In some aspects, Du Hang was definitely a master of moving. To what extent? He could carry a large backpack, with several bags hanging on the sides, while also lifting Wei Xuan. Moreover, Wei Xuan was holding another backpack and several bags in his arms.
With all these things in his embrace and on his back, Du Hang leaped swiftly and agilely, traversing the roads, obstacles, stones, and debris on the ground. They headed straight to their community.
Wei Xuan was initially worried whether Du Hang could carry him while moving and even made plans to walk back with him. However, his boyfriend turned out to be extremely capable, so capable that he didn’t know what to say. Thus, Wei Xuan nestled in Du Hang’s arms, enjoying the gentle breeze blowing on his face as they made their way back home.
In the familiar community and surroundings, Wei Xuan habitually had Du Hang stop at the top of a wall. Under the dim moonlight, he briefly checked the surrounding area, making sure there were no unexpected shadows. Only then did he let Du Hang carry him all the way home. He placed all the supplies on the floor of the room.
Originally, he could have simply let Du Hang carry him to the shop to exchange messages with those two guys, as usual, and then put down the electronic components he brought back, and finally rest. However, the experience of the past two days was somewhat different. Wei Xuan decided to take a short rest and check the security situation in the community during the day before setting off again.
No matter what, he had faced the big boss lurking in T City face-to-face, so it was normal to take some time to rest and calm down.
After confirming that everything in the room was the same as before, Wei Xuan rolled onto the bed with Du Hang, ready to rest. Soon, he fell into a dream, and Du Hang, who had been holding him, blinked his eyes and silently gazed at the sleeping face right in front of him.
Suddenly, he leaned over and pressed his lips against Wei Xuan’s nose, then closed his eyes and imitated the appearance of sleeping.
The next morning, when Wei Xuan woke up, he realized it was already past eleven o’clock. Apparently, the journey last night took longer, and the accumulated stress from the previous two days had caught up with him, resulting in a deep sleep.
Stretching his arms, Wei Xuan felt Du Hang pulling his arms back to his waist, which he had grown accustomed to. Without feeling anything unusual, Wei Xuan wrapped his arms around Du Hang and nuzzled his face against Du Hang’s chest.
“Let’s rest properly today and head out tonight or tomorrow.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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He got up and washed up.
After cleaning himself up, Wei Xuan rummaged through the frozen meat in the refrigerator and found the bag containing various mushrooms that he brought back yesterday. He poured all the mushrooms onto the floor, pondered for a moment, and opened the bag of hazel mushrooms, deciding to start with them.
Actually, the reason for Wei Xuan’s hesitation was that he didn’t know how to cook these mushrooms to make them delicious. He decided to wait until he checked various recipes in his collection (and if he couldn’t find relevant recipes, he could always make a few trips to the bookstore). At least, he was confident he could roughly DIY a dish of hazel mushrooms stewed with chicken.
After soaking the mushrooms in clean water and setting aside the poultry meat to thaw, Wei Xuan had time to climb to the rooftop with Du Hang.
They stood on the rooftop, holding binoculars, carefully scanning the surroundings of their community. “Seems like there’s nothing to worry about,” Wei Xuan remarked.
As they came back downstairs, the zombie brothers in the community were still docile as ever, and all the buildings appeared undamaged and intact.
Confirming that most of the zombies in the community still had full pouches around their necks, Wei Xuan felt relieved. He climbed to the top floor of the neighboring building and saw that the loving couple in that room were still affectionately lying on the bed. Satisfied with the security situation, he returned to his building.
“Why does the ground here look a bit darker?” Wei Xuan stopped in his tracks as he walked, looking puzzled at the slightly darker mark on the ground, just half a step away from him. It was the walkway in the community, made of concrete. The color of the mark appeared as if it had just rained or something had spilled there, but it seemed to have happened some time ago, making it difficult to identify what it originally was.
“Could it be blood?” Wei Xuan frowned again. Although such marks were not uncommon during the early days of the apocalypse, where bloodstains oxidized into black marks on various surfaces, this one appeared slightly deeper in color.
