Chapter 5
On the way, Yu washed the rice and drained the water, but did not pour it away directly. Instead, he put it in another container.
Shaoxing Yang stared at the rice in Lu Shiyu's hand with wide eyes and shouted, "Didn't you say there were no ingredients? Then what is this!"
Lu Shiyu's eyes wandered. "I only bought the portion for myself. If everyone wants to eat, it definitely won't be enough."
Shaoxing Yang went back to doing it as if he was listless again.
Lu Shiyu put the rice into the iron pot, poured water into the pot to cover the rice, covered the pot and boiled it with cold water. The waiting time was just enough to prepare the vegetables. Dice the wild vegetables and radishes. Wait until white smoke comes out of the edge of the pot lid and wait for a while until it boils. When you open the lid, you can see the bubbles collapse the moment the lid is opened. Stir back and forth with chopsticks to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Pour the chopped vegetables into the pot, stir evenly, then add some cooking oil as seasoning, continue stirring, and the porridge will become thick.
Lu Shiyu scooped up a spoonful and tasted it. It tasted good, but it was a pity.
"It would be better if there was meat. It would taste better."
When Yu was about to serve the porridge on the way, Shaoxing Yang stopped him.
"Wait, if you want meat," Shaoxing Yang hesitated and took out a piece of sausage from the bag: "This should be fine. Although it's not much, it's meat after all."
Lu Shiyu took the sausage, his eyes curved into crescents: "Absolutely!"
The originally relatively large sausage seemed pitifully small after being cut into small pieces by Lu Shiyu and poured into the pot, but it did add some flavor to the vegetable porridge.
Chen Yunliang looked at the bubbling porridge and said to Shao Xingyang with a hint of sarcasm, "Aren't you hiding some food too?"
Shaoxing Yang puffed out his cheeks and said, "I only had a little bit. I originally planned to have it as a snack."
The vegetable porridge is ready.
Lu Shiyu took out a wooden bowl and filled it for everyone. Tang Zeyu was the first to pick up the soup spoon and scoop up the porridge into his mouth.
“So fresh.”
The chopped wild vegetables taste a bit bitter, and become slightly sweet after entering the mouth, but the unique umami flavor of the vegetables is particularly obvious. The purple petals taste similar to cabbage, and the secretions on the petals are salty, so the porridge is salty enough without adding salt. Although the petals themselves are full of water, they have no taste. The crystal radish is mixed in the porridge, and you can clearly feel the crispy taste when you eat a few of them occasionally. I didn’t expect that the radish is actually a bit spicy, which makes the porridge taste richer.
The sausages that Shaoxing Yang gave didn’t have much impact on the taste of the porridge, but it was meat after all, so it was better than nothing.
Yanhong savored the vegetable porridge carefully. Although the raw materials were a bit embarrassing, the finished product looked no different from normal porridge.
"tasty."
Yan Hong finished a bowl and chewed on the spoon with aftertaste: "I often make vegetable porridge in the morning in my hometown, but that was ten years ago."
Ten years ago, mutated creatures caused a disaster, and Yan Hong was naturally one of the refugees. Unfortunately, her family, like the families of most children, died outside the base. Children who became orphans would be adopted by the base, but when they become adults, they would need to bear their own living expenses. Yan Hong had to start working hard to make a living.
Although the base has strict control over food, it is not so bad that people cannot afford a bowl of vegetable porridge. It is just that Yan Hong herself never takes the initiative to try to make the same taste as before.
"Here," Lu Shiyu served Yan Hong another bowl, "If you like it, eat more."
Realizing that she had just bitten the spoon, Yan Hong's face turned red. She took the bowl of porridge handed to her by Lu Shiyu and buried her head in it.
"It's too much, who can finish it..."
Yan Hong finally finished the second bowl of porridge. After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, only a little porridge was left at the bottom of the pot.
"So full, burp."
Shaoxing Yang touched his bloated belly and burped with satisfaction.
On the way, Yu saw that everyone was full, so he picked up the spatula and scooped out the remaining porridge.
"We are all full." Yan Hong reminded.
