Food in the Water (Please Bookmark and Vote)

The chieftain's body was laid in the clearing before the cave, temporarily covered with grass. In Luo Chong's memories, the tribe generally cremated its dead. Perhaps they had buried bodies before, but shallow graves would still be dug up and eaten by wild beasts. Better to burn them clean with a single fire.

But the funeral would have to wait until evening, when all the tribe members returned and could burn him together. The two adults had already gone out to gather firewood.

For the moment, no one paid them any attention. The children were still gathered around the Terror Bird, inspecting it, while several women were studying how to break it down. They had never dealt with prey that large before.

Luo Chong gave it some thought as well. Treating it like a chicken and scalding off its feathers with hot water was impossible; they did not have a pot large enough to boil that much water. They might as well skin it directly. Luo Chong told them to save the feathers for him and let them handle the rest themselves.

He did not want the feathers to make some Feather Crown. They might come in handy when making bows and arrows someday. For now, he would just stockpile them. They were poor enough to piss blood, so they had to learn how to make a life for themselves—collect materials and craft their own equipment later.

Now that the danger had passed, those who worked went back to work, and those who watched kept watching. Luo Chong also continued weaving his baskets.

For some reason, Luo Chong always felt that time passed especially slowly here. So much had happened in a single day, yet the sun had only just climbed to the center of the sky. He had the vague feeling that a day here was longer than a day in his old world. It was instinct. Back when he carried out missions in the army, everything had been timed by the hour, which had made his internal clock particularly sensitive.

"Damn it, maybe this isn't even Earth. Maybe even its rotation is different from Earth's. Who the hell knows where this place is?"

He had no mood to keep thinking about it. Luo Chong focused on weaving his baskets. Storing food was the most important thing now. He had no desire to live a life where he ate once every two days.

About another hour later, Luo Chong had finished weaving two baskets and twisted some grass rope from the grass the children had pulled. There were still vines left over, probably enough for three more baskets. Mainly because these baskets were for catching fish, the gaps were fairly large, so they used less material.

Luo Chong loaded the Terror Bird's innards into a basket and headed for the river. Most of it was inedible. Other than the heart and liver, everything would be thrown away. The stomach could not be eaten either—there was probably still the chieftain's flesh inside. The intestines could be kept, washed, dried, and used as rope. Luo Chong took away all the rest, planning to use the innards as fish bait later.

The Small River lay north of the cave, less than a kilometer away by estimation. When one of the women saw Luo Chong preparing to go to the river alone, she grabbed him and refused to let him go. But Luo Chong insisted, and she had no choice but to go with him.

She also carried a Stone Basin, the tribe's only container for holding water. Who knew how many years it had taken to grind into shape? Since they were going to the river anyway, they could fill a basin on the way. Once the cave was sealed for the night, anyone who wanted water would have to drink from the basin.

In her eyes, Luo Chong was an exceptionally capable child. She had to keep a close eye on him and not let him fall into the river. The two boys who had just acknowledged Luo Chong as their boss saw that he had made another strange thing and was heading out, so they immediately followed.

The group of four reached the river. The woman filled the basin with water and waited nearby, having no idea what Luo Chong intended to do.

Luo Chong stood alone at the bank and observed for a while. Then he could not help sucking in a cold breath, instantly reminded of a passage from his middle-school textbook.

"Fish are what I desire. I, too, am what fish desire. If the two cannot both be had, then I shall give up myself and choose fish."

Ahem. That was obviously not the original text. He said it because he had discovered carnivorous fish in this river. He had stood on the bank for five minutes, and within his line of sight, three murders of big fish eating little fish had taken place. If someone fell into the river, it really was hard to say who would eat whom.

Still, although this place was poor enough to piss blood, he had to admit that its ecology was truly excellent. The Small River's water was crystal clear, and he could see the riverbed at a glance. The shallows near the bank were probably only a little over a meter deep, yet they were full of fish. They were not packed together in a solid mass, but if he casually looked anywhere, he could see several fish within his field of vision. That density was already astonishing—at the very least, there were more fish than in the Amazon River.

After choosing a spot, he took out the Terror Bird's guts and smashed them up, then placed a basket in the river. Three grass ropes were tied to the basket's upper rim and joined into one in the middle, making it easier to pull up.

When the woman saw that Luo Chong had no intention of entering the river, she stopped worrying about him. She quietly stood to one side and watched him fiddle with the basket, her heart full of questions. Kid, are you trying to wash that basket?

Anything he said now would be wasted. He had to catch fish first and show them that this thing could be eaten. Only then would they take it seriously, and only then could he lessen their fear of the river water.

The baskets Luo Chong had woven were a little over fifty centimeters tall—just a bit longer than the distance from the tip of a spread hand's middle finger to the elbow. He chose a gentle slope near the riverbank, where the water was about a meter deep. The basket sank to the bottom at a slight angle, lowering its opening and making it easier for fish to enter.

He grabbed a handful of the smashed innards and tossed them into the basket. The fishy smell of raw meat swiftly spread through the water, and fish within twenty meters began to stir, swimming toward the center of the scent.

The first to arrive were five fish around forty centimeters long. They plunged into the basket and began scrambling over the scraps of innards, churning the water inside cloudy.

Luo Chong's eyes and hands moved fast. He instantly hauled up the grass rope and dragged the basket from the water. One fish escaped amid the chaos, leaving only four caught, but that was already impressive. Four fish in one basket—and the fish in the river had not fled. Instead, they had swarmed below to fight over the bait. It instantly gave him the feeling of feeding koi in a park: toss down a handful of fish food, and a whole school rushed to fight for it.

"Holy shit, do these fish not have brains? They can't even see through such a simple trap! Hahaha!" Luo Chong laughed until his eyes nearly squeezed shut. The sight gave him the exhilarating thrill of crushing their intelligence across the ages. He was probably the first person in this world to catch fish. The fish had never seen anything like this.

The two children and the adult woman were all astonished. Put that strange thing into the water, pull it up, and those legless things in the water came out with it. But what was the point of bringing them out? They still did not understand.

Luo Chong dumped the four fish onto the ground. Out of the water, the fish still flopped and bounced across the earth. The woman and two children came over to touch them, but whenever a fish jumped, they jerked their hands back in fright.

Afraid of fish? That would not do. They would have to eat these things in the future.

Luo Chong picked up a Stone from the riverbank and knocked the fish unconscious. Then he smashed a pebble, found a sharp shard to use as a stone knife, scraped off the scales, pulled out the gills, slit open their bellies, and removed the innards. His movements were incomparably practiced. Though it was his first time cleaning fish here, he had done this job plenty of times in his previous life.

Holding the fish by their gills, he washed them clean in the river. Then he laid them on a large rock, cut off a slice of Sashimi with the Stone Knife, and stuffed it into his mouth.

Seeing the bright red blood flowing from the fish's belly and Luo Chong chewing the Sashimi, even an idiot could tell that fish was edible food. The woman and the two children watched him eagerly from the side.

Luo Chong was not deliberately tempting them. In truth, Sashimi eaten like this, without any seasoning, did not taste good at all. He was only doing it to show them that fish could be eaten.

Luo Chong cut each of them a slice of fish meat. They all tried it, and they ate quite happily. Since they had never tasted seasonings, they never thought about such things. In their eyes, as long as it was edible, that was enough. They were not picky eaters. When starving, they had even eaten tree roots—let alone meat.

Do you want to eat Sashimi? Too bad there's no dipping sauce. If you want to see Luo Chong find seasonings, throw your votes, comments, and bookmarks at him...