular when eating Demonic Beast Meat before.
This time, after processing an entire Ironhide Savage Bull and facing a mountain of fresh beef, he finally remembered the many ways people had eaten it in his previous life.
Moreover, Demonic Beasts were enormous. A single tadpole-shaped filet tenderloin was already two meters long.
There was also an ox-tail bone several meters long and an outer loin a meter wide. Anyway, if an Ironhide Savage Bull were placed in his previous life, it would be comparable to Wagyu and the like—
Ye Tianhe was eating the steak with grease all over his mouth. When he turned around and saw Su Fan, he froze on the spot.
"What are you holding?"
Seeing Old Ye's look of someone who had never seen the world, Su Fan nearly laughed himself to death.
He picked up the knife and fork and demonstrated once, then handed them to Old Ye.
"Big brother, have you never eaten meat before? You're really bringing shame to sword cultivators..."
Old Ye: Damn me...
He glared at Su Fan, then took the knife and fork and began eating, copying the example.
"Let's have some Hanging Oven Skewers tonight..."
Su Fan was amused. Old Ye had become addicted to skewers.
"Let's have hot pot tonight."
"What..."
"You wouldn't understand even if I told you. Just wait and see..."
Ye Tianhe was left speechless. He shot Su Fan a glare, lowered his head, and continued eating meat.
That evening, Su Fan set up the pot.
Today, he was making Old Beijing's Copper Hot Pot. First, he added charcoal to the center of the pot.
Then he poured Spirit Spring water into the pot and added several seasonings.
After finishing that, he called Old Ye out of the room.
He took out an entire piece of rib-eye, weighing more than ten pounds, and placed it on the cutting board beside them.
"Old Ye, I'll leave the meat-cutting to you..."
Ye Tianhe had just been about to refuse when Su Fan waved a hand.
"Listen to me first. You have to cut this meat. The thinner you can slice it, the better—ideally as thin as paper. It'll taste better when we boil it later."
After saying this, Su Fan took out a Magic Sword and handed it to Ye Tianhe.
Old Ye accepted the Magic Sword, glanced at Su Fan, and then brought it down in a fierce slash.
He had grown up playing with swords, after all. With that single stroke, he cut off a paper-thin slice of meat.
Su Fan picked it up and looked at it. The nearly transparent slice was as thin as paper.
Eating hot pot in the Cultivation World and having a sword cultivator cut the meat—this was damn impressive no matter how you looked at it.
Old Ye was astonishingly fast. In no time, he had finished slicing the entire piece of rib-eye.
Su Fan had already prepared the charcoal and laid out all sorts of ingredients.
Old Ye was completely dumbfounded. What kind of way to eat was this?
What was going on in this kid's head? Every day, he was scheming up these crooked tricks.
"These are the dipping sauces. Once the meat's cooked, dip it in them before eating..."
Su Fan placed the seasonings in front of Old Ye and began adding the meat.
He picked up a thin slice of rib-eye, swished it several times through the boiling pot, took it out, dipped it in the seasonings, and then took a bite.
"Damn... authentic..."
Although the seasonings were slightly different, they really did have a hint of Old Beijing's flavor.
Ye Tianhe was utterly stunned. He followed Su Fan's example and began eating too.
The meat melted in his mouth, alive with the fresh, spicy fragrance of the seasonings. The flavor was simply indescribable.
Su Fan began adding other ingredients as well: the greens, wood ear mushrooms, and Spirit Mushrooms he had bought in the market town, as well as tripe, honeycomb tripe, and meatballs he had pounded out of beef neck meat, which were incredibly springy.
The only regret was that he hadn't found any tofu.
Su Fan was already very satisfied. He had never expected that after coming to the Cultivation World, he would be able to taste flavors familiar from his previous life.
Over the next few days, Old Ye came over every day, and mooched two meals a day.
Su Fan didn't mind. After all, eating alone wasn't much fun.
After finishing Old Beijing hot pot, they ate Sichuan hot pot and Cantonese hot pot.
When they finished with hot pot, they moved on to barbecue: Korean BBQ, pot-bottom-fried meat, and iron-plate barbecue, trying them all.
Later, they had grilled brisket, sliced beef, beef ladder, chilled beef tongue, soy-braised beef shank, beef brisket stewed with turnips, and a one-pot medley of tendons and meat.
In any case, Su Fan made nearly every beef dish from his previous life that he knew.
Ye Tianhe had never cared much about food in the past, but after arriving at Shaoyang Market, Su Fan had led him astray.
Thanks to You Bai, Er Dian Er Shi, and the two other big-name supporters for your tips. Thanks as well to Wenwang Er Dai, Randomly Thought-Up Name, Er Dian Er Shi, Peach Blossom Drunk in the Snow, pclijie, Xingyue Tongying, Wenwang San Dai, and all the big-name supporters for your recommendation tickets. Old Bu was deeply grateful. Thank you all for your affection and support.
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