【Boiled Seafood☆】

【Category: Cooking】

【A pot of seafood cooked in seawater; both the quality of the ingredients and the cooking technique leave something to be desired. Eating this restores 30 HP.】

【Suggested Price: 49 Sol.】

【Condition: Fresh】

Nan Liujing stared at the finished dish. A simple stainless steel bowl held a steaming assortment of seafood. A deep-red crab curled its legs and lay on top, flanked by three small octopuses, their plump heads floating on the surface of the broth.The other conch shells lay at the bottom, and the clams had all opened wide. The distinctive briny aroma of the seafood flooded his nostrils, making his mouth water.

A seafood feast this lavish, and the system only gave it a half-star rating?

“It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Nan Liujing muttered, a bit resentful, as he pulled out his chopsticks, stirred the soup a bit, and picked out an open clam.

“Look at this—the clam meat is so plump! And you say this isn’t good? System, you have no taste.” While indignantly defending his culinary skills and the quality of his ingredients, Nan Liujing swallowed hard. Without waiting for it to cool, he held the clam to his lips, blew on it twice, and then bit into it with eager anticipation.

“Mmm! …Huh?” His upper teeth expertly scraped the clam meat from the shell into his mouth. The moment it touched his taste buds, Nan Liujing froze for a second, then visibly lost all expression.

His face frozen, he chewed slowly, as if unable to believe the taste in his mouth. It took him over twenty chews before he finally swallowed the clam meat.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and the next second, Nan Liujing’s face turned green.

“Yuck!” He stuck out his tongue, grimacing, clenched his fists, and swung them helplessly in the air several times in a fit of rage before he could barely get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth.

“Damn it!!”

Food

As it turned out, the system’s assessment was spot on. This seafood feast, cooked in seawater, was salty, bitter, fishy, and left a dry, astringent aftertaste.

The umami of the seafood? He couldn’t taste a single bit of it. It was, quite simply, disgusting to the extreme.

If this were on Earth, anyone who served Nan Liujing a dish like this would surely be met with a sincere inquiry: “Has the enemy confessed?” 

However, this was not the resource-rich Earth.

On a resource-scarce desert island, what else could Nan Liujing expect? After all, it was a hot meal, and it would restore his stamina. With tears in his eyes, Nan Liujing polished off the entire bowl—except for the soup, which he simply couldn’t stomach; he even licked the crab legs clean.

After finishing the last clam, Nan Liujing, feeling utterly hopeless, flushed the soup down the drain. His stamina finally returned to 75/100.

Though his stamina had recovered, he felt an indescribable wave of exhaustion. He desperately wanted to lie down on the bed and sleep, or to pull the covers over his head and cry his heart out……

But he couldn’t. He still had a mountain of work to do.

Originally, he had planned to spend the entire day gathering food in the reef area, but the resources there wouldn’t respawn, so he couldn’t keep harvesting indefinitely. Consequently, Nan Liujing had no choice but to change his plans on the fly, moving the food preparation work originally scheduled for the evening to the daytime.

The 【Hoarding】 talent extends the storage duration of supplies by 30%, but it was no match for the fact that all the ingredients Nan Liujing had on hand were seafood that didn’t keep well. The oysters he’d dug up yesterday still looked “fresh” early this morning, but when Nan Liujing checked them just now, he found their condition had changed to “still edible.” He estimated that if he left them for another day or two, they’d be completely inedible.

If this is how it is for him, other players’ supplies will only spoil even faster.

What frustrates Nan Liujing the most is that the game’s rules are very strict: different conditions of the same food item cannot be stored in the same slot.

Nan Liujing’s backpack currently contains: Oysters (Passable) x45, Oysters (Fresh) x85, purple mussels (Passable) x99, purple mussels (Passable) x51, purple mussels (Fresh) x20, goose-neck barnacles (fresh) x20, trochidae (fresh) x4, Whole wheat bread (fresh) x1, Pure water x1, Kelp (fresh) x10.

