Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

Chapter 4 Discovery

"You're awake! Would you like something to eat?"

A girl's voice, as melodious as music, came from the other side of the house. Mo Yuming turned his head and saw the 'girl' standing in front of the door, holding a steaming bowl of porridge, smiling at him. Her blue pupils sparkled.

"Hmm! Uh, oh..."

Mo Yuming answered 'Girl's' question vaguely with stiff grammar and a stilted tone.

Although it was a very simple reply, and he knew how to say it, he had always spoken Chinese, the language of Earth. Suddenly having to speak this language, which sounded like singing, made him feel very awkward and somewhat embarrassed to say it aloud. No, it should be sung out.

If I hadn't suddenly realized that I had traveled to another world and had a completely new identity, I almost would have blurted out that I was speaking Chinese.

Fortunately, the little girl in front of him was even younger than he was now, and she didn't notice his unusual behavior or strange tone at all. She just assumed that he was slurring his words because of his injuries.

After a brief moment of awkwardness, Mo Yuming quickly regained his composure. After all, he was a middle-aged man nearing forty, and his ability to control his emotions was far superior to that of a typical child.

Mo Yuming propped himself up on the bed with his right hand, took the thin porridge the little girl handed him, and drank it in large gulps. Although his injuries hadn't healed yet, since they mainly affected his left hand and the back of his head, it didn't significantly impact his mobility. After being unconscious for so many days, he was already feeling quite hungry.

Seeing the pale golden porridge with a few slices of pinkish-white meat floating in it, and smelling the faint fragrance wafting from the bowl, Mo Yuming's appetite was whetted. He turned the somewhat rough wooden spoon aside and began to drink heartily from the rim of the bowl...

"Hmm? What's this taste?"

Mo Yuming forced himself to swallow the mouthful of thin porridge. If it weren't for the little girl's expectant look, he probably would have spat it out long ago.

How could a bowl of congee that looked and smelled so delicious taste so bad? Mo Yuming immediately lost his appetite.

"tasty?"

Xiao Ya didn't seem to notice Mo Yuming's pained expression. She stared at him with her big, watery eyes and asked.

"Um...um..."

Mo Yuming stammered helplessly, but his mind was filled with questions: Could it be that people in this world have a different sense of taste than people on Earth?

The pale yellow porridge, made from some unknown grain, was slightly bitter and salty. The venison, though tender, had a muddy, unpalatable taste.

But the information that the little girl naturally conveyed was that it was at least a delicious food, and one that was hard to come by normally!

Do you have any candy?

Mo Yuming asked softly, thinking that adding some sugar might reduce the bitterness to some extent.

"Sugar? What is sugar? Is it salt water? We only have coarse salt. Grandpa said that if the taste is bland, we can add some coarse salt to make it taste better. If we have salt water, adding salt water will make it taste even better."

"Unfortunately, we didn't have any. But I already added some salt to your porridge, it should taste great!"

"Oh, it's nothing. Maybe it's because my injury hasn't healed yet, and my taste is a little bland, but it's fine now."

Mo Yuming quickly changed the subject, holding his breath and taking two large gulps. He was really hungry, and his weak body desperately needed to replenish its nutrients.

"That's what Grandpa said too. You lost a lot of blood, so your taste buds might be a bit bland. I've already added some salt to it. If you still find it bland, I'll add some more!"

The little girl blinked her bright eyes and looked on with a smile.

"No need, no need, it's already very good!"

Mo Yuming quickly refused, saying that if someone didn't even know what sugar was, the quality of the soil salt couldn't be very good, and the bitterness in the porridge might even come from the soil salt.

As a top expert in the aquaculture industry, Mo Yuming had an unparalleled understanding of salt, the most widely used seasoning on Earth. If there were no unusual substances in the porridge, Mo Yuming was certain that the bitterness came from impurities such as magnesium and calcium salts that hadn't been extracted from the salt mines.

The salt the little girl mentioned is probably salt extracted from seawater or relatively pure brine. Because it contains less calcium and magnesium ions, it has a purer taste and a milder bitterness.

Mo Yuming sighed silently in his heart, "How did I end up in such a primitive society? There's not even any candy to eat, what a miserable life! How am I going to survive?" In an instant, he felt depressed and almost had suicidal thoughts.

After a few sighs, Mo Yuming suddenly picked up the bowl, tilted his head back, and gulped down the porridge in one go.

Then, steeling himself, he muttered a few harsh words in his mind: Giving up like this would be too unfair to himself. In his past life, he didn't even have a proper chance to date a girl. Now that he's transmigrated, he has to make up for this regret in this life.

So what if there aren't any good seasonings? At worst, he can just spend more time and utilize his past life's talents to manufacture some refined salt and MSG himself! For someone with dozens of inventions, this is a piece of cake. Organic food is everywhere here; the culinary delights will be unimaginable on Earth.

"Little sister, where did Grandpa go? I haven't seen him since this morning!"

Mo Yuming deliberately added the word "little" before "younger sister," as if he were referring to himself as his past self, unaware that he himself wasn't much older than others now. Fortunately, the little girl didn't pay much attention and didn't notice his grammatical error.

