"We won't send anything down the mountain today. Tomorrow, we'll go to the village to buy some things. Who wants to come?" Captain Xu said to everyone as soon as he returned to the camp.
"I'll go, I'll go! I've been here for so long and haven't had a chance to look around yet." That eager voice could only belong to Sun Chaoshu.
"Captain Xu, I'll go too," Ye Hao added.
"Alright, tomorrow, the three of you, along with Er Gouzi and me, the five of us will go down. We'll buy some things and take you around," Captain Xu immediately said.
"Zhang Shan, go see what we need to buy back for tomorrow. Er Gouzi, go skin these squirrels and process them simply. We'll make a few fur hats for these young Comrades; it's impossible to get through winter on this mountain without a fur hat."
"Okay, Captain, I'll go see what we're missing." Zhang Shan said, then walked towards the kitchen, seemingly intending to mainly buy grain and seasonings down the mountain.
"You three come with me too, and see how to skin and process the hides. You'll all have to do it yourselves in the future." Er Gouzi carried the squirrels towards the stream, not forgetting to call the others over to learn.
The few of them arrived at the stream. Er Gouzi held a knife in one hand and placed a squirrel belly-up on a stone slab with the other. He then used the knife to make an incision from the squirrel's abdomen, explaining, "Most animals you encounter that need to be skinned in the future are like this: cut from the abdomen, then use the knife to slowly separate the flesh between the fur and the muscle. Be very careful not to cut the hide. If you're selling it, a cut hide will fetch a much lower price, but it doesn't matter for this squirrel. It was shot with a crossbow anyway, so the hide is already broken..."
Listening to Er Gouzi's explanation, the few of them generally learned how to operate.
"Did you get it? Who wants to try? It's fine if you mess up."
"I'll do it," Ye Hao was the first to step forward.
"Good, you skin it. I'll guide you from the side."
Ye Hao began to operate according to the method Er Gouzi taught. At first, he was a bit clumsy and unsure how deep to cut, but after a few cuts, he got the hang of it. Soon, a bare squirrel appeared before everyone's eyes.
"Very good, that's it. Just practice more in the future; there's nothing wrong with it," Er Gouzi said after seeing Ye Hao finish skinning.
"Let me do the next one." Sun Chaoshu was quite interested in this.
"Chao Shu, didn't you think hunting small squirrels was cruel? How come you're skinning them now? Isn't that even more cruel?" Ye Hao teased, looking at the eager Sun Chaoshu.
"This is different. These squirrels have already been hunted by you. I'm helping them find peace and enter reincarnation."
"Haha, you're just stubborn. I think you're all talk."
"Alright, alright, give me the knife. Watch me work." Sun Chaoshu ignored Ye Hao, took the knife from Ye Hao's hand, and began to skin.
As a result, his very first cut was too deep, and then...
Just like that, this squirrel was made unrecognizable by Sun Chaoshu. Ye Hao even felt a little pity for the small squirrel.
Sun Chaoshu was still preparing to take the next one to practice.
"Alright, alright, let Bingsheng do the rest. Stop messing with these squirrels. We're eating them tonight!" Ye Hao couldn't bear to watch anymore and quickly interrupted Sun Chaoshu's demonic claw reaching for the next squirrel.
"Let me try again, please. This is my first time; I don't have experience. I'll get it if I practice more."
"That's enough. These are our dinner. Don't mess with them anymore. If you keep messing around, you won't have any meat to eat tonight."
"Alright then, Bingsheng, you try. I'll practice on my own catches in the future," Sun Chaoshu said softly, putting down the knife and getting up.
"Haha, Chao Shu, you'll catch your own and practice on your own. Judging by your performance today, I estimate you probably won't learn how to skin," Ye Hao, with his good hearing, heard Sun Chaoshu's muttering and immediately teased him.
"Who said that? I'm just not in form today. In a few days, you'll see if I can catch anything."
"Alright, stop arguing. Oh, and remember to wash my clothes for a month. Haha."
Lu Bingsheng felt like laughing seeing them joke around like that, but he held back. After all, his relationship with Sun Chaoshu wasn't as good as Ye Hao's relationship with Sun Chaoshu.
Lu Bingsheng operated very steadily. As expected of a craftsman, his hands were both steady and precise. He skinned it in just a few movements.
"Good job, Ye Hao and Lu Bingsheng both did very well. Sun Chaoshu, you need to practice more in the future."
"Got it."
"Alright, clean up. I'll teach you how to process the hides."
"First, we'll scrape off all the flesh from these peeled hides, scraping little by little with a knife. Be very careful not to scratch the hide. You scrape the remaining few hides clean, and after washing them, we'll go find some plant ash."
Ye Hao and the others learned from Er Gouzi's method and scraped the remaining hides clean.
The few of them carried the processed hides back towards the camp.
Upon reaching the kitchen, Er Gouzi got some plant ash from under the stove and took out a wooden basin from the storage room.
"We'll put one part plant ash to three parts water, stir it evenly, then put the scraped hides in, and then find a stone to press the hides down so they are completely submerged in the water. That's all there is to it," Er Gouzi demonstrated to everyone.
"Just put it in a shaded place for a day and a night. Then we'll take it out, air-dry the hide, then wash off the plant ash with clean water, and then soak it in salt water overnight. That's basically it. It's actually very simple." "Let's leave them here for now, and we'll continue the process tomorrow."
The few of them had a preliminary understanding of how to process hides, which might be useful in many places in the future.
"Brother Gou, can all hides be processed this way, or only squirrel hides?" Sun Chaoshu asked.
"All hides can be processed this way. This is the simplest and most economical method we have in the mountains. I heard people at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative say there's also a method using alum, but that costs money, and we can't sell one hide for much anyway, so why waste that money?"
"I learned something! In the future, we'll process any game we catch this way. Brother Hao, that rabbit you caught in the capital, we didn't know how to process the hide, so we ended up throwing it away. If we had known how to process hides back then, we would have processed it and made Yue Yue a rabbit fur hat. It gets very cold in the capital in winter too."
"Brother Hao, tomorrow when we go to the village, I want to write a letter home. I've been out here for so long and haven't written to them to let them know I'm safe."
"Okay, I almost forgot if you hadn't mentioned it. There's no paper or pen on this mountain, so we'll go to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative tomorrow to buy some and write a letter home." In the past few days since going to the countryside, there had been constant things to do, and Ye Hao had forgotten to write to Aunt Wang to let her know he was safe.
"Bingsheng, do you still have relatives in the capital? Do you want to send a letter too, to let them know you're safe?" Sun Chaoshu asked Lu Bingsheng.
"I won't write. I don't have any relatives there anymore," Lu Bingsheng said, feeling a bit down.
"Alright, Bingsheng, from now on, we're family. Tomorrow, when I write to my mom, I'll tell her I found another brother here. When we go back to the capital, you can come to my house."
"Okay, thank you, Brother Chao."
"Are you done cleaning up? Give me the squirrel meat; how else am I supposed to cook?" Zhang Shan said, walking out of the house at this moment.