A small plot of land in a mountain village

The pale green, semi-circular bird's nest has a small, round, seven-colored fruit in its center, which is only the size of a little finger. The semi-circular bird's nest is about half the size of a billiard ball.

Zhang Niu didn't know what to call the vine that had grown onto the roof beam.

Zhang Niu counted them himself and found that there were a total of 108 from his feet to the roof beam. He counted them three times in a row and got the same number each time.

Could it be that the 108 heroes have been reincarnated into my family? No matter how I count, it's the same number. I'm starting to doubt that I'm counting wrong, but I've counted it three times and it's still the same number.

One hundred and eight seven-colored fruits—are they meant to be eaten? Or are they for some other purpose? Almost an hour had passed from when the vines sprouted to the roof beams to when the fruits began to hang.

After bearing fruit, the vine stopped growing. Could it be that the seven-colored leaves had exhausted their energy? A thousand thoughts were swirling in my mind.

When the little guy saw the fruit hanging from the vine, he grinned, climbed onto Zhang Niu's shoulder, and squeaked near Zhang Niu's ear. It seemed that the little guy was quite excited.

The effect of the hanging fruit on this vine can only be confirmed when we come back tonight. Zhang Niu has no doubt that the seven-colored leaves will not produce 108 seven-colored fruits for nothing.

"Hey! What are you doing growing flowers and plants in the house?" The fat man walked in with a grin, the door open, and he was chewing on something.

"Isn't this just for fun? Is dinner ready?" I'd better go outside, or I'll have to start asking questions again.

But it was obviously too late. The piece of meat he was biting fell out of his mouth and landed on the fruit bag—let's call it that for now—staring at the seven-colored fruit inside.

"What kind of plant is this? I've never seen it before." He looked it over from the bottom up to the roof beam.

Zhang Niu didn't hesitate at all when it came to the name "one hundred and eight," and immediately thought of these one hundred and eight fruit bags.

"What do you mean 108? I asked you what the name of this plant is, and you just gave me the number 108. Do you think it's the 108 heroes of Liangshan or the Water Margin?"

Zhang Niu didn't know what to say. This reaction was really slow. He said irritably, "I really don't know whether to call you an idiot or... this 108 is the name of this flower."

"Nickname 108!" The loud shout made Zhang Niu's eardrums ring. Damn it, did he have to shout that loudly? The whole world must have heard it.

"That shout was too loud, isn't that surprising? There are no 108 flower names, don't try to fool me, tell me the truth!" The fat man didn't believe it at all.

"I can't do anything with you. You should just count these fruit bags!" He turned around to pour himself a glass of water. Talking to this guy is such a waste of breath.

"Count them, so what? What's so special about that?" the fat man muttered to himself.

"Wow, this is really amazing! It really is one hundred and eight! Is this a new flower variety? Or was it dug up from the mountains?" As she spoke, she reached out her finger to touch the seven-colored fruit.

Zhang Niu, who had just taken a sip of boiled water, spat it out with a "pfft!" and cried, "Don't touch it!"

It wasn't that Zhang Niu wouldn't let the fat man touch it, but rather that he was afraid the seven-colored fruit might change, which would be disastrous. This was also for the fat man's safety.

The fat man paused at the shout, his hand frozen in mid-air. "What's wrong with me touching this fruit?"

I don't want to offer advice, but I really have to touch it. I can't just say, "These newly hung fruits will only grow this big after you touch them, and they won't grow any bigger."

The fat man knew about this. In the Southern Hemisphere, there is a type of bird that abandons its chicks if they come into contact with human presence after giving birth. This shows how sensitive these birds are to human presence.

Retracting her hand that had been hanging in mid-air, she said, "It's a good thing you said that, otherwise these fruits would have been wasted." Although she didn't touch them, she still approached the fruit bag and examined the seven-colored fruits inside.

The seven-colored fruit is no longer like it was in the space, flowing with color. Instead, it has a fixed shape, with the seven colors half-blended, exuding a faint sense of beauty.

Actually, Zhang Niu was just bluffing, but the fat man took it seriously, which was a bit of a surprise.

"You came in to call me, is dinner ready?" He quickly made an excuse to leave.

"I almost forgot, the plum wine in the kitchen is all gone, that's why I asked you for some. Liangshan cooked poached chicken for lunch, two different flavors." He couldn't help but lick his lips when he mentioned poached chicken.

"Then you go first, I'll get the wine, and we'll go try it together." Zhang Niu didn't expect Liangshan to serve boiled chicken for lunch.

When Fatty heard Zhang Niu say that, he realized that if they didn't go soon, the poached chicken would get cold and wouldn't taste as good as when it was hot. He almost forgot when he called out to them. They had plenty of time to look after this plant, so there was no rush.

"Then hurry up, I'll go set out the bowls and chopsticks first. If you're late and the taste is bad, don't blame me." Saying this, she stopped looking at the flowers and rushed over.

As soon as the fat man left, the little one immediately followed. The aroma of the poached chicken could be smelled from afar. It would be a real shame not to try it.

They were finally chased away. It was only a temporary measure; who knows, they might come rushing over again later. They just did whatever came to mind.

The fat guy is a lot like me in this respect; he doesn't have a concrete plan and is someone who just goes with the flow.

