Chapter 8: Chewing

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Everyone had his or her secret. Lan Jiao would not ask Mi Lai and wait for the time when he was willing to tell her about it himself.
Even Lan Jiao had hidden a huge secret about herself!
With bottles of insects in their hands, they turned back to go to their residence in District Nine. On their way back, Lan Jiao asked Mi Lai to help her dangle and shake the insects-filled bottles vigorously.
Their hands got tired after doing these movements, but the result turned out to be wonderful. The insects trapped inside the bottles were so frightened that they had pooped out everything that was stored in their body.
Normally, it would take two or three days of starving for the insects to dump everything out, but she did not have so much time to wait for the insects to release their dump in a natural way. Hence, she came up with this idea to help them clear up their stomachs.
Lan Jiao used a bottle of nutritive solution in exchange for a bottle of water with a soldier. This was used to wash the insects.
Food and water resources were quite limited on Planet Trash. The water that the locals drank was the filtered water which was simply segregated from the trash. It tasted and smelled horrible because the stench of the trash remained in it.
When Lan Jiao first came to the planet, she had consumed water like that for a while. But every time, she inevitably ended up getting diarrhea.
So, she made a simple filter device using sand and grass for herself. The water that trickled through that device was barely okay to drink but was infinitely better than the locals’ filtered water.
But now, the situation was different. After Lan Jiao managed to make the spicy Rat Teppanyaki, she gained popularity and fame among the soldiers.
As a result, she was able to make this exchange.
Hearing that Lan Jiao was here to get water to make some new dishes, she faced no trouble. Some people even helped her carry the clean water till her doorstep.
She washed the insects repeatedly and thoroughly. Then she placed the insects out in the sun for later use.
She assembled the iron frame, and the iron plate. After that, Lan Jiao poured the meat oil, which she had saved from the Rat Teppanyaki, upon the hot iron plate.
Ten seconds later, the oil was sizzling and the insects were placed there. With a sputtering sound, she started frying the insects which had stopped struggling after the first few seconds.
These insects looked quite disgusting, yet after being cooked on the hot iron plate, they started gaining a golden layer on their surface. An appetizing smell was spreading around slowly.
The insects looked extremely tempting to the onlookers.
Once the golden-yellow colored insects were almost done, Lan Jiao started flipping and stirring them with the fruit blade. Then, she sprinkled salt over them.
The salt was placed evenly on the insects. Before it was absorbed by the insects’ bodies, she quickly flipped them on the hot plate.
There was little oil of rot-eating rats left on the iron plate, and the insects let out a loud buzzing sound as they hit the plate everytime.
This kind of cooking method was different from the previous one. It didn’t require too much oil but a lot more salt.
Lan Jiao kept sprinkling the salt upon the iron plate while flipping the meat. Due to the heat, the residual water inside the insects dried up leaving behind patches of mottled, water salt on the hot iron plate.
The wonderful smell had attracted many locals and soldiers’ attention already. Many soldiers had started to gather around seeing that Lan Jiao had come up with another dish.
“Miss Lan, what are we eating today?” Ken asked Lan Jiao in a friendly tone.
When Lan Jiao made the rat cutlets for the first time, he had been attracted by the smell and offered to buy the cutlets with coins. He had not been aware that Alliance Coins were of not much value on this planet.
When he had realized his mistake, he apologized to Lan Jiao on the second occasion when she made the cutlets. He had also done the barter for the meat with low-level nutritive solutions. Lan Jiao remembered this innocent and simple-minded soldier clearly.
Lan Jiao smiled at Ken and raised her chin. “Insects, dare to try? If they are not tasty, you don’t have to pay me with nutritive solutions!”
“Of course I dare!”
Ken was a young man and a risk-taker. Seeing the chubby insects with yellow golden surface, he picked up one finger-size insect and threw it into his mouth.
He bit through the surface, getting a wonderful taste inside the mouth. When the protein-filled insect exploded on his tongue, he gasped in pleasure. The next moment, he started to chew on it quickly.
“Delicious! Salty, crispy, delicious!” Ken instantly revealed his truest feelings.
Lan Jiao smiled in satisfaction seeing his reaction. What Ken said would be the best advertisement for her food.
Sure enough! After hearing his comments, those who had not liked the idea of eating insects initially, started to get excited as well.
They all wanted to figure out whether the insects were truly as delicious as Ken claimed.
“Try this one.” Lan Jiao picked another type of insect with the knife and offered it to Ken.
Ken felt honored to become the first person who was given the new dish to try.
So, he proudly accepted it and chewed upon it carefully.
It had a different texture compared to the one he ate earlier.
“Very delicious, the more I chew it, the more delicious it becomes! I just can’t stop munching on it.”
Hearing Ken’s positive comments, Mi Lai had a miserable expression on his face.
He could smell the fragrance and wanted to have a taste because of what Ken said.
But…
Ah! These were insects!
And some of them had been caught by him!
At that time, he had found them to be creepy and disgusting. In fact, the long-leg hopping insects had the worst appearance!
And the excretion of these insects… ugh, it had been gooey and stuck to the insects’ bodies!
As he thought about this over and over, he could not overcome that strange feeling of push and pull inside him. He stepped forward to try one of the insects!
Terrible…
But he was craving for a taste…
Mi Lai felt that he was confronted with the biggest problem of his life – to eat or not to eat!