Once upon a time there was a greedy snake.

Chapter 53 Putting the Elephant in a Refrigerator

Cooking a giant eagle the size of a small mountain is no easy task.

The ideal way is naturally to stew it. After using open-fire grilling for so long, Du Yi had long wanted to try a different way of eating it. However, it was clear that making a big pot to stew the entire giant eagle was not an easy task.

"If we absolutely have to do it, we'll first have to dig into the mountain, then find a way to bring out the underground magma as a heat source, and we'll also have to bring in more water to make soup... Will this water really boil?"

After just a moment's thought, Du Yi realized that this was a rather troublesome matter, at least for now, the workload was considerable.

While theoretically it's not impossible to do it by spending more time, the giant eagle itself cannot be preserved for that long.

"Perhaps we could freeze it over at the snowy mountains... but I feel like that would affect the taste."

After a moment's thought, Du Yi began to shake his head.

As for ingredients, it's important to eat them fresh.

As for grilling over an open flame, that's fine for plucking feathers, but using it to process this giant eagle would be a waste of its resources. Besides, Du Yi has already tasted far too many smoky and fiery dishes, and he can't just waste such a rare and excellent ingredient.

So, after a moment's thought, Du Yi chose a rather old-fashioned, yet very practical, method.

"I need your help."

This time, Du Yi approached the wild men who had ventured into the mountains.

"As a reward, I will go to the snowy mountains in the west again and bring back the mammoths and saber-toothed tigers that have been eaten to extinction."

Those former Ignis people, now the mountain dwellers, would never refuse such an opportunity. They couldn't wait to stay by the side of this ancestor of the Dao and experience his astonishing wisdom.

Of course, to avoid angering the Dao Ancestors for stealing their knowledge, they cautiously expressed their desire to learn.

"No, what can you possibly learn from me?"

Du Yizhen didn't think he had anything to learn; he was surprisingly self-aware in this respect.

If you're going to learn, you should at least learn something good. What can you possibly learn from him? How to cook?
"It doesn't seem impossible?"

With that in mind, Du Yi simply nodded in agreement, indicating that these savages could learn whatever they wanted without paying him any copyright fees or apprenticeship fees.

"If these methods can help you eat something better, that's a good thing."

Du Yi said this to the savages.

The wild people, or rather, the people of the mountains today, were naturally overjoyed and worked even harder.

What Du Yi asked them to do wasn't complicated; it only required two things.

One task is called "picking leaves." The leaves must be large enough, the bigger the better, with no upper limit. After picking these leaves, the people in the mountains are responsible for attaching them to the giant eagle that has already shed its feathers, trying to leave no gaps.

The second task is to apply mud. After finishing the work of pasting leaves, they need to apply mud to the outer layer of the leaves. This is also a huge project, but this time the Ancestor of the Dao will participate. The mining and mixing of yellow mud will be done by the giant snake, and the giant snake will even be responsible for part of the application process.

After that, they were no longer involved.

The fine work was done; all that remained was the major project. Du Yi dug a large pit, buried the mud ball containing the giant eagle inside, then filled it in with soil and lit an equally enormous bonfire on top of the mud ball.

The towering flames were comparable to setting a mountain on fire, and the scorching heat swept all around.

But Du Yi was still somewhat dissatisfied.

"It's still too rough... It would be so much better if it had a stove." "...A stove?"

The savages following Du Yi were stunned; these were words they had never heard before.

"what is that?"

"As for the furnace, it's..."

Du Yigang was about to explain when he suddenly stopped.

This kind of thing, which is extremely common sense to him, is actually harder to say casually—after all, in Du Yi's eyes, everyone should know what a furnace is, and as for those who don't know what it is... do such people really exist?

As it turns out, it really exists; at least these savages genuinely didn't know what a furnace was.

After all, they possessed a more convenient so-called magic, the ability to ignite a fire with a clap of their hands, which was far more convenient than any stove. With this magical ability, they could heat anything they wanted with a simple clap, so there was no need to invent new tools.

However, Du Yi could tell that these wild people in the mountains didn't know any magic, so a stove was surprisingly useful to them.

"I'll just draw it for you guys."

Not knowing how to describe it, Du Yi simply raised its long tail and used the tip to draw patterns on the ground.

Having no hands or feet, Du Yi had long been accustomed to using this tail to perform various operations, and now it was surprisingly agile even when used for drawing.

In just a short while, Du Yi was able to sketch out the general shape of a stove. Although he himself couldn't even explain exactly what parts a stove should consist of, he taught him all the details, such as how to light the fire, how to burn the stove, and how to clean the ash from the stove.

"That's about it. You don't need to memorize it. If you really can't, just find a piece of tree bark and draw it."

Seeing that the savages were staring at the patterns on the ground and racking their brains, Du Yi simply made a new suggestion.

This convenient method naturally gained the support of the people in the mountains, and even made many of them slap their foreheads, wondering why they hadn't thought of such a simple method before.

"I guess they don't have time to think about it."

Seeing the savages' frustrated expressions, Du Yi casually offered some words of comfort.

"If you spend all your time working and don't even have much time to rest, how can you have the mind to think about how to make things more convenient?"

Upon hearing this, the frustration in the hearts of these savages—or rather, the people of the mountains—was greatly relieved. Many of them even knelt on the ground, weeping bitterly and unable to speak for a long time.

This puzzled Du Yi. He felt he hadn't said anything outrageous, so the savages' reaction seemed a bit too intense.

After a brief inquiry, Du Yi learned the reason.

"So it turns out you've been working like a slave for too long."

Hearing the savages complaining about how hard they worked, Du Yi immediately understood why they were collapsing.

However, this casual conversation did not last long. Although it was impossible to count how many days and nights had passed, the exchange eventually came to an end after the temperature of the land gradually changed.

This is because the mud ball buried underground had already been heated.

The giant eagle inside was already fully cooked.

(End of this chapter)