Chapter 417: A bit of regret

While waiting for the meat to cook, Wang An and Mu Xueli made a fairly large tree-bark box.

This tree-bark box was as large as the one the three of them had used to catch deer blood last time.

The main reason was the lack of a basin; as for the pot, since there was too much meat to stew in one go and they would have to stew another batch later, this tree-bark box was used to hold the meat.

When eating in the mountains, there is a preference for "eating it hot while fresh," so as soon as the pheasant and rabbit meat were cooked, everyone couldn't wait to start eating.

The winter mushrooms inside were praised endlessly by everyone; before they had even eaten two pieces of meat, the winter mushrooms had already been picked out and finished.

Of course, before eating the meat, they didn't forget to put the next batch on to stew.

In fact, whether it's stewing pheasant or stewing flying dragon, it's very simple.

First, put half a small pot of snow into the pot, then put the meat in, add salt and chili, and finally cover it with snow, and the job is done.

However, it is worth noting that the snow must be heaped up, because once this stuff melts into water, there really isn't much of it.

Even so, once the snow in the pot has all melted, you still have to add quite a bit more.

After finishing the winter mushrooms, everyone started drinking and eating meat.

Drinking in the mountains doesn't have so many formalities; one wine flask is passed around, a sip for you and a sip for me, and no one minds if it's dirty.

However, the atmosphere was genuinely quite good; if outsiders saw this, they wouldn't know if this group of people had come into the mountains to eat and drink, or to hunt tigers.

Nine people eating a pot of meat—even though this pot had over ten jin—was quickly finished by everyone.

Fortunately, the next pot of meat was basically ready to eat, so after dumping out the meat from the pot, everyone put the flying dragon on to stew and continued eating.

To tell the truth, the meat of birds and beasts in the mountains isn't actually that easy to stew until tender.

Normally, stewing in a large pot takes three or four hours to get tender, but young people's teeth don't care whether it's tender or not.

This led to everyone eating with bared teeth and claws.

Mainly because if you didn't eat it that way, the meat wouldn't tear off at all!

It is worth mentioning that while everyone was eating winter mushrooms, they were still chatting away.

But from the moment they started eating meat, everyone closed their mouths; everyone was focused on eating meat without even lifting their heads.

After finishing this pot of meat, everyone fed the bones to the dogs and then dug out the "Silly Half-Jin" buried at the bottom of the fire pile.

It must be said that the temperature of the fire is effective, because by the time they finished this meal, only the Silly Half-Jin was properly cooked through.

By the time they finished the Silly Half-Jin, the flask of wine had also been drunk dry by everyone.

Flying dragon soup is not good if stewed for a short time, so it was only while waiting for the flying dragon soup that everyone finally had time to talk.

Sun Nian was seen sucking on a bone with no meat, saying with a very sad expression:

"I haven't eaten enough yet, and the meat is gone."

Sun Nian's appearance could be called quite beautiful, and she also had a feeling of a delicate girl from a humble family.

So when she said this, she had a very pitiful look that made one feel for her.

Zhang Shuya patted Sun Nian and comforted her, saying:

"It's okay, when we go down the mountain, I'll have my younger brother hunt more meat for you to eat, so you can eat until you're full."

Hearing Zhang Shuya's words, Sun Nian was instantly stunned, staring at Zhang Shuya with big eyes, and even the bone in her mouth fell to the ground.

Immediately after, Sun Nian's small face was covered in a blush; she wanted to say something but couldn't organize her language.

And after everyone heard Zhang Shuya's words, they also became very surprised, all looking at Zhang Shuya with dumbfounded expressions.

Everyone seemed to be wondering, what was Zhang Shuya trying to do by saying this?

And as Zhang Shuya spoke, she also looked at Wang An, seemingly waiting for Wang An to express his stance.

Wang An raised his head, and the corner of his eye caught everyone's expressions; seeing the looks from Zhang Shuya and Sun Nian, he was also stunned for a moment. The reason Wang An was like this was that he felt Zhang Shuya was speaking without thinking.

It was fine for Sun Nian to want to eat meat, but it was problematic for Zhang Shuya to say Wang An should hunt some for her.

Mainly because Wang An's relationship with Sun Nian could only be described as barely friends, so what was this about Wang An hunting meat for Sun Nian?

However, with Wang An's intelligence, he certainly couldn't let Zhang Shuya's words fall to the ground.

So Wang An, having reacted, smiled and said:

"That's a small matter; isn't it simple to eat meat? When we go down the mountain, everyone come to my house to eat meat; you must eat until you're stuffed."

After Wang An finished speaking, everyone seemed to be relieved and looked at Wang An with approving eyes.

They also said one after another:

"If Little An invites us, we must go."

"Right, Little An's house has yellow sheep; it's no problem to slaughter two."

"My brother-in-law's house also has silly roe deer."

Clearly, everyone couldn't accept that Sun Nian and Wang An might develop some kind of relationship.

Of course, Wang An himself couldn't accept it either.

Although Wang An's relationship with Shen Wei and the others was unclear, truth be told, among these women, Wang An hadn't been the initiator for any of them.

Of course, someone would surely say, as a grown man, how could he not control his lower body?

But Wang An wanted to say that anyone who says this definitely hasn't had a woman throw herself into their arms.

Even if there were, that woman might look like Zhu Bajie's second aunt.

So, as a grown man, before saying anything, pat your conscience and ask yourself if you can do it.

Wang An's words, combined with the discussion of the crowd, effectively turned the page on Zhang Shuya's words.

After a while, the flying dragon soup was finally stewed, but eight flying dragons couldn't be divided among nine people, so Wang An, as the leader, only drank the soup and didn't eat the meat.

The flying dragon itself wasn't very big; to tell the truth, no one was missing that bit of meat.

After eating and drinking their fill, they continued to take turns keeping watch.

When Wang An opened his eyes from his sleep, the sky was already bright.

After everyone had a simple breakfast, they continued to follow the tiger's footprints and tracked it.

This pursuit lasted another whole day.

However, after a day, everyone still had zero harvest, as if this tiger knew Wang An and the others were chasing it, so it was fleeing day and night without stopping.

This kind of tracking is actually very exhausting; you can't eat well or sleep well, wearing everyone out until their lips were dry and their eyes were bloodshot.

Including Wang An, everyone felt a bit of regret; was it really worth risking their lives for a tiger?

Mainly because whether they could actually hunt it was unknown; this was already the third day, yet they hadn't even seen a hair of the tiger.

The key was that not only could the people not take it, but the horses and dogs couldn't take it either.

At the very least, the people were sitting on the sled, while the horses and dogs had been running the whole time.

At night, Wang An saw the listless state of the dogs and dismissed the idea of going to hunt meat.

At this time, everyone's food, besides steamed buns and canned meat, was only winter mushrooms.

So, everyone washed half of all the winter mushrooms and just boiled them with water melted from snow.

It must be said that delicious things are delicious as long as they are cooked; it has nothing to do with the method.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 418 =====