Beauty and the Beasts

Winston said, “It’s a pity that there’s too much rain now and the food can’t be air-dried. It’ll rot if we can’t finish it. Otherwise, we can bring back all the behemoth corpses, and it’d last us all the way to next year’s light rainy season.”

Bai Qingqing let out a “huh” and then asked in surprise, “Didn’t you guys store the food?”

Winston’s brows raised, immediately understanding that his mate had another idea. He was delighted and said, “We did. Many beastmen smoked the food in tree holes, but it takes a few days to get a piece of meat done. The speed is very slow, but we can still store some.”

Bai Qingqing quickly said, “Isn’t there a lot of salt in the village? Preserve them with salt!”

Winston gave it some thought before saying with uncertainty, “It’s true that using salt to preserve food can allow it to be stored for longer. But it’ll still spoil, right?”

After all, it was fresh meat.

Bai Qingqing let out a cry, regretting that she hadn’t asked this earlier. She then said with certainty, “As long as we use more salt, they can be stored for very long, just like smoked meat. From where I came from, this is how we store food in winter. I mean, in the cold season.”

She had gotten a little sick of the preserved meat in the modern world, so she found the taste of smoked meat unique. This method would also be able to save them from using salt. Therefore, she hadn’t mentioned the method of preserving meat with salt.

Winston did not doubt Bai Qingqing’s words and immediately planned on putting things into action. “How much salt would be enough?”

“Uhh… How much salt do we still have? If there’s enough, the more the better. If too little salt is used, food will still spoil easily.” Bai Qingqing recalled that in her hometown, they’d bury pork in salt. After they ate all the meat, the same salt could still be used to preserve the meat for the next year. There wouldn’t be any waste.

Winston gave it some thought and said, “Then, let’s bring out all the salt. We’ll just dry more salt at the seaside next year.”

“Mm.” Bai Qingqing nodded.

With this method, there was no need for Curtis to go out. The one to head out changed to Winston instead.

Winston led a flock of eagle beastmen and brought all the remaining salt in the village to the behemoth region. He planned to preserve all the meat and then hide it in the caves nearby, bringing it back during the cold season.

It had become dangerous to look for readily available food in the region in which the behemoths were having chaotic battles, but the return was massive. They’d be able to get a transparent crystal with each behemoth they dragged out.

Therefore, no matter how dangerous it was, the beastmen still swarmed there. The City of Beastmen’s overall strength increased a little as a result of this, with the eagle beastmen gaining the most.

After a chaotic battle that lasted three days and three nights, the new behemoth king was born. The group of behemoths became more stable and started to look for food and to mate.

When Winston led a team out, it was already impossible for them to pick up behemoths effortlessly. They’d have to send out the village’s strong beastmen to group up and hunt them.

When the eagle beastmen came back with this news, Parker also rushed off. He still had to repay Muir.

With that, only two adult males were left at home. More accurately speaking, two natural enemies—Curtis and Muir.

Behind the stone castle, thick smoke came out from a short stone house, rising upright steadily in the blurry raining day.

“Cough cough… Cough cough cough…”

Bai Qingqing coughed incessantly from the thick smoke, her clean and fair face covered in soot. She turned her head to take in some fresh air, then started blowing into the stove again.

Above her, the sound of clanking metal kept on ringing out, with sparks and liquid splattering out occasionally.

Curtis put away the metal spatula and tossed the metal wok with a solemn expression.

Parker had spent great effort into making this wok, and even though he was able to use it smoothly, Curtis hadn’t used it before and was still trying it out. The result turned out to be… simply horrendous!