Picking Up Special Marine Creatures While Going to the Sea [Apocalypse] - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Dinner

After a while.

Boom!

Bang!

Wang!

There was a horrible sound of chopping vegetables coming from the kitchen.

At the door, Xue Tuan, the little hen, and the mermaid stretched their heads over and peeked in at the same time.

…Su Ran was cutting vegetables very vigorously, feeling a little crazy inside.

What is he so sensitive about? What is he so jumpy about?

That’s a man, a man! He’s just a little better looking. Hadn’t he seen an attractive man before?!

…………It seems that he had never seen it before.

Su Ran froze for a moment, then began fiercely chopping again the next second.

…Wait, maybe it’s because he had never seen anyone that good-looking before that he was reacting so strongly. Everyone loves beauty, so it’s normal to be stunned, right? It’s also normal to be a little frightened, right? He… is normal!

Su Ran easily convinced himself and gradually calmed down… Then, when he let go of the kitchen knife and plugged in the induction cooker, he accidentally saw the palm of his right hand, which had been sprayed with spray and the wound had healed. He immediately remembered the touch of the man’s cold fingertips, and his heart skipped a beat.

Su Ran: “………………”

Ahhhhh.

Xing Lin took on the responsibility of feeding the hen.

Xue Tuan circled around him, looking at the hen for a while, then looking at the vegetables in his hand. It seemed that seeing the hen eating with relish, he also became curious about the taste of the leaves.

Xing Lin broke off a leaf and waved it in front of it.

Xue Tuan stared with his eyes crossed, stretched his neck, took a bite and chewed it excitedly. After a few bites, he frowned and spit it out, drooling on his tongue, looking extremely disgusted.

Xing Lin let out a low laugh.

“So it tastes bad?” He murmured softly, breaking off a leaf and taking a bite. “Hmm, it’s sweet.”

Xue Tuan: “?”

There was a shout from behind.

“It’s time for dinner, come in!”

Xing Lin turned around and saw Su Ran coming out of the kitchen with the dishes.

If it were as usual, when there was an extra guest at home, he would definitely prepare a big meal to entertain him.

But of course things are different now.

Su Ran simply made two dishes and a soup. The staple food was still steamed potatoes, and they had rice in the evening.

The place for eating finally moved from the steps in front of the door to a proper dining table.

Xing Lin sat down at the table and looked at the three dishes.

After a fierce ideological struggle, Su Ran was now more or less immune to his expression and asked in a normal manner, “Do you usually eat home-cooked meals like this in the Inner Earth?”

“The ingredients are the same, but the cooking method isn’t that complicated. Most of the time, it’s just about cooking the food. I’ve heard that China used to be a country of gourmet food, and everyone was a good cook. Today, I finally saw it for myself.”

Su Ran felt very strange when he heard this evaluation.

He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Xing Lin. “Not everyone can cook. Some people only order takeout, but we do have a lot of cuisines, and each province has its own specialties.”

Xing Lin raised his eyes to look at him: “That means you are good at cooking.”

“…” Su Ran was about to blush again… What he said just now was not meant to praise himself.

“Try it first and see if you like it.”

Xing Lin glanced at the chopsticks in front of him and picked them up.

Obviously, he had used chopsticks before, and his holding posture was very standard.

It’s just that maybe he hadn’t used it many times, so when he raised his hand, the movement still seemed a bit unfamiliar.

Su Ran cooked half of the king razor clam they had just dug up, and put the remaining half into the seawater tank to spit out the sand.

He cut the halves in half one by one, washed off the mud and sand, spread them on a plate filled with Longkou vermicelli, and steamed them with garlic sauce. Afraid that Xing Lin couldn’t handle spicy food, he didn’t add any extra chili peppers, as the garlic sauce itself was already a bit spicy.

It looked like a big dish, but it is actually not complicated to make. Since he had to steam potatoes anyway, he could just steam them together.

The first thing Xing Lin picked up was the razor clam.

Putting it in the bowl, he picked out the king clam meat with chopsticks, took a look at it, lowered his head and took a bite.

He chewed twice and paused.

“…Do you think it’s spicy?” Su Ran asked hesitantly.

Xing Lin shook his head. “…It’s a taste I’ve never tasted before, so I was stunned.”

He raised his head and looked at Su Ran with burning eyes: “It’s delicious.”

Su Ran was also stunned, then he pursed his lips and smiled: “…Then eat more!”

There weren’t many expressions on Xing Lin’s face. Except for the occasional sudden smile and frown when he was extremely confused, Su Ran seemed to have never seen any expression on this face.

But his quick movements could reveal some clues.

He finished the clams in a few bites, observed them for a while, and then extended his chopsticks to the vermicelli.

During the steaming process, the juice that seeps out from the clam meat blends with the garlic sauce and coats each vermicelli.

Xing Lin picked some and put them into the bowl, lowered his head to taste it, paused, and then sucked it all into his mouth in one breath.

His cheeks puffed slightly as he chewed rapidly, and Su Ran saw a gleam in those deep blue eyes.

