Chapter 41: Dinner

Weibai skillfully grabbed a pair of ears and carried a rabbit back to the temporary camp.

At that moment, the eyes of the several people in the camp drifted toward him—no, more accurately, toward the rabbit in his hand.

In this Adventurer Team, Jiu, who was responsible for hunting, had returned empty-handed.

This meant that for tonight’s dinner, aside from the one rabbit Weibai had caught, everyone else would likely have to gnaw on dry rations with wild vegetable soup.

Weibai didn’t pay much attention to the four gazes.

He was starving now and could almost swallow the rabbit raw.

Just as he pulled out his longsword, prepared to gut it, Taurani suddenly spoke.

“Um, Mr. Francis, could you give me some of the rabbit’s blood?”

Hearing this, Weibai looked up and saw her holding a blood block that looked like a brick.

She was chewing it expressionlessly, but her gaze occasionally flickered toward the struggling rabbit in Weibai’s hand.

Taurani had been gnawing on that blood brick for a long time.

Truthfully, it tasted terrible.

As she chewed the blood block, it felt no different from eating wax.

“Sure,” Weibai agreed after a moment of thought.

It was just letting some blood, after all; she wasn’t trying to steal his meat.

Seeing Weibai agree, Taurani’s slender eyebrows relaxed slightly, and her cold face softened.

Anyone seeing the delicious food they like would reveal their true nature.

Take the current Taurani, for example.

Although she was still holding the blood block, her mind was entirely focused on Weibai as he began draining the blood.

She hadn’t consumed fresh blood in a long time, and she was currently desperate for that fresh rabbit blood.

At the thought of being able to drink warm blood soon, Taurani couldn’t help but shuffle closer to Weibai, staring intently at his movements as he drained the animal.

Weibai, who was focused on his work, suddenly felt an itch on his arm.

He looked up and couldn’t help but flush red.

“What are you doing? Why are you so close?”

Weibai looked at Taurani, whose chin was resting on his shoulder.

Feeling panicked, he quickly took a few steps back to distance himself from her.

“Ahem, sorry, Mr. Franski.”

Taurani seemed to realize her behavior had crossed a line, and a rare blush colored her cheeks.

“I apologize…”

Taurani apologized politely, but at that exact moment, her stomach let out a sudden growl.

*Gurgle…*

“Ugh…”

Hearing the sound from her stomach, Taurani’s delicate face turned bright red, and she immediately lowered her head in embarrassment.

Since the beginning of their journey, this was the first time Weibai had seen this Blood Demon show such a wide range of facial expressions.

He had almost started to believe she was incapable of them.

However, seeing Taurani’s awkward state, Weibai realized she really was hungry.

What Weibai found curious, though, was that throughout the entire carriage ride, Taurani had been gnawing on blood blocks almost the whole way from their starting point.

By all logic, she shouldn’t be that hungry.

Even if the others were hungry, they weren’t so desperate for food; they were all quietly doing their own thing—some boiling soup, others organizing dry rations.

Why was she the one who got hungry the fastest?

Despite his thoughts, Weibai quickly finished draining the blood.

He collected it in a wooden bowl and handed it to Taurani.

Taurani took the bowl, a faint smile appearing on her face.

She brought her small nose to the rim of the bowl and sniffed it, then moved the bowl toward her cherry-red lips.

“Are you going to drink it just like that?” Seeing Taurani raise the bowl to her mouth, Weibai couldn’t help but offer a reminder.

“How else? I’ve always eaten it this way,” Taurani replied, as if eating it like this was perfectly normal for her.

Looking at the scarlet blood in the wooden bowl, Weibai felt a wave of discomfort.

“Um… I think it’s better to heat it up. It’s cleaner that way.”

Weibai suggested, “If you get diarrhea from drinking that, it’ll be a real problem.”

“I won’t… fine, I’ll heat it.”

Taurani looked at Weibai and was about to argue, but then she thought of something.

She blinked, suppressed her hunger, and poured the blood from the wooden bowl into a pot, then began to slowly heat it over a low fire.

The others looked at the rabbit in Weibai’s hand, and they all felt a pang of hunger.

