A Young Woman's Heart

"Akimoto Aya, where are you from?" Qiu Yi shouted and asked.

"I'm from Ningbo. My home is by the sea, so I often take a boat to the middle of the sea to fish. I used to play that a lot when I was a kid." Aya Akimoto floated easily on the water and was still in the mood to chat with him, looking like she had a lot of energy.

Everyone thought she was just going down to play, but no one expected that she would actually catch a big fish. The fish was as long as her arm and as thick as her thigh.

Even when I held her in my arms, she was still struggling.

The slippery scales make it difficult to actually catch the fish.

However, Aya Akimoto used all her strength to hold onto the sea fish tightly, and shouted to Akimoto Yi, who was watching her from the shore, "Teacher Aki—pull me up!"

"Alright!" Qiu Yi and the other sailor immediately got to work. The rope wasn't just pulled directly; there was a pulley system nearby, which saved a lot of effort. Even so, pulling a person out of the water was still quite strenuous.

As it rose, the fish in Aya Akimoto's hands struggled more and more fiercely, but it still couldn't escape her embrace.

If you look closely, you'll see that she had inserted her palm into the fish's gills, effectively trapping the fish.

"Phew! I really caught one! Even back home, I rarely catch one this big!" Aya Akimoto exclaimed excitedly as she slammed the large fish onto the deck.

"Wow, it's huge—what kind of fish is this?" Hua Yinyin, who hadn't seen Mo Xueyao catch a fish yet, came over.

"Hmm... this should be a salmon, a fairly common type of fish in the ocean," Qiu Yi judged. "It'd be perfect for sashimi!"

"Haha, be careful of parasites, it's better to cook it thoroughly," a sailor nearby laughed.

"Isn't it said that sea fish don't have parasites?" Hua Yinyin asked.

"That's just the usual case. Sometimes accidents happen, so it's always better to be safe than sorry, especially with fresh sea fish." Qiu Yi looked at the sea fish that was still jumping around on the deck. "Either cook it or freeze it for a few days and then make it into sashimi."

"Look, what's that?" Just then, the students who were leaning against the railing suddenly screamed.

"It looks like a shark!" Lu Chengyuan's eyes widened, after all, the fin was really too conspicuous.

"Oh, it's a shark." Qiu Yi nodded. "It's alright, our boat is big, we're not afraid of sharks."

"Luckily, Aya Akimoto came up, otherwise we would have encountered sharks." Ye Banxia was worried for her.

After all, in various films and television shows, sharks are always portrayed as fierce marine animals, like wolves in the sea, cruel and bloodthirsty—even if that's not actually the case, that's how they are depicted, thus leaving a stereotypical impression in people's minds.

The sharks circled the cruise ship a few times before swishing their tails and leaving, clearly not interested.

But this novel experience still made everyone feel like they had gone through a wonderful and exciting adventure.

The sea fishing continued until evening, and then, under the glow of the setting sun, the boats slowly began their return journey.

For most people, it was a fulfilling day.

But for Li Wanyan, it was an exhausting day.

She was seasick and barely moved; this condition only improved when she returned to shore.

Mo Xueyao, who thought she was fine, felt seasick again on the cruise ship's return journey, experiencing that dizzying, nauseous feeling...

She had a good appetite at noon and ate some seafood, but vomited it all up as soon as she got off the boat.

She felt like her teeth had been softened by stomach acid, as if she had drunk four or five bottles of cola in one go.

"Hoo..."

"How are you?" Li Wanyan, who had recovered considerably, took the initiative to support her, while Hua Yinyin, not to be outdone, hugged her other arm.

"I feel extremely dizzy..."

"What's wrong? Has Xiaoyao's fever gotten worse?" Ye Wen walked over quickly and touched her forehead with the back of her hand. "She seems very hot. Go back to your room and lie down. Shui Shui, do you have any medicine at home?"

"some."

"Take your temperature immediately. If it's really serious, you should go to the hospital."

"It's just a fever, I'll be fine after a night's sleep..." Mo Xueyao mumbled indistinctly, her steps a little unsteady.

……

Chapter 47 Making KFC Meals at Home

Tuesday, November 11.

The sky was a clear, bright blue, and the intense sunlight shone down without any obstruction, making it feel hot even by the sea.

In this kind of weather, no one wants to go to the beach to play in the water; instead, they just want to stay in an air-conditioned villa all day.

"Is Xiaoyao still not awake?" Li Wanyan sat by the French windows, squinting at the sunlight outside, and then drew the curtains a little closer—even sitting in an air-conditioned room, it was hard to block out such intense sunlight.

"Not yet, but it seems like my fever has gone down a lot," Hua Yinyin mumbled as she popped a frozen jelly into her mouth.

"Hey, it's almost noon, shall we make lunch?" Cha Li suggested eagerly.

"Seriously... is cooking that interesting...?" Hua Yinyin rolled her eyes. "Why don't we just let Teacher Shui do it?"

“It’s definitely interesting, especially when you don’t have to clean up the mess yourself.” Xuan Anyi blinked. These two have been helping Shui Zhishi cook for the past few days. Sometimes, she doesn’t even have to lift a finger; they’ve already finished cooking. All Shui Zhishi has to do is give some guidance from the side. Of course, she won’t participate in washing dishes or cleaning the kitchen, since that’s probably the most boring part of cooking.

