The Game of Life-Chapter 777 - 776 Escape (Part 3)

Chapter 777 -776 Escape (Part 3)

Chapter 777 -776 Escape (Part 3)

It turns out that there may not be such a thing as bunnies stupid enough to slam into trees and kill themselves, but there are other animals silly enough to do so.

For example, little lambs.

Standing the night watch is exceedingly dull, especially during the time when darkness and light mix. The sky has only just started to brighten, half dark and half light, intertwining to create a dimness, making the heavens themselves groggy, to say nothing of the people who still dare not sleep.

Chen Shi was in charge of the second half of the night watch. No one spoke to him, and he himself hadn’t had enough sleep. As a result, he spent the night in a state of half-dreaming and half-nodding off. By the time it was nearly dawn, his eyes were completely closed, and he was in a light sleep—an utterly unreliable guardian.

In fact, not only Chen Shi but even Jiang Feng, who didn’t need to sleep, felt a bit bored, sitting on a stone and spacing out.

“Bang.”

A loud noise shocked Jiang Feng so much that he jumped off the ground, and even the sleeping Xia Mushi started awake, opening his eyes and scanning his surroundings warily.

The most exaggerated reaction was Chen Shi’s, who jumped up and shouted, “There are wolves, there are wolves!”

After shouting, he realized there were no wolves around. Chen Shi stood there dumbfounded, licking his lips, not sure whether to be happy or disappointed: “So, there were no wolves.”

Xia Mushi, picking up the knife that had fallen to the ground, got up: “You should be thankful there are no wolves. Do you think the two of us could win against a wolf now?”

“What was that anyway? Such a loud noise, surely it couldn’t have been thunder,” Chen Shi wondered aloud.

Xia Mushi pointed to the side of the tree stump, and only then did Jiang Feng and Chen Shi notice a little lamb lying there, either dead or knocked unconscious from hitting the tree.

Turns out waiting by the tree stump did pay off!

It’s just that instead of a rabbit, it was a lamb!

Not just Chen Shi, even Jiang Feng was astonished. What kind of luck allowed for a lamb to just happen to die right next to them?

It was indeed a young lamb, a little mountain goat that didn’t even seem to have grown a full coat of wool. It was baffling why it would stray from its flock into this forest, and yet, it happened to die right next to Xia Mushi and Chen Shi.

Chen Shi’s mind and eyes were already full of lamb. If he still had a shred of sense, he would have just started gnawing on the lamb now.

With excitement rubbing his hands together, Chen Shi turned to Xia Mushi: “Brother Xia, you’re a butcher, so why don’t we just slaughter this lamb and roast it now.”

Xia Mushi: …

Now they could only eat roasted lamb. Chen Shi and Xia Mushi had no cooking tools. Even if they wanted to eat stir-fried or stewed lamb, they didn’t have the means. The two only had a knife, not even a pot to boil water in, with such lacking provisions, Xia Mushi could only take the lamb to the riverbank for slaughtering.

After slaughtering the lamb, Xia Mushi buried the innards and blood deep in the soil to cover up the smell of blood, to avoid attracting other ferocious carnivorous animals.

With the lamb cleaned up, Xia Mushi faced another dilemma.

No seasonings.

To be precise, there were no seasonings whatsoever, not even salt.

As everyone knows, lamb is a very challenging ingredient to work with because of its strong mutton smell. The fragrance of southern lambs, generally speaking, is stronger than that of the north, and the smell of wild lambs is definitely more intense than that of farmed ones. Even though the lamb in question was just a young lamb, it did not have the strong mutton smell characteristic of a mature animal.

Xia Mushi decided to go look for some seasonings.

“You go find a longer stick and skewer the lamb on it, then set up a new fire. I’ll go pick some things and be right back,” Xia Mushi said.

As directed by Xia Mushi, Chen Shi went looking for sticks, and failing to find a suitable one, he chopped off a piece using the knife Xia Mushi had left him. Although the knife wasn’t meant for chopping wood, it was sharp enough, and with some extra effort, Chen Shi managed to cut some small pieces of wood.

By the time Chen Shi had rebuilt the fire, Xia Mushi had also returned with what he had picked.

Xia Mushi had picked a lot of cornelian cherry leaves.

Perhaps because of the suitable climate, there were many cornelian cherry trees in this forest. Cornelian cherries can be used medicinally and as spices and can even be eaten directly as fruit, although they are a bit sour. Unfortunately, it was not the right season; cornelian cherries only ripen in September and October, so even though there were many cornelian cherry bushes here, not a single fruit was ripe.

Just yesterday afternoon, when Chen Shi was unbearably hungry, he had picked two cornelian cherry leaves to chew on, and the taste was so suffocating that he now had a psychological shadow upon seeing these leaves.

“Brother Xia, why did you pick so many cornelian cherry leaves?” Chen Shi thought Xia Mushi intended to eat the leaves, “These things have a weird taste, even worse than tree leaves.”

Xia Mushi didn’t reply but instead used the knife to cut several slits into the lamb’s body. He silently crushed all the gathered leaves and evenly applied the mash over the lamb’s surface and into the cuts, presumably intending to use the crushed leaves as a makeshift rub.

Chen Shi didn’t understand what Xia Mushi was doing, but he just felt somehow that Xia Mushi looked very professional, so he obediently watched from the side. After Xia Mushi finished applying the mashed leaves, he asked Chen Shi to help him place the lamb above the fire. It was like a cookout barbecue, except they were roasting a whole lamb.

