Chapter 343 - 221: Heaven’s Messenger

Chapter 343: Chapter 221: Heaven’s Messenger

After arriving at the stream, he casually picked up a rock and knocked out all the inner nodes of the bamboo.

Although bamboo is hard overall, its inner nodes were quite fragile and broke with a single strike.

Once the nodes were cleared out, what remained was a single, long, semi-circular bamboo trough.

Since splitting them into sections was too much trouble, he decided to just cook with the entire stalk placed over the fire.

It just meant setting up a few more fires.

After preparing the bamboo troughs, he soaked them all in the stream. This would allow the bamboo fibers to absorb plenty of water so they would last longer when placed over the fire.

He shucked all the American Oysters, removed the meat, and arranged it in a single row inside the soaked bamboo troughs.

"They don’t have to be perfectly arranged, just try not to stack them too thickly. We’ll be adding water to boil them in a bit, and if there’s too much oyster meat, we won’t be able to add much water. These aren’t pots, after all; their capacity is limited."

Today’s fire pit was also special. He dug a trench over three meters long and about half a meter wide, piled it with all sorts of firewood, and then placed the tinder inside to get it lit.

The bamboo troughs were laid flat across the fire pit, their ends propped up with mud to ensure they wouldn’t wobble during the simmering process.

All that was left was to add water to the bamboo troughs until they were about ninety percent full.

"Making oyster sauce is actually quite simple. Once the water boils, cook the oysters for eight to ten minutes, then take out the meat. Simmer the remaining liquid over low to medium heat until it thickens into a sauce-like consistency, and you’re done."

"You can eat this cooked oyster meat as is, use it in other dishes, or even sun-dry it to make dried oysters."

Speaking of sun-drying, he suddenly remembered that there were many other foods he could dry.

In a tropical environment, the only ways to preserve food for the long term were sun-drying, pickling, and smoking.

Wait a minute, pickling?

Fermentation?

His eyes lit up as if he had just remembered something.

’That’s right! How could I have forgotten? I can use fermentation to process vegetables.’

For now, the only things he could pickle were fern fronds and taro leaves, and he wasn’t sure if the taro leaves would even be edible after pickling.

’Looks like I’ll have to make time to dig up some wild vegetables. The forest still has plenty of Purslane and wild amaranth, which I was too lazy to gather before. I can’t slack off if I want a more balanced diet.’

Besides being edible as a vegetable, Purslane also has another very important function.

Replenishing salt.

It was arguably the only quick way to replenish salt when none could be found in the forest.

’Oh, right! I almost forgot about chili peppers. How can you make pickles without them? There are also banana hearts and palm hearts, which are used as salad ingredients in Western cuisine. They should be nice and crisp after being pickled.’

’Since I’m going to pickle chili peppers, I should pickle some bamboo shoots, too. Excellent. That will give me a lot more variety in my food and flavors. The only tricky part is that I’ll have to produce a lot of sea salt.’

He glanced at the bamboo troughs arranged side-by-side over the fire, wondering if they could be repurposed after he was finished cooking.

The video he’d watched said oyster sauce took one or two days to make, but that was because they used a large pot, where moisture evaporated slowly. Using shallow bamboo troughs as cookware like this, he might only need a few hours to successfully reduce it.

"Lin? What are you doing here?"

As he was quietly waiting for the water’s surface to boil, a familiar yet unfamiliar voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

He turned his head, and a dark, swarthy face came into view.

"Bartel? Haven’t seen you for a couple of days. Looks like you’ve found a shelter?"

"Yeah, it’s on the hillside over there."

Bartel pointed behind himself, toward the unfamiliar area beyond the bamboo hut.

’That made sense,’ Lin Chen thought. ’It was the only direction left for him, unless he went somewhere even farther away than Andre.’

He was also an old Hunter, so of course he wouldn’t build his shelter near someone else’s. That would be a naked attempt to steal resources.

Not only would he earn a bad reputation, but it would also shorten his own time in the competition.

After all, the food in any given area was finite. A ten-day supply for one person would only last five days for two. Moreover, the competition would force them to gather supplies earlier, leading some food to spoil prematurely, meaning the actual storage time might not even be that long.

Therefore, avoiding the survival areas of other contestants was the wisest choice.

Bartel was holding two long antennae, which he held out right in front of him.

"Here. I only managed to catch one for now. I’ll check some deeper waters tomorrow."

"I actually caught one that night, but you got sick the next day, so I ate it myself, haha. I heard at noon that you’d just recovered, so I hurried down to the shore to have a look. Didn’t expect to get this lucky."

This was the trade they had agreed on when Lin Chen gave him the tinder last time. Lin Chen didn’t stand on ceremony, taking the palm-sized spiny Lobster and starting to prepare it right there by the stream.

He plunged his combat knife into the joint connecting the Lobster’s head and body, right into its brain. The little creature, which had been kicking and struggling wildly, twitched a few times and then went still on the spot.

It didn’t need much preparation. He simply split it in half, placed it over one of the bamboo troughs, and let the constantly escaping steam and waves of heat slowly cook it.

Seeing that he was just going to roast the Lobster, Bartel lost interest. Before leaving, however, he noticed something seemed to be cooking in the bamboo trough beneath the Lobster, and he leaned over curiously for a look.

You couldn’t blame him for being curious; the whole setup was frankly a bit over-the-top.

There was a small mountain of oyster shells piled nearby, the fire pit had been intentionally built in a rectangular shape, and multiple bamboo troughs were all cooking at the same time. Anyone would have been curious seeing it.