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Once Wu Jiong had cut open the shells, Jian Mo took the flour fruit to feed the Pack-Pack Beasts.

The Pack-Pack Beasts couldn't eat much, and Jian Mo didn't dare feed them nothing but the kernels, afraid they were too dry and would harm their stomachs. He had to mix them with fodder.

So Jian Mo carried the little less than half of the flour fruit left over to feed the Flying-Winged Beast.

When the Flying-Winged Beast saw the flour fruit, it sniffed it cautiously.

It clearly didn't much like the smell. It sniffed once, raised its head, waited a moment, then sniffed again, but still wouldn't open its mouth.

Seeing this, Jian Mo said, "If you don't like it, forget it. I'll bring you something else to eat later."

The Flying-Winged Beast gripped the basket of flour fruit in its mouth, refusing to let Jian Mo take it away, and looked up at him with its dark, gleaming eyes. "Yip?"

Jian Mo said, "You won't eat it, so what are you yipping about?"

The Flying-Winged Beast clamped down on the basket and refused to let go. After hesitating for quite a while, it finally opened its mouth, took a bite, and chewed and chewed.

But crumbs fell out as it chewed, like a person who spilled half of every cup of wine they drank and didn't swallow a drop.

Jian Mo helplessly reached out and patted its big head. "If you're not going to eat it, then don't. No wasting food!"

The Flying-Winged Beast looked at Jian Mo, guiltily showing a sliver of the whites of its eyes. In the end, it couldn't hold back and retched, spitting out all the crumbs.

Jian Mo was speechless.

The chewed-up flour fruit was milky white. The Flying-Winged Beast had spat out a huge mess of it, and it smelled even worse.

Unable to stand the filthy mess, Jian Mo went to scoop up a little less than a basket of ash from nearby and poured it over the flour fruit, ready to sweep it away.

Just then, Jian Mo suddenly realized that the ground-up flour fruit looked a little familiar.

It looked quite like ground-up beans.

Jian Mo's hand paused. He swept up the flour fruit the Flying-Winged Beast had spat out, then carried the rest back.

He used the small stone mortar at home to pound the flour fruit into pieces, then added water to make a paste and strained it.

Sure enough, the liquid underneath turned into milky-white starch water. It seemed the flour fruit had quite a high starch content.

At least, it was much higher than that of hairy roots.

It was just that the smell was truly awful. Ugh.

Wu Jiong's tall figure came in from outside. Seeing Jian Mo busy by the hearth, he asked, "What's wrong?"

Jian Mo looked up at him. "I think flour fruit has quite a high starch content. Maybe I can wash it out and make something else with it."

Wu Jiong dipped a finger into the starch water and rubbed it between his fingers. "It is quite high. Too bad it can't be eaten."

Jian Mo lowered his head and sniffed it, then silently turned away to breathe some fresh air.

Wu Jiong said, "Other tribes used to grind flour fruit into flour and make cakes out of it, but only people with rather unusual tastes could stomach it."

Jian Mo looked at the basin of flour fruit water. "Did eating it make them feel unwell in any way?"

Wu Jiong shook his head. "No."

Jian Mo said, "That's fine, then. I'll give it a try."

That evening, besides the meat patties and tubers they often ate, Jian Mo made flour fruit cakes especially, then stir-fried them over high heat with all kinds of spices.

Flour fruit really didn't taste good. Even stir-frying it with pickled greens couldn't mask that strange flavor.

He wasn't particularly picky about food, but even he couldn't stomach it.

Jian Mo said regretfully, "I was wondering whether we could turn flour fruit into something to eat, since it's so productive. It doesn't look like we have a particularly abundant food supply for winter."

Wu Jiong said, "We don't go out much in winter. We can get by eating a little less."

Jian Mo sighed. "Being hungry is miserable."

The flour fruit had already been shelled, so Jian Mo decided to soak it in water and see if he could draw out the foul-smelling substance.

Under normal circumstances, soaking should remove some of the unpleasant smell.

Back on Earth, people also soaked bitter bamboo shoots and other things to improve their flavor.

Wu Jiong watched him soak the flour fruit but said nothing.

The next morning, though, Wu Jiong spoke to him first. "I just checked. The water the flour fruit is soaking in has turned yellow."

Jian Mo immediately said, "I'll go take a look!"

The flour fruit had swollen after soaking all night, though not by much.

He squeezed it with his hand, but it still wasn't easy to crush.

When he placed the crushed flour fruit in his palm, it still had that unpleasant smell, though it was much fainter.

Jian Mo rubbed and rinsed the flour fruit, then replaced the water with fresh water, planning to soak it for a few more days and see.

While the flour fruit was soaking, the Hunting Gathering came to a successful conclusion.

With all the Riverside Tribe's awards at the gathering added together, they ranked second overall.

That was already a very good result, considering they had far fewer people than the Mengshui Tribe.

After the Hunting Gathering ended, people's lives grew peaceful again.

The beastmen went out hunting as usual, while the sub-beastmen continued going out to gather.

When they went out, though, everyone inevitably talked about the exciting moments from the Hunting Gathering and some of the gossip they had heard.

Jian Mo had been there the whole time and, for once, could join in the conversation, but he didn't say much. Everyone knew he wasn't fond of talking, so they didn't mind.

The flour fruit soaked for several days, but when he took it out again, it still had that strange smell.

Although the smell had become very faint, everyone had a keen sense of taste and still couldn't quite accept the strange ingredient.

After trying the flour fruit cakes Jian Mo had made, Zhou Fu said, "I'll just eat less in winter. I'd rather go hungry than eat this strange cake."

Jian Mo looked at the cake in his hand. "I'll think about it some more."

That day, after Jian Mo returned from gathering, he took the dry grass he had cut along the way to an open area and burned it, then scooped the whitish ash into a bucket.

Grass ash was finer than wood ash and felt almost free of grit when he picked it up.

Wu Jiong watched what he was doing, came over, and picked up a handful too. "Are you making soap today?"

Jian Mo looked up from his work. "No, I'm planning to make lye-water flour fruit cakes."

Wu Jiong fell silent for a moment. "What?"

Jian Mo said, "This flour fruit has a strange smell no matter how it's prepared, doesn't it? I'll try adding some lye water."

Wu Jiong said, "Can you eat ash?"