Chapter 148 Devour Her

In the forest, there was an abundance of energy. As long as Yun Qing went to gather it, all of it could be converted into energy.

She had been captured by the giant eagle for four days. On the first night, she had fished a dozen or so small silver fish for it; early on the second morning, she had roasted a batch of fish for the eagle, but after that, she had never fed the eagle again. She was hardly a qualified eagle-tamer.

By now, she no longer smelled bad, so the giant eagle probably wouldn't despise her anymore. Besides, she still had some fish left, which would allow it to have another hearty meal.

With spiritual power now available, catching small silver fish should be much easier. The only problem was the lack of a proper Dharma artifact; she couldn't keep using the poisonous stinger of the mosquito queen to dissect fish!

Her kitchen knife could hardly withstand spiritual power and found it difficult to dissect the small silver fish, which were already first-tier demonic beasts.

Feeling as though she had a lot of things to attend to, Yun Qing stepped out of the immortal cave. As soon as she emerged, she found herself by the riverbank, and the day was already fully bright.

Her reflection rippled in the water. Yun Qing squatted down and carefully examined her appearance: an oval face, skin as white as snow without the slightest blemish, a high forehead, perfectly proportioned standard eyebrows, bright and expressive eyes beneath long eyelashes, a high nose bridge, and full, plump cherry lips.

She nodded inwardly. She was quite a beauty. Since crossing over, she hadn't seen many attractive people, and her current appearance was much prettier than Ye Qiuyue and Ye Wenjing from the Ye Family Village, though she felt her face was still a fraction less stunning than Tang Luo's.

Yun Qing touched her short hair, which had now grown long enough to cover her ears, and sighed softly, "It's not that I can't accept short hair, I just don't really like the way it grows wildly."

Using water, she smoothed down the messy hair at the nape of her neck. Without the help of a professional hairstylist, hair of this length was frustratingly prickly and uncomfortable to manage.

Just as Yun Qing was feeling dissatisfied with her short hair in her mind, a strong urge surged from the depths of her consciousness.

"Eat her, eat her..."

Something wanted to eat her! Yun Qing quickly stood up, looked around for danger, and asked in her mind, "Liu Liu, why didn't you warn me when there's danger?"

Liu Liu replied, "Where? Where?"

Up on the waterfall, the little black-feathered eagle was plucking the leaves off a branch one by one: Eat her, don't eat her, eat her, don't eat her...

It had eaten one meal and been starving for three days. Had it known, it wouldn't have refined the food in its stomach so quickly.

How was it that this human looked different today? She looked so delicious, seemed neither poisonous nor smelly, and it wanted so badly to eat her.

However, if it ate her, would there be no one left to fish for it? It wanted to be full every single meal, not just this once.

Yet, after capturing her, that was the only time it had truly eaten its fill.

Eat her, don't eat her, eat her, don't eat her...

Yun Qing scanned her surroundings and soon spotted the little black-feathered eagle on the waterfall tree, starving to the point of pecking at leaves to eat.

Ah, right! She still had an eagle to feed.

Never mind her messy hair for now; without a hairstylist, her hair wouldn't look good anytime soon anyway.

"Giant Eagle, would you like some roasted fish? I'll roast some for you right now."

The little black-feathered eagle looked at the leaves on the branch before it. Only one leaf remained. What had it been chanting just now?

Whatever it had landed on could wait; the chef was asking if it wanted roasted fish. The little black-feathered eagle immediately declared, "Eat! Roast it quickly!"

"Alright, coming right up."

Yun Qing took out her various barbecue utensils and sprang into action.

The little black-feathered eagle had originally intended to wait in the tree for the feeder to finish roasting before flying down to eat the ready-made meal, but it couldn't conquer the gluttony in its stomach. While Yun Qing was still marinating the fish, it flew right over to the food, resisted the urge to snatch one away, and grumbled with resentment, "Roast faster, roast faster, or I'll eat you next."

Sensing the little black-feathered eagle's resentment, Yun Qing felt a slight pang of alarm. Feeding large beasts of prey still required extra care; these creatures were prone to turning on their feeders. When fully fed, they ignored the feeder; when not, the feeder became a reserve food supply.