However, Weibai didn’t even look at them as he went about skinning the animal.

After cleaning it, Weibai built a fire and placed the rabbit on a spit to roast.

Before long, the aroma of roasting meat wafted into everyone’s noses.

*Gulp.*

Grey swallowed hard, looking toward Weibai’s direction with greedy eyes.

Weibai removed the roasted rabbit from the fire and began to carve the steaming animal into pieces.

“Here.”

Looking at the front leg offered to him, Grey was stunned for a moment.

Then he reacted and took it gratefully.

“Thank you.”

Seeing Grey’s reaction, Weibai couldn’t help but chuckle.

This big man looked fierce and intimidating, but he was actually quite honest and simple-minded.

After distributing the rabbit meat to the others, Weibai could clearly feel that the distance the Adventurer Team kept from him had mostly vanished.

The occasional glances throughout the journey shifted from suspicion to curiosity.

“This leg is for you.”

Weibai handed a hind leg to Taurani, but she shook her head.

“I don’t eat that. Cooked meat tastes terrible,” Taurani said as she took small sips of the steaming rabbit blood.

“Hey, you gave your meat to us. Isn’t there not enough left for you to eat?”

Jiu, who was clutching her bow, suddenly asked.

For some reason, this girl seemed to love her bow very much.

Since Weibai first saw her, she had been holding it.

Looking closely at the bow, it was dark green, appearing to be made from the branches of some plant.

There were vine-like decorations wrapped around the limbs, and a few flowers were carved into it.

“Me? I have things to eat,” Weibai replied after observing the Dark Green Longbow.

Then, he pulled some wild fruits from his pocket and placed them next to the remaining rabbit meat.

“You’re eating that?”

Jiu looked at the wild fruits.

Not only were they covered in dark spots, but some of the skins were shriveled.

They didn’t look fresh at all.

“What’s wrong with it? It’s not like I haven’t eaten them before.”

Weibai didn’t care; these wild fruits were a regular part of his diet.

Jiu wanted to say something more, but Taurani interrupted her.

“Jiu, don’t worry about it. He’ll enjoy eating those,” Taurani said, glancing at the wild fruits in Weibai’s hand.

“Alright then.”

Jiu swallowed her words.

She wasn’t the type of person who liked accepting help from others for no reason.

When Weibai gave her the rabbit meat, she had been hesitant.

But since she had already accepted it, she felt she should provide equal help in return.

Tasting the hind leg meat, Jiu found it incredibly delicious.

The taste of this rabbit meat cooked in the wild was actually no different from something prepared by a master chef in the city.

Secretly admiring Weibai’s cooking skills, she had an idea.

“Let me go hunting next time. Francis, you just stay at the camp and cook,” Jiu said somewhat abruptly.

“Handling both the hunting and the cooking is too much trouble for you.”

Weibai didn’t quite know how to react when he heard Jiu’s words.

This was the first time on the trip he had heard this girl call him by name.

Although it was his alias, Weibai still felt a strange sensation.

“That way, Francis won’t have to be too exhausted,” Jiu added.

“Didn’t you… just go hunting?”

Hearing the girl’s words, Weibai felt as if he were looking at a junior.

He was certainly more experienced than them and could be considered an old-timer in his own right.

“Yes.”

“Then where is your prey?”

“I…”

Jiu’s thin face flushed instantly.

She stammered, not knowing how to explain.

She couldn’t exactly admit that her skills were lacking and that she had let the prey get away several times, could she?

“I just didn’t find any prey. Otherwise, I would have brought it back long ago!”

“Oh, so that’s how it was.”

Weibai looked at Jiu with a smile, not calling her out.

“…”

Jiu stopped talking.

She hugged her longbow tightly and sat to the side in extreme embarrassment, not even finishing her dinner.

“Alright, why get so worked up over this? As long as there’s food, there’s no need to take it to heart.”

Weibai felt he might have been a bit too harsh and quickly offered some comfort.

“Mm…”

Jiu replied, though it was unclear if she was really listening.

Seeing her like this, Weibai said no more and began to eat his own dinner.