However, since it was from some time ago, even if it was blood, Wei Xuan couldn’t detect any smell even if he lay on the ground and sniffed.
It could be from the zombie killing the cat during the last time, or perhaps for some other reason. It was also possible that it had been there before, but he hadn’t noticed it before. The reason for the color looking somewhat fresh might be that a zombie had recently wandered around here and accidentally wiped the dust off the concrete.
Still feeling a bit worried, Wei Xuan decided to distribute some snowflakes around the community to check the number of zombies. Once he confirmed that none were missing, he breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his room to cook.
He chose to pamper his internal organs today by making a dish of stewed chicken with mushrooms.
Usually, he would occasionally cook some meat or stir-fry vegetables, stew some dishes, or make soups. However, he rarely had dishes that were primarily meat-based. Especially when stewing, the proportion of meat in the dish was usually quite low, with a large portion consisting of potatoes, carrots, soaked dried vegetables, and various tofu products.
But today, he was determined to make meat the main focus.
He soaked the entire package of hazel mushrooms, but even after rehydrating and squeezing out the water, the quantity of hazel mushrooms was still not much. He knew that the bird meat he brought back was substantial, and after thawing and cutting it into pieces, it would definitely exceed the amount of mushrooms by a large margin.
After the morning inspection of the community, Wei Xuan quickly settled for some cereal mixed with powdered milk as breakfast, and then devoted all his attention to this special meal.
He had plenty of shiitake mushrooms at home, but he didn’t know the best way to cook them individually. Normally, he would just throw a few into a random stew to enhance the flavor. However, today’s meal required mushrooms to be one of the main ingredients, so he had to put in some effort.
After preliminary processing of the meat and mushrooms, he boiled a pot of water. Once the poultry meat was parboiled and removed, he heated a pan with oil and added dried onions, dried ginger, cinnamon, star anise, bay leaves, and dried red chili, stirring until the aroma was released. Then he added the parboiled meat and continued stir-frying until it turned golden brown.
After over a year of practice, Wei Xuan’s culinary skills had greatly improved compared to his past life or even before the apocalypse. Cooking had become a leisurely way to pass the time for him. With an expectant look in his eyes, he waited for the meat to turn golden and fragrant before grabbing a bottle of soy sauce from the side and adding it to the pan for seasoning.
Once the fragrance of the soy sauce filled the air and coated each piece of poultry meat, he added the mushrooms and stir-fried them briefly before pouring in the hot water to stew.
While the water boiled, Wei Xuan went to soak the rice. There wasn’t much rice left at home, and he didn’t plan on continuing the search. Once they finished what they had, the rice available outside would probably have gone bad.
If he managed to find some well-preserved rice, it could sustain them for another meal or so. However, the majority of rice found in the apocalypse had turned brittle after being exposed to air, and some were completely rotten.
While this aged rice was still edible and could fill their stomachs, Wei Xuan didn’t plan to eat it. The rice they tried growing in spring looked promising, but he wasn’t sure if the final product would be suitable for consumption or if they could cultivate it on a larger scale. Regardless, the lush growth of the rice plant gave him hope.
In the hydroponic planting machine, they also had various grains besides rice. Once they harvested these grains around autumn, Wei Xuan believed that even if their luck was bad, they would still find one or two alternatives for their staple food.
The quantity of rice and noodles at home was enough to last them until winter this year. Beyond that… well, they would figure it out when the time came.
While Wei Xuan had some ideas about how to spend the days ahead, he had a feeling he might not continue to endure for much longer.
Lost in thought, he was suddenly interrupted by a request for a kiss in his mind. Chuckling helplessly, he turned to Du Hang, who had been obediently following him. He leaned over and kissed him on the lips, saying, “Let’s take a break in the living room after we bring this to a boil and reduce the heat. I know how much time it takes to simmer them over low heat, so there’s no problem spending that time with my love.”
Wei Xuan had become quite experienced in stewing and knew exactly how long it would take to bring the broth to the right consistency. So, spending some quality time with his partner during this process was a delightful idea.
I think Wei Xuan is master of cooking dog food, because I’m definitely feel full
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