Chapter 170 Digging out beast cores and stuffing wolf meat sausages
Before the land was settled, Zuo Shan first sowed the seeds into the planting box.
She collected the seeds of sheepgrass and daylily herself, storing them in separate sealed bags. She first scattered the seeds of these two types into two boxes and then engraved her name on the boxes.
Lele collected a whole sack of seeds. She first selected 16 varieties of wild vegetable seeds, planted them in different boxes, and carved the numbers 1 to 16 on them to distinguish them.
They then selected 16 different varieties of poisonous seeds and planted them, which filled 34 boxes.
She then transplanted the seedlings from the 15 seeds given to her by the old housekeeper into different boxes, taking up another 15 boxes.
There are now 11 tiered planting boxes in the house, out of a total of 55 boxes. Now there are only 6 empty boxes left. Zuo Shan first transplanted the only precious poppy seedling.
Then, I transplanted the seedlings of my favorite shepherd's purse and wild chives.
In the end, only three empty boxes remained, which she decided to keep for future use.
While helping with the transplanting, Pandora also summoned Sui Sui, giving the seeds that had just been sown a little bit of growth-promoting power. She was overjoyed to see them successfully sprout from the soil.
This sense of accomplishment, of feeling useful, made her feel that the air around her was exceptionally fresh.
After a busy morning, I finally got the transplanting of seedlings and the breeding work done.
Seeing that the sun was already high overhead, Zuo Shan hurriedly called Mao Li and Pan Duole for help to gather up the 11 tiered planting boxes and push them into the basement to temporarily escape the strong midday radiation.
Pandora made enough breakfast, and stored the leftovers in her spatial storage to keep them warm. Now that she has some free time, she can take them out for lunch.
While everyone was having lunch, Zuo Shan glanced at the crib and saw the baby smacking his lips, clearly looking hungry.
She couldn't help but laugh, and dipped her chopsticks into the soup of the stewed pork with vermicelli to let the baby taste it.
Wasteland babies aren't as delicate as Earth babies. She had fed her baby double-skin milk and egg custard before, and he didn't get diarrhea or show any discomfort.
Zuo Shan even guessed that the baby could probably eat any soft and well-cooked food.
It's no wonder that despite the harsh conditions in District 50, some children still managed to grow up; the human ability to adapt to the environment is truly extraordinary.
Seeing the baby's smiling eyes, Zuo Shan dipped some wild vegetable paste into chopsticks and let him taste it. This time, the baby frowned, clearly not liking the taste.
"Hey! I didn't expect you little rascal to know how to taste things, that meat broth tastes better than wild vegetable porridge!" Zuo Shan laughed.
“Our baby Achen loves to eat meat, so Auntie will hunt prairie wolves for you again next time!” Pan Duole said with a smile.
“The taste of prairie wolf is nothing like that of wild boar meat. I plan to mix it with wild boar meat, grind it into minced meat, and stuff it into sausages. That way, you won’t be able to tell the difference,” Zuo Shan said.
"But weren't those three burnt to a crisp? They looked like black charcoal, how can we still eat them?" Pan Duole asked worriedly.
Before the older sister took the three wolves, she smelled the aroma of meat and tried scraping off some charred bits of meat from the wolf carcass. When she put it in her mouth, she found it not only extremely bitter but also tasted like wood chips.
She's not picky about food, but after tasting the burnt minced meat, she preferred to eat raw wild vegetable leaves, which tasted much better.
"Silly child, as long as we scrape off the charred outer layer, most of the meat inside will still be fine."
"This layer of charred meat scraps won't go to waste; it can be mixed into the soil to provide nutrients for the plants," Zuo Shan said.
"Huh? This works too?" Pan Duole felt like he had learned something new again.
After lunch, Zuo Shan found an open space in the basement and placed the three charred prairie wolf carcasses from his spatial storage on the ground.
First, he took out a detection knife to check the radiation levels. Only the alpha wolf had moderate radiation. Zuo Shan sighed, "What a pity, both of them are so big, but they have high radiation levels and can't be eaten!"
The next second, two tender leaves sprouted from Wanwan's wrist, swaying and conveying a message to her: "Wanwan is now at level two, and can reduce the radiation level of mutated beast meat!"
According to Zuo Shan, mutated beasts can reduce their radiation levels during the breakthrough and advancement process. Mutated beasts of the third rank and above generally have low to medium radiation, while those of the fourth rank and above only have low radiation.
There are even higher-level ones, supposedly with zero radiation, but such precious ingredients are only for high-level ability users; low-level users would explode if they ate them.
The ability "Wanwan" was undoubtedly a boon for Zuo Shan, a level-zero ability user. She was so excited that she almost jumped up: "Really? Does that mean we can eat all the low-level mutated beast meat we get from now on?"
