Chapter 52: Barbecue

Outside, the night was quiet, but inside the space, it was eternal day.

Zhang Yuandong slaughtered the sheep and collected two full basins of sheep’s blood.

While the blood was still warm, he sprinkled some salt into it, stirred it evenly, and set it aside. Then, he skillfully skinned the sheep, processed the innards, and even separated the fat in the belly, setting it aside.

Lin Yue calculated the time and figured he should have finished slaughtering the sheep, so she ran over to watch the fun.

Zhang Yuandong was afraid of scaring her, so he quickly shooed her away. “Go back and wait for me. I’ll bring it over when I’m done. It’s all bloody here. Don’t get scared.”

Lin Yue thought to herself, that’s because you haven’t seen how many people in the future have never been in the kitchen but still often hold their phones to learn how to cut up pork.

She waved her hand. “It’s okay, I’m not afraid. Just cover the sheep’s head with something. I’ll be fine if I can’t see it.” Then she praised, “You’re quite professional at this. You must have eaten a lot of this before, right?”

Zhang Yuandong laughed. “We raised some sheep in the army. Don’t even mention sheep, I can also handle pigs. When I first joined the army, I was really envious of the cooks. I thought they ate delicious food every day. Every time I heard they were going to slaughter a pig, I would sneak over to watch.”

Lin Yue found it interesting. “Wasn’t the discipline in the army very strict? You could still sneak around. Didn’t you get a demerit?”

Zhang Yuandong squatted by the stream, looking up at her. “Slaughtering a pig is a big deal anywhere, even in the army. We could only improve our meals occasionally. At that time, forget about the new recruits, even the veterans’ souls would fly to the mess hall. Who would have the mood to train? Most of the time, they would slaughter the pig and cook in front of us. They would even ask us to help. But sometimes, we were busy with training. I sneaked over a few times. My old squad leader caught me and said he wanted to transfer me to the cooking section.”

Lin Yue couldn’t help but laugh. She thought to herself, luckily, he wasn’t transferred. Otherwise, with his culinary skills of boiling five-spice pork belly in salt water, he would have been constantly complained about.

Sure enough, she heard him say, “At that time, I wasn’t afraid at all. I was actually looking forward to this kind of good thing. My squad leader was so angry. He made me run ten laps with a heavy load.”

Lin Yue laughed. “I didn’t know you were so mischievous. I can’t tell.”

Zhang Yuandong also laughed. “Every year, there are always some new recruits who are rebellious. But you, you were afraid when you were slaughtering the sheep, but now you’re not afraid at all?”

Lin Yue said, “I have psychological trauma.”

She remembered the first time she watched Xu’s father kill a chicken. The chicken ran around the yard for three laps with half its head cut off, blood dripping everywhere.

If that happened to a sheep… she shivered at the thought and added, “As long as it’s dead, I’m not afraid. But the sheep’s head is a no-go.”

She saw Zhang Yuandong about to trim the meat off the bones and quickly stopped him. “Don’t trim the meat off the bones. It’s tastier that way!” The bones you bought at this time were real bones. If you could find a decent piece of meat on them, it meant the butcher’s skills were lacking.

Zhang Yuandong didn’t understand, but he still followed her instructions and processed the ribs according to her method.

Lin Yue picked up the processed ribs and mutton. “I’ll go marinate these first.”

Zhang Yuandong looked up at her, not sure what he was thinking, and smiled. He lowered his head and started cleaning the innards.

Lin Yue happily cut the meat into small pieces and marinated it with seasonings.

Unfortunately, there were no onions, so she could only use some scallions, garlic, and ginger to remove the odor.

But she was already very satisfied. It was worth all the seasonings she had prepared in advance.

She had been craving barbecue for a long time. She hadn’t had the chance to make it before, but she had collected a lot of cumin, Sichuan peppercorns, and other seasonings. By now, she had almost all the seasonings and tools for barbecue, just waiting for an opportunity like this.

The ribs were a bit more troublesome to process. They needed to be soaked in cold water for an hour to drain the blood and then marinated with seasonings for two hours.

Lin Yue imitated the barbecue grills of the future and built a long, small stove with stones, the kind that village children used to barbecue grasshoppers, but a little taller. She could use this for barbecue later.

She was busy getting the charcoal started. Zhang Yuandong also came back with a basin.

The charcoal was also made by her. With the space, Lin Yue had almost become a rural life blogger in recent years. She wanted to try everything she could make herself.

Zhang Yuandong was also stunned when he saw the charcoal. Charcoal was simple to make, but troublesome to do well. It was even more troublesome if you wanted to make it good.

He wasn’t surprised that Lin Yue knew how to make charcoal. What surprised him was that she would spend time doing it.

Lin Yue saw so much sheep’s blood and innards and couldn’t help but say, “I think we should forget about slaughtering the rabbit. We won’t be able to finish this sheep, so let’s just make sheep tripe soup tomorrow!”

Zhang Yuandong asked, “Wouldn’t that be too flashy? Tomorrow, we’re probably going to have ten or more people coming over. No one has ever entertained like this before. The food is too good. I’m afraid people will get envious.”

Lin Yue laughed. “We’re making sheep tripe soup, not mutton soup. Sheep tripe isn’t that expensive. We’ll mix mutton and sheep tripe, and add more noodles. It’ll be filling and affordable. Who can say anything?”

Zhang Yuandong thought it made sense. He didn’t know anything about cooking, so he nodded in agreement. “I’ll listen to you.”

Thanks to her previous life, Lin Yue’s barbecue skills were pretty good. In this era, resources were scarce, and people’s biggest wish was to eat their fill. They had almost no pursuit of taste in food.

