Little Cooking Saint – 0107 – Grilled Oyster with Garlic (j)

Chapter 107 Grilled Oyster with Garlic (j)

Translated by Gumihou

Edited by Gumihou

 

“I still don’t quite understand…” said Shiyu. Just what does it mean to have powers ‘lent’ to her? Did she have to give it back? [1] Does she have to pay interest?

“It’s not that easy to refine a Fire Spirit. Want to refine Fire Spirit with your low Cultivation? That’s just a fool’s dream. Under normal circumstances, you will be burnt to ashes before you can even touch a Fire Spirit. However, the Ocean Heart Flame has both consciousness and intelligence to understand its master’s wishes. Its purpose is to improve your strength. Therefore it did its best not to hurt you and had instead transferred a small portion of its power to you. However, the moment this borrowed power leaves your body, you will revert back to your original Cultivation, understand?”

“…” is that so. Knowing that her current level of Cultivation was merely temporary did disappoint Shiyu a little.

However, after some consideration, Shiyu thought that increasing one’s Cultivation step-by-step through hard work was a normal thing anyway. So it’s not like she suffered any loss.

“Will the Fire Spirit help my Cultivation?” Shiyu asked. “I mean, would it speed up the process or something?”

“Of course, with Fire Spirit, it would be difficult for you to slow down your Cultivation even if you want to.” That’s because the energies of the world absorbed by Shiyu would be purified by the Fire Spirit, saving the need for her to purify it herself. Naturally, this meant her Cultivation speed would go that much faster.

Shiyu was perfectly happy with this answer, “That’s good enough.” A slow and steady Cultivation rate meant a more stable Cultivation base. Good, good, this is all very good.

Shiyu stood up and walked to the edge of the Spring of Life. All the herbs had been turned to ashes accept for the Immortal Jade Petal Lotus. Unable to reconcile with this loss, she looked over the blackened area, but the only other thing she found still intact were the three pieces of bright green Enlightenment Tea. In fact, one of the leaf veins had turned slightly golden.

“This Enlightenment Tea is really a good thing,” she commented. The fact that it could withstand the flames of Fire Spirit was proof enough of its unusual powers.

After doing some random tidying up, Shiyu let herself out of the space.

As expected, she was still under the sea. In fact, she was still in the same spot this whole time after she had gone into the space with the Fire Spirit. Thankfully, the [2] Water Inhibitor Pearl still worked, but Shiyu did not dawdle. She quickly swam upwards. Better to get out of here before any of the Divine Transformation Sea Beasts or other small fries see her.

Shiyu managed to reach the surface safely. After bursting out of the water, she paddled in a circle. However, there was absolutely nothing to see except the flat featureless sea. She couldn’t even tell whether she was facing north, south, west or east.

Finally, Fat Cat pointed out one direction. “Turn to your left, there are humans over there.”

Shiyu immediately turned and began swimming in the direction pointed out by Fat Cat. According to the cat, the humans were still quite far away. From her swimming rate, it would probably take her an hour to reach the ship.

When the ship was in sight, Shiyu decided to not attract trouble and pretended to faint. She secretly used her Spiritual Power to propel her body forward until she was within sight of the people on the ship.

Soon enough, someone spotted her and she was ‘rescued’ by some sailors.

By now her skin on her body had turned white and swollen due to having stayed too long in the water. Her lips were cracked and peeling. [3] However, there was nothing she could do about the skin on her face, which was still kind of white and tender looking. As a Fire Attribute, Shiyu found that she doesn’t burn easily from the sun anymore. However, though her acting might not completely foolproof, she has the Saint’s Dwelling to conceal her Cultivation power. By all appearance, she was merely a little girl who had somehow fallen into the water.

The ship turned out to be a three-storey passenger ship designed to ferry people across the ocean. The bottom floor was allocated for civilians, the second floor for high-ranking officials and the third floor reserved for Cultivators. In short, it was a reflection of how the society of this world works in a nutshell.

The shipowner was probably someone who regularly rescued people who fled via sea, because though Shiyu’s face looked suspiciously whole, and there was a lack of a floater to support her after she ‘fainted’, he didn’t ask too many questions. It was already quite difficult to properly identify the people whom they fished out of the sea, but as long as they could afford the fare, there would be no problem.

Except, Shiyu couldn’t afford the fare. While at Feng City, she had already squandered all her money buying this and that for all her siblings. Spend, spend, spend, a few million silver taels were spent just like that leaving only a few silver taels on her person.

Shiyu rarely has to spend money and never thought that having no money would ever be a problem, secured as she was at the thought of all those precious rare herbs in her space. Now though, her precious herb garden was gone. Literally, scorched-earth gone! The fare cost 10, 000 silver taels, but she could not pay it.

“If you don’t have money, stay on the boat as a servant. Once you have earned enough for the fare, you can leave.” 