Wanwan touched a tender leaf, and a green light enveloped one of the mutated wolves. After a while, it shrunk back listlessly.
A message was sent to Zuo Shan: "Master, Wanwan can only purify one mutated wolf at a time, and the radiation level can only be reduced by one level. Wanwan is tired and needs to sleep."
Zuo Shan picked up the testing knife and tried it out. Sure enough, the radiation level dropped from high radiation level 1 to medium radiation level 3.
Although eating food with moderate to level 3 radiation still poses some harm to people, it is sufficient for scavengers who have adapted to moderate radiation levels, and they can eat it without worry.
"I heard that mutated beasts have beast cores growing in their heads. Lele, let's dig out the beast cores!" Zuo Shan said, tapping the wolf's head with his dagger.
"Great! Great! Let's see who's lucky enough to dig up the prettiest beast core!" Pandora immediately beamed with delight, not at all bothered by the wolf carcass that reeked of burnt and fishy stench.
Xiao Bao saw that they were digging for beast cores, so he ran over to join in the fun.
As it turned out, it was the fastest, its little claws piercing right through the alpha wolf's skull and digging out a transparent, almond-sized beast core from its head.
"Little Bao, you're amazing! You even know how to dig out the wolf's head!" Zuo Shan praised. Little Bao happily tried to come over and rub against her, but she scolded him, "Go wash your paws!"
Mao Li looked at the beast core and said, "This is a second-tier wind attribute beast core. Most beast cores are attribute-less, so it's not easy to find one with an attribute."
Especially wind-attribute beast cores are extremely rare.
Although beast cores of different attributes can be absorbed, the absorption process is extremely wasteful. Therefore, it is better to sell them to wind attribute ability users at a high price than to let family members absorb them.
Absorbing beast cores of the same attribute is much more efficient, so I'm sure they'd be willing to pay a high price for them.
Hearing that family members were not suitable for absorption, Zuo Shan immediately thought of Mina, who had the wind attribute. She was Xiao Bai's follower, and being able to help Mina would be a way of repaying Xiao Bai's favor.
Pandora spent a lot of effort digging out an earth-attribute beast core, while Zuo Shan had incredible luck and just happened to dig out a speed-type beast core.
Speed-type beast cores, like wind-type ones, are extremely rare. They are a deep blue color that gleams beautifully in the sunlight, captivating all who see them.
Mao Li said that the beast core of the second-tier mutated beast was too domineering for her, who was at the zero tier, and that absorbing it directly would risk causing her to explode. Zuo Shan had no choice but to put it away for the time being and wait for a suitable opportunity to absorb it.
She decided to give the earth-attribute beast core to the old butler, after all, he had helped renovate the courtyard wall and dig such a large basement.
After digging out the beast core, Zuo Shan had Mao Li and Pan Duole take knives to scrape the charred parts off the wolf carcass.
With Xiao Bao, the master of metal handling, the house is now fully equipped with all kinds of kitchen knives, watermelon knives, and fruit knives. The three of them worked for more than two hours and finally managed to scrape off the charred parts.
After rinsing with clean water, the meat inside was revealed to be very clean. Zuo Shan minced the meat into minced meat, then took out a wild boar piglet, skinned and deboned it, minced the meat, mixed it all together, and stuffed it into sausages.
After poking holes in the sausage casings and hanging them in the basement to dry until they were no longer dripping wet, Zuo Shan put the sausages into her spatial storage. She planned to let Mina and the others try them next time they came over, and if they didn't like them, she would sell them on the Ninth Forum.
She's now an E-level member, which allows her to post food ads for sale. Her homemade sausages with Sichuan peppercorn powder are sure to be popular.
Pan Duole looked at the rows of sausages hanging on the clothes rack and jumped up with joy: "Sister, apart from you taking me fishing, this is the first time I've ever hunted a mutated beast in the wild, and a second-tier mutated beast at that! I never dared to dream of this before!"
Back then, she only killed one mutated field mouse with her mother, and it was a mousetrap that broke its leg.
They were terrified at the time, but later their mother calmed down and asked her to help find two large rocks outside. They used the rocks to smash the head of the mutated field mouse.
Afterwards, Mom skinned the rat, washed it thoroughly, chopped it into small pieces, and stewed it in a pot for a long time, saying that she was afraid it wouldn't be cooked through and that there would be germs inside.
It is said that a plague broke out in District 50 decades ago, caused by a scavenger who ate an undercooked mutated field mouse, which infected and spread the plague.
Even so, the people of District 50 were reluctant to throw away the mutated rats they had caught, after all, it was meat, and the nutritional value of meat was far superior to that of wild vegetables.
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