"Yeah, I know."
Lu Shiyu continued with his actions. After all the porridge was served, he cleaned the pot, poured a little oil on the bottom of the pot, shook the iron pot to distribute the oil evenly, and when the oil was hot, scooped a spoonful of porridge and poured it into the pot.
The vegetable porridge sizzled when it touched the hot iron pan. Lu Shiyu continued to put the porridge in spoonful by spoonful, leaving a certain distance between each spoonful to ensure that the vegetables and porridge would not stick together. The vegetable porridge slowly spread into pancakes in the pan. After Lu Shiyu made sure that the bottom was shaped, he turned the vegetable porridge over with a spatula, and kept turning it over until the vegetable porridge pancakes were completely shaped.
Shao Xingyang was amazed at the vegetable porridge that had turned into a pancake: "Can you do this?"
As he said this, he wanted to reach out and take a piece, but Yan Hong pushed him away.
"Go, go, go. You just finished dinner and you still need to eat. This is tomorrow's breakfast."
When Lu Shiyu saw that the pancakes were almost cooked, he covered the pot and put it aside. Shaoxing Yang, who had missed the opportunity, could only stare at the pot containing the porridge pancakes.
Chen Yunliang said helplessly: "Don't watch it, go to bed early."
"Tsk," Shaoxing Yang flicked his hair, "I don't care."
Shao Xingyang's hand knocked off the flower on his ear, and the flower fell directly onto Shao Xingyang's crossed legs.
Perhaps because it had been picked for too long, the flower had lost its vitality. The petals began to wilt and the originally curled parts loosened. Shao Xingyang was about to pick it up when he saw a butterfly of the same color as the flower slowly crawling out from the curled petals. Previously, because the butterfly and the flower were similar in color, Shao Xingyang did not realize that there was a butterfly hidden in the petals, so he only saw it now.
Shaoxing Yang was petrified on the spot, and the butterfly, finally freed from its trap, flapped its wings and began to fly upwards.
"Ahhhhhhhh! Get out of here! Get out of here!"
Shaoxing Yang threw all the flowers away and jumped up from the ground to avoid the butterflies. The funny scene made the other people burst into laughter, and he didn't show any sympathy for his teammates.
Fortunately, it was night time and flying insects tended to instinctively move towards the light source. In a few seconds, the butterfly was engulfed by the flames and Shaoxing Yang was saved again.
The farce was over, and the few people who had laughed too wildly immediately restrained their expressions. Shaoxing looked at them with a strong sense of yang, trying to make them feel moral condemnation with his eyes.
"It's getting late, go to bed."
Chen Yunliang coughed twice and crawled into the sleeping bag in the tent as if nothing had happened.
Last night it was Chen Yunliang and Tang Zeyu who were on guard, so today it was naturally Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang's turn.
Yan Hong kicked Shao Xingyang's calf, who was still sulking, and said, "Go to bed quickly, or you'll have to take over the rest of the night."
Lu Shiyu hurriedly finished writing in his diary, and put on sleeping bags with everyone except Yan Hong and went to sleep.
Early the next morning
Lu Shiyu was awakened by Yan Hong's scolding.
"Why are you so greedy! I told you it's breakfast, but you're still eating it!"
Shao Xingyang retorted unconvincedly: "I didn't cheat! You are wrongly accusing a good person!"
Lu Shiyu crawled out of the sleeping bag and stretched.
"Huh~ What's wrong?"
Chen Yunliang and Tang Zeyu stood between the two men, trying to stop the fight. Shaoxing Yang saw Lu Shiyu wake up and immediately complained:
"Lu Shiyu! Come and judge for yourself! Yanhong insisted that I stole the cake, but I clearly didn't!"
"How come there's one missing if you didn't eat it!" Yan Hong pointed at the iron pot with the lid lifted. "You were the one who stayed up all night last night. When everyone woke up this morning, they realized one was missing. Who else could it be but you?"
Lu Shiyu scratched his head and asked in confusion: "Isn't it just a pancake? What's the big deal?"
