Chapter 110 - New Beast King (1/2)

Chapter 110 - New Beast King

The people of the Big Bear Tribe had already set up camp by the river. Xiong Qi had turned into his animal form and was fishing in the river.

He didn’t like to eat fish at all, but his fishing skills were better than Xiong Ye’s. After all, his animal form was very good at swimming.

Before long, the giant polar bear had caught a dozen fish. He gave all of them to Xiong Ye.

The fish that Zhou Ji ate had to be perfectly cleaned, and he wasn’t good at cleaning fish.

Xiong Ye was already very accustomed to cleaning fish up. He first scraped off the fish scales, then removed the fish head and dug out the intestines…

The people of the Big Bear Tribe had already become very accustomed to seeing this kind of scene.

The food that the Beast God’s messenger ate was very refined. Even barley needed to be hulled and ground up before he ate it, so it seemed perfectly normal to them that the scales would need to be removed prior to eating fish.

On the other hand, when One-Eyed Wolf and her group noticed this, they were given quite a shock––these people were really too finicky. These kinds of small fish should just be roasted whole and then eaten whole, right? Some people even found it too troublesome to roast them and would just gnaw on them directly.

They were nothing but a small tribe on this side of the wild forest, but they lived lives that were just as fine as those of the priests from the Beast God Temple!

With this thought in mind, they suddenly discovered that something wasn’t as they expected.

Before, they hadn’t taken this group of people seriously at all. After all, they were in the wild forest, and the vast majority of tribes here were very backward… But now, what kind of things had these people come up with?

They were actually able to take out pottery pots and bowls!

How could there be pottery pots and bowls in the wild forest? Wasn’t that something that was only available from the Beast God Temple?

While they were busy being depressed, they watched these people pour something into the bowl… Wasn’t that hulled barley?

They had heard about this before. It was said that the priests of the Beast God Temple also ate very fine meals, so they only ate barley after the shells had been removed. At the time when they heard that, they hadn’t felt that it was possible, but unexpectedly, they encountered something like this in the wild forest now.

Not only that, they watched as they poured out a lot of barley… were they planning to have everyone eat hulled barley rice?

That was so extravagant!

Zhou Ji didn’t know what they were thinking. He had ordered these people to eat all the barley because this batch of barley had already absorbed moisture and would go bad soon.

As for why it was hulled… This barley was from his own stores. Xiong Ye hadn’t had much to do during winter, so he had had Xiong Ye thresh all the barley as a way to practice control over his energy. Because of this, it was normal for them to have a lot of hulled barley in their home.

He had originally intended to slowly savor this barley during the two month journey back and forth to trade for salt, but due to the recent rains, the barley had absorbed the moisture, so he simply decided to take it out and share it with everyone.

Rice made from cooked barley was normally a bit hard, but this batch of barley was already damp, which was equivalent to having been soaked for a period of time. It was perfect for cooking barley rice.

Zhou Ji took out some oil, added some of it to the pot that already contained barley and water, then had people cut up some smoked meat and lay it down on top of the barley. Finally, he sprinkled some pickled vegetables before covering it with a lid and ordering people to let it cook.

They had taken a total of five pots from the tribe on this journey. Every pot was now filled with smoked meat, pickled vegetables, and barley rice. In addition to this, Zhou Ji had also brought a pottery pot that was just big enough for a two person meal. At this time, he took out some of the vegetables that he’d gathered while he and Xiong Ye traveled and prepared to stir-fry two dishes while cooking the fish.

Nobody paid much attention to the stir-fried vegetables as the people of the tribe weren’t very interested in vegetables, but when it came to the fish Zhou Ji cooked…

Of course, he didn’t know how it was made, and he didn’t have enough seasonings, but he didn’t mind making an imitation version of it.

Zhou Ji first brushed oil onto the fish before roasting it for a while, then placed the entire fish into the pan and simmered it along with the spices. He then added in some dried mushrooms.

Although he didn’t have any soy sauce, the soup was made with chili oil and was very fragrant, so the people of the Big Bear Tribe couldn’t help but drool when they caught a whiff of it.

The rice was also ready by the time the grilled fish was done.

When cooking, Zhou Ji had added a bit of oil, so the barley grains looked shiny and plump. After stirring and mixing the smoked meat and pickled vegetables into the rice… This meal was really too wonderful!

“Give me a pot of rice. You guys can split up the rest.” Zhou Ji said.

Xiong Qi immediately handed him a pot of rice, and then went to divide up the rest––Zhou Ji had contributed both the barley and the pickled vegetables, so it wasn’t excessive for him to demand an entire pot.

Xiong Qi gave everyone in the group a small bowl of barley rice, then brought his own bowl with him to Zhou Ji’s side, pleading silently with his eyes as he looked at Zhou Ji.

Zhou Ji gave him a fish––after all, Xiong Qi had been the one to catch the fish.

Xiong Qi accepted the fish and left satisfied. After eating the smoked meat barley rice and grilled fish, he dejectedly went back to grilling meat to fill up his stomach.

Xiong Qi and the others needed to eat some roasted meat in order to be full, but Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye didn’t need to.

An entire pot of barley rice paired with ten or so fish and some vegetables was enough for both of them to eat their fill, so they didn’t need to eat anything else.

It was just that Xiong Ye didn’t like to eat vegetables, so Zhou Ji could only split the vegetables into two portions and have him finish his portion. After that, he watched as Xiong Ye first ate up all the vegetables before focusing on the barley rice and grilled fish, eating them with relish.

One-Eyed Wolf’s group were all drooling.

At the same time, they felt a little regretful.

This tribe was obviously not the same as the tribes from the wild forest that they knew. They shouldn’t have been so careless and tried to rob them as soon as they met them!

One-Eyed Wolf didn’t speak at all. She merely used her remaining eye to watch Xiong Ye and Zhou Ji, but her subordinates weren’t as calm. “That smell is really fragrant…”

“When we eat barley in our tribe, we boil it with the shell and eat it directly. We never knew that it could be eaten this way.”

“Even if you knew that it could be eaten like this, you wouldn’t be able to make it anyway. Do you have someone who can help you remove the shells?”

“That fish looks really delicious. I wonder what they put in it.”

“No wonder Zhu Zhan is with them…”

……

Out of the entire group, Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye ate the best, while the others were all treated the same way. Zhu Zhan and his subordinates were also just given a small bowl of barley rice each.