Li Wenli and Bai Junjun, with Bai Lingyu naturally siding with his elder sister, so after finding out about their relationship, Bai Lingyu immediately came to ask about the situation.
Li Wenli looked at him with a smile, "Do you know what a fiancé is?"
"That’s the future brother-in-law, of course," Bai Lingyu’s mouth twitched unsatisfiedly, "Don’t treat me like a kid."
Li Wenli continued to squeeze his cheeks with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, "It’s ex-fiancé."
"And, don’t forget that I am your master. Is this the attitude you should have as a disciple?"
"..." Bai Lingyu looked up at him and mumbled a few words.
Li Wenli didn’t hear clearly, but he didn’t care much and just waved his hand, "Don’t worry, your sister has a fierce reputation, I wouldn’t dare to provoke her."
"..." Bai Lingyu opened his mouth but couldn’t find the words to retort.
Thinking about his elder sister single-handedly defeating 55 bandits from Mighty Hall, she was indeed fierce.
And so, their group formally settled here for rest and recuperation.
With the addition of Li Wenli to the team, their food quality soared tremendously.
This brook was more suitable for ferns and herbaceous plants than the pond water location.
Li Wenli, Bai Lingyu, and Xiao Shan took strolls there and often picked some aromatic herbs to bring back.
Among the many spices was the familiar herb.
Seeing it, the Bai siblings’ gazes turned complex, since after all, it was Old Uncle Qiu who had taught them about Citrus medica.
Thinking of Old Uncle Qiu and his family, everyone felt a bit melancholic, but they soon had no time for sorrow, because Li Wenli was about to show off his cooking skills.
Just then, Bai Junjun had caught a fish, and using locally sourced ingredients, Li Wenli made three dishes from this fish.
The fish head and bones were stewed into a soup with mushrooms from the bushes, fresh and sweet.
The belly of the fish, rich in meat and fat, was fried with salt and a low flame, making a savory fried fish belly that melted in the mouth.
The boneless, firm flesh from the fish’s back was sliced to make perfect sashimi.
To enhance the flavor of the sashimi, Li Wenli rummaged through the bushes for a long time until he found a bunch of dark, wild berries.
He confidently said that these fruits could be pressed for oil.
Bai Sasa had already been subdued by his cooking skills when he made stir-fried mushrooms with meat, so she hinted subtly that she wanted to assist Li Wenli.
She covertly sought her elder sister’s opinion, of course, thinking that if her elder sister disagreed, she would no longer crowd around Li Wenli.
Who knew Bai Junjun actually wanted Bai Sasa to steal some cooking skills from him, so Bai Sasa openly went to... not steal, but learn the craft.
So when Li Wenli gathered a bunch of berries and said he needed to extract oil, Bai Sasa used her strength as a Strongman to burst them open by hand.
Just as Li Wenli was about to suggest making a stone grinder, the eight-year-old girl burst the berries with her bare hands, and a few drops of orange-yellow oil seeped through the crevices of her clenched fist.
He looked at Bai Sasa in surprise, and it hadn’t occurred to him that the little girl was a possessor of a physical special ability, and from the looks of it, it seemed innate rather than acquired through catalysis.
Li Wenli gazed at Bai Sasa with interest, and instead of insisting on making a stone grinder, he pushed a small pile of wild berries toward her.
"Take care of these too."
"Uh... I..." Bai Sasa was taken aback. She had inadvertently revealed her strength in front of Li Wenli, despite having promised her elder sister solemnly that she would never casually show off her strength around strangers.
She had become careless for a moment...
As she hesitated, Li Wenli smiled.
"Squeezing the berries is very easy, even a child can do it, so I’ll trouble you with this task."