Chapter 420: An Eventful start
‘I…you know what? I’m just gonna let that slide, I have family members to lie to,’ Zhen Liu concluded to himself as he stopped thinking about what exactly his kaijin were up to when it came to their “human” personas.
Right now, he had to come up with some good excuses, look shocked and make sure nobody catches on to his involvement.
‘Oh right, Archanidame, please-.’
[Memories already scrambled, feel free to go over whenever.]
‘Cool.’
With the stage now set, Zhen Liu got out of whatever storage room he was in, and made his way over to make sure his Fifth Uncle was okay.
Well, he went over to make sure people thought he just “happened” to be in the area.
‘Two uncles done, two more to go…kinda disappointed none of them broke through yet though.’
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=Yes. We also had a bit of heart to heart as to why our lord is going through all of this trouble in the first place.=
=Only the one time.=
=I…have you been watching those Korean dramas again?=
=Aish…=
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“Huh? Hey guys, why is everyone all gathered up like-whoa! What happened to Fifth Uncle?!”
“Huh? Oh, hello Xiao Liu,” Zhen Yue greeted, her cousin “you’re not going to believe this, but…”
Shortly after Zhen Hai restarted Zhen Jin’s heart, the latter was carried over to the ship’s infirmary to make sure that everything was still medically sound.
Accompanied by his brothers, Zhen Long, Zhen Yan and Zhen Lao, as well as his son, niece and nephew, Zhen Jin was surprisingly well-accompanied to the infirmary. It was also during this time that Zhen Liu had appeared out of seemingly nowhere and accompanied the group to the infirmary. While his presence wasn’t completely necessary, he still wanted to tag along to hear more about this rat creature that the Fifth Elder had fought to the death.
Zhen Jin meanwhile nsisted that he was okay now, but he was still covered in freshly busted blisters leaking blood, his heart had stopped prior to being brought over to the ship’s doctor and he had fought a rat aether beast. Overall, it was better safe than sorry.
Coincidentally though, the Zhen Clansmen had run into Captain Douglas and his cabin boy at the aforementioned infirmary due to the former accidentally cutting his hand open.
Apparently one of the instruments on the bridge had an especially sharp cover to it and one wrong move sliced his hand wide open.
Regardless, when the two parties met, they decided to swap stories about exactly why they were in the infirmary in the first place. It helped to pass the time as the ship’s doctor applied bandages, disinfectant and painkillers.
“…And that’s why we’re down in the infirmary on the first day of the voyage,” Zhen Long explained.
“Bahahah! Seriously? All of that happened while we were on the bridge?! Holy shit!”
“Uh…Captain? Shouldn’t we be more worried about the fact that there might be more than one of those rats running around the ship, possibly nibbling on it?”
“Simon, my boy, I am very certain we would notice a nest of metal-eating wolf-sized rats running around the ship by now.”
“…fair enough.”
“Hah! At least now I know for certain this voyage will be a mostly mundane one.”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?,” Zhen Yue chimed in in confusion.
“Old superstition I learned from my days as a sailor and not a captain,” Captain Douglas explained to the Zhen Clansmen, “if the first day of a voyage is especially eventful, the rest of it will be uneventful. While I’m fairly certain that this was just a belief kept by that old lady, it doesn’t hurt to keep up tradition just in case.”
“Huh…”
“Alright gentlemen, captain, that should be it.”
At this point in time, the ship’s doctor had finished applying treatment to both Zhen Jin and the Captain. Granted, the bandages applied didn’t look how either of them were used to seeing.
Since Zhen Jin was covered in bursted blisters, the doctor had pulled out strange, small looking pieces of what appeared to be cloth and only applied those to the wounds. The Zhen Clansmen had doubts about these small strips of cloth, until the doctor had applied them and showed how strong they were at covering the wounds.
“Huh…sticky bandages? What will they think of next.”
As for the captain, since his wound was a touch bigger, more traditional bandages were applied to stem the bleed. Granted, the bandages used were significantly more absorbent and also had a mild sedative applied to it.
