Chapter 158: The Egg-Hunting Journey

"Yours."

Ye Da packed a large portion for Chu Ping, filling the bowl almost to the point of overflowing.

Chu Ping took large bites of the scallion oil crab meat noodles, continuously exclaiming between mouthfuls, "Delicious! This is seriously so delicious! Lord, you really know how to cook!"

"You must have been a chef at a five-star hotel before, right?"

"How can your cooking possibly be this good!"

"Sob, eating food you've cooked is probably the happiest thing that has happened to me since crossing over into this world!"

Seeing someone enjoy his cooking so much made Ye Da very happy. "If you like it, eat more."

What Chu Ping couldn't understand, however, was why the Lord wasn't eating such a delicious bowl of noodles.

"Lord..." Chu Ping had already finished one portion. As he chewed on a mouthful of noodles, he looked somewhat puzzled at Ye Da, who was putting a piece of charcoal into his mouth. Mumbling indistinctly, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Brushing my teeth," Ye Da replied simply and clearly. "I'm used to brushing my teeth before eating, but unfortunately, there are no toothbrushes in the Mist World, so I can only use charcoal to clean my teeth."

"Charcoal can brush teeth?"

Zhang Ya was somewhat surprised. She pulled a very crudely made pine branch toothbrush out of her pocket and said, "I use this to brush my teeth."

"Pine branches are also decent cleaning tools, but charcoal is more like toothpaste. Because the small particles of charcoal can clean the residue on the surface of the teeth, if you want to brush your teeth, you can try dipping your toothbrush into a little charcoal ash to brush together. It should clean a bit better!"

"I'll give it a try."

After finishing her noodles, Zhang Ya also began her daily cleaning routine.

Some people have the habit of brushing their teeth after a meal to prevent food debris from remaining in the oral cavity.

Others brush before eating so they can better taste the food.

Ye Da was the latter.

However, after finishing his meal, he would still rinse his mouth to clear away any remaining food particles.

"It's dawn!"

After finishing breakfast and packing up the bowls and plates, Chu Ping had been standing by the door looking outside.

Seeing the sun come up, Chu Ping immediately said anxiously, "Lord, it's dawn, we can set off!"

"Alright, let's go then."

Ye Da knew what Chu Ping was anxious about. Since he couldn't tell the truth, he could only let Chu Ping see the scene for himself.

Perhaps...

Could it have really been dropped somewhere?

After all, it was indeed a bit dark last night, and no one could guarantee whether something had actually been left behind!

Putting away the stone house, the group quickly arrived at the spot where Chu Ping had met with disaster last night.

The pit was still there, and a large amount of dried blood remained inside it.

However, everyone also noticed that around the pit, there were many additional animal paw prints—some resembling bear paws and certain types of crab claws, and in addition, there were wolf paw prints.

Those wolf paw prints must have been left by Xiao Bai yesterday while searching for Chu Ping!

"Lord, is this the place?"

Chu Ping stared at the various marks around the pit, a faint look of despair in his eyes.

Ye Da nodded with a bit of sympathy. "Yes, when we found you last night, you had turned into a pile of... minced meat."

"Swish, swish!"

"Swish, swish, swish!"

Chu Ping rushed forward and began digging frantically into the dirt, trying to find some fragments.

Yet there was nothing...

Let alone minced meat, even the dried blood in the pit had been licked clean several times.

If anything had been left behind, it had presumably been carried away by the nocturnal predators.

"Sob!"

Chu Ping suddenly covered his face and began to cry. "What... what am she going to do in the future?"

"She's still so young, is she supposed to live as a widow for the rest of her life?"

Ye Da had originally expected Chu Ping to cry for himself, but he truly hadn't expected this line of thought from Chu Ping. What a family-oriented, good man.

In this day and age, men like this were hard to come by.

Ye Da lowered his gaze and held a moment of silence for Chu Ping...

Yet just as he lowered his head and stared at the exact same spot for a moment, the analysis glasses unexpectedly provided some strange information.

[Located half a meter deep underground: Mudskipper, an amphibious fish species, likes to live in muddy areas, moving across the marshes by jumping.]

[Located half a meter deep underground: An egg, a part of human tissue.]

"Cough, cough!"

Ye Da wasn't surprised by the fish living on land.

However, the second piece of information shocked Ye Da so much that he coughed out loud. It was actually still there!

Holy crap!

And...

As for that part of human tissue, the system was truly talented!

Ye Da quickly pointed at the ground and said, "Xiao Bai, dig down half a meter at this spot!"

"Woof!"

After acknowledging the command, Xiao Bai immediately began frantically digging into the dirt.

Seeing the Lord's sudden action, Chu Ping became somewhat nervous and excited. "L... Lord, do... do you have a discovery?"

"I found that there are mudskippers in this hot spring marsh, and these fish eat almost anything, so I was wondering if this fish might have dragged some minced meat down into the ground."

Ye Da didn't know how to explain to Chu Ping how he knew about it.

Therefore, Ye Da could only casually fabricate an excuse. "There is a blowhole here, so I suspect there are mudskippers underneath. I had Xiao Bai dig around to see..."

"Oh, oh!"

Hearing the Lord's words, hope welled up in Chu Ping once again.

Sniffing around, he also hurriedly began searching the ground for pits. "There's a pit here too. I'll dig and see. Lord, do I need to dig half a meter deep to reach it?"

"Huh?!"

Before Ye Da could answer Chu Ping's question, Zhang Ya let out an expression of surprise.

Because she saw Xiao Bai dig out a bloody, indistinct lump. Although that lump was covered in sand, Zhang Ya could still barely make out that it looked somewhat like a wrinkled pouch.

It seemed like something was wrapped inside the wrinkled pouch, but needless to say, everyone knew what was wrapped inside it!

"What's wrong?"

Chu Ping, who was in the midst of digging another hole, abruptly raised his head and asked, "Sister Zhang... Zhang Ya, did you find something?"

"Your..." Zhang Ya wanted to say that his balls had been found, but this last word stuck in her throat, and no matter what, she couldn't force it out. So she had to change her phrasing. "Your thing... seems to have been found."

"Found! Really?!"

Chu Ping was so excited that he didn't even bother standing up; instead, he crawled hands and knees to the area of the pit Xiao Bai had dug out, lying flat at the edge of the hole to look down!

He quickly spotted the object inside the hole. It was indeed his descendants' pouch!

Only...

When Chu Ping picked it up and squeezed it, he felt a painful realization that something seemed wrong.

Because of this, Chu Ping specifically stretched open the wrinkled skin to take a look inside, and then hurriedly rummaged through the dirt pit again, as if he were still searching for something.

"What's wrong?"

Ye Da was somewhat puzzled. Now that the pouch had finally been found with such difficulty, shouldn't it be put back quickly?

What else was Chu Ping looking for?