Now that Ruan Qiuqiu wasn’t carrying Little Yu, her walking speed was fairly fast. She returned to the cave’s vicinity within half an hour.
She was about to run out of energy, but she still decided to go check on the trap she had dug in the morning before it got dark.
Ruan Qiuqiu used the spear as a walking stick and quickly arrived in the grove of evergreen trees near the cave.
From a distance, she could see that part of the covering for her trap had collapsed.
Did she catch prey with her trap?
Ruan Qiuqiu’s eyes lit up. Unable to wait, she scampered over and got a clear look of the trap. Half-buried by a pile of snow, some of the leaves had been gnawed to pieces and the small piece of jerky she had placed there was gone.
There were obvious signs of struggle and talon prints around the trap, but there was nothing in the trap except for a few feathers.
Ruan Qiuqiu was especially disappointed. She had thought she had caught something with her trap. She wasn’t willing to give up. She crouched down and rummaged through the trap to check if there was anything under the snow.
Touching a cold, hard object, Ruan Qiuqiu widened her eyes.
She had just casually dipped her hand to check. She had actually found something?
Enlivened, she put down the spear. No longer caring about the cold snow, she used both hands to dig.
The pile of snow wasn’t particularly thick, so it didn’t take Ruan Qiuqiu much time to dig out the hard and round object.
It was an egg!
This egg was much bigger than modern-day eggs and was worth five of them.
Was this an egg from a giant bird?
Taking a careful look, the talon marks on the side of the trap were quite big.
If this egg was from a large bird, then her shallow trap wouldn’t have been able to keep it trapped.
That bird probably had laid an egg out of nervousness.
Although the egg was a bit dirty, Ruan Qiuqiu was extremely happy. She cleaned the egg with snow, set up the trap again, and decided to come back tomorrow to dig a deeper hole.
Ruan Qiuqiu’s cold red hands trembled as she held the egg she had accidentally gained.
Ruan Qiuqiu, who hadn’t eaten in a day, gulped. Several ways to cook an egg appeared in her mind: scrambled egg, fried egg, boiled egg, steamed egg, baked egg, egg soup, etc.
However, boiled egg and steamed egg were the most suitable options based on what she had to work with. Either option should be quite delicious. After all, this was such a big egg laid by a bird in a fantasy world with spiritual energy.
Ruan Qiuqiu was already impatient, but just in case, she probed the egg with spiritual energy to check if there was an unborn chick inside.
It wasn’t that she was too soft-hearted and wouldn’t eat if there was an unborn chick inside, but that… If there was a small life in the egg, she would get Mr. Gray Wolf to use his big tail to hatch the egg. Anyways, that wolf could only lie in bed right now, and his tail was fairly warm.
After the chick was hatched, they would raise it, fatten it, and then eat it.
She was so cruel. Either way, she was going to eat it, and she even wanted to use the wolf’s tail to hatch it.
The very cruel Qiuqiu swept her spiritual energy through the egg. After confirming there was no sign of life, she carried the giant egg towards the cave while grinning from ear to ear.
With this egg, Mr. Gray Wolf and her would be able to have a good meal tonight.
However, before cooking this egg, she should take a bath first.
Ruan Qiuqiu’s stomach was rumbling with hunger. Shivering in the wind and snow and sodden with melted snow, she felt so uncomfortable.
It had been a long time since she had left the cave. The melted snow water had probably been boiled away by now, and it would take a while before she could drink hot water when she went back.
Ruan Qiuqiu didn’t feel upset or helpless. She opened the animal skin curtain that was more tattered than the one at Grandpa Mo’s home and happily shared the joy of picking up an egg with Mr. Gray Wolf, who was still lying on the bed, “Mr. Food Reserve, we have an egg to eat tonight.” There was excitement in her voice.
Ruan Qiuqiu put the egg down on the stone table and noticed there was a bowl of warm water on the stone table.
Surprised, she turned around to look at the stone stove and saw there was a pot of steaming hot water in the stone pot instead of the empty pot she had expected.
There was also extra melted snow in the wooden basin. One glance was enough to know that this was the handiwork of gray wolf Tianluo.
(T/N: Just in case it was too long ago, Lilian_Cho explained in the chapter part 40’s comments that “田螺 (Tian Luo) is referring to a Chinese folktale called The Snail Girl. In the folktale, the snail girl secretly cleans the house and does all the housework out of gratitude for the farmer who saved her.”)