Feng Yiren looked at her as if her question was the strange one and not the fact that these beastn had apparently been living like handso wild disasters this whole ti, then he lifted one shoulder and said, "Of course. If we are hungry and the fish is fresh, why would we wait? Do you think the river sends us cooked food by itself?"
Lin Huahua stared at him in complete disbelief, and the way her big brown eyes widened made her look so adorably shocked that even Mu Qingyi’s hands paused over the fish for a mont.
Her fluffy white rat tail gave a tiny horrified twitch behind her, then curled closer around her own side as if even it felt offended on her behalf.
To Lin Huahua, this was truly too savage. She had already accepted many things since coming to this beast world, including shirtless muscular males in hide beast skirts, rivers, spears, and the fact that everyone here thought walking barefoot on cruel stones was normal.
But eating fish raw like that? No. That was too much. That was where she drew the line.
"You an you just bite it?" Lin Huahua asked slowly, because she still felt like there had to be another answer hiding sowhere. "Like that? Without cooking it? Without cleaning it properly? Without removing the bones? Without anything?"
This ti even Feng Yiren realized that, to her, this matter was truly serious, and because he was a fox and could never simply answer like a normal person when given the chance to be annoying, the corners of his mouth lifted a little and he said, "Yes, little rat, so of us have teeth for a reason."
Lin Huahua’s whole face changed at once. She sat straighter on the fur, clutched the hide cloth around her shoulders tighter, and looked at him as if he had just admitted to eating rocks for pleasure. "That is terrible," she said very firmly. "That is actually terrible. That is not a al. That is suffering."
Mu Qingyi smiled softly at that, and because he was always the gentlest when it ca to explaining things to her, he set one of the fish down and said, "It is normal here. Males who hunt often eat quickly when they are outside, and fresh fish is not difficult for us to deal with. But if we are bringing food ho for a female, then of course it is different. We roast it. We pick the bones out as much as we can. We make it easier for her."
The mont he said that, Hu Baiyu, who had been kneeling close beside Lin Huahua after carrying her out from the bath, imdiately nodded in agreent.
His lion ears tilted toward her, and then he reached for one of the cleaned fish and carefully ran one large finger along its side as if showing her that this one would be made properly for her.
He could not speak, so his hands always did part of the work for him. Then he glanced at her face again, and when he noticed that she still looked half horrified, half deeply betrayed by the entire primitive age, he gently pushed a small wooden cup of water toward her first, because he had already started noticing that when she got upset, her lips often dried a little and her ears twitched in a quicker nervous way.
Lin Huahua saw the water and, because she was already growing used to the way these males cared for her before she even asked, she took it and drank obediently.
The cool water soothed her throat, which still felt a little tired and rough, and Hu Baiyu’s whole face softened at once when he saw her drink. His lion tail, visible behind him in its human form, gave one slow pleased sweep over the stone floor.
Feng Yiren saw that and clicked his tongue lightly. "You are really easy to take care of now," he muttered, though he did not sound unhappy about it.
In fact, he sounded far too aware of it, and the way his red fox ears flicked while he rubbed spice over the fish made it obvious that this new gentle little female who got thirsty, tired, embarrassed, and cute in ten different ways all before sunset was causing him a kind of trouble he did not want to na.
Lin Huahua turned to glare at him, but because she was still wrapped up in the hide cloth after the bath and sitting there with slightly damp hair and pink cheeks near the fire, the glare had no force at all. It only made her look like a tiny wet rat trying to threaten a fox much bigger than herself.
"I am not easy to take care of," she said. "You people are just too wild."
That made Feng Yiren laugh, and even Mu Qingyi’s shoulders moved slightly as he held back his own amusent. Hu Baiyu, anwhile, lowered his head a little, and a soft rumbling sound almost escaped his chest before he stopped it, because to him the whole picture of Lin Huahua sitting there saying such things with a serious face while her ears kept twitching and her tail kept sneaking closer to the warst part of the furs was too precious.
Lin Huahua looked from one to the other and realized they were all smiling at her, and that only made her ears heat again. Honestly, this primitive beast world was becoming more dangerous by the day. Not because of cursed lands or poisonous rivers or giant beasts, but because these males were too handso, too attentive, and too annoyingly good at making her feel things with just one look.
She decided to focus on the fish instead.
So she leaned forward a little and watched Mu Qingyi and Feng Yiren work. The fish had already been washed, and the scales that needed removing were being scraped away with careful stone blades.
Mu Qingyi’s movents were neat and patient, as if even a fish deserved kindness in its last stage of existence, while Feng Yiren worked faster and with more confidence, his long fingers moving easily as he cut shallow lines into the flesh so the spice would sink in better.
Lin Huahua watched this for a while, then frowned slightly. "Wait. No. If you cook it like that, the outer part will be flavorful, but the inside will still be plain."
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