A Core Ship From The Start-Chapter 2396 - 1609: I Want Them All! (The New Sausages I Bought Taste Awful)

Chapter 2396: Chapter 1609: I Want Them All! (The New Sausages I Bought Taste Awful)

Although Sakurajima Mai was considered worldly and knowledgeable, when she looked at the bear Duanmu Huai dragged back to the cabin, she still had a baffled expression.

"Bear... can you eat it?"

"Of course you can; do you know how to clean fish?"

"I learned a bit before."

"Then take care of these fish, and I’ll handle the bear."

Duanmu Huai shook a machete. In this cabin, there were also knives and small blades for chopping wood, though they weren’t very clean. But boiling them with snow water for sterilization would suffice.

Besides, at this point, who needs a bicycle?

Fortunately, after dealing with the bear, Duanmu Huai directly cut its throat, draining it of all blood. Moreover, it’s winter now; the temperature is low, so the bear doesn’t have a heavy gamey smell. Thus, it wasn’t difficult to handle. Duanmu Huai dragged the bear to the door, cleaned it up, and started skinning it—being so adept from eating wild game almost every day in the Westward Journey World.

Bears, before hibernating, usually eat until they’re full. This bear seemed a bit silly and probably hadn’t managed to eat enough before winter, which is why it was still foraging after the onset of winter. But from its size, it had reserved quite a bit, probably on its way home to hibernate when it encountered Duanmu Huai and Sakurajima Mai, deciding to add a meal.

Well, now it’s the meal.

Duanmu Huai deftly gutted it, removed the viscera, skinned it, and dismembered its limbs with ease. This drew frequent glances from Sakurajima Mai, as Japanese usually buy pre-processed meat at supermarkets—while handling fish might be fine for them, slaughtering a chicken or lamb is quite another matter.

Especially for someone like Sakurajima Mai, a star idol, who probably hadn’t seen a chicken being slaughtered, let alone a bear.

"Xiao Ai, you’re really skilled."

"Just used to it. I used to really love wild game."

Duanmu Huai peeled off the bear’s skin and cleaned it in the snow before hanging it near the fire. Once it’s dried, it could serve as a warm bear skin mat.

"It’s a shame there isn’t any wild boar. If one were to show up, even better."

"But there’s so much we can’t finish it all."

"Whatever we can’t eat can be frozen; in this weather, it’s no different than a refrigerated locker. Hanging it under the eaves won’t risk other beasts stealing it. This guy sure ate well; can’t waste all this fat."

Looking at the white fat, Duanmu Huai chuckled lightly, then cut it, boiled it, and placed it in a pot over the fire to render—Duanmu Huai hadn’t rendered bear fat before, but he had seen pig fat being rendered. Despite the differences between pigs and bears, fat should be more or less the same.

For a while, the cabin was quiet, only filled with the sounds of crackling fire, sizzling oil, and knife work. Handling the fish before her, Sakurajima Mai suddenly felt a bit disoriented. In this cabin, at this moment, she felt a strange illusion. It was as if they weren’t modern-day entertainers but living in an ancient hunter’s household. The wife cooks at home, waiting for the husband’s return, and the husband brings back game, smiling as he enters and gets to work.

It’s quite... homely.

Is this why Liangzi secretly had feelings for the protagonist?

Thinking of this, Sakurajima Mai’s emotions suddenly grew complicated. As an actress, she must contemplate her roles. Although from a plot perspective, Liangzi being saved by the protagonist and then developing feelings fits the usual romantic manga trope, Sakurajima Mai had her doubts while playing Liangzi. To Sakurajima Mai, Liangzi is a good girl and, as a young lady, she’s adept at distinguishing emotions, so even if saved by the protagonist, Sakurajima Mai thought Liangzi’s feelings towards him were more gratitude than affection.

But now, she suddenly understood.

Perhaps Liangzi truly longed for that simple, familial warmth.

As a young lady, Liangzi’s life was comfortable, but her parents were never home. Liangzi filled her time with reading, becoming knowledgeable.

But deep down, she must be lonely.

Much like herself.

Her father abandoned her mother to marry another woman. In retaliation, her mother pushed Sakurajima Mai into the entertainment industry, perhaps hoping for Sakurajima Mai’s outstanding performance to avenge against the unfaithful man, making him regret abandoning them.

From this point of view, Sakurajima Mai found her mother pitiable. She didn’t want to be her mother’s money-making tool nor a vengeance tool.

And she herself hadn’t felt the warmth of family for a long time, which is why she felt she could relate to Liangzi’s emotions.

In the closed cabin, forming a small, sweet, and warm family with a husband. Living a peaceful life, perhaps not comfortable, quite laborious, but feeling human warmth... is this why she fell for the protagonist?

Liangzi wasn’t attracted to the protagonist but to "family".

"How is the fish handling going?"

Suddenly, Duanmu Huai’s voice brought Sakurajima Mai back to reality.

"Almost done..."

"What? Daydreaming?"

"Just thinking about some things."

Sakurajima Mai shook her head.

