NOVEL NEXT Chapter 251 - 248: The Taste of Mom's Cooking
Chapter 251: Chapter 248: The Taste of Mom’s Cooking
Evening.
Bi Fang opened his eyes to the reflection of the gilded sun in his pupils, rubbed the corners of his eyes, and felt slightly dazed as he sat up. It took him a moment to realize that he had slept through the entire afternoon.
Upon noticing Bi Fang’s awakening, the production team turned the live broadcast back on, and in an instant, over eight hundred thousand viewers flooded in. The numbers continued to skyrocket, almost crashing the platform’s network.
A few minutes passed, and the viewership count broke through one million, with signs that it might even reach two million. At present, aside from some global sporting events, no other broadcaster had reached such an astonishing number of viewers.
Perhaps it was the relief of having survived a calamity, and having incidentally completed his task, that Bi Fang felt refreshed after sleeping. He finally had the time to deal with his greatest accomplishment of this trip.
A White-fin Shark two meters long!
Would there be a hunting reward?
Bi Fang secretly hoped, as the previous times he had caught large creatures, the System had given him very good rewards. The Wolves King’s Sense of Smell allowed him to easily distinguish scents, making catching prey much more effortless, while the digestion and absorption abilities afforded by the King Fish’s Stomach drastically reduced his chances of contracting parasites and infections.
He had nearly killed the shark with his own hands, running it through the gills with a spear, killing it on the spot.
If it was a shark, what kind of reward would there be? Would it be another sense of smell?
Scent-wise, sharks were even more adept than wolves.
However, receiving another scent ability would be too boring, and so Bi Fang shook his head.
It would be nice to get a reward, a pleasant surprise that would make all he went through worthwhile—not getting one would not be a regret, as he was after an exciting life anyway.
Bi Fang put on his already dry clothes, went up to the raft, and gripped the obsidian dagger in his hand, ready to harvest his trophy.
[Hey, didn’t Old Fang say that sharks have a strong sense of smell? There’s still blood on the shark’s body. Why didn’t it attract others?]
[Why would they come if they’re already full? Have nothing better to do?]
[Ah, that makes sense!]
[Listening to your words is better than listening to a book.]
[I heard they could smell from tens of kilometers away?]
Bi Fang, cutting the shark steak on the raft, shook his head upon hearing this: “Sharks do have a very sensitive sense of smell, even outrageously so. But in reality, it does not reach the few kilometers, or even tens of kilometers, spoken of in rumors. The actual distance is usually less than one kilometer.”
Bi Fang’s remarks greatly surprised the audience—was it really only that far? How did sharks track their prey then? Was it luck?
“This is actually a matter of the medium. A 100-kilogram mammal has about 7 to 8 liters of blood in its body. Even if this blood was diluted to one in ten billion in seawater, its diffusion range would be just over three hundred meters. Being able to smell from several kilometers away is basically impossible.”
“As for why sharks can track from so far away, it’s not due to their sense of smell, but rather an organ called the Lorenzini Ampullae. Look, these are the pits.”
Though much of this White-fin Shark’s surface had been damaged, there were still some intact parts.
Bi Fang flipped the shark over, pointing to one area of intact skin—mainly black in color with many pits, located on both sides of the shark’s face,
“These pits contain electroreceptive crystals that are extremely sensitive to electrical fields, capable of detecting voltages as minute as a few billionths of a volt per square centimeter. It’s precisely because of this organ that sharks can sense their prey from several kilometers away.
Anyone who has watched wildlife documentaries should know that sharks like to swing constantly from left to right as they move forward, because they need to continuously scan in different positions, like a radar.”
“In order to make better use of this organ, many sharks have evolved to have broader ampullae. For example, the Hammerhead Shark’s body shape helps maximize these advantages—the larger their size, the more pronounced the benefits from the ampullae.”
[Whoa, is that really how it works?]
[Old Fang knows so much? A biologist online!]
Bi Fang did not visibly agree: “Well, it’s not that impressive, I mostly have a lot of knowledge about large carnivores.”
As a wilderness expert, besides knowing a fair bit about rare poisons, he definitely needed to be well-versed in large animals that could pose a threat to his life.
Sharks in the sea, lions on the grasslands, tigers in the forest, and wolf packs in the wasteland—these were all concerns he had to pay special attention to.
If you don’t know this, you might as well not mix in.
After dissecting the shark meat, Bi Fang did not throw away the skeleton.
“We can hardly find any shark fossils, just some sharp teeth, because, apart from their teeth, sharks are made of cartilage, which easily decomposes, so don’t throw it away, this stuff is edible too.”
Bi Fang held a piece of shark cartilage and gave it a slight twist, it was very elastic, obviously different from normal bones.
[Damn, that’s also edible?]
[Speaking of which, the shark fins of the White-fin Sharks didn’t fall off! Is Old Fang in for a treat?]
[Cool, eating shark fin in Wilderness Survival? Damn, I’m envious.]
As he lit the charcoal and saw the commentary, Bi Fang smiled, the shark fin might taste good, but the flavor of it untreated would certainly not be great, it could even be worse than most meats.
“Sharks don’t have a urinary system. Their waste is completely transferred out of the body through muscles and skin, so their meat is full of urea. The meat of some species is even toxic, like the Arctic Sleeper Shark.
In addition to this, sharks easily accumulate mercury in their bodies, the shark fins contain a certain amount of neurotoxins, which are potentially harmful to humans, so you should eat less shark fin, it’s not at all beneficial and yet some people treat it as a delicacy, leading to sharks becoming endangered.”
[???]
[Weird knowledge increased]
[What the heck, skin urination? I’ve learned something new.]
[No wonder the last time I ate shark meat, it felt like there was a faint smell of urine.]
[No killing, no trading]
Bi Fang picked up a piece of shark meat he had cut and rinsed it in the sea, but even without bringing it close to his nose, he could still smell a strong urine odor.
He gave up worrying about it, eat what you have, after scraping off a layer of shark skin, he put the meat in a shell.
“If you were to eat shark meat in normal life, that would definitely be unhealthy, but out at sea, shark meat is good stuff, high in calories and high in sodium, the perfect choice for replenishing energy.”
Taking advantage of the time while the meat was roasting, Bi Fang wrapped the newly scraped shark skin around his palm and took his obsidian dagger, removed the fabric at the handle, and rewrapped it with the thick shark skin.
Shark skin is not as smooth as it looks, it has scales, a very dense layer of dermal denticles, which if not handled properly can affect the meat’s quality. However, Bi Fang didn’t care about that, he scraped it off casually and now the touch felt good, the texture deep.
Just let it dry and it can be used.
Bi Fang took down the shark skin and hung it on a rod nearby, then took a piece of shark meat that was almost done roasting and tasted it.
“Hmm…”
The audience waited for Bi Fang to comment.
Chewing the shark meat, Bi Fang felt it was actually not bad. He was someone who had eaten earthworms, so his tolerance for shark meat was high, and after discerning the flavor…
“The taste is strong but the texture is okay, chewy!”
[Ah, it’s the taste of mother!]
[Damn, now that you mention it, I can picture it!]
[A frown and the flavor hits hard]
[I can’t even look at the word ‘chewy’ anymore.]
[Nothing tastes bad in Master Fang’s mouth!]
Twelfth day of survival on sea, caught a shark.