The other dish he made was stir-fried winter bamboo shoots with greens, a very simple dish.

Su Ran and his whole family love to eat bamboo shoots, especially winter bamboo shoots.

Winter bamboo shoots are crispy, tender and slightly sweet, and are very delicious whether used in soup or stir-fry.

In order to keep them available for longer, his mother would buy more winter bamboo shoots every year when they were about to go off the market, peel them, wash them, and store them in the freezer.

Usually this would be done at the end of March. This year, winter bamboo shoots are cheap, so his mother bought a lot of them before the New Year. She put the leftovers directly into the freezer, which made it cheaper for them now.

Su Ran started eating as well.

He picked up a piece of winter bamboo shoots and put it in his mouth.

After freezing, the taste will change a little, but it’s not a big problem.

The bamboo shoots are still crisp and tender, easy to chew, and a light sweet taste spreads around the tongue.

The green vegetables were just picked from the ground. As his grandfather used to say, “their souls are still fresh” and they are very fresh.

When Su Ran cooks vegetables, he likes them to be crispy when stir-fried and glutinous when boiled.

The vegetables have not been stir-fried for a long time. They have a crispy texture when you bite them, without any bitterness, and taste sweet.

Opposite him, Xing Lin picked up food at a noticeably faster frequency.

He followed Su Ran’s lead and picked up a potato, peeled off the skin, and ate it with a mouthful of vegetable, enjoying it very much.

Su Ran’s bowl of soup today was made with the leftover mussels, clams, and small fish and shrimps picked up yesterday.

Without adding a single bit of MSG, a variety of small seafood is cooked into a pot of slightly milky white soup, and then sprinkled with some chopped green onions before serving.

Xing Lin scooped half a bowl of soup, lowered his head to taste it, and immediately drank the rest in one gulp without saying a word, and then scooped a full bowl.

Watching others devour the dishes you cook is probably the happiest thing for a chef.

Gradually, Su Ran stopped eating and asked, holding his chin, “Did you eat anything in the past two days? Did you eat the food I gave you?”

The location where Xing Lin appeared today was a long distance to the north from where they met the night before yesterday. It should be that this man walked over after he transformed into two legs.

Su Ran didn’t see the orchid crabs and cat’s eye snails, so naturally he didn’t know their fate.

Xing Lin answered as he ate, “Even if we had half of the marine biological system in our bodies, we would still get diarrhea and be infected with parasites if we ate raw food casually.”

“Ahem, so…?”

“No.”

Su Ran felt a little embarrassed.

“It’s not a bad thing to be wary of strangers. Helping too much can sometimes get you into trouble. Kindness isn’t stupidity,” the man said, chewing his potatoes gracefully. “There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing.”

“You actually said that?” Su Ran propped up his chin with his hand. “Then why did you say I was mean today?”

“When I said ‘humans are bad’, I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular,” the guy argued without batting an eyelid, glancing at Su Ran and sneering, “I didn’t say what they were bad about either.”

“…………” What is this? What nonsense are you talking about? What are you laughing at?

Su Ran glared at him and changed the subject: “By the way, how do you get your fish tail back? Is it even possible to change back?”

Xing Lin glanced down at his legs.

“We can change back at any time. We can switch our body forms freely. It’s because our bodies failed to adapt to the changes in the environment after we came ashore that we got stuck in the fish tail state and couldn’t return.” Xing Lin looked at him, “Want to see?”

“……No!”

The man tilted his head: “If you want to see it, just say so. There’s nothing you can’t see.”

“…I didn’t want to see it!”

There were three words written in Xing Lin’s eyes: Are you sure?

One minute later——

Su Ran moved the chair next to Xing Lin and touched the dark blue fish scales in disbelief. The man’s pants were draped on a chair next to him.

“It really is like a fish…”

“It’s a fish tail.”

“…Why is your thing missing?”

Next second.

“…Ah! Why is it bulging?!”

“Don’t you want to see it?”

“I didn’t mean to look! No, don’t look at me like that. I’m not kidding you this time. Pull it back, put it back! It’s getting bigger and bigger!!”

“You humans are so hard to understand.”

“What is so hard to understand? I’m just asking out of curiosity, who doesn’t have this thing yet?”

“Is there?”

“…………Do you still want to eat?”

“Sorry.”

The mermaid who slid and knelt quickly also ate quickly.

Su Ran felt that this guy’s face was made of a city wall, and there was probably nothing in this world that could make him feel embarrassed.

He felt that he also had to change his mindset.

Whose home court is it now?

It’s his.

This is his home, this guy eats his food, wears his clothes, why should he always be so uneasy about it?

So after dinner, Su Ran gave the first task: “You wash the dishes.”

The mermaid had just stood up, touching his belly. When he heard these words, his deep blue eyes turned and looked at him.

Su Ran frowned: “Is there a problem? From now on, I will cook and you will wash the dishes and share the housework. That’s what we agreed on.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, ready to engage in a verbal battle with the mermaid.

Xing Lin smiled lightly.

“Yeah, no problem.”

He cleared the dishes.

Su Ran looked at him as he walked past him.