It seems I need to find a way to keep some plum wine in the room, so I don't have to keep going into the space. It's fine when no one's around, but what if someone wants to see me?

This is not a long-term solution; we need to find a better one.

At the edge of the space, bottles of plum wine were placed there. Many of the plums by the lake had already fallen into the lake, naturally benefiting the fish in the lake.

Before leaving, gazing at the shimmering lake, a sudden idea popped into his head: to put plum wine in the lake water, as the spatial water could accelerate the growth of crops.

I don't know if this will preserve the flavor of the wine.

Since it was still early, I found a bucket in the house, but just as I was about to go inside, I thought again, "Wait a minute, if I put this in the lake, it might evaporate sometime."

This bucket definitely won't work; I should have bought a sealed glass bottle. That would probably be the only way it would be effective. Luckily, I thought of that, otherwise I would have wasted my time.

This time, three bottles of plum wine were brought over to the kitchen. Actually, Zhang Niu doesn't drink this wine much; it's mostly Fatty and Liang Shan who drink it, often staying in the kitchen researching new dishes.

"Why did it take you so long to get here? I've been waiting for you for ages." Zhang Niu had just stepped through the door.

He shook the wine bottle in his hand. "I'm taking out the wine, you don't know how troublesome it is to take out plum wine, to prevent it from leaking air. That's why it took a while."

"I wasn't sure about that, I'll definitely pay attention next time. Good wine should be sealed to make it fragrant and delicious," he said with a chuckle.

"This poached chicken has been sitting in the pot, we were just waiting for you. Now we can eat." Liang Shan brought out a plate of poached chicken.

These must be free-range chickens from the chicken coop. They taste good, and they eat a mix of grains and water from their spatial dimension. Inside the chicken coop's wire mesh, there's a large pond where Zhang Niu occasionally pours some spatial water.

This pond is very shallow; if it were too deep, the chickens wouldn't be able to reach the water, so it took a lot of effort.

The poached chicken on the table, red and white, truly tasted two different things. This was the first time Liangshan had ever cooked it; they thought it was a pheasant that the wolf had brought back that day.

"What animal was the big wolf carrying in its mouth when it ran in this morning?" I asked Liangshan when I remembered.

After finishing everything, Liang Shan sat down. "What the wolf was carrying this morning was actually a mountain rat, which wandered into the kitchen."

It turns out it was a mountain rat. No wonder it looked a bit brown from a distance. It seems I really did make a mistake. Pheasants and mountain rats are very similar in color, so it's normal to mistake one for the other.

"Liangshan's cooking is excellent; the two-color poached chicken is a first for me," Zhang Niu praised with a smile.

Poached chicken has less oiliness than roasted chicken, but the flavor is on another level. The method of roasting is simpler than simply stir-frying chicken; just blanch it until cooked.

Zhang Niu felt that the most important thing about poached chicken was the seasoning. If the seasoning was good, the aroma would naturally come through. Many restaurants had their own secret recipes for seasoning, and the taste was top-notch.

"I'm embarrassed to say that. These two kinds of poached chicken are what I learned when I was a chef in Guangdong. The plate you see here would cost at least eighty yuan in a restaurant there, and it's not even a free-range chicken. They use grass-fed chickens that weigh about six pounds. The taste is the same as our free-range chickens."

Then I remembered Liang Shan. He used to be a chef in Guangdong. His poached chicken was very popular there. I heard that more people ate chicken than bought meat. You could say that people ate free-range chicken for at least 300 days out of 365, which caused the local chicken price to rise.

"The dishes cooked by this chef are indeed delicious." He picked up a piece of chicken, dipped it in some seasoning, and put it in his mouth.

"You two should finish this poached chicken in one meal. If you reheat it later, the flavor will be bland and it won't taste good," Liang Shan said, picking up a piece of chicken for himself.

The poached chicken comes in two colors, red and white. The white chicken is dipped in seasoning, while the red chicken is already seasoned. After stir-frying, two different flavors are available for customers to choose from.

"I've heard that in Guangdong, people don't eat chicken that's been left overnight. Is that true?"

Upon hearing what the fat man said, Liang Shan said, "Yes, that's true. Eating chicken is very popular where they live. Whether it's children or the elderly, they basically all eat free-range chicken. The chicken meat is usually thrown away the next morning. Centipedes are most afraid of roosters when they're alive. They would usually give way when they see one. But after the rooster dies, centipedes crawl all over its body. Actually, it's because worms grow in the meat the night after the rooster dies, which is why centipedes love it."

"That's so well said! I had no idea this was happening if you hadn't told me," the fat man exclaimed, slapping the table in approval.

Upon hearing Liang Shan's words, Zhang Niu recalled the TV series "The Legend of the Condor Heroes," where Hong Qigong apparently buried a rooster on a snowy mountain to attract many centipedes.

Although it was just a fleeting memory, recalling it now, I realized that I hadn't understood why the rooster's body was covered in centipedes after it died.

"There's a lot to learn about cooking. The more you learn and observe, the more you'll naturally learn about dishes." Liang Shan smiled broadly as he shared what he knew.

That said, we can't waste this plate of two-colored poached chicken at noon. It's a pity Chairman Zhang went back. Otherwise, it would have been so much more enjoyable to eat and drink here. (To be continued. For more chapters and to support the author, please log in and read the original version!)