Orc Girl's Tribal Daily Life

Chapter 40 I Can Do More

The fish soup, along with the tender fish meat cooked in the middle, was distributed to ensure that every child in the Fish Cave got a bite, or at least a sip of fish soup that wasn't fishy or smelly.

With He's translation, Jiang Luoluo demonstrated the correct procedure to the children of all ages in the fish cave.

The fish used were the ones brought back from the riverbank earlier, as well as the big fish that Little Fish King Biao had just brought back.

Because Jiang Luoluo is petite and has little strength to handle large soft-shelled turtles, she only chose the smallest soft-shelled turtle to demonstrate, and then selected a dozen or so older children to learn with her.

After all, Jiang Luoluo will only help this once; in the future, they will still have to rely on themselves.

Little Fish King Biao rightfully deserved to be among them, and he occupied the closest position to Jiang Luoluo, making it convenient for him to learn firsthand. The other children didn't even dare to snatch him, proving that Little Fish King Biao's position was indeed secure.

When they saw Jiang Luoluo's first step was to scrape off all the fish scales against the grain, no one reacted much.

Because when they were eating the fish, they had already noticed that the fish's skin did not have those scales, so they easily guessed this step.

They only began to hesitate when they saw Jiang Luoluo cut open the fish's belly from the side and take out its internal organs.

For children in the tribe, these parts inside the prey's belly are considered the most valuable and important parts of the animal.

Unexpectedly, Jiang Luoluo simply dug it out and said she didn't want it anymore. Many children subconsciously felt a bit resistant to this wasteful behavior.

Jiang Luoluo was glad she had the foresight. She took out the turtle entrails she had dug out earlier from her backpack and showed them to everyone as proof that she had indeed dug them out to make the turtle taste better.

Little Fish King Biao was the first to follow Jiang Luoluo's actions. For him, it was just a very simple principle—the result was already there, so he just followed along and learned. No reason mattered, and they didn't need any reason. They just needed to know how to make the food taste better.

After seeing Little Fish King Biao's decisive action, the other children hesitated before following suit. However, everyone acted cleanly and dug thoroughly, without hesitating to leave anything that shouldn't have been left behind.

Then Jiang Luoluo broke off the stinky flower that was lying aside and ignored, and took it over to the children. She then chopped up the stinky flower and stuffed it into the turtle's belly.

According to He, the fishy smell of soft-shelled turtles is masked by the smell of stinky flowers—this is Jiang Luoluo's explanation, which He interpreted himself.

After all, Jiang Luoluo couldn't speak properly. As long as what was said was roughly correct, Jiang Luoluo would just accept it. Otherwise, it would be too troublesome for her to correct it.

Actually, if Jiang Luoluo were to make it, there should be a process of deep-frying the fish, which would make the fish meat more fragrant. However, after looking at the meat inside the fish hole, Jiang Luoluo realized that it was not suitable for frying oil, and it wouldn't be able to fry any oil.

The meat distributed to the children of Yu'erdong every day was not very good. It wasn't that it was spoiled or bad; unless there was a real food shortage, the children of Yu'erdong would never be given that kind of meat.

Although they have lost their parents, they are still part of the tribe and its future.

The meat is not good because it usually comes from small wild animals that are not popular with the tribe, and the taste is not as good.

Generally speaking, meat that can be fried to extract oil is not too bad in taste, because the fact that it can extract oil indicates that the animal is relatively round in shape.

In nature, wild beasts that grow into plump and rounded shapes are generally quite strong, and their meat is naturally more delicious. Only orc warriors who put in a lot of effort during the hunt are qualified to be chosen and taken away first.

—In tribal hunting, a collective hunting model is adopted, in which the number of prey is distributed to each person according to their different contributions after a unified calculation.

Except in rare cases where a hunter is alone, all prey must undergo this unified process of confiscation and redistribution.

Those assigned to Yuerdong were naturally the least popular and least desirable cuts of meat, with the worst texture.

Given the conditions at Fish Cave, Jiang Luoluo didn't insist on deep-frying the fish. In any case, this method was enough to remove most of the fishy smell.

A pot of fish soup was bubbling away, and it certainly didn't have that pungent smell anymore. All the children's eyes lit up with joy, because they remembered how delicious the fish soup they had just drunk was.

Of course, because of the difference in one step, the freshly cooked fish soup is not as delicious as the previous one.

The children didn't care, because even so, it was much better than the fish soup they had drunk before. Besides, they had only taken a small sip, and no matter how delicious it was, it couldn't satisfy them.

On the contrary, this fish soup, which was only slightly better than usual, made them feel more real.

Since Jiang Luoluo and He had already eaten lunch, they did not join the children of Yuerdong in sharing their meals.

Lunch at Yuerdong consists of fish soup and roasted meat. Since the fish are usually caught by the children of Yuerdong themselves, rather than being part of the daily food rations provided by the tribe, each child gets a piece of meat in addition to the fish soup.

During the meal distribution process, it was Little Fish King Biao who was the first to step forward, taking his own wooden bowl and selecting the most delicious parts of each fish in the pot.

Moreover, he filled the entire bowl to the brim and took away the largest piece of roasted meat. The other children just watched longingly, and not one of them voiced any objection or questioning.

Once Little Fish King Biao was sure he had enough food to eat, he went to his designated spot to eat before the other children started eating.

Based on their respective strengths, those with greater physical strength or better fighting skills would be the first to receive their share of food.

Unlike Little Fish King, they couldn't slowly choose their food; they practically fought over it, each taking away enough to fill their stomachs to about 80-90%.

And so on, the younger and weaker the children, the later they could receive food. When only a few one- or two-year-old children who couldn't speak were left, there was only pure fish soup left in the pot, with no fish meat left to be seen.

Only a few small pieces of roasted meat remained, and it was only because the elders of the tribe, under the watchful eyes of the insects, forbade the children from taking more than they could.

The delicious fish soup couldn't change the fact that they weren't getting enough to eat, and the young children, too young to understand, cried out in hunger.

But there was no fish soup left in the pot.

Jiang Luoluo couldn't bear to watch, but there was nothing she could do. She lowered her head sadly, and tears welled up in her beautiful, clear eyes.

She racked her brains trying to think of what she could do, only to find that she was truly powerless this time.

Yes, there was indeed a lot of food in her cave, but that food was what young Ge had risked his life to obtain through hunting.

Jiang Luoluo couldn't just give away the food that the young man Ge had left for her.

And she can deliver food once or twice, but what about after that? Their hunger isn't just a matter of a day or two, or a meal or two; it's a problem they can't avoid until they grow up and have the power to hunt.

Could she possibly raise so many children? No, she couldn't. She herself needed someone else to raise and care for her.

She cannot place her "kindness" and "good intentions" on others, becoming a burden or pressure for them.

But she was still sad, saddened by her own powerlessness.

"Are you crying? Why?" Little Fish King Biao finished his meal first, put his wooden bowl away, and sat down next to the cub.

He came for this stinky flower, because he noticed that the key to making soft-shelled turtles taste better, besides the processing steps, also included the stinky flower—but how could they keep getting stinky flowers? And what would they do when they ran out?

But when he had been trying to think of what to say, he saw the cub's eyes filled with mist, pure like shattered crystals. The words that were on the tip of his tongue naturally changed their meaning.

Why are you crying? Is it because of them?

The cub raised its head, and behind its pupils, which were shattered like broken crystals by tears, shone an even more brilliant light.

"I can do more," she said silently, not wallowing in sadness.