CH 2.2

Chapter 2- Livelihood

The kitten in his arms crawled out and shook his messy fur.

He then walked on the table, as if he was an emperor patrolling his territory.

Looking at Su Yu, who was already tired and lying on the table, a pair of amber eyes showed a bit of contempt.

He sat there for a while, and seeing that the man had no intention of getting up, he turned his head boredly and poked the paper bag next to him with his claw.

The finely ground cumin powder was pressed by the cat’s paw and suddenly floated out of a gap and got into the sensitive cat’s nose. The kitten couldn’t help sneezing.

“Hahaha…”

The kitten turned back and saw Su Yu, who raised his head at some point, was looking at him with a smile on his face, and couldn’t help being a little annoyed.

He turned around slowly, sat down again, and then stared at him sternly.

God knows how to tell if a cat’s face was stern or not, anyway, Su Yu couldn’t tell.

He just found the fluffy little guy sitting upright with his chin slightly raised was very funny, and couldn’t help but reach out and rub the cumin covered little head.

He had been fond of cats since he was a child.

When he used to work in a restaurant, he kept a group of wild cats in the alley outside the backdoor of the kitchen, and sent them fish to eat at regular intervals everyday, he just couldn’t stand to see people mistreating these little guys.

The kitten’s head was rubbed and his eyes narrowed without moving. Then, it gave him a fierce clawing.

“Hiss-”

Su Yu hurriedly retracted his scratched hand.

Fortunately, he had experience, and he retracted his hand the moment the cat claws came out, so he wasn’t scratched too hard, even then he was left with three red marks on his hand.

“Little bastard, I tried my best to save you, and you won’t even let me touch your head…”

Reaching out, he poked the cat that was looking at him contemptuously.

That small look seemed to be saying, “How can this head be touched by mortals?”

Su Yu’s heart was itching and he couldn’t help but want to rub it again.

“Do you have a home? If you don’t have a home, stay with me.”

Su Yu got up and started to move the things in his cabinet, babbling while cleaning up, regardless of whether the cat could understand it or not.

A long tin box with three openings, a small bag of charcoal, and a seasoning brush made of wool, Su Yu counted these items he collected with great difficulty one by one and couldn’t help grinning.

When he first came here, after finding himself poor, Su Yu intended to do a small business such as iron plate squid, but the reality was too cruel, and he even had to search for cumin powder for three months.

And if he wanted to get enough money to build a cart where you can put iron plates, he didn’t know if he had to wait until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse, so he could only settle for the next best thing and make the grilled squid skewers first.

Looking at the sky, it was already past dinner time.

The ancients paid attention to eating less at night, but it's not that they didn’t eat.

Su Yu didn’t eat dinner, and no one at home cared about him.

He didn’t care about that, he moved the wooden barrel containing the squid to the middle of the yard, brought his fish-killing tools, and started to deal with these big fat fellas.

He was very skilled at peeling, gutting, and pinching the head.

Gently slashing twice on the squid while holding the triangular head, and he could cleanly remove the skin.

The kitten was sulking for a while, and seeing that Su Yu wasn’t talking anymore but his fingers were flying around and cutting something, he couldn’t help but to lean over curiously.

After the cartilage was removed, a squid was considered ready.

Su Yu turned around and saw the kitten staring at the squid in his hand for a moment, he thought that it was hungry, so he cut off a squid whisker and handed it to him.

The kitten came up and smelled it, then turned his head away in disgust, with no intention of eating at all.

Su Yu raised his eyebrows, but didn’t care much.

Some cats were picky eaters, they didn’t eat all kinds of seafood. He threw the squids in his hands into a small basin and continued to deal with the rest.

When all the squid were cleaned up he cut most of them into squid rings and squid whiskers, leaving about ten whole ones.

He then cut them with a knife then took out the bamboo skewers and strung them up neatly in a bucket with a lid, and cooled them with well water.

“Let’s go, I’ll take you to eat something delicious.”

Having done all of this, Su Yu heaved a sigh of relief and raised his hand to rub the kitten’s head, unsurprisingly he received another scratch.

There were very few servants in the Su family, it was already dark at that time and the kitchen was empty.

Su Yu went in and looked around, all the pots and pans were as poor as they could be, leaving him no leftovers.

After searching for a long time, he only found some small fish and shrimps, a few small clams, and a handful of shriveled green vegetables.

Scooping out a ladle of flour, he then mixed water and the flour to make dough.

After kneading it repeatedly, he moved it to a basin to let it rise. Su Yu then calmly washed the small fish, shrimp and clams.

The small fish and shrimps were thrown into the pot and boiled, and the clams were roasting on the stovetop. The wood fire is slow and so it needs to be cooked for a while.

In this spare time, Su Yu took out a white porcelain soup pot and began to put a lot of seasoning into it.

Soy sauce, salt, pepper powder, sesame oil, these simple seasonings were abundant.

Mixing these together in a certain proportion, he added an appropriate amount of cumin powder, and the seasoning for the grilled squid was ready.

He set aside a small plate, moved the remaining seasonings into a small claypot, and then the noodles were ready.

Not in a hurry to cook the noodles, Su Yu first grilled a few clams. The tiny clams were already baked with their mouths open and steaming hot. There was little meat but it was delicious.

Su Yu used a thin bamboo stick to pick one and handed it to the kitten squating by the chopping board.

The kitten tilted its head and looked at it for a while, with some disgust he slowly opened his mouth and bit down, then he chewed slowly.

The strange thing was that this little guy did not even lower his head while eating, still maintaining a lofty expression.

Su Yu looked amused, he picked a dip in the seasonings on the plate and tasted it, the taste of the seasoning was just right, so he couldn’t help picking another.

Who knew that just after being dipped in the sauce, it was snatched away by the cat next to him.

“Hey, you can’t eat it!”

Su Yu was too late to stop it, and the clam meat with a lot of sauce had already been swallowed by the kitten.