Ch33 - Potato Addiction

Grate fresh potatoes into shreds – the grating tools came from someone’s kitchen in the community. A small carrot that has just been dug out of the ground and has not yet fully grown is shredded and placed in the same large bowl. Add salt, pepper, pepper powder, chopped dried green onion, and flour, and finally add an appropriate amount of water and stir well.

Connect the electric baking pan to electricity – also provided free of charge by the residents of the community. Pour in some oil, put a tablespoon of adjusted potato mixture into the pan, flatten it with a shovel or spoon, fry one side until it’s golden brown, then turn over and continue frying. After about three to five minutes, it will be completely cooked and ready to eat.

The aroma can be smelled clearly without eating. Wei Xuan hurriedly put a small piece into his mouth before it cooled down, and ate it while blowing. The crispy, salty, light and sweet taste of shredded potatoes and carrots filled his mouth, making him so comfortable that he could not help squinting his eyes: “…It is more reliable to follow the recipe, but the first time you do it, you can have such a good taste.” I should have gone to culinary school before the apocalypse so that I would be prepared in advance for the end of the world.”

Muttering unrealistic fantasies, Wei Xuan finished the small potato pancake in three or five bites, quickly put the rest of the ingredients into the baking pan and fried them, and looked at Du Hang who was sitting opposite him with a smile: “It’s a pity that you can’t eat human food now, otherwise how good are the two ways of frying potato cakes and studying potatoes every day? Arent potatoes more delicious than human flesh?”

Du Hang didn’t blink, just watched Wei Xuan’s movements, without any greediness for the potato paddy. 

Once again, I felt the inconvenience of becoming a zombie like Du Hang, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the taste of food nor have any fun in my life. 

So Wei Xuan once again decided that although he would inevitably end up with the fate of becoming a zombie with Du Hang, he should enjoy life as much as possible and within conditions permitting while still living as a human being, at least the desire for food now is indispensable.

Before the apocalypse, he worked hard for work and life, and he lost a lot of fun in life. Then after, if conditions permit, he will naturally make his life better within possible range, right?

After having the recipe, Wei Xuan can naturally use the materials at hand to make various improvements according to the general preparation methods of other dishes.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Just thinking about it, life like this seems to be fun.

With the in-depth development of the recipes, Wei Xuan’s recipes include cold potato shreds, vinegar potato shreds, hot and sour potato shreds, potato cakes of various flavors, potato croquettes, dry pot potato chips, and authentic potato stew, and even potato soup made with shredded potatoes and shredded carrots.

Although not every dish can be very successful in the first preparation, the finished product of all dishes is at least much stronger than the pot of potato stew he made on the first day, at least his dishes are not full of peppercorns and cumin.

With these new ways to eat potatoes, the remaining instant noodles at home were thrown into limbo in an instant. Fortunately, Wei Xuan didn’t collect these things desperately at the beginning, and most of the things he got now were dug out from other people’s homes in the community. In addition, there are many durable foods such as potato chips and biscuits. But now these are piled up in the corner by Wei Xuan, and he only takes them with him when he is going goes out for a long time and needs to eat outside to replenish his calories.

After counting the number of fresh potatoes left in the house, and calculating the date when the next wave of potatoes will mature in the community, Wei Xuan checked the condition of the sprouting potatoes stored on the first floor, and made a decision to go out and plant potatoes!

Potatoes and carrots have been planted all over the vacant land he had harvested earlier. There are still many open spaces in the community that either have been planted with potatoes and carrots before or are blocked by fallen debris and cannot be used. What’s more, Wei Xuan was planning to grow more potatoes and carrots in the city. Now that he has developed a variety of new ways to eat potatoes, his enthusiasm for this work has naturally become more active, he can just wait to grow potatoes at home. If the food is not enough to eat, then he can go out with a basket and wander around and harvest a lot of food casually.

So on the afternoon of the day when the decision was made, Wei Xuan and Du Hang squatted in the basement to cut potatoes, divided each sprouted potato into several portions, and put them in bags for use the next day.

