Chapter 481

All three rabbits had their legs bound by Su Qiao.

And to stop the rabbits from gnawing, Su Qiao had even deliberately added a few extra ties.

In any case, simply gnawing free and escaping was impossible.

So they could only be buried between the two women's chests and petted.

"What do you plan to do with these three rabbits?"

Liu Rushi then asked Su Qiao.

Su Qiao thought for a moment and said: "Forget about raising them for now, we have nowhere to keep them, the danger hasn't been lifted yet, there are still pirates on this island, raising rabbits isn't realistic, better to kill them for meat. Wait until I've scouted the whole island, then we'll talk."

"Mm, you have a point, then let's kill one first!"

Sure enough, when it came to the matter of eating meat, no matter how cute and adorable the rabbits were, they still had to be cruelly killed.

Su Qiao nodded in agreement.

"One male, two females, let's kill a female rabbit. The remaining two, I'll make a cage in a bit and keep them for now."

Su Qiao grabbed that grey female rabbit and went off to a distant spot to handle it.

The blood was washed away by the sea, the pelt was stripped off, and Su Qiao planned to dry it in the sun and later see if he could sew something out of it.

The remaining meat was cut into chunks; without a pot for the moment, they could only roast it again.

Only, a few pieces of meat along with wild vegetables were tossed into coconut shells and a tortoise shell, to be boiled into soup.

One rabbit, two preparations!

Su Qiao also gathered quite a lot of wild fruit, laid everything out together, and it looked like quite a spread.

It was just that there was no Seasoning or salt, that's all.

Su Qiao deliberately set up a few small bonfires outside the cave for lighting.

Then rabbit meat was cooked over the small bonfires — exactly three small bonfires were set up, two coconut shells plus one tortoise shell of rabbit and wild vegetable soup.

Liu Rushi, on her side, roasted rabbit meat together with Qing'er.

The chunked rabbit meat roasted through very quickly.

At the very least, much faster than the vegetable soup.

……

Waiting until everything was cooked, Su Qiao carried over a wooden board, and everyone laid down palm leaves as padding, arranging everything on the table.

Wild rabbit and vegetable soup, one serving per person!

The coconut shells and tortoise shell serving as small pots weren't all that big.

The rabbit meat and wild vegetables inside were only so much in quantity.

The remaining half of the wild rabbit was simply roasted.

There were also bamboo shoot slices, wild fruit, palm heart, and so on.

Put together, it really did look like the table was full..........

"Alright, hurry up and eat, it'll all get cold in a bit."

Everyone had long been hungry, and without standing on ceremony, after Su Qiao started eating, Liu Rushi and Qing'er also began to eat.

With bamboo chopsticks and spoons, their way of eating looked noticeably different from the rough manner before.

One could say their quality of life had shot straight up!

Su Qiao felt they could absolutely keep going for another ten-odd days without any problem.

But what was the situation over at Quanzhou Prefecture?

……

The news of Su Qiao's disappearance had already been rushed to the capital.

Upon receiving the news, Zhu Youjian was truly anxious!

He immediately ordered the Tianjin Navy, the Fujian Navy, plus Suzhou Prefecture, Ningbo Prefecture, and other places — their sea vessels, merchant ships, warships, and so on — all to be drafted to search for him.

The order he gave them was: alive, they must see the person; dead, they must see the body!

Truly, the lot of them all turned out.

The Dutch fleet, which had originally been stirring restlessly, immediately shrank back.

Their ships and cannons were relatively advanced.

But that was only when the Great Ming wasn't fighting for real!

Now the Great Ming looked like a powder keg, and what's more, with everything thrown into the fight, their numbers far exceeded the Dutch.

They weren't fools.

If they truly provoked them, they felt the ants would absolutely bite the elephant to death.

And what's more, the Great Ming wasn't even an ant.

Their eyes in Quanzhou Prefecture had already sent word: the Great Ming's Tianjin Guard had new-style sea-war warships, and they had already arrived at Quanzhou Prefecture, only nobody was allowed to approach.

It was said they were even taller and larger than their galleons!

If that was the case, then what gap was there between their East India colonial company and the Great Ming?

They'd probably get beaten badly!

So without a second thought, they immediately shrank back.

Not only them, but other pirates, Japanese pirates, and so on, all truly had the bad luck of being swept clean.

Some islands the Great Ming had previously paid no attention to were now being cleared one by one, with an imperial envoy to be prepared.

To motivate everyone, Zhu Youjian had declared: whoever knows Su Qiao's whereabouts will be rewarded with a thousand taels of Huang Jin, and granted a noble title!

He didn't say exactly what noble title, yet it still stirred up everyone's enthusiasm.

If the Great Ming worked at this efficiency, it was quite possible that within about a month, they would find the island where Su Qiao and the others were.

However, sailing takes time, and setbacks often arise along the way; everything still depends on luck.

336, hurry, explore!

Outside, the wind had started blowing at some unknown time, and it was strong, making the temperature drop very low.

Fortunately, there was the bonfire and the dry grass inside the cave to keep warm.

Otherwise, standing out in the open on the ground, one would definitely fall ill immediately.

Having stayed inside the cave all this time, Su Qiao felt it was becoming increasingly inappropriate.

If a typhoon or strong winds struck, this cave would be of little use.

Manually building a shelter would be more reliable.

However, before the situation on the island had been fully surveyed, Su Qiao dared not "act recklessly."

Fear of exposure!

For now, they could only manage to get by.

Su Qiao did not want to delay any further; he planned to survey the entire small island as soon as possible.

Yesterday, he had already surveyed one-third of this area; today, after checking the traps, he could continue to explore new locations.

He did not know whether the traps set earlier had yielded any results after the wind had blown all night.

When Su Qiao woke up in the morning, Liu Rushi and Qing'er had already cooked a soup of wild vegetables.

There was nothing else on the island, but thanks to Su Qiao's guidance, wild vegetables were plentiful and could be found everywhere on the ground.

It was just that without Seasoning, it tasted somewhat bitter.

Fortunately, over these three days, they had not eaten only wild vegetables; they had other food sources as well.

Eating them occasionally was quite good.

"Husband, you're up?"

"Mm, I'll go wash first; we'll leave early. Do you all remember the traps I set at the entrance yesterday?"

"Yes, if there are bad people, lure them into the traps."

"Mm!"

Su Qiao crushed a few pieces of charcoal, stuffed them into his mouth, and began brushing his teeth with a twig.

"Crack, crack!"

The charcoal crunched crisply under Su Qiao's bite, but without toothpaste or fine salt, this charcoal was the best cleaning material available.

No odor, relatively clean, easy to rinse; these were all advantages.

So even though the texture was not great and it felt gritty with sound, Su Qiao endured and used it.

By the way, he hadn't taken a bath in several days.