"Grandpa is the only doctor in Yishi Valley. He went to Xianghe Valley on the other side of the valley to treat patients. He's been quite busy lately, often leaving early and returning late, and sometimes he hasn't been home for days!"

"What about your other relatives?"

Mo Yuming felt that she must have other relatives at home, such as her parents, otherwise it would be very dangerous to leave a five or six-year-old child alone at home.

“I am an orphan, I don’t have a mom or dad… but… besides my grandfather, I have many other grandfathers and grandmothers.”

The little girl couldn't help but shed tears when the topic of sadness came up, answering softly between sobs. Her melodious voice was no longer a beautiful tune; it sounded like a sad love song from Earth, making one unable to hold back their tears.

"I'm sorry! I... I didn't mean to... I..."

Mo Yuming realized he had accidentally said the wrong thing and brought up someone's sad story. He hurriedly comforted them and apologized.

The little girl seemed much more mature and sensible than other children her age. She quickly composed herself, wiped away her tears with her little hands, and stopped sobbing. However, the smile was gone from her face, and she looked somewhat sad. She lowered her head and remained silent.

Seeing this, Mo Yuming deliberately changed the subject to break the awkward silence:

"Little sister, where is this place? Can you come with me to take a look around?"

"Great! This place is actually a large canyon called the Valley of Heartbreak. The inhabited area is made up of three smaller canyons: Xianghe Valley in the south, Yishi Valley in the middle, and Ruimu Valley in the north. The uninhabited area is of unknown size..."

The little girl immediately launched into a long and detailed introduction, having long since forgotten the previous unpleasantness.

Mo Yuming got up and got out of bed. He followed the little girl out of the simple, round house that resembled a Mongolian yurt on Earth and came outside.

The fiery sun had already risen above the horizon, and the sky was bright. The elusive shadows of the trees cast strange patterns on the ground, further highlighting the vibrant colors of the wild grass and wildflowers covering the ground.

Mo Yuming stood dumbfounded on a patch of grass in front of the house, like an ignorant child who had suddenly stepped into a dreamlike fairy tale world, dazzled by the colorful flowers and plants and the strange and wonderful trees in front of him.

In fact, the exotic scenery presented to Mo Yuming was a place even more magical and beautiful than the fantastical world in anime films:

The vast canyon stretches from north to south, seemingly endless. Although the towering peaks on both sides reach into the clouds, they do not block the sunlight from entering the canyon.

The mountains on both sides cast no shadow whatsoever. From sunrise to sunset, the shadows of the trees in the valley remained unchanged. Even more strangely, no matter how you looked, you couldn't see the peaks of the mountains on either side. A hazy layer of clouds always surrounded the mountainside, neither blown away by the wind nor drifting away.

The first thing that caught Mo Yuming's eye nearby was a tall tree with a peculiar appearance.

Unlike the tree where Mo Yuming fell, these trees, called spruce, are distributed in groups of three or five in the canyon. Apart from differences in size and height, they all look almost identical.

Each tree has a single, straight trunk that pierces the sky, without any extra branches. All the branches and leaves grow in layers, with each whorl of leaves at least ten feet apart, and each whorl of leaves is like a giant, open umbrella.

The dense, gray-green leaves overlap, thick and compact, resembling a cloud encircling the trunk. The branches and leaves gradually decrease in size, forming a cone shape, like an ancient Chinese pagoda, with a unique charm.

However, these 'towers' are too slender, with the largest being only one or two circumferences in circumference. The 'eaves' of each floor are also too long, extending one or two zhang (approximately 3.3-6 meters) beyond the 'tower body'. The slender 'towers' are too tall, with some reaching thirty or forty zhang (approximately 30-40 meters) in length, equivalent to a thirty or forty-story building on Earth.

From a distance, it looks like a string of candied hawthorns, no wonder it's called a string of spruce trees. Judging from its gray-green branches and shape, it does indeed look like clusters of clouds strung together.

Beneath some large trees, along the outer edge of the first layer of branches, stands a wall woven from planks, vines, and animal hides, connecting to a ring of leaves at the top, forming houses resembling yurts—the round houses where the little girl and her friends lived.

They used locally sourced materials, employing a type of wild grass called thick cattail, which is one or two zhang long, nearly three chi wide, and half an inch thick, resembling banana leaves. They covered the outstretched branches like roof tiles, enhancing the leaves' waterproof properties and effectively preventing rainwater from seeping in.

The three houses where the little girl and her grandfather now live are built between these three trees. The middle one is the one where Mo Yuming is recuperating, and it is also the room where the girl's grandfather usually lives. It is a bit larger than the two next to it. The smaller one on the left is the girl's room, and the medium-sized one on the right is the kitchen, dining room, and storage room.

These houses, built using the characteristics of tree trunks and branches, blend seamlessly with the surrounding trees, flowers, and plants, creating a harmonious and natural whole.

The other trees growing here also surprised Mo Yuming. The shape and outline of these trees were not much different from those of trees on Earth. Their branches, leaves and growth characteristics were quite similar.

The only difference is the color. From roots to branches and leaves, these trees are all bright and dazzling. Even the boldest painter on earth would find it difficult to depict such vibrant colors: red like fire, green like jade, black like ink, white like snow, blue like light, yellow like brilliance... These are not trees, but works of art carved from the most flawless jade.