Chapter 77: Dumplings

When the first ray of morning sunlight fell upon this vast golden land, Zhang Fan and his wife and Fei Er and his wife also got up early. After washing up, they casually ate breakfast and then began preparing to process the wheat.

Because there was a lot of wheat to process, there was simply no room to spread it out inside the tent. So Ba Ke Er and Mo De simply moved all the wheat out of the tent and piled it in the open space in front of the tent. This gave them more room to work, but a new problem arose: what to do without enough tools?

Now the situation is that there is only a small stone mortar and a small millstone. Previously, all the wheat flour was produced by Fei Er and Zhang Fan working together, one handling husking and the other turning the mill. But now that Ba Ke Er and Mo De, two male Beastmen, have joined, the tools are completely insufficient.

Originally, the two male Beastmen wanted to take the tools for themselves and let their partners play, but when they saw their beloved tightly clutching the mini tools, they silently compared the size of those mini tools with their own stature. The result was that these two sole tools were simply too small for them. Moreover, their beloved seemed unwilling to lend the tools to them.

Thus those two sole tools were left to Zhang Fan and Fei Er. The Beastmen had no choice but to put on a bitter face and ask their fellow tribespeople if they could borrow a millstone and stone mortar. The two Beastmen silently shed tears in their hearts. Wuwu wuu, our females are too capable, leaving us completely without a sense of presence—what to do?

Seeing Ba Ke Er and Mo De go off to borrow tools, Zhang Fan and Fei Er couldn't help but laugh.

"Fan Fan, did you see their expressions just now? It's hilarious! Hahaha!" Fei Er watched Mo De and Ba Ke Er silently leave, unable to stop laughing hysterically.

"Hahaha, of course I saw! It's really funny!" Zhang Fan watched Ba Ke Er's retreating back, and without caring whether Ba Ke Er and Mo De had walked far yet, he began to laugh wickedly.

Hearing their females laugh at them and laugh so happily, Ba Ke Er and Mo De could do nothing about it. After all, females need to be pampered. Since a little concession on their part could make them laugh so happily, they might as well let them continue being happy. Thinking this, Ba Ke Er and Mo De also began to turn up the corners of their mouths, and their steps unconsciously quickened.

Seeing Ba Ke Er and Mo De already gone far, Zhang Fan and Fei Er stopped laughing and instead began to process the wheat according to their usual division of labor. Thus, by the time Ba Ke Er and Mo De returned, Zhang Fan and Fei Er had already ground a small pile of flour.

Seeing that Zhang Fan and Fei Er had already processed some flour, Mo De and Ba Ke Er hurriedly used the borrowed large stone mortar and millstone to quickly process the wheat. Seeing Ba Ke Er and Mo De start processing wheat, Zhang Fan and Fei Er, not wanting to be outdone, sped up their own pace, as if they were competing with the males.

After an unknown amount of time, everyone suddenly heard a loud noise from nearby. Upon listening closely, it turned out to be coming from Fei Er's stomach.

"Fei Er, what's wrong? Are you hungry?" Zhang Fan said, then lowered his head to look at his watch and realized that, without noticing, it had already become noon.

"Yeah, Fan Fan, I'm really hungry! I feel like I could eat an entire cow!" Fei Er said somewhat embarrassedly.

"That's perfect; let's make beef-filled dumplings today—I wonder if Fei Er can actually finish a whole cow." Zhang Fan teased.

Fei Er didn't mind Zhang Fan's teasing at all; instead, he laughed and licked his lips, saying: "That could be worth a try. Hehe, today we have another delicious food to eat!"

Seeing Fei Er's greedy look, Zhang Fan couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth. Of course, the motion of turning the mill in his hand also stopped; he scooped flour into a ceramic basin, began adding water and kneading dough in preparation for making dumplings. Seeing Zhang Fan start kneading, Fei Er hurriedly put down what he was holding and came over to watch.

Ba Ke Er and Mo De glanced at Zhang Fan and Fei Er, then lowered their heads again to silently husk and grind the wheat.

After Zhang Fan kneaded the dough in his hand into a smooth ball, he began to roll it into a long strip, then tore the strip into small dough pieces according to a certain ratio. Finally, he took out a rolling pin and began to roll each small dough piece into a dumpling wrapper.

Seeing Zhang Fan rolling out the wrappers looked fun, Fei Er hurriedly went back to fetch a rolling pin and began to roll out wrappers, imitating Zhang Fan's motions.

Although neither of them was slow, after rolling for a while they had produced only a few wrappers. So Zhang Fan simply suggested letting the two male Beastmen join the wrapper-rolling team. Unexpectedly, with the addition of the two male Beastmen, the effect was immediate; before long, all the wrappers were rolled out.

Next came chopping the dumpling filling. As expected, the two male Beastmen snatched up the task as soon as it was announced. Thus Zhang Fan had no choice but to bring Fei Er to prepare the various seasonings needed for eating dumplings.

Soon, Ba Ke Er and Mo De had chopped the dumpling filling, and had even already seasoned the meat filling.

Next, of course, came learning to wrap dumplings. Zhang Fan casually picked up a wrapper, spread it on his palm, scooped a spoonful of meat filling onto it with a small wooden spoon, and with a flick of his fingers a beautiful dumpling took shape. Then, following the previous steps, he slowed down and wrapped a few more before raising his head to ask the other three:

"How is it? Have you learned? Just like this—wrap the meat filling inside the wrapper and you're good." After saying that, he gave a few more demonstrations, then had the three try it themselves.

All three were wrapping dumplings for the first time, and the results were truly bizarre and painful to behold!

"Fan Fan, wrapping this dumpling is so hard! I can't even wrap one properly." After trying to wrap one, Fei Er couldn't help but complain to Zhang Fan.

"It's okay, Fei Er; it's natural to find it difficult on your first try—you'll get better with practice. Moreover, your first attempt wasn't bad at all; the shape of this dumpling is quite creative!" Zhang Fan laughed while comforting Fei Er.

Beside them, Ba Ke Er, seeing Zhang Fan praise Fei Er, hurriedly held up his own dumpling in front of Zhang Fan, seeking praise!

Seeing Ba Ke Er's childish manner, Zhang Fan couldn't help but feel a dark line across his face, and gave Ba Ke Er a white look. This made Ba Ke Er suddenly feel wronged. Wuwu, Fan Fan doesn't love me anymore—what should I do?

Seeing Ba Ke Er's escalating antics, Zhang Fan eventually relented and said: "Ba Ke Er is also impressive. This dumpling really looks nice."

Having received praise, Ba Ke Er's mood instantly improved; he smugly glanced at Fei Er and his wife, then sped up his dumpling-wrapping. Watching this, Mo De felt an urge to drag that guy out and give him a beating.

Not long after, the dumplings were all wrapped; since there were simply too many to count, Zhang Fan didn't bother and went straight to boiling water to cook the dumplings.

After they were cooked, no one expected everyone to like them so much—whether it was from being overly hungry or because they were truly delicious. In the end, not even a drop of broth remained.