It was not a completely unreasonable proposal, but, “Where is this ship heading? Once it docks, I can ask my family to send money over.” She really didn’t want to stay on a ship indefinitely as a servant.

“This ship is heading for the Western Qin Empire. Are you sure that’s where your family is?” the sailor looked suspicious.

[4] Western Qin Empire? Where the heck is that? Shiyu had never heard of it, but now is not the time to show her timidity. “Oh! That’s wonderful. Once we reach the shores, I shall send my family a message and get them to send the money for the fare.”

The crew members were still doubtful. However, they had a precedent with something like this in the past. They once fished out someone from the sea and when the ship reached its destination, the person’s family sent money along with other gifts to show their gratefulness. Although this girl did not look like she was from a rich family, what of it?

When she couldn’t get her fictional family to pay the fare, with so many people on the ship, would this girl be able to escape them?

In the end, Shiyu managed to stay on the ship thanks to a little fast-talking. However, since no silver had changed hands, she was not allocated a room and could only stay on the deck with the sun, stars and moon as her ceiling.

However, this was nothing to her. The main problem was hunger. There was food for sale, but she has no money for it. Even if she could cook her own food, she has no ingredients. Finally, in some desperation, she found some thread, tied a [5] hook she had borrowed from someone to the end, dropped it into the water and pretended to fish.

While she was fishing from the deck, a man on the third floor of the ship happened to pause his gaze on her. He was dressed in light green, his hair held up by a simple wooden pin. He has very light eyebrows and the impression he gave off was very faint and a little hazy. As though he was a figure from a [6] Light Ink Painting.

Slender fingers would occasionally lift a little cup of tea to his lips. As the man lifted his hand, his sleeves would flip over to reveal a stylized [7] ‘Yun’ character.

Shiyu could have feasted her eyes of a beautiful man if she were to tip her head up just a little. However, right now she was focussing all her strength on using her Spiritual powers to probe the fish below. Unfortunately, the boat scared off a lot of the smaller fishes [8], and only the larger ones would swim by leisurely.

If she caught something too large, it would be too eye-catching. Especially on a thin thread without bait. Shiyu didn’t want to attract undue attention. At night, she could cheat a little and fish out something larger, and with a few quick swipes of her knife, mainly subsisted on Sashimi.

This went on for a couple of days. Since there was nothing much she could do during the day, Shiyu mainly sat with her back against a wall and in the pretence of dozing, meditate. Since the ship was fairly large, very few people noticed the girl in the out of the way corner.

Those who saw her did not think much of her presence. After all, who has the time to think about beggarly looking little girls?

One evening, the passenger ship dropped anchor by an island and paused for the night. Shiyu’s eyes suddenly popped open. An excellent opportunity to catch fish has fallen onto her lap.

While everyone else was busy with their chores, she climbed over the railing and dropped nearly silently into the sea. Since there was an island nearby, this means they’re in the shallows. Shallow waters meant more fish, crabs and other delicious seafood are just waiting to be scooped up!

Once she’s in the water, Shiyu unexpectedly found herself looking at a large [9] oyster reef.

 

[Gumihou: …well, at least the oysters aren’t randomly collected on sandy beaches on land anymore…]

 

[1] Additional Information for Comedic Purpose

[2] Additional Information for Logistic Purpose: No mention of the pearl thingy, but you’re under the bloody sea Shiyu.

[3] Additional Information for Logistic Purpose: Nice idea to pretend you’re a victim, but there are just too many holes in your story…

[4] Western Qin Empire – Where the heck is that is right. Gumihou has no record either…

[5] Pretending to fish… In the first place, if you are in dire straits, finding a thread to be your fishing line might be difficult, but finding a hook is virtually impossible unless someone gave you some. Also, Shiyu, what happened to your space ring with its fish, meat and other things?

Gumihou is curious.

[6] Light Ink Painting – Can’t really find a pic of a handsome guy done in ‘Light Ink Painting’. It’s mostly women, old men or fat old men

https://www.photophoto.cn/tupian/shuimohuananren.html

[7] Yun = 雲 = Cloud

Thus far, the only thing that ‘Yun’ related character we encountered is Master Yun of the ‘Leisurely Cloud Sect, mentioned back in Chapter 103

[8] Fishing facts – Author doesn’t seem to know fishing facts…

Some basics:

1. You do not just drop a line down from a moving boat, because it would be dragged backwards, so you’ll have to use the ‘trolling’ method.
2. Also, ‘the fish were scared off by the noise from the boat’? Just what kind of speedboat are you in, Shiyu?
3. For anyone who wants to know more about ‘trolling’ please click on the link below

 https://www.pbo.co.uk/seamanship/catch-fish-sailing-19014

[9] Adjusted Information for Correctness: It was originally ‘saw many oysters’ which, while not wrong, gave the impression that the oysters were loafing around on sand, but in reality ‘lots of oysters together’ will form an actual ‘oyster reef’. Very important for the ecosystem.

 

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