Li Wanyan did not answer, seemingly still somewhat worried about Mo Xueyao.

Several seabirds landed outside the window, tilting their heads and curiously looking at the people inside the villa.

Cha Li and Xuan Anyi exchanged a glance and stood up in tacit agreement, without calling Li Wanyan to come and make lunch together.

"What's wrong? Are you hungry?" Shui Zhishi asked with a smile as she sat down next to me.

"Prepare in advance, so that everyone doesn't get hungry and then it's too late." Cha Li straightened her shirt and then naturally put on the apron.

There are several aprons in the villa, which is more than enough.

Xuan Anyi opened the refrigerator and found it piled high with chicken, including chicken legs, chicken wings, and chicken breast...

"What is this intended to do?"

"It's for the barbecue tonight." Mizuki Shi turned her head and smiled. "Why don't you two do it? Can I be lazy for a bit?"

"Of course!" Cha Li glanced into the refrigerator. "Can we use these for something else?"

"Anything is fine," Mizuki Shi replied casually.

"How about... we make KFC set meals?" Cha Li propped her head up with one hand, suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and tilted her head to look at Xuan Anyi and said.

"Yes."

Now that you've decided what to do, you naturally have to start preparing.

Actually, if it's just fried chicken, that's not difficult at all. But if you want to make it taste like KFC, you need a special recipe.

The kitchen in the villa is mainly used for preparing Western cuisine, so it is equipped with a fairly complete set of tools.

After all, if you're just cooking Chinese food, you don't need that many tools. Even if some tools are convenient, some chefs feel that they would make the dish lose its soul.

Moreover, for many Chinese chefs of this era, a sharp kitchen knife is sometimes still more useful.

But Western cuisine is different; it requires much more precision.

The most obvious contrast is that the word "appropriate amount" appears most often in Chinese recipes, while Western recipes usually use "teaspoon" or simply a specific number of grams.

"Auntie, what do you think we should start with?"

"Let's bake some bread first, the kind used for hamburgers," Xuan Anyi replied after thinking for a moment.

"You seem quite experienced?"

“Because I worked during summer vacation,” Xuan Anyi said with a light laugh. “But the bread slices in KFC are all pre-made, while we have to make them ourselves by hand. Anyway, it’s very simple.”

"Then I'll prepare the chicken legs." Cha Li tied her hair up. "I've made fried chicken at home quite a few times."

"Then it's up to you."

The two worked together methodically, asking Mizuki Shi for help whenever they encountered something they didn't understand. As a home economics teacher, she knew a great deal about cooking, and not just in a general sense, but in many details that she would only discover while cooking.

Don't underestimate these details; sometimes a small mistake can lead to a huge difference.

Cha Li first cleaned the chicken legs, and then, as Shui Zhishi had instructed, she used a fork to poke the chicken legs a few times. She had to poke each chicken leg to make it easier for the flavor to penetrate later. The pokes didn't have to be very deep; they just needed to feel like the pokes were sinking in.

"Cooking wine, light soy sauce, sugar, salt, MSG..." Cha Li muttered to herself as she sprinkled the seasonings in one by one. A balance scale next to her was not used. As a Chinese person, she was indeed used to adding 'appropriate amount' when adding seasonings.

This requires a lot of experience.

Next, you need to keep kneading it to allow the seasonings to penetrate better.

The longer the better, because there are quite a lot of chicken legs, and there are 20 to 30 people to eat them, so the workload will be greater.

To be honest, doing this felt like doing laundry.

In fact, this iron basin really does resemble the large washbasins used for washing clothes...

After kneading them evenly, put them in the refrigerator to chill for a while. During this time, Cha Li used the time to make the liquid to 'soak' the chicken legs.

It's basically just egg liquid, but here it's a bit more luxurious, with a lot of milk added, and flour and starch are also essential.

To cater to most people, she didn't plan to make it spicy; instead, she added chopped scallions and minced garlic as seasonings.

How is Auntie doing?

“Yes, mine will be ready to be baked in the oven soon.” Xuan Anyi nodded with a smile. “Once they’re baked, I’ll cut the bread in half and use it to make hamburgers.”

"Hmm... I'll have to wait a bit longer, refrigerate it for about half an hour." Cha Li washed her hands, which were greasy from rubbing the chicken legs. "Then let's make roasted corn? And mashed potatoes too!"

These are all classic items from KFC meals.

“You can just use an oven to roast the corn… brush it with honey and butter.” Xuan Anyi said, opening the large double-door refrigerator.

Yes, corn is also available.

After all, this is part of the barbecue menu.

Of course, grilled corn and oven-baked corn taste different. If she really had to choose, Cha Li would probably still choose charcoal-grilled corn.

"Then I'll make mashed potatoes." Cha Li took out the potatoes, washed each one clean, and put them into the pot to boil without peeling them. After they were cooked, she took them out, cooled them with cold water, and then the skin could be easily peeled off.

After peeling, she put the potatoes back into the pot and cooked them for a longer time to make them softer.

Remove the potatoes when they are still firm but very soft.

Xuan Anyi had already put the corn in the oven and was leisurely waiting.

"Whoosh—hiss—whoosh—hiss—it's so hot!" Cha Li picked up a potato with her hand, but was so burned that she danced in front of the stove.