Yun Qing worked rapidly, sprinkling seasonings directly onto the first fish and roasting it without marinating. Seeing the little black-feathered eagle waiting obediently to the side despite being extremely hungry, the feeder concluded that the giant eagle still possessed some rationality.

Soon, the first fish was roasted, cut into pieces, and placed before the little black-feathered eagle.

Tasting roasted fish once again, the little black-feathered eagle decided that all the waiting and patience had been completely worth it. Fortunately, it hadn't eaten its feeder in a single bite.

"Later on, catch some small silver fish and roast them too." After eating three fish, the little black-feathered eagle was half full, and remembering what it had said previously about wanting roasted small silver fish, it placed its order.

The little black-feathered eagle was very easy to appease; as long as it had something to eat, it wouldn't think about eating her, and eating roasted small silver fish was not a problem.

"Got it! I'll eat some fish too, so I'll have the strength to fish." The dark toxins in her body had been cleared, but she was still in her recovery period and needed plenty of nutrients. From now on, she would slowly let it understand who truly was the master.

"Fine!" The little black-feathered eagle waited for even better fish.

Compared to fish marinated with just a bit of salt, Yun Qing found them a bit too fishy, so she added scallions, ginger, garlic, chili peppers, and other seasonings.

As soon as these seasonings were brought out, they carried a pungent odor, causing the little black-feathered eagle beside her to back away a little.

Watching her add such bizarre things into the food, the little black-feathered eagle couldn't help its curiosity. It wanted to ask: could this possibly taste good?

Yet, asking that would make it look ignorant, so it lifted its chin and said, "You really are strange. Why do you eat things with such a heavy smell? Eating that will leave a strong scent all over your body, making it easy for enemies to find you."

Yun Qing silently gave the little black-feathered eagle a mental thumbs-up. Not eating pungent things—was it worried that stealth techniques would be broken by the scent? But seriously, giant eagle, roasted fish was naturally fragrant and already had a strong smell to begin with.

As for the matter of smells, it used to be a problem for her, but not anymore.

Yun Qing smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. We can use a cleansing spell to remove the odor. Would you like to try the roasted fish with scallions, ginger, garlic, and chili later as well?"

When the little black-feathered eagle heard about the cleansing spell, it felt displeased. This human actually dared to refute it, and her reasoning was quite sound. However, hearing that she was letting it try a new kind of roasted fish, it promptly forgot all about the cleansing spell, and pretending to accept reluctantly, it said, "I suppose I'll give it a try then."

A short while later, the fish flavored with the extra seasonings was fully roasted, and the human and the bird shared it between them.

The little black-feathered eagle felt that the spicy fish meat tasted quite decent. Although the spiciness made its tongue smart with pain, there was also an inexplicable sense of exhilaration. It wanted to eat more after finishing, but knew it couldn't overeat.

After the human and bird had eaten their fill, Yun Qing took out the small silver fish she had caught herself and dissected with the mosquito queen's poisonous stinger.

"Giant eagle, let me test whether these small silver fish can be cooked using the same method."

The little black-feathered eagle nodded with an expression of indifference, though in reality, it cared deeply about this matter.

The marinating used the same technique. The flesh of the small silver fish was relatively thin and already dissected, so it didn't even need score cuts; the seasonings were simply sprinkled right on top, as her kitchen knife was practically useless against this kind of flesh.

When she placed the marinated small silver fish onto the refined charcoal to roast, after a moment, both sides of the small silver fish turned golden and gave off a rich aroma, yet there was still no system notification indicating it was fully cooked.

Yun Qing was puzzled. Why was that?

She took out her dagger and made a slash across the small silver fish. As a result, the golden surface was easily sliced open, but the meat inside remained extremely difficult to cut through.

It was precisely this cut that allowed her to discover the problem: the heat from the refined charcoal was insufficient. While the surface looked fully cooked, the meat inside was still raw.

The system had not given a prompt that it was done, which clearly meant it couldn't be roasted properly this way; continuing to roast it would burn the outside while the inside remained uncooked.