Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse - Chapter 23

Chapter 23 Roasted Bear Paw

Shaking his head, Xu Xin stopped thinking about it. This wasn’t something he had to consider at this stage. He first had to make sure that he could survive.

While Xu Xin was picking the fruits, the little fellow on his shoulder kept looking at him with a resentful gaze, as if to say, “You have so many, but you only give me one a day. You’re so stingy.”

There were 32 red berries in the entire bush. The little guy had just eaten two, so he had a total of 30 red berries this time. Xu Xin placed all the red berries in his backpack, which took up a slot.

After he was done, Xu Xin decided to head back. It should be around four or five in the morning, and the sun was already rising. It was almost dawn, but the event mentioned this morning would only start at nine. Even though Xu Xin didn’t have any mental fatigue after eating the orange, he could clearly feel the fatigue in his body.

It was time to go back and rest.

Soon, they returned to the treehouse. Under the little guy’s surprised gaze, Xu Xin returned to the treehouse with a root tied to his waist.

The little guy jumped down from Xu Xin’s shoulder and ran around, looking around curiously. It was very curious about the treehouse and started to let out soft cries.

It usually slept in tree holes. This was the first time it had seen such a big tree hole.

“Don’t touch anything!” Xu Xin reminded it as he put all the blue-grade food in the house into his backpack, in case the little guy ate them when he was not paying attention.

After a busy night, he was hungry. Xu Xin touched his flat belly and swallowed a mouthful of saliva as she thought of the bear meat and the blue-grade bear paw that he had hunted. It had been three days since he had come to this world, and Xu Xin had not had a single bite of meat. Such a vegetarian diet made him feel like he was not himself anymore.

He used the boning knife to cut two kilograms of bear meat, then picked up the blue-grade bear paw and set up the grill in front of the fireplace.

Although the most suitable cooking method for bear paw was to stew it, barbeque bear paw also had its unique flavor.

Cao Zhi’s “Mingdu Article” once said: “Minced carp should be cooked in thick prawn soup, and soft-shelled turtle should be stir-fried while bear paw should be roasted”. As a foodie, of the entire Mingdu Article, Xu Xin had only memorized this one sentence.

He had been wanting to try bear paws for a long time, but bears were protected animals in the country he lived in, so this long-standing tradition of food had disappeared.

As an experienced foodie, he had even made plans to go to northern Russia to taste it legally. He did not expect that it would be realized in this world. It was one of the few good things for him.

Xu Xin didn’t have a wok. He flipped through the production list, but he couldn’t find the method to make an iron pot and stove. By right, he should have the complete raw materials to make these two things, but he just couldn’t make them.

A grill could be made, but a pot and a stove couldn ‘t. Could it be that the blueprint of higher grade kitchen utensils needed to be unlocked?

Xu Xin used the boning knife to cut a few cuts on the meat and bear paw, then placed the two ingredients on the grill to roast.

Unfortunately, there was no seasoning, so he could only try the original flavor for now.

He had to pay more attention to these things in the next few days. Food would not taste good without salt. Moreover, there would be problems if the human body lacked salt for a long time. Although there was salt in the blood of animals, he couldn’t possibly eat raw meat and drink blood like a wild beast.

The tired little guy returned to the third floor and curled up on Xu Xin’s lap. It did not seem to be interested in the bear meat on the grill. Xu Xin took an apple and stuffed it into the red panda’s arms, and the little guy immediately hugged it and munched on it.

“I have to give you a name,” Xu Xin muttered to himself as he looked at the little guy on his lap who was happily munching on the apple.

When the little guy heard Xu Xin’s words, it looked up and tilted its head to look at him.

“Emmm, you’re so fluffy. Why don’t I call you Fluffball?”

The little guy immediately shook his head and took a big bite of the apple to show its dissatisfaction.

“Since you’re covered in brown fur, should I call you Coffee? Chocolate? Cocoa?”

The little guy tilted his head and looked at him, not knowing what those three words meant.

Seeing that the little guy did not object, Xu Xin immediately made a decision, “I’ll call you Cocoa then!”

“Yin!” The little guy was unhappy with Xu Xin’s tyranny, but it didn’t object to the name. He continued to munch on the apple, accepting the name.

Soon, the bear meat on the grill was sizzling with oil, and the sizzling sound of the oil almost made Xu Xin drool. After three days of being vegan, he could finally eat some meat.

The meal was extremely delicious. Although there was no seasoning, and the bear meat had a strange taste, Xu Xin still enjoyed it, especially the blue-grade bear paw. Under the enhancement of its grade, the meat was firm, full of oil, and rich in collagen. It was indeed a rare delicacy, and Xu Xin gobbled it down happily with a mouth full of oil.

After finishing his meal, Xu Xin could feel the grease on his hands and mouth. He shook his head with a bitter smile and carefully went to the lake to wash up. Fortunately, the Map showed that the red dots in the lake were concentrated in the middle of the lake, so he managed to wash up without any danger.

To avoid such trouble in the future, he made a large wooden basin, filled it with water, and brought it back to the treehouse.

“Phew…” Xu Xin lay down on the bed. Unlike the shiitake mushrooms he had eaten before, he could clearly feel the increase in strength thanks to the bear paw.

When he was eating just now, he could already feel a warm current flowing from his abdomen to every part of his body. When he was carrying the water, the large basin of water that was originally very heavy to him didn’t feel like anything at all. He purposefully didn’t put the basin full of water into his backpack, and he noticed that he didn’t even pant when he carried it back.

After being boosted by the dining table and the grill, the benefits that the bear paw could bring him were maximized.

“With the increase in strength and the effect of the backpack, I can carry more things,” Xu Xin was very satisfied with the bear paw’s effects.

Lying on the bed, he gradually fell asleep.

He was awoken by the chirping of birds. He looked at the time on the screen. It was half past eight, half an hour to nine. Beside him, Cocoa was curled up in a ball on his bed. Its large tail was wrapped around its body, and it had not woken up.

After washing up, Xu Xin went to the screen. The Regional Channel was already bustling with activity.

“It’s starting in twenty minutes!”

“What is it called? The jungle exploration event?”

“I’m so excited just hearing it! There should be some treasures, right?”

“Don’t be happy too soon. Have you forgotten about last night’s nightmare?”

“Speaking of which, is everyone close to each other? Can we form a party to explore? It’s too dangerous to explore by ourselves.”

He also saw Li Wenxi’s reply to him, “??Why do you have a backpack? Last night, after the beast tide ended, I went down and walked around for a long time, but I didn’t find a single beast corpse. Could it be that you killed it? Speaking of which, why is it a white-grade backpack? Isn’t it the green grade on the list?”

The message was sent at seven in the morning. The beautiful girl had slept a little so late last night, yet she woke up quite early. She probably knew that Xu Xin was still in bed, so she only replied with one sentence even though she liked video calling.

Good Lord, she was quite brave. Xu Xin only dared to go down because he had the Map that showed the location of the beasts. If he didn’t have this ability, he wouldn’t have dared to go down after the beast tide had receded.

“I was lucky enough to kill a beast that was eating. This backpack is made from the tattered skin of the beast that was being eaten. Do you want it? Give me some blue-grade stones and iron ores in exchange.”