Bai Qingqing’s petite face fell. She picked up the oranges and looked at them. “Forget it, just try stewing with this.”
There were also non-spicy variations of the sour and spicy pickled fish dish. Hopefully, the fish stewed with oranges would taste good.
Parker had absolute confidence in her ideas. He instantly took the oranges, washed them, and cut into slices, before stewing them with the fish.
Very quickly, a new aroma wafted from the stone pot.
This time though, the smell was a little odd. Amid the fragrance of the fish, there was also a pungent and sour smell, as though an essence irritating to the senses had been added to it. The light yellow-orange bits were scattered in the fish soup, making its creamy whiteness appear murky.
Parker hesitatingly picked up a small slice of fish, before blowing upon it and placing it into the bowl.
“Wanna give it a try?”
Bai Qingqing, who didn’t quite dare to try it, swallowed her saliva and said, “You try it first.”
“Okay.” Staring at the fish meat, Parker valiantly delivered the fish to his mouth using the chopsticks. After that, his expression turned a little odd.
“How does it taste?” Bai Qingqing asked as she curiously stared at him.
Parker swallowed the fish meat and smacked his mouth facing her. Bai Qingqing could even smell the sourness of the oranges at this proximity, bringing about a sour sensation in her mouth.
“It tastes like fish and fruits.” Parker finally came up with this description after thinking for a good while.
He might as well have said nothing.
Bai Qingqing added a piece of fish meat into the pot and blew upon it, then brought it to her mouth. And then, an expression identical to Parker’s appeared on her face.
There was the fragrance of fish in her mouth, and completely separate from that the taste of oranges. There was no harmony between the two different flavors, yet they were forced to come together in a dish. Its taste was impossible to be expressed in a few words.
“Do you like it?” asked Parker.
Worried that she would puke after eating it, Bai Qingqing directly spat out the fish. “My foot!”
Growl~
A clear and loud growl sounded from her tummy. Parker and Curtis looked towards her abdomen at the same time.
“I’ll stew some meat for you first,” said Parker.
Despite the growlings from her stomach, Bai Qingqing refused to eat anything else apart from those delicacies in her mind.
“I don’t care! I want to eat fish! Want to eat sour pickled fish! Tomato fish! Braised fish… I want to eat fish!” Bai Qingqing bawled, acting like a child playing rogue. She simply had to roll on the floor to complete the act.
Parker and Curtis felt amused and helpless at the same time.
Curtis said to Parker, “Make other foods for Snow first. I’ll head into the mountains to look for ingredients.”
Parker didn’t argue with him and agreed to his arrangement.
Finally, Bai Qingqing ate some meat stewed with noodles. After filling her tummy, she returned to the tree hole for a nap. Parker and Curtis cooked fish dishes using the various fruits, which was responsible for the funny odor emanating through the entire village for the rest of the day.
From the expressions of the beastmen passing by, the dishes were failures.
When evening came, a sweat-drenched Winston was greeted by the strange odor of various stewed fish dishes upon his return.
Some were still warm, while others had turned completely cold.
“Why are there so many fishes?” asked Winston.
Over this period, Parker kept challenging him, and so Winston kept thrashing him up. You couldn’t blame him for suspecting Parker was deliberately playing a prank on him.
Parker let out a hmph before saying, “Qingqing wants to eat fish. These are the ones she’s not eating. Eat them if you want to. There are no other options.”
He said so much, but all Winston caught was “Qingqing wants to eat fish.” Staring at the basins of fish all over the ground, he asked, “You didn’t whip up anything to her liking?”
“Qingqing complained it was too fishy,” Parker said with a glum expression.
Winston fell silent.
As beastmen weren’t picky about food, Winston naturally ate whatever was available to him. Raising a stone basin, he started eating.