Monster Dismantling Company

In theory, this is indeed the right choice.

Scales are a result of malevolent energy eroding the human body. If one has the courage to remove them directly, it can indeed eliminate the malevolent energy.

However, the erosion from the evil energy is continuous, and it will grow back soon after it is cut off.

"I can end your suffering and give you a new life."

"What do you mean?"

"Let me start by saying this," Li Lin looked at him. "I don't really know what happened back then, after all, I was just a kid, right? But as far as I know, Master Wang and the others encountered the same situation as you. His condition was obviously different from yours, wasn't it?"

"..." The answer was self-evident, but the colonel remained silent.

After a long pause, he raised his head: "What do you want? Besides asking me to keep it a secret, what other requests do you have?"

"Tsk... That makes it sound like I'm plotting something. If you absolutely have to say something, treat me to a nice meal later. I need to eat to glean deeper information."

A truck screeched to a halt at the gate. The smell of fuel and dust wafted in with it—along with the aroma of grease.

A huge piece of fish belly was loaded on the back of the truck, taking up the entire cargo bed.

The meat, freshly cut from Taba's abdomen, resembled a pink boulder.

One side of the fish belly has been laser-cut and grilled to create a caramelized layer, from which the aroma of oily fat emanates.

The other parts were physically separated using a cutting tool, and their bright cross-sections were preserved.

The color of this fish belly is closer to the reddish hue of game meat than fish meat, but its texture is far less coarse than game meat; instead, it's as delicate as fish meat. White layers of fat, like leaf veins, permeate the texture of the fish belly.

The freshly sliced ​​fish belly was laid out there. If this piece of meat were further divided, it could be cut into several different shapes—such as layered pork belly or marbled pork with evenly distributed fat.

"So, which part do you want to eat?"

The colonel stood in front of the piece of meat.

"I'll listen to the chef. You can decide."

"So you really want to eat? Or are you judging by taste?" The colonel's tactical intuition was quite sharp; he discovered Li Lin's supernatural way of analyzing the world.

"Yes. To be honest, the better you make it, the clearer it is for me. I only ate some of the grease that had fallen off—frankly, it wasn't very effective. The information disappeared along with the rotten parts."

"No wonder you couldn't produce any solid evidence before... Alright, then I'll decide for you. Now, wait a moment, I'll go get a different dagger."

He had two such fine daggers, one was his own, and the other belonged to a friend. He used his own dagger for "important matters," and the other for everyday use, such as cooking.

After changing his knife, he used three bricks in a corner of the camp to build a field stove, with gas underneath and a frying pan on top.

The colonel began his cooking. His method was very "field-like," using no seasonings, not even oil. Because the first step in his cooking was rendering oil.

He first used a dagger to cut off the large chunks of fat from the outside of the fish belly. He then threw the fatty meat directly into the frying pan, letting the scalding pan render out the fat.

Slowly, oil seeped from the fat and spread across the bottom of the pot. The oil boiled, releasing the unique flavor of the Taba—an intense and rich sweetness. Within that sweetness was the crispness unique to marine life, and the aftertaste and finish were not earthy, but rather subtly revealed the ripe aroma of nuts.

Thus, it can be known that this is the finest of fish.

As the outer layer of fat is gradually charred and browned, a subtle caramel flavor is added.

Like cream with sea salt, the aroma of [Taba] meat has an irreplaceable sweetness. In terms of fragrance, it is no less than [Bai Lu], and has its own unique flavor.

While the oil was being rendered, the meat was also being cut up.

The colonel used the lid of the frying pan to serve the meat. As requested by Li Lin, he sliced ​​a whole plate of thinly sliced ​​pork belly. In such a short time, he didn't arrange it on a plate, and the bright red meat was piled up like peonies.

Have you ever tried grilled meat on a hot plate in a field?

"Sure, but what kind of way is this to eat it?" Li Lin asked. It sounded like there was a story behind this dish.

As he placed the slices of meat into the pan, the colonel explained:

"I learned how to eat during training, from my comrades in the same team. Back then, people from all over the country gathered together to fight the monster, and life was vibrant and full of life. We were doing survival training in a miasma-polluted environment, and we were required to process our food meticulously to avoid ingesting any unclean parts. It was tough, since our soldiers have huge appetites. If all the food and water had to be carefully checked, we wouldn't be able to do anything else all day."

"So, you'll slice it?"

"Hmm." The colonel nodded. "It was a method provided by a comrade from the north. He said that the prey could be eaten like grilled meat on a griddle—that is, sliced ​​thinly and fried on a striped iron plate. Because the texture of each slice is clearly visible, you can distinguish with the naked eye which parts are edible and which are not."

Although it's easy to imagine that you wouldn't find a grill pan with stripes and grooves in the wild, and you wouldn't know about side dishes or ingredients, this field version still has its value: at least it gives the ingredients in front of you a sense of purpose.

"At the time, we hunted a wild boar that was contaminated by miasma. After slaughtering it, we ate it while dismantling it—you know, we rarely use 'dismantle' to describe 'decomposing food,' but that's how we deal with contaminants."

The colonel gestured: "It was a normal-sized wild boar, but only a small portion was edible. The skin and muscle were edible. However, the internal organs and the fat that adhered to them were completely inedible, and even the parts closest to the internal organs had to be removed. We were so hungry at the time, and these miasma-infected wild boars became large and difficult to deal with. We only managed to catch one a day, so we didn't dare to cut too much. We could only cut along the obviously discolored edges little by little. In the end, the portion we cut off was barely enough to eat."

"What does that taste like?"

"We didn't know... our noses were already numb from the miasma. But even with our noses numb, even after we cut off the parts that looked abnormal, the smell was still unbearable. However, whoever suggested grilling the meat was a genius, because frying it in oil reduced the stench considerably, making it barely edible—oh, by the way, do you know which part of that wild boar was the most delicious? I never would have guessed before, but it was actually those two demon orbs!"

"A demon pill? What's that? Ah... I guessed it. Actually, we learned about it in school." This is actually a very famous example at the time. "But how did you discover it?"