He only had 10 inventory slots, and they were all filled up in an instant!

After some thought, Nan Liujing quickly decided to take out all the purple mussels, boil them, pick the meat out of the shells, and sun-dry them into dried goods. On Earth, purple mussel meat processed this way can be stored for several months, or even half a year.

He planned to use the same method for the kelp. Today was sunny and breezy, and the weather forecast predicted clear skies for tomorrow as well; with a bit of luck, he could have these items partially dried in just two days.

He’d eat the trochidae and goose-neck barnacles tonight, so he wouldn’t have to worry about storing them. The only thing giving him trouble was the oysters—they were simply too difficult to preserve. Aside from freezing them, he couldn’t think of any other solution on the spot.

But stranded on a deserted island, where on earth was he supposed to find a refrigerator with a power outlet?

“Come to think of it, can’t oysters be preserved in oil?” As a seasoned expat, Nan Liujing had eaten plenty of Western food. Especially after he developed a hoarding habit and became obsessed with stockpiling long-lasting food, he’d picked up quite a bit of knowledge.

Apart from instant noodles and canned goods, the most common items overseas were various jams, pickles, and dried foods. Aside from sun-drying, the preservation methods were essentially oil-preservation, sugar-curing, or vinegar-pickling.

Sugar-cured and vinegar-pickled oysters sounded a bit off-putting, but oil-preserved ones seemed like a good idea. Nan Liujing vaguely recalled having eaten garlic oil-soaked oysters before; they tasted decent and went well with baguettes and cheese.

“I’ll need olive oil, and airtight glass jars for storage are a must. Garlic and black pepper would be ideal, too.” Would anyone actually get these items from a treasure chest?

While the purple mussels were cooking, Nan Liujing opened the forum and searched the trading section for keywords. 

There were dozens of listings for black pepper and garlic. Currently, these seasonings can only be obtained from treasure chests; the portion is small and can’t be eaten as a meal, so there’s little room for price hikes.

Nan Liujing browsed through the listings and traded two raw oysters for 1 bottle of black pepper and 2 garlic cloves.

Only two sellers had listed sealed glass jars: one demanded food in exchange, while the other wanted basic materials. Nan Liujing was worried about food storage and wanted to save materials for building a shelter later, so he decisively traded 2 trochidae and 2 raw oysters for 4 x 1L sealed glass jars.

That left the most crucial item: olive oil. Surprisingly, no one in the trading section was selling any.

Nan Liujing furrowed his brow slightly: “How could there be none?” After all, there were a full 100,000 people on their forum.

“Could it be that no one is selling it?” Nan Liujing pondered for a moment, then turned to survey the various supplies left out in the open on the ground behind him. In the end, he decided to put that barrel of low-quality rum up for sale.

【20L of low-quality rum, 1:1 exchange for olive oil. You must provide your own container.】

Perhaps because it was noon, most players were either eating or browsing the forum. Not long after Nan Liujing posted his trade listing, the began to flash with private messages.

【Hey, just olive oil? How about peanut oil?】

【Buddy, I’ve got a 500ml bottle here. How about trading it for 1L of rum? Just to make a friend.】

【This is extra virgin olive oil, you know. A 1:1 exchange rate isn’t fair—3:1 would be more like it.】

【Hey, boss, can I trade for some wood? One plank for 200ml would be fine.】

【【Screenshot of backpack page】 Bro, just tell me what you want!】

Nan Liujing looked stunned: “Is alcohol really that valuable?” After carefully reading a few private messages, he seemed to understand the reason behind it.

It was already the second day since entering the game *Island Survival*. During the tutorial phase, players faced almost no danger. Aside from gathering supplies during the morning and evening low tides and foraging along the shore, their daily activities consisted of climbing rocks, diving to explore the coral forest, fishing, and browsing the forum.

The survival pressure in the early stages of the game wasn’t high, so some casual players didn’t feel the need to collect supplies. In their view, the rocks were right there, and the oysters growing on