"I still want to eat that meat bun from this morning," Paige immediately thought of the meat bun from earlier.
"Oh right, and rice with braised pork!" She had heard this from the Rin Village kids when they were chatting.
They said rice with braised pork was the most delicious thing in the world.
Paige had never eaten it in this life, and in her previous life, she had tried it — but it was made with mutated meat.
She didn't think it was the best food in the world, so she wanted to try the braised pork from now.
"Do you have flour and rice? You need flour and rice to make those things," Uziel asked.
He wasn't sure what kind of food Paige had collected.
Paige nodded quickly. She had picked rice and flour on purpose.
"I collected some rice, flour, and a few cans of meat," she said, taking out a bag.
The bag looked like it weighed around fifty jin.
"That's too much. Do you have any containers? Just take out a few jin of each," Uziel said as he swallowed hard.
The last time he saw this much food was during the autumn harvest.
But even during harvest time, the food would be taken away by others. The good food never made it into their stomachs.
But this was different. He knew for sure he could eat this.
"There are four of us. One meal takes several jin of rice.
Let's eat as much as we want. I still have over twenty more bags in my space.
Once we finish these, I'll go borrow more from them.
And here are the meat cans. Find a place to store them. Let's open one today and see how it tastes.
If it's good, I'll borrow more next time." Because they could hunt, Paige didn't plan to take many canned meats.
Canned meat wasn't as good as fresh meat.
When Uziel heard her words, he was both surprised and happy.
They would never go hungry again.
As for the part about borrowing more next time, Uziel chose to ignore it.
The military wasn't easy to approach. Just because they got lucky this time didn't mean it would work out again.
With all this food and some hunted meat, they had enough to eat until spring.
After spring, wild vegetables would start growing, and they could farm. He and his brother could do some part-time work in town.
The four of them could finally live a peaceful life.
It was a pity their parents had passed away. Now he wasn't sure how their marriage with Paige would be handled.
While hiding the food in the corner, Uziel started imagining a better future.
The pots in the cave were all filled with water. Uziel took out a large metal basin and began to mix the flour.
This basin also came from Paige's space.
Since there weren't enough containers now, they would use it temporarily and put it back into her space later.
"Paige, I remember I gave you a small bag of white sugar before. Do you still have it?" Uziel asked.
"It's here. Do you need it?" Paige took the sugar out of her space.
"Yes. We don't have any yeast, so we need to use some sugar to make soft white buns," Uziel said with a smile.
White flour buns were something he only ate during the New Year, and only two at most. Now, he actually had a whole sack of white flour.
It felt like a dream.
Because buns need time to rise, Uziel planned to mix the dough first.
After kneading, he covered it and placed it near the fire. The heat would help it rise faster.
At that moment, Winn and Ely came back.
Uziel took a clay pot and started washing rice to cook.
Winn rebuilt a stove and placed the big iron pot on top.
Uziel took two more cleaned rabbits and chopped them into pieces.
The rabbits and wild chickens they caught yesterday had already been cleaned by Paige and Winn.
Because of limited conditions, they had to bury the innards and feathers nearby.
Now, the cleaned rabbits and chickens were hanging at the entrance of the cave to air out.
When Paige was collecting things, she only picked the big items. It was Uziel who, during his search, gathered all the spices that others had forgotten.
Not every house had them, but each place had a little, and when put together, it turned out to be quite a lot, with a good variety.
There were also sewing needles and threads left behind, small things that didn't seem important but were essential for daily life.
"You're really smart. If it weren't for you remembering these things, we wouldn't even have salt to cook with," Paige praised.
After chopping up the rabbit meat, Uziel began stir-frying it in a large iron pot.
"Paige, where did you get all this stuff from?" Ely asked curiously, looking around at all the new things in the cave.
"Most of the shops in town were destroyed. I saw lots of people scavenging in the ruins. So, I went too and found some things others didn't want," Paige answered while staring at the rabbit meat, unable to take her eyes off it.
Ely, though also craving it, ran over to Winn, who was taking apart a cotton coat.
"Winn, this coat is still good. Why are you tearing it up?" Ely asked.
"This coat is too new. If we wear it outside, we might get targeted. I'm taking out the cotton to stuff into our own coats," Winn replied.
The fabric was not only new but also had the wrong colors. It looked too much like something soldiers would wear.
"Why don't we just sew some of our old cloth onto the outside?" Paige asked.
"If you're worried about it showing, sew some inside too."
Winn thought about it and agreed that it could work.
So, Winn and Ely worked on taking apart and mending the clothes.
Uziel cooked, while Paige stared at the pot of rabbit meat, drooling.
She didn't want to look so desperate, but the smell was too good to resist.
That night, they ate white rice with braised rabbit meat. All four of them were covered in grease from eating so much.
"Ely, aren't you afraid you'll get an upset stomach again?" Paige teased, rubbing her own full belly.
Because they hadn't eaten meat in so long, Ely had a stomachache after eating roast chicken yesterday. He had diarrhea all afternoon, and his butt was freezing.
Paige had to make some herbal medicine for him to feel better.
"I'm not afraid! You have medicine!" Ely replied loudly.
The meat was so delicious that even if he got diarrhea every day, he wouldn't care.
"But why did only I get sick, and you three were fine?" Ely asked, confused.
"Because we're adults and you're a kid. Kids have weaker bodies," Paige explained.
She believed she didn't get sick because her body had become stronger.
As for Winn and Uziel, she wondered if it had something to do with her?
But she wasn't sure yet. In her last life, even though she had raised many handsome men, she hadn't gotten the chance to actually be with any of them.
She wasn't born naturally but was created through genetic engineering.
Because of that, there were still some unstable genes in her body.
Her caretaker had told her she had to wait until she was twenty to do anything intimate. If not, the best-case scenario was that her powers would stop developing, and worst-case, they would collapse completely.
Even though she couldn't do anything, she loved collecting handsome men.
After a hard day's work, coming home to someone giving her a massage, cooking meals, and cheering her up made her life so enjoyable.
Sadly, just when she was about to enjoy the good part, she died.
She didn't even know if the men she left behind would be sad.