Chen Yunliang came over and explained in a low voice: "Yan Hong is a very stubborn guy. If she wants to solve the problem, she must either make Shao Xingyang admit it or produce evidence that Shao Xingyang didn't cheat. So now..."
Lu Shiyu felt a little overwhelmed. He didn't expect Yan Hong to be so strict, but this kind of thing was indeed difficult to explain clearly.
Tang Zeyu finally managed to calm the two of them down. Tang Zeyu asked Shao Xingyang, "Did you really not eat that cake?"
Shao Xingyang immediately raised four fingers and swore, "Absolutely not! I was holding it in until everyone woke up in the morning to eat together, but I don't know how one was missing."
Shao Xingyang suddenly thought of something and looked at Yan Hong: "Ah, it was Yan Hong who kept watch over the first half of the night last night. Could it be that you ate it yourself and were worried about being discovered, so you cried thief!"
"Huh?" Yan Hong almost laughed out of anger: "I'm not like some people. I'm not that greedy."
Seeing that the atmosphere between the two was becoming increasingly tense, Tang Zeyu and Chen Yunliang had no choice but to pull one of them away each to separate them for a while.
Lu Shiyu squatted beside the pot and glanced at Tang Zeyu who pulled Shaoxing Yang over.
"Captain Tang, your team..." Lu Shiyu considered his words carefully: "Has this always been the way you get along?"
"Uh," Tang Zeyu's eyes wandered, "Actually, they're usually pretty normal, but Yanhong always wants a conclusion when she argues."
"It sounds like he's someone who won't suffer a loss easily," Lu Shiyu took out all the pancakes from the pot and placed them on the lid, then suddenly noticed something.
"Hmph, that's right. Who can let her suffer a loss?" Shaoxing Yang was full of dissatisfaction as expected.
Lu Shiyu smiled and said, "Don't worry, I think I've found a way to clear your name."
"Yanhong," Lu Shiyu called out to Yanhong, "Come here for a moment."
Yan Hong and Chen Yunliang walked over at the same time. Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang's eyes met for only a second before they immediately separated.
"What's up?"
"Look at this."
Lu Shiyu held the pot lid in front of her.
"Pie, then what?"
"No, look at this," Lu Shiyu pointed to the edge of the pot lid: "This should prove that Shaoxing Yang didn't eat anything secretly."
Yanhong looked at where Lu Shiyu's finger was. There were some hairs stuck on the edge of the pot lid. They might have come from some animal. Because there was still some vegetable porridge left on the edge of the pot lid last night, when the animal came to steal food, some hairs were inevitably left behind.
"Animal hair?"
Yanhong pinched the hair on the edge of the pot lid and looked at it carefully.
"In that case, it's possible that some animal sneaked in here while we were sleeping and stole the cake."
"Look, look! I told you I didn't steal it!"
Shao Xingyang's nose was turned up in the air: "Apologize to me now! Apologize!"
"But," Yan Hong looked straight at Shao Xingyang, "I didn't see any animals when I was on guard last night. So when did it sneak in and steal the food?"
"Um, well," Shaoxing's masculine nose bent back down again: "Last night, maybe, probably, I accidentally dozed off."
Chen Yunliang said with embarrassment, "Oh, dozing off while on guard? What if we run into danger?"
Shaoxing Yang, who had just been proven innocent, was found to have a bigger pot. Shaoxing Yang now even regrets not admitting that he had cheated.
"But it was my fault to flatly say that you cheated on me. I'm sorry."
Yanhong awkwardly apologized to Shaoxingyang, and Shaoxingyang immediately pulled Yanhong over to block in front of him.
"Don't worry about the cake for now. If the captain scolds me later, you can help me share the blame!"
"Damn it! Don't drag me into this if you're derelict in your duty!"
Lu Shiyu picked up a pancake and took a bite, then looked at Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang who were still struggling, and then looked at Tang Zeyu.
Is Captain Tang so scary in the eyes of the team members? Lu Shiyu felt strange. She felt that Captain Tang had a good personality. Why did these two people seem to be afraid of him?
Unable to figure it out, Lu Shiyu silently took another bite of the cake.
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