Four sturdy forked branches were planted at an angle around the campfire. Two strong sticks ran through the cleaned rabbit, holding it securely above the leaping flames.
The firewood crackled crisply as the dancing orange-red light reddened the cheeks of the two brothers, Lu Yu and Lu Fei. A warm glow enveloped the clearing, and wisps of roasting meat's fragrance drifted through the air.
Lu Fei stared at the rabbit, its fat sizzling. A glistening strand of drool hung from the corner of his mouth, sparkling in the flickering firelight and making for a comical sight.
After about half an hour, Lu Yu noticed that Lu Fei's drool had soaked a small patch of ground. A gentle smile touched his lips as he reached out and took the roasted rabbit off the fire.
The rabbit was golden brown all over, fragrant and crisp on the outside and cooked through within. Any longer over the fire, and it would burn. Lu Yu promptly lifted it and held it out to Lu Fei.
"It's ready. Hurry and eat. Look at you-you can't stop drooling!"
Lu Fei hastily wiped the drool from his mouth and scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed. His movements were anything but slow, though, as he immediately reached out to take the whole roasted rabbit from Lu Yu.
"Gulp-"
Lu Fei swallowed hard and leaned closer to take a deep whiff of the rich meaty aroma. His tongue instinctively swept over his reddened lips. He deftly tore off a glossy rabbit leg and held it out to Lu Yu.
"Big brother, you eat first!"
Lu Yu waved a hand gently and said with a smile, "You eat it. There's another one, enough for both of us."
With that, Lu Yu reached over and took the other roasted rabbit off the fire as well.
Not a speck of seasoning had been added to the simple roast, but the pure aroma of browned meat was still especially tempting. Lu Yu nodded in satisfaction, took a big bite of rabbit, and chewed it carefully.
But after only two chews, Lu Yu's brows abruptly knitted. With difficulty, he forced the dry, bland meat down. He looked down at the roasted rabbit in his hand, then up at Lu Fei beside him, who was eating with relish, grease all over his mouth. For a moment, Lu Yu was speechless.
For the original owner's family, the taste of meat had long been forgotten. No matter how dry and bland this rabbit was, it was still a rare delicacy for the two brothers.
Rabbit meat was naturally very low in fat, consisting entirely of firm, lean flesh. After a long roasting over an open flame, what little moisture remained had been completely cooked away. It was dry and coarse in the mouth, its texture parched and tasteless, scarcely different from chewing dry scrap paper.
"Eat slowly. There's more if that isn't enough," Lu Yu reminded Lu Fei, then casually stuck the roasted rabbit he was holding into the dirt beside him.
"Big brother, why aren't you eating?" Lu Fei caught sight of the rabbit on the ground and stopped eating, looking at Lu Yu in bewilderment.
"You eat. I'm not hungry yet." Lu Yu waved a hand casually, got straight to his feet, and went into the hut.
Lu Fei thought nothing of it. He merely glanced at the rabbit on the ground before lowering his head again and wolfing down the delicious roast in his hands.
Back inside, Lu Yu picked up a bowl and drank a few mouthfuls of water before his dry throat finally felt better. He turned and walked over to the bed, where he picked up the Spirit Hall's Basic Meditation Method that Su Yuntao had given him earlier.
On the way home from Nuoding City, Lu Yu had skimmed through the scroll. He could understand all the writing on it, though reading it was quite laborious. The script resembled ancient traditional characters, and some of the words were pronounced entirely differently from their modern counterparts. Fortunately, their meanings were exactly the same, so his comprehension was unaffected.
Lu Yu was quite relieved by this. Although Douluo Continent was a world combining Chinese and Western elements, it had no unnecessary, cumbersome constraints. Unlike some fantasy settings, where Soul Master meditation methods were considered ancient secret arts that required the study of obscure classical texts to cultivate, this spared him countless troubles.
Recalling the scene of absorbing the Soul Ring that afternoon, Lu Yu still felt a lingering dread. He had only just begun cultivating and had no idea how to refine the pure Soul Power within the Soul Ring. When an immense amount of Soul Power suddenly surged into his body, it had nearly burst all his meridians.
If he hadn't persisted in cultivating the Taiqing True Qi Manual for years in his previous life, building up a memory of it in his mind day after day, and if the cultivation method hadn't begun circulating on its own at that critical moment,
Lu Yu might truly have become a joke among transmigrators-he would have exploded and died from failing to control his Soul Power only three days after transmigrating to Douluo Continent.
Strangely enough, in his previous life, Lu Yu had been obsessed with comprehending the Dao. He had cultivated many methods available on the market, but never felt a thing. He had even tried methods from novels, but none of them worked.
The Taiqing True Qi Manual, however, had been given to Lu Yu by an old Daoist fortune-teller. Lu Yu had tried cultivating according to its instructions with a casual attitude. He had already been disappointed so many times that one more wouldn't matter.
But with that very attitude of giving it a try, Lu Yu was surprised to find that his body felt warm when he cultivated the Taiqing True Qi Manual, a sensation he had never experienced with any other cultivation method.
From then on, Lu Yu practiced martial arts at the martial arts school during the day and quietly cultivated the Taiqing True Qi Manual at night. He also told the others at the school about the manual, but none of them thought much of it, saying only that Lu Yu had imagined the sensation.
Lu Yu shook his head gently, suppressing his lingering fear and memories, and turned his gaze solemnly to the meditation method in his hands.
"I still need to get a proper grasp of this world's rules. This isn't a story in a novel. It's a real, flesh-and-blood world, and there's no room to leave anything to chance."
Having made up his mind, Lu Yu took the meditation method out of the hut and sat down beside the campfire again. By its dancing light, he began the difficult task of studying it word by word and sentence by sentence.
Beside him, Lu Fei looked up from gnawing on his rabbit and saw what Lu Yu was doing. Surprise flashed through his clear eyes, which shimmered as he asked curiously:
"Big brother, you can read?"
Lu Yu's fingers froze on the book, and his heart skipped a beat. He silently cursed himself for being careless. The original owner had grown up in poverty, without enough food to fill his belly or clothes to cover his body. He could barely keep himself fed and clothed, much less have a chance to learn to read. Lu Yu's behavior was far too abnormal.
Lu Yu coughed awkwardly twice, then immediately composed himself and spoke with feigned calm to cover it up. "Ahem, I'm your big brother. What's so hard about something like that? There's nothing in this world I can't do."
Lu Fei said nothing. He simply tilted his little head and stared at Lu Yu without blinking, his big, clear eyes full of a look that said, "I don't believe you. Don't lie to me."
The corner of Lu Yu's mouth twitched. His mind raced as he urgently searched for a plausible explanation. The brothers would be spending every day together from now on, and his peculiarities would only become more numerous. He had to lay the groundwork for a reasonable explanation in advance if he wanted to dispel Lu Fei's doubts.
In a flash, inspiration struck Lu Yu. He remembered the universal excuse used by transmigrators.
Lu Yu coughed twice again, then began to spin his tale with a calm expression, without so much as a blush or a skipped heartbeat. "Some time ago, I happened to meet a wandering, white-bearded Soul Master. He said I had extraordinary talent and was a rare seedling suited for cultivation, and he wanted to take me as his disciple. He personally taught me the basics of reading and cultivation."
At the words "Soul Master," Lu Fei's eyes lit up. Even the fragrant roast in his mouth lost its flavor. Then he looked at Lu Yu, his face full of confusion.
"Big brother, we're together every day. How come I've never seen this white-bearded Soul Master you're talking about?"