Chapter 693 - Being Taken Away By a Pig
Hou Xiaoliang followed her orders exactly and swiftly went back and forth. He let the line loose and then pulled it quickly back as he dragged the struggling fish right and left.
"Avoid pushing it head on and use its strength against it. Think of it as borrowing the opponent's force to easily push aside a thousand catties. If you do it correctly, the fish will not be able to escape and we will be able to catch it!" Yu Xiaocao noticed that her two audience members were listening attentively, so she elaborated on her strategy.
At this time, over half of that large fish's energy had been used up. Xiaocao hinted at Hou Xiaoliang that it was time to reel it in. He had a serious look on his face as he gripped the fishing pole tightly before carefully bringing it up. They could first see the fish's head peeking through the water, followed by its body. What a specimen! From its head alone, one could tell that this fish weighed at least thirty catties. As its body left the water and it was brought up on deck, the people onboard could see that this was a large fish that was at least two meters long. It struggled heavily on the ship.
"Has this fish become aware ah?" Zhu Junyang asked in a slightly judgmental manner.
The little divine stone glared at him. Would an aware fish be so stupid to get caught by a baited fishing hook? This was merely a stupid and dumb large fish!
"Little Glutinous Dumpling, come back here now! You might get injured by that fish's tail!" Wutong held onto its tail and brought it back into her arms, "Do you want to eat fish? You can eat after it's cooked at noon. Don't worry, we caught a lot today so you definitely have a share!!"
That gargantuan fish continued to struggle mightily on deck, as if it was trying to protest one last time that it didn't want to die. Its tail slapped the ship, making a 'pah pah' sound. From time to time, it would try to leap up and then fall heavily back down.
The ship's coxswain heard the noise and ran over, "Wow! What a big sturgeon. It must be at least fifty catties, right? It's not that I'm trying to brag but my wife is a good hand at cooking sturgeon. If Your Highnesses don't disdain it, I can have my wife cook this sturgeon for you."
Xiaocao only knew how to prepare the most commonly eaten types of fish. As for sturgeon and other rare fish, they looked to be much too high class and she didn't want to damage such good ingredients!
They had quite a good haul today, so the fish feast for lunch was incredibly beautiful and delicious. There was fresh steamed bighead carp, sweet and sour river carp, exploding garlic fish, Sichuan poached fish in chili sauce, pine nut fish, fish ball soup...the vast majority of the dishes were made by Xiaocao and the cook maids in the ship.
As for the coxswain's wife, she was truly a good cook who showed her experience in living on the water. The methods she used for cooking the sturgeon opened Xiaocao's and the imperial prince's cook maid's eyes on new methods. With one sturgeon fish, she was able to come up with six different dishes: chopped peppers with sturgeon belly meat, spicy pickled vegetables with sturgeon fillets, spicy roasted sturgeon, light fried sturgeon fish fillets, sturgeon fish head with black bean sauce, and black pepper sturgeon steaks. Every dish was incredibly fragrant and delicious, and not a single person could stop eating after tasting them.
In the end, Xiaocao and the two men, as well as Official Wu, ate until they couldn't bend over anymore. With their servants helping them, they strolled back and forth on the deck to help aid in digestion. There was still quite a bit of food leftover from their fish feast, so all of their subordinates benefitted from this. Hou Xiaoliang rubbed his protruding little belly and let out a burp. He sighed happily at Wutong, "In this lifetime, my greatest fortune was being able to serve Imperial Prince Xu as I've been able to eat so many delicious delicacies. This life was truly worth it!"
