Lunch was much more lavish than anyone had expected. They thought they'd be stuck eating paste again, but the new recruits had managed to find wild pheasants, eggs, and even caught a bunch of fish from the river.
The veterans hadn't contributed anything to the food supply, so they voluntarily took over the cooking. This allowed Xiao Chang to focus on weaving his basket and let everyone else get some rest.
But they ran into the same old problem. They had wanted to make pheasant and mushroom stew, but the feathers were too difficult to pluck, so they had to scrap that idea. Instead, they opted for a simple mud-bake. A veteran salted and seasoned the inside of a pheasant, stuffed it full of mushrooms, coated the outside with mud, and tossed it into the fire.