The circumstances were rudimentary, yet Xia Mushi diligently controlled the heat, slowly rotating the stick, shifting it, and carefully roasting the meat.

Roasting a whole lamb is a lengthy process and for someone like Xia Mushi and Chen Shi, who hadn’t eaten in two days and had been traveling nonstop, the wait felt even longer. Slowly, the aroma of the meat began to waft from the lamb, spreading through the air.

This scent, mingled with a peculiar fragrance and the tang of mutton, was so tantalizing that Chen Shi almost couldn’t stop his mouth from watering.

From his expression, Jiang Feng could tell that what Chen Shi most wanted to do was rush forward and take a big bite out of the lamb.

Chen Shi, an ordinary man who couldn’t afford to eat and came from a poor family with many siblings living through wartime, despite having been on the battlefield, deserted, and even killed a superior officer, he still couldn’t change the fact that he had rarely eaten meat.

“Brother Xia, is it ready? It looks like it could be eaten now, let’s have some first!” Chen Shi’s eyes were filled with desire for the meat.

“Wait a little longer.”

Chen Shi tried to be patient and waited for about five to six more minutes.

“Brother Xia, can we…”

“Wait a bit longer.”

A few more minutes passed.

“Brother Xia, now…”

“Wait.”

“Xia…”

“Wait!”

Despite Chen Shi’s frenzied urging, Xia Mushi still adhered to the basic code of a chef—to thoroughly cook the meat, completely ignoring Chen Shi’s words and focusing solely on roasting the meat.

Finally, the lamb was ready.

It wasn’t beautiful.

This was definitely not a beautifully roasted whole lamb.

The leaves used as a substitute for herbs had completely dried out and turned black, unrecognizable in their original form, and would vanish with a simple brush of the hand from the lamb’s body. There were no sauces, no seasonings, not even cumin—the only upside was that it was lamb, and it was cooked.

This roast whole lamb, which might have caused customers at a lamb restaurant to flip tables in anger, had turned into a lifeline for Xia Mushi and Chen Shi.

Xia Mushi began to cut the meat, one lamb leg each.

The two chewed vigorously, their mouths full of meat, their bodies ragged, faces brimming with happiness.

In the midst of eating, Chen Shi suddenly hugged his half-eaten lamb leg and burst into tears.

He sobbed, tears gushing forth like a fountain, his words indistinct because his mouth was still full of unchewed lamb.

This was the first time Chen Shi had cried in the past two days.

He was the sort of person who appeared fragile, timid, and afraid of death, but in reality, he was brave, willing to struggle when faced with death to see if he could avoid it.

Chen Shi didn’t cry earlier when he was exhausted, thirsty, lost, and without hope. Yet now, having tasted the deliciously cooked lamb, he wept.

“Brother Xia, the lamb you roasted is just so delicious, I’ve never tasted lamb this good. No, I’ve never even had lamb before, I had no idea lamb could taste this amazing,” Chen Shi didn’t even know what he wanted to say.

“I thought we were goners, and I still think we’re goners, but I feel pretty good about it now, at least we had a full meal. I’ve heard some people only get a bite of meat for their last meal, but we’ve had so much more, even if we’re on our way out, it couldn’t be that bad. At least our last meal is much grander than theirs.”

Xia Mushi: …

Xia Mushi silently put down the lamb leg in his hand, suddenly feeling less hungry.

“Are you done eating? If you are, let’s get going.”

Xia Mushi cut the remaining lamb into large chunks and had Chen Shi stuff them into a cloth bag, stuffing it so full it could barely close.

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The lamb legs in their hands were still unfinished. They walked and nibbled, their strides much longer than the day before.

They walked like this for the entire day.

The sky gradually darkened.

Jiang Feng didn’t know if it was his imagination, but he felt that the woods here were much sparser than the ones Xia Mushi and the others had traversed in the morning, and the light was much better.

Xia Mushi and Chen Shi prepared to find a place to rest.

Just as Xia Mushi had planned the spot, ready to have Chen Shi build a fire while he looked for a water source like the past two days, Chen Shi suddenly looked into the distance, silently reaching out his hand to point ahead.

“Brother Xia, is the woods ahead on fire? I feel like I see smoke,” Chen Shi thought he was mistaken.

Xia Mushi followed his direction and took a glance, immediately becoming excited, “What fire? That’s kitchen smoke! We’ve made it out, hurry, there’s a village ahead.”

Chen Shi, who had already sat down to rest, quickly stood up and started to run. Then he stopped, turned back to Xia Mushi, and silently pulled out two hard-frozen pieces of lamb from the cloth bag.

“Brother Xia, let’s eat a piece of meat to celebrate,” said Chen Shi, grinning.

Xia Mushi: ?

Before Xia Mushi could comprehend Chen Shi’s actions, Chen Shi bit happily into the lamb, failing to tear off a piece, then bit hard again, struggling to chew off just a little, and chewed joyfully.

“After we get out, Brother Xia, let’s share this meat. I want to take some back for my parents to try.”

“I’m telling you, I feel like this meat is blessing us. This meat is magical, I had a feeling this morning when I ate it. Once we’ve finished eating, I’m going to cherish the bones, it must be this meat that helped us find our way out,” Chen Shi said cheerfully.

Xia Mushi: …

Xia Mushi silently took the meat from Chen Shi’s hands and bit down hard, mimicking his action.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Jiang Feng tried to follow, only to discover he was already in the mist.

The two figures gradually blurred until they were completely indistinct.

Jiang Feng left the memory.