Chapter 20 Your Kind: Abalone, River Shrimp, and Stewed Chicken
Heartbroken as I am, I still have to eat. Since I can't take it with me, I might as well eat to my heart's content.
Cheng Zhiyu asked Xiao Hei, who was pretending not to care but whose tail was wagging behind him, "Xiao Hei, what kind of meat do you want to eat?"
Xiao Hei timidly jumped onto the freezer, finally stopping above the chicken. "Eat this," he said, "this is meat I've never eaten before."
"If you just want to eat chicken, of course we can satisfy you." Cheng Zhiyu thought for a moment and then came up with an idea: "How about making braised chicken in a clay pot?"
Little Black's ears twitched. He didn't know what "diguo chicken" was, but it sounded delicious, so he nodded.
Cheng Zhiyu took out five or six chickens to thaw, and after looking around, he found the place where the staff usually cooked.
Although they have portable gas stoves, every little bit helps. Since we can cook here, let's cook here.
However, the pot is a bit small. This is a supermarket, how could we not have a pot? Cheng Zhiyu went to find the biggest pot, but even the biggest pot couldn't cook five or six chickens at once, so he had to cook them in several batches.
At this moment, Cheng Zhiyu started to miss the big iron pot at home, which could easily cook five or six chickens at a time.
But there are obviously no large iron pots here, and even if there were, there's no earthen stove, so we'll have to make do with what we have.
Besides chicken, no other meat is usually added to the stew. At this point, it doesn't matter whether it's authentic or not, as long as it tastes good.
Cheng Zhiyu found river shrimp the size of a palm, and unexpectedly, he also found abalone.
This abalone is quite big, about the size of a palm. Cheng Zhiyu had eaten abalone once before, when a wealthy relative held a wedding banquet, and it tasted exceptionally good.
No wonder abalone is always mentioned when talking about delicacies from land and sea.
With the ingredients almost ready, Cheng Zhiyu chopped the thawed chicken into small pieces, heated oil in a wok, added the prepared side dishes and stir-fried them, then added the chopped chicken and various seasonings to enhance the flavor. In no time, the color became particularly appealing.
Xiao Hei stood on Cheng Zhiyu's shoulder, its head craning out as it smelled the fragrance.
Cheng Zhiyu nudged him, afraid he would fall into the pot: "Don't rush, the chicken needs to stew for a while."
Xiao Hei pulled his head back: I'm not in a hurry.
Cheng Zhiyu poured the boiled water into the pot, and ten minutes later, he put in the river shrimp and abalone. He then tore the dough he had just made into thin pancakes and placed them on top.
After covering it with the lid for five minutes, it's ready to eat.
The smell was so delicious that even Cheng Zhiyu himself was starting to salivate frequently, let alone Xiao Hei.
Cheng Zhiyu took out Xiao Hei's small bowl, put chicken, river shrimp, and abalone on it, and topped it with a small pancake: "Eat up."
Xiao Hei glanced at the pancake with dissatisfaction, but reluctantly ate it. To be honest, the pancake actually tasted pretty good; it was soaked in soup and had a nice chewy texture.
After finishing the flatbread, it was finally time to eat meat. I don't know if it was because of the abalone in it, but it had a fresh and savory flavor that was different from the chicken.
Xiao Hei took a bite and immediately wanted to take it back: if the pancake was delicious, the meat was even better!
He ate so much he couldn't even lift his head.
Cheng Zhiyu's situation wasn't much better. The chicken was tender and flavorful, falling off the bone with just a touch. The river shrimp had already been deveined before being put into the pot, so they could be eaten directly. The shrimp's natural sweetness combined with the aroma of chicken and abalone made Cheng Zhiyu squint his eyes as he ate.
Finally, Cheng Zhiyu reached for the abalone with his chopsticks. This was what he was most looking forward to. Chicken and river shrimp were relatively common foods before the apocalypse, but abalone was quite hard to come by even then. After all, Cheng Zhiyu had just started working, and he really couldn't bear to spend money on abalone.
The abalone that I couldn't bear to buy before the apocalypse is now plentiful in the pot, so there's no need to worry about not having enough to eat.
Cheng Zhiyu was so engrossed in eating that he couldn't even lift his head. He even forgot to refill Xiao Hei's bowl. It wasn't until Xiao Hei slapped him with its paw in dissatisfaction that he realized what was happening and quickly served Xiao Hei another bowl.
After finishing that pot, neither of them was full, so Cheng Zhiyu made two more pots in the same way, and they were finally full.
After eating his fill, Xiao Hei lazily lay on the stool and dozed off. Cheng Zhiyu patted him and said, "I'm going to the system space for a bit. Call me if you need anything, I can hear you."
Little Black flicked its tail in response.
The next moment, Cheng Zhiyu's feet turned into soil. Xiao Er came over and acted coquettishly. He reached out and touched him. Xiao Tie also shook its branches and leaves, not to be outdone. After being touched, it quieted down.
These two no longer fight as easily as before; at most, they just flick each other with branches and leaves.
Cheng Zhiyu shook his head helplessly and went to check on Xiao Huang's condition. To his surprise, he found that Xiao Huang had just completed the first stage of maturity.
The system's mechanical voice sounded: [Congratulations, host! The plant Little Yellow has reached Level 1 maturity. Please harvest it. Rewards have been issued. Please explore further.]
After the system notification, Cheng Zhiyu was surprised to find that the ten fruits that Xiao Huang had grown quickly turned a bright orange color and emitted an enticing aroma.
