Chapter 96: Snake Soup
Evan Olson glanced at the girl, then at the others, momentarily stunned. "Are you talking to me?"
The girl was rather surprised by his reaction. PFFT. She burst into a giggle. "I noticed the bandages on your hands are wrapped into a complete mess, so I couldn’t help but ask. Sorry about that, I have a bit of OCD."
Hearing this, Evan looked awkwardly at Luna Dawson. Back then, after washing the wounds with spirit spring water and sprinkling some hemostatic powder, Luna had hastily wrapped them up in a blind rush. She had claimed she was saving the proper bandaging as practice for Rhonda Dawson before rushing off to kill snakes.
Luna coughed awkwardly. "COUGH COUGH. No need. We’ve already dealt with it. The wrapping just looks an exaggeration. In truth, they’re all minor injuries."
"Is that so? Alright then. I just assumed this older sister didn’t care about her teammates and only focused on digging for Crystal Cores," the girl continued in a leisurely tone.
TCH! Luna curled her lips. Too lazy to retort, she simply resumed digging for Crystal Cores.
Seeing that Luna didn’t take the bait, the girl turned to the innocent-looking Miles Dawson. "Hello there, I’m Vanessa Stone. I just arrived at the Kensington Base yesterday. I used to be an emergency room doctor. Do you need me to help clean your wounds?"
Miles shook his head vigorously. His sister had already said there was no need; he wouldn’t dare defy her. "No need, no need! You can go about your business. There are plenty of injured people by the river who need you more."
"Alright, I’ll be going then. You can look for me if you need anything in the future." Vanessa smiled softly, took one last look at Evan and Miles, and quietly walked away.
Kevin Keane watched the girl’s retreating figure. He raised an eyebrow, his tone teasing. "Did you see that? The girl has taken a fancy to you two."
Hearing this, Evan’s face instantly flushed red beneath his mask, caught between shyness and embarrassment. He hurriedly waved his hands in defense. "Don’t spout nonsense!"
Beside him, Miles appeared rather calm. "She was already staring at us while we slaughtered the snake pack. I reckon she saw that our superpowers are pretty good and just wanted to come over to get acquainted," he drawled.
Luna looked at the two of them with surprise. "Huh, I’m rather amazed by your reactions. Brother Evan, judging by this situation, you’re the easiest target for a honey trap. Miles, you have to help keep a close eye on him in the future. I’ve finally discovered Brother Evan’s weakness!"
Evan’s face turned as red as a ripe apple. "No... no, I just don’t have any experience..." he hastily explained.
Miles burst out laughing. He hadn’t expected the omnipotent Evan Olson to be so shy. No wonder he always kept a cold face whenever girls approached him when they were kids—turns out he just didn’t know how to deal with them! "Don’t worry. I’ll definitely keep a lookout for any future sister-in-law candidates," he promised.
Evan covered his face. The more he tried to explain, the worse it got. Today was simply not a good day to leave the house. Humiliated and made a laughingstock, he decided to play ostrich. He lowered his head, focused entirely on his work, and ignored their teasing.
Kevin laughed as he listened, taking the opportunity to ask, "Then what’s my weakness?"
Luna looked him up and down and deliberately dragged out her words. "Head Coach Keane is naturally indestructible. Are you satisfied now?"
Even amid the banter, their hands never stopped moving. Miles, however, insisted on joining the fun. He cheekily leaned in and added, "Sis, Brother Finn said he wanted to break your legs."
He smugly winked, his gaze darting back and forth between Luna and Kevin. The moment those words left his mouth, he received two synchronized, solid knocks on the head.
OUCH! He gasped, inhaling sharply in pain.
This time, it was Evan’s turn to watch them in amusement.
Amidst this playful atmosphere, over half an hour passed before they knew it. They finally finished digging through the nearly two thousand snakes before them. The four gathered to take stock, finding they had collected over eight hundred First Order Crystal Cores and more than sixty Second Order Crystal Cores.