"Like what?"

"Like... why Liangzi fell for the protagonist."

"You’re still pondering the script, huh? Truly an actor’s insight."

Duanmu Huai quipped softly.

"I think Liangzi fell for the protagonist not because he saved her, but because she longed for familial warmth... A good, warm family might be what Liangzi desires."

"Family... Speaking of which, I happen to... never mind, it’s nothing."

"???"

Though Sakurajima Mai cast a puzzled glance at Duanmu Huai, he didn’t respond. To be honest, after entering the entertainment circle, Duanmu Huai discovered that entertainers in this circle often had family issues.

Whether idols or actors, they all had similar problems. Sakurajima Mai’s parents divorced; Arima Kaname’s did too; Hei Chuan Chi Yin was from a single-parent family, and he himself with Ruby... Well, worse off than those divorced.

At least divorced ones had been married.

Remember that the leading actor of the theater group LALALAI, Jichuan Dahui, who won the Best Actor Award, also had a tough life. His parents committed double suicide when he was young.

Even MEM is also from a single-parent family...

In this line of work, it seems like there are especially many people from single-parent families or with deceased parents. From a psychological perspective, perhaps it’s because they cannot receive the love of a whole family, so they hope to gain attention from the outside world to fill the void inside. Of course, this is just Duanmu Huai’s nonsense, since he doesn’t understand psychology.

So this rant is something Duanmu Huai keeps to himself, to avoid offending anyone by saying it out loud.

By the time the two of them had prepared the food, it was already afternoon. Their stomachs had been growling for a while. If it weren’t for Mai who had a candy to hold her over, she might have already fainted.

But fortunately, everything went smoothly, and in the howling blizzard, they managed to finish their cooking.

Sakurajima Mai made fish soup, while Duanmu Huai prepared fried bear meat steaks. After casually using twigs as chopsticks, they began to enjoy their long-awaited meal.

"Hmm... Mai, you’re pretty good at cooking."

Sipping the delicious, savory fish soup, Duanmu Huai couldn’t help but praise. In the cold winter, a bowl of steaming hot fish soup was really comforting.

"Xiao Ai’s steak is also quite good. It’s my first time eating bear meat."

With no knife or fork at hand, the bear meat had to be cut into small pieces to be picked up with chopsticks. As Sakurajima Mai ate the bear meat, she showed a look of surprise.

"Though it’s a bit tough, the taste is quite good and juicy..."

"I was wondering if the bear fat would work, and now it seems it does quite well."

Duanmu Huai chuckled and continued to eat heartily. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Both of them had been hungry for nearly an entire day. Duanmu Huai is one thing, but Sakurajima Mai was starving. Although she usually did not eat much, this time she ate to her heart’s content.

"Phew..."

After eating, Duanmu Huai sat contentedly to the side and breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was satisfying, the bear paw is surprisingly delicious."

"I still can’t handle eating that thing."

Unlike Duanmu Huai, Mai kept her distance from bear paw, as if she simply didn’t want to eat something that looks like a human hand.

"Then you’re just not hungry enough. If you were starving, you’d gnaw on it raw, let alone cooked."

"Luckily, I’m not that hungry yet."

Duanmu Huai chuckled at this.

"By the way, Mai, have you heard the saying, ’you can’t have both fish and bear’s paw’?"

"I have, it means when facing two important choices, it’s difficult to have both, so you have to choose one."

"But now, we’ve eaten both the fish and the bear’s paw."

Duanmu Huai patted his belly.

"So that saying doesn’t hold true."

"Is that so?"

"Of course, if you have the ability to catch both the fish and the bear, naturally you can have both. Ultimately, the inability to have both is just a lack of capability."

"But most people in this world lack that capability."

"Perhaps so."

Duanmu Huai shrugged.

"So for them, that saying is more of an excuse. Since you can’t have both, you must give up one, ultimately it’s just acknowledging that it’s not that they don’t want it, they simply can’t do it."

"Yeah, they simply can’t do it."

Sakurajima Mai held her fish soup and sighed quietly.

"If only there truly were things in this world that have the best of both worlds."

"Where in the world could there be such things?"

"You just said that if you have enough capacity, you could have both fish and bear’s paw."

"But I was talking about the fish and the bear."

Duanmu Huai shrugged, and Sakurajima Mai rolled her eyes at him.

"I don’t want those kinds of riddles."

"Whew~~~~~!!"

Meanwhile, the howling wind outside sounded again, rattling the windows. Duanmu Huai got up to secure the window once more, ensuring it wouldn’t blow open unexpectedly.

"It seems this snowstorm won’t stop any time soon... Why did the director have to pick this time for filming?"

Duanmu Huai complained speechlessly. He and Sakurajima Mai’s phones were shattered when they fell off the cliff, leaving only a pile of plastic bits, completely unusable. Speaking of which, with Japan’s telecom environment, even if the phones were intact, there’d be no signal in these deep mountains.

"Next time before shooting, make sure the director checks the local weather conditions beforehand."

This definitely needs to be noted in the memo.