However, he felt that this was definitely not an ordinary fruit, after all, the previous Xiao Er and Xiao Tie were not ordinary either.
So he first checked Xiao Huang's information: [Plant Name: Xiao Huang]
Current status: Level 1 Mature
Skill: After consuming its fruit, one can block the perception of zombies of the same level for five minutes.
When Cheng Zhiyu saw Xiao Huang's skill, his eyes widened slightly. This skill was too amazing. Xiao Huang was currently at level one, which meant that any level one superpowered zombie could also be a level one.
Therefore, if you encounter a level-one superpowered zombie, eating this fruit will prevent the zombie from sensing you, and five minutes will be enough to take it down.
Imagine if we had this when we encountered those two metal and wind type monsters before, we wouldn't have had to go through all that trouble.
However, Little Yellow doesn't produce many fruits, so it's best to use them sparingly unless absolutely necessary.
But Xiao Huang's skills are not offensive, so how do I level it up?
Cheng Zhiyu posed this question to the system, and the system responded: 【Please explore this on your own, host.】
Cheng Zhiyu: "..."
Okay.
Actually, he had an idea, and the inspiration came from Xiao Tie. Xiao Er's previous ability enhancement was entirely due to combat, but Xiao Tie eventually used a crystal core. Since that's the case, Xiao Huang should also be able to enhance his ability through a crystal core.
However, Xiao Huang's skills are too unique; they should belong to... the mental type? This kind of crystal core is probably quite rare...
It seems Xiao Huang's skills are too overpowered; consequently, it's very difficult to improve them. Cheng Zhiyu shook his head. "It's alright, take it slow."
Even though Xiao Huang had reached first-level maturity, it was still smaller than Xiao Er and Xiao Tie. It was quiet and still, like an ordinary plant. It would only move slightly when Cheng Zhiyu touched it.
Cheng Zhiyu went outside and, seeing that Xiao Hei was lying peacefully and there was no danger outside, felt relieved. He then returned to the system space to check his rewards.
The first reward is still an expansion of the system space, which is now 4*4 meters in size. Although it still doesn't look very big, it is much larger than before.
Moreover, there's more free space now, so I can plant some vegetables. The supermarket sells vegetable seeds; I'll go find some in a bit.
The second reward was also a plant. Cheng Zhiyu chose to extract the plant, and then he was shocked to find that the plant's life state was lower than ever before.
Only 5%!
Fortunately, Cheng Zhiyu was experienced. While checking the rewards, he had already prepared the planting hole and quickly planted the small plant. Even though he was very fast, the plant's life status had dropped to 4% during this time, and it looked wilted.
Cheng Zhiyu watered it, but its condition did not improve, which worried him.
Besides watering, plants also need fertilizer. However, Xiao Er and the others grew exceptionally well without fertilizer in the past, leading Cheng Zhiyu to believe that the black soil provided by the system was very fertile and did not require fertilizer.
It seems necessary now, at least the new plant needs it. Cheng Zhiyu thought about getting some fertilizer later and then gave the new plant a new name: "Let's call it Xiaoqiang. I hope you can grow strong and healthy."
system:【……】
Although Xiaoqiang was still listless, at least his life status hadn't dropped any further, which reassured Cheng Zhiyu a little. He then continued to check out the next reward he was most looking forward to!
[Congratulations, host! Your storage space has increased to five cubic meters. The space is currently upgrading. Please check back in one hour.]
Cheng Zhiyu: "!!!"
He thought the storage space would be at most 2 cubic meters, since the system always doubled the planting space each time it upgraded. He didn't expect it to be so generous this time, upgrading it to 5 cubic meters in one go!
Five cubic meters may not sound like much, but it can actually hold a lot of things. You know, storage space can hold real, solid stuff; it really can hold five cubic meters of stuff.
Cheng Zhiyu told Xiao Hei the good news, and Xiao Hei replied: Oh.
Cheng Zhiyu smiled and put it another way: "We can bring a lot of meat, enough to last us a long time if we eat meat every day."
Xiao Hei: !!!
Seeing the human-like surprise on Xiao Hei's face, Cheng Zhiyu rubbed the dog's head: "Take a look and see what you need to bring. Oh, right, I'll make some ready-made food so you can eat it if you don't feel like cooking later."
Little Black couldn't help but make a request: "I want to eat that again."
Cheng Zhiyu said, "No problem, go and see if you can find a larger lunchbox or something, and put the food in there."
Xiao Hei nodded and went to look for it very actively. In no time, he got a water ball with a bunch of large lunchboxes inside. No one knew where he found them.
This lunchbox is like the kind that the vendor used when Cheng Zhiyu went to buy fish before. It has a very large capacity, and one lunchbox is enough for him or Xiao Hei to have a meal.
Cheng Zhiyu praised Xiao Hei for busily making dozens of lunchboxes of braised chicken in a clay pot, and also creatively making braised fish and braised pork in a clay pot. He also steamed several lunchboxes of rice, but not many, mainly for convenience, as cooked rice takes up more volume, so they mostly brought raw rice with them.
The supermarket didn't finish its meat, so Cheng Zhiyu stuffed it all in, filling most of the storage space with all sorts of food.
Xiao Hei's favorite snacks were also stuffed in quite a bit.
As the man and his dog were busy stuffing supplies, they heard a commotion not far away, and Cheng Zhiyu immediately went on alert.
Then I heard Xiao Hei say, "It's one of your kind."
Cheng Zhiyu: "?"
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