“Hey doc, why does this bandage smell funny and why is my hand now tingling.”
“I applied this bottle to it. It has a liquid meant to prevent infections as well as numb any pain.”
“Ah, excellent.”
With their respective treatments now finished the two parties proceeded to part ways from the infirmary and return to whatever business they had planned for the day until supper time. Namely, Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai were going to go find someplace quiet to chill, Zhen Xing was going to go with his father to make sure the animal cages were fixed up while Zhen Yan, Zhen Long and Zhen Lao returned to the galley to look over the fish they left behind with the chef.
As everyone was departing however, Zhen Yan stopped his son, Zhen Liu from leaving just yet.
“Zhen Liu, did you bring that ice puppet of yours?”
[Huh?]
“Frosttusk? I left it in the room. What about hi-it?”
“Can you bring it down to the galley later? We need your help with something.”
“Huh?”
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Later that evening…
“Paoo…”
“Easy, easy, I need it chilled not frozen,” the ship’s cook instructed as he used a knife to carve into a fish that the Frosttusk was slightly coating in frost. It made for a rather surreal image.
[Milord, this is very weird.]
‘I know Frosttusk, I know.’
As it turned out, that thing Zhen Liu’s father needed help with was food preparation of all things.
Apparently Zhen Liu’s father and his brothers had fished up some giant tuna thing that could only be prepared properly if kept at near freezing temperatures.
A very strange prep method for a fish that apparently only lives in tropical climates as far as scholars knew.
Zhen Liu was called upon to help prepare the thing for dinner due to being the only one in the family with ice aether abilities.
Technically the patriarch, Zhen Shi, had ice abilities too, but he was the patriarch and it would be weird to ask him to help with something as mundane as cooking a tuna.
Granted, while Frosttusk was summoned to help under the guise of being a puppet summon, his kaijin compatriots were decidedly miffed about this situation.
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[This is horse shit and I hope you know this horse shit,] Razorstella pouted.
[Oh Razorstella, calm down,] Nepherage advised, [you know we have to keep up the disguise as being mundane aether puppets.]
[Mundane is doing a lot of heavy lifting there,] Hurricroak cracked.
[But I wanted to be the center of attention from for kaijin/puppet showcasing! I could carve that tuna in literally five seconds if I was summoned!]
[The issue isn’t so much as cutting as it is cooling, you heard the chef, it needs to be cooled,] Nepherage reiterated.
[This is elemental prejudice!,] Razorstella protested.
[That’s not a thing.]
[It is in some countries.]
[Hurricroak, not helping.]
[Bleh.]
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“Okay, the tuna has now been fully carved!”
“Excellent, thank you for all the help. I should get an aether puppet of my own as some point.”
“I highly recommend it. Do you need a fire puppet to help sear it as well?”
“Oh no, apparently I can serve it as is.”
“Huh?”
It had taken Zhen Liu, Frosttusk, and the ship’s cook at least an hour to make sure that the weird tuna aether beast was properly carved for supper that evening into what Zhen Liu had now realized was sashimi of all things.
Initially, the Zhen clansmen and the crew was hesitant about eating was essentially raw fish, but any concerns of edibility was thrown out of the window when Zhen Liu, Zhen Feng and Rianna all ate a piece without a second thought.
Their reasoning was as follows, starting backwards.
“I’ve eaten giant bugs raw, giant fish raw should be fine.”
“My gourmet instincts says it was tasty, and they were right.”
“My master fed me something like this, granted it was a Sand Fish…”
With that out of the way, that evening supper was a surprisingly jovial one.
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“That was a good meal.”
“Yup, imma sleep like a baby tonight!”
“Exactly. Night y’all.”
“Night.”
As the evening stars replaced the morning sun, the Zhen Clan members disbanded to their respective cabins, hopeful that the rest of the journey would be uneventful.
However, among them, two members of the separate branches were still awake, each with plans of their own.
“I can’t believe we’re helping these side branches….not if I have any say in the matter…”
‘I wonder if I can cause a breakthrough while they’re all sleeping…’