Adjacent to their spot lay the snake corpses obliterated by the military’s firepower. A few young soldiers with minor injuries stood guard at the perimeter. From the looks of it, there were about three to four thousand snakes there. Due to the extremely low temperature, these snakes had frozen solid shortly after death.
Looking at the mountain of snake carcasses, a sudden idea struck Luna. She immediately began stripping off her blood-stained stab-resistant suit, tossing it into her spatial dimension, and changed back into her previous pink windbreaker and cargo pants. She even pulled out some cooking utensils, tables, chairs, and a portable cassette stove.
Kevin could no longer hold back. "Where did you get this habit of stripping clothes wherever you please?" he asked.
Luna blinked innocently in explanation. "I developed it after the apocalypse began. The outer jacket is so dirty, but my core is still clean, you know."
"When you suddenly pulled that move, I honestly thought you were going to start streaking in this freezing weather," Miles chimed in, wearing an expression that screamed she needed to be more mindful.
Only Evan was curious about the cooking utensils she brought out. Regardless, ever since he had seen Luna dive straight into a snake’s mouth, none of her sudden whims could faze him anymore.
They watched as Luna picked out a particularly plump-looking snake. In one smooth sequence, she boiled it, skinned it, and deboned it, leaving the three men staring in stunned silence.
Kevin was somewhat surprised. "You know how to cook?"
Luna shot him a smug glance. "Are you kidding? Do you think my days as a food blogger were for nothing?"
With that, she took out a clay pot of chicken broth. She shredded the chicken meat and simmered it together with the snake skin, bones, and meat. The resulting broth was a creamy white, exquisitely flavorful, and carried an aroma that drifted for miles. This was the famous Dragon and Phoenix Soup.
The young soldiers standing guard next door hadn’t smelled something so enticing in a long time, and they all cast curious glances over.
As they watched Luna sprinkle some chopped green onions and pick up a spoon to drink, the men simultaneously stopped her.
"The text message said that ninety percent of mutated flora and fauna are toxic!"
Evan was dead serious. Having just calmed down, he was now agitated all over again.
Kevin gripped Luna’s wrist that held the spoon, his silent expression radiating sheer protest.
Miles looked at the meat in the pot, then at the spoon. "It smells way too good. How about I just take one bite?"
Luna remembered that in her previous life, nearly a year after the apocalypse had descended, she had gone on a mission with an official team. A captain named Quinn Palmer had cooked snake meat for everyone. He had mentioned that snake meat with dull coloration was generally non-toxic. It was only after that incident that Luna learned mutated snakes were edible.
Now that military personnel were right next to them, she figured she would test it out first. If there were no differences between this life and the last, and mutated snake meat was indeed edible, she could conveniently leak this information to the officials.
Luna halted everyone’s protests and had them crouch down together. With the large men blocking her from view, she pulled out a tiny, unmutated rabbit, force-fed it a large gulp of the soup, and swiftly tossed it back into her spatial dimension, observing it closely through her spiritual sea.
A young soldier next door had been watching for a long time and finally couldn’t hold back anymore. Seeing them crouched on the ground, he assumed they were drinking the snake soup and wandered over with an ulterior motive.
The base’s population was constantly growing, and food reserves would only become increasingly tight in the future. If this mountainous pile of snake carcasses could be eaten, it would undoubtedly serve as a massive resupply. He mustered the courage to step forward, his tone cautious and somewhat restrained. "Hello, comrades. Is this snake meat... edible?"
Seeing him approach, Luna and the others quickly stood up.
"Hard to say, but I just took a sip, and nothing has happened to me yet," Luna replied truthfully.
Inwardly, she ran her own calculations. The little rabbit she had tossed into the spatial dimension had been there for ten minutes, which translated to nearly an hour in the outside world. Based on her experience from her previous life, if the soup were toxic, the symptoms would definitely flare up within three minutes. As it stood, it was completely non-toxic.