After processing some of the germinated potatoes, Wei Xuan dug out his map again and studied it for a long time before deciding on the route for going out tomorrow – avoiding the place of the weird zombie girl he met last time. That is to say, it is best not to go west tomorrow, but to move in any direction to the east, north, or south of the city.

If you go too far north, you will leave the urban area, but you can move more in the east and south. The only thing to consider is – is there enough open space for him to plant in those places.

With his eyes slightly closed, Wei Xuan tapped his fingers on the table one by one subconsciously. The rhythmic sound attracted Du Hang, who was also in the room. Those thin fingers were slender and powerful, and a series of rhythmic percussion sounds popped up on the desktop as if it was something very interesting.

Wei Xuan still had his eyes closed at this moment, and after pondering in his heart for a while, he made a decision. Leaving aside those open spaces before the apocalypse, aren’t there many areas where the previous earthquake lifted the concrete and exposed the earth? Anyway, the city is such a big place, where can he not find space to plant?

After setting the schedule, Wei Xuan patted the table lightly, put away his hands, and opened his eyes to see Du Hang looking at him. He lowered his head to look at himself with some doubts, his own clothes are neat and clean, and he has no snowflakes on him currently. Why is Du Hang staring at him? 

He shook his hand in front of Du Hang’s face, but Du Hang, like some animals before the end of the world, turned his eyes straight to the left and right following Wei Xuan’s hand movements.

Wei Xuan thought this look was very fun, so he simply played with his hands up, down, left, right, and in a circle…

One person and one zombie played for a long time, then took out the snowflakes for Du Hang’s dinner, then went to sleep together. 

In the dead of night, it was impossible for Du Hang to fall asleep. He opened his eyes in a room without a gleam of light. He didn’t move his body but stretched out the arm that was free and grabbed Wei Xuan’s hand. Wei Xuan’s somewhat thin fingertips had small calluses as he was always busy doing something in the apocalypse. Compared with Du Hang, whose strength has been amplified a lot after turning into a zombie, such a hand is a little weaker. It can be broken by pinching. But it is so flexible that it can flexibly tap on the table to make rhythmic noise that Du Hang himself can’t.

Although weak, it is powerful in another sense.

Du Hang slowly grabbed that hand and put it near his face. His nose moved slightly, smelling his scent and slowly closing his eyes. Even if he closed his eyes, he is still at same as when he is awake, but as long as he has this smell around him, he can calm down and relax.

The morning sun is very good. If there are quilts and mattresses in the house that need to be dried, this kind of weather is the best dry, with full sun, and gentle breeze.

After getting up and washing up, Wei Xuan first checked the rations he had prepared yesterday and needed to carry when he went out today and put them into his bag after checking that there was no problem. I just had breakfast, and I dressed myself and Du Hang—black baseball cap, black mask, gray coat, gray backpack, jeans, black sneakers, and three pairs of black gloves in my pocket…

Then he put the weapons that the two usually carry when they go out into their respective belts and backpacks, and after checking left and right, he tied a rope around the waists of the two of them and walked out of the house together.

The weather was fine, and the zombies in the community didn’t have the slightest adverse reaction to the bright sun, and they wandered around the community blankly.

Wei Xuan first took a look at the potatoes planted in the green space next to the other buildings – some of them were almost ripe, and he was addicted to eating them recently, so he will slowly dig them out after he finishes his work this time.

In a good mood, he led his zombie and walked to the gate of the community. The street outside was still bleak, and the zombies could occasionally hear some sounds accidentally made by the zombies in the city. Every time these unexpected sounds sounded, Wei Xuan would subconsciously stop and look in the direction of the sound.

However, because there are a lot of zombies around, Du Hang, who has been obediently by his side, has a far more sensitive sense of smell and vision than ordinary zombies, so it is easy to know whether those movements are made by zombies or humans. 

Moreover, even ordinary zombies will directly ignore the natural sounds made by the same kind, so whether humans are appearing or not, just look at the surrounding zombies and you can guess who made the sounds.