After playing with his pets for two or three hours, Shi Xiaolei remembered that he still had to go to the market to buy ingredients for his business the next day. So, he reluctantly left the Ark, hidden in the dimensional rift, and returned home with a pile of things.
Looking at the time, it was already past one in the morning.
Without daring to delay, Shi Xiaolei quickly went into the bathroom to clean up and then quickly lay down on the bed.
Perhaps it was because he had expended a lot of energy playing with those large creatures, or perhaps it was because he had been continuously excited for most of the day, making him mentally fatigued. Before long, Shi Xiaolei fell into a deep sleep, letting out a steady snore.
When he woke up again, it was already the next morning.
As usual, Shi Xiaolei was in charge of making breakfast, while 2B helped the little girl, Connie, pack her schoolbag and braid her hair.
After eating and drinking his fill, Shi Xiaolei saw that it was almost time. He stood up, holding an empty bowl and chopsticks in one hand, and gently patted Connie's head with the other: "Are you full? Wipe your mouth, it's time to go."
"Oh~." Connie nodded obediently, picked up her small bowl, jumped off the chair, and followed Shi Xiaolei into the kitchen.
Smiling, Shi Xiaolei took a wet wipe from the tissue box on the counter and wiped the little girl's mouth. He then waved to 2B, telling her, 'Let's wash up later,' and led the little girl out.
"Hmm? Oh. Locke, are you going too?" 2B asked curiously.
"Yes, let's go together." Shi Xiaolei nodded, picked up the small schoolbag from the sofa, and helped the little girl put it on: "After dropping off Connie, we'll go to the market. I plan to go to a hardware store and buy some things."
2B didn't say anything, but the little girl, Connie, jumped up happily: "Xiaolei, Xiaolei, are you taking me to school?"
"That's right~." Shi Xiaolei bent down and picked up the little girl, gently pinching her nose, which elicited a burst of giggles. He said with a smile: "I'm going to buy some new equipment, and I'll make you something delicious tonight."
"Really?" The little girl became even happier, her face full of innocent smiles, as cute as a doll.
"Of course it's true." Shi Xiaolei put on a mysterious expression and deliberately leaned close to the little girl's ear: "I'll tell you a secret, I got a lot of really delicious meat."
"Meat, hiss~." Recalling the braised pork Shi Xiaolei made, the little girl couldn't help but slurp.
"Do you like it?"
"Mhm, I love eating meat the most~."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go quickly. You go to school and listen carefully, I'll go buy equipment, and when you come home from school, you can eat delicious meat."
"Oh~~!"
Following behind Shi Xiaolei and watching the two interact, 2B felt a warmth in her heart, and an unconsciously gentle smile appeared on her face.
I won't go into detail about the journey. In short, after a trip to the market, around 9:30 AM, the two returned to the shop with a pile of purchased goods.
After parking the car, he walked around to the back and opened the trunk.
Taking out the cardboard boxes filled with ingredients, Shi Xiaolei smiled and instructed, "Sylvia, you take these. I'll carry the stove."
"Okay."
For convenience, Shi Xiaolei parked the car at the entrance of the shop, intending to unload the purchased items first, and then drive the car back to the rear.
It was Monday morning, past nine and almost ten o'clock… Those who had to work had already gone to their workplaces, and those who didn't have to work were still sleeping. There weren't many idle people on the street, and only a few customers in the shop. As a result, the owners of the surrounding shops were quite idle.
Some were stocking shelves in their shops, some were sweeping the entrance, and others were doing nothing at all, sitting outside their shops, basking in the sun and cracking melon seeds.
It's Chinatown, after all, and half of the shop owners here are from China.
Seeing Shi Xiaolei carrying a stove out of the car, the owner of the neighboring craft shop couldn't help but come over: "Brother Shi, where did you buy that grill? Are you planning to set up a barbecue stall?"
The stove Shi Xiaolei was holding was not the round, lidded grill used by Westerners for BBQs, but rather the long, rectangular grill found in any food street in China—in other words, the kind of stove specifically used for grilling skewers.
Perhaps they thought the method of reusing skewers was unsanitary, or for other reasons, but in any case, there were very few skewer stalls in the US. He had been here for many years and hadn't been able to enjoy this dish. Today, he suddenly saw Shi Xiaolei bringing back a stove… No wonder this uncle couldn't help but come over to chat.
"I got some excellent lamb yesterday, and suddenly thought of this." Shi Xiaolei greeted him with a smile: "Whether I'll sell it or not is still undecided. We'll see after I try it. By the way, Brother Liu, are you free tonight? Why don't you come over and have some with me, and give me some suggestions?"
"Heh heh, alright, I'm really craving that." Uncle Liu readily agreed: "Coincidentally, I still have two bottles of good wine that I bought when I went back to China last time. I'll bring them tonight, and we brothers can have a drink."
"Okay, let's have a drink."
Although he said he would come over in the evening, by three o'clock in the afternoon, Old Liu couldn't contain his eagerness. He handed over the matters of his own shop to his assistant and sneaked away to Shi Xiaolei's shop.
To make skewers, you first need to have skewers… 2B went to pick up Connie from school, and Shi Xiaolei was too clumsy and slow, so Old Liu, unable to bear it, left work early to come and help skewer the meat.
"Yo, where did you get this lamb? It's good."
"I ordered it directly from a ranch through someone. It's pretty good." Although the other party was a very enthusiastic fellow countryman and usually not a big talker, considering he was an ordinary person, Shi Xiaolei didn't tell him the origin of the lamb.
In fact, all these lamb meats were brought out by Shi Xiaolei from the Ark—just like other supplies stored in the base, when he quit the game, there was still a pile of lamb meat for taming pets left in Shi Xiaolei's warehouse that hadn't been used up. As for the specific amount… because he found the settings in the original game too cumbersome, he specifically installed an item stacking MOD. As a result, without realizing it, he had accumulated about forty to fifty stacks of lamb meat, with 999 pieces per stack.
One kilogram per serving, adding up to about four or five tons… If there were only two or three pieces, it wouldn't matter if they spoiled, but such a large quantity, if it all spoiled and turned into rotten meat like in the game, it would be a real shame.
He didn't dare to casually take out dinosaur meat, but this was lamb, and he thought it shouldn't be a big deal. So, for the purpose of controlling losses, Shi Xiaolei took out all the lamb from the refrigerator and stuffed it into the portable backpack that was activated along with the Barbarian bloodline.
Although there was no concept of time in the game character's backpack in Diablo 2, which could keep the lamb fresh, on the other hand, because the backpack grid was far less than in Ark: Survival Evolved… it wasn't a problem for a while, but it wasn't ideal to have so much lamb occupying the backpack. So, with the idea of freeing up backpack space, Shi Xiaolei then started thinking and came up with an idea to quickly digest all this lamb.
"Speaking of which, why do you only have chops here, and no leg or rump meat?"
"Heh heh, it's the American custom, meat is sold by cuts."
"That's true. But it feels a bit wasteful to cut such good chops into small pieces and skewer them all."
"Anyway, it's all for eating, so why not do it the way you like best. I don't feel it's a waste, it's just a little troublesome."
"Heh heh, you just haven't practiced enough. Do it for a few more days, and when you're skilled, it'll be nothing."
As the two were chatting, a burst of laughter came from outside the door.
The next second, the little girl, Connie, burst in like a whirlwind: "I'm back~!"