Zhang Yuandong’s understanding of barbecue was still limited to grilled corn and ground…

“On top of things like melon, potatoes, and edamame.”

He saw Lin Yue take out a long bamboo skewer and not only skewered mutton, but also mushrooms, chili peppers, chives, and even garlic. It was like she had opened the door to a new world.

The two chatted for a while, and Zhang Yuan Dong recalled how he would steal corn from the field and roast it with a group of kids when he was a child, going out to cut pigweed.

Lin Yue, after hearing this, went to a nearby field and broke off a few young corn cobs. She skewered a few of them on bamboo skewers and put them on the grill, while the remaining three or four were boiled in water.

She actually quite liked eating boiled corn. When she was craving it, she would go into her space and eat it by herself. Because she was afraid of being discovered, she hadn’t even shared it with the two little ones, only occasionally leaving them some corn kernels.

How could there be a barbecue without alcohol? She brought out a jar of sorghum wine she had brewed herself and raised a toast with Zhang Yuan Dong.

Zhang Yuan Dong was a very good sport. No matter how much Lin Yue gave him, he could finish it all without leaving a drop, making Lin Yue think his stomach must be a bottomless pit.

Barbecue is actually quite easy to learn once you get the hang of it. Even someone like Zhang Yuan Dong, who is a cooking novice, could learn. He quickly took over the grilling from Lin Yue and did it quite well.

This atmosphere made her feel like she had gone back to the past, when she would go out to barbecue with three or five friends. She unconsciously drank a bit too much and became more talkative: “Tell me more about the army. I don’t know much about soldiers. I don’t even know what position you hold in the army.”

Zhang Yuan Dong, because of the discipline he had to follow, had rarely drunk before.

Although he didn’t drink much, he felt even more drunk than Lin Yue.

He sat up straight and answered in a serious tone: “My name is Zhang Yuan Dong. I’m 25 years old. I joined the army in 1955 and currently serve as a company commander in a certain military region. My monthly allowance is 89 yuan, and my military service allowance is 32 yuan.

There are also mission bonuses, military benefits, and various vouchers.”

Lin Yue quickly shouted: “Stop, stop, stop! If you keep going, I’ll know how much money you have in the bank.

We’re just chatting casually. Don’t make it sound like a blind date.”

Zhang Yuan Dong: “After deducting the money I used to buy a house last time; I still have 840 yuan in savings.”

Lin Yue put her hand to her forehead. It seemed this guy was definitely drunk.

She joked: “You’re so honest. What if I’m an enemy agent and I’m deliberately trying to get information out of you?”

Zhang Yuan Dong: “I’d never betray any military secrets, even if it meant death!”

Lin Yue laughed: “Alright! You’ve passed the organization’s test.”

Seeing her laugh so happily, Zhang Yuan Dong couldn’t help but smile too.

He raised his head and finished another cup of wine, praising: “This wine is really well brewed!”

Lin Yue was smug: “Of course. I know a lot of things!” She didn’t say a word about how many times she had failed.

Zhang Yuan Dong looked at her smugness and wanted to laugh. After all, there was still a pile of discarded mud bricks behind her.

But this kind of Lin Yue made him feel very lively, as if she had suddenly fallen from the unreachable sky to the earth, giving him an urge to reach out and touch her.

He felt that it might be the alcohol’s effect, his thoughts were a little out of control.

He stared intently at the person in front of him, his throat bobbed, and his voice became a little hoarse: “You just told me all your secrets. Are you too trusting of others?”

Lin Yue didn’t notice his strangeness. She thought to herself, the only person who is familiar with her and can see through her problems is the one in front of her. She can’t hide it anymore! Besides, she dared to expose herself because she believed in this person’s character.

But if someone else had discovered her secret, she might have already killed them and disposed of the body.

Don’t lecture her about morals. If someone threatened her life, she couldn’t guarantee that she could uphold her moral principles.

Of course, she couldn’t say these things to Zhang Yuan Dong.

Her eyes rolled, and she began to deceive him: “I told you before, in the time I live in, there is a natural phenomenon called time travel, right?”

Zhang Yuan Dong nodded.

“Then I dare to let you know so many secrets, I must have my own trump card. And if there is real danger, I can just go back in time!”

Zhang Yuan Dong didn’t know whether to believe it or not. He assured her with a serious expression: “Don’t worry. You saved my life and the children’s lives. I wouldn’t be ungrateful.”

Lin Yue wasn’t good at lying. She knew that the more she said, the easier it would be for people to see through her.

So she just smiled and didn’t say anything more about herself. Instead, she fed him some sweet nothings: “The first time I saw you, I knew you were an honest and reliable person. I believe in your character.”

Perhaps because of the alcohol, Zhang Yuan Dong felt that Lin Yue’s gaze was particularly gentle, making his heart skip a beat involuntarily.

He even felt his face getting hot, but at the same time, a sense of urgency suddenly arose in his heart, a desire to become stronger.

Not only for the two children, but more importantly, for the person in front of him. He suddenly craved the ability to protect her, as if it were something he yearned for.

The person in front of him was a little drunk, completely unguarded. Zhang Yuan Dong smiled helplessly: “Let’s go out and rest after we finish this wine. You have to go to the county with me early tomorrow morning.”

Ever since he entered this place, the watch on his wrist had been acting up. He didn’t know if it was broken.

He didn’t know what time it was now and was afraid of delaying tomorrow morning’s business. Besides, the two children were alone outside, and he was worried about them.

Lin Yue, tipsy, nodded and, together with Zhang Yuan Dong, finished off the remaining roast lamb chops. Without even washing up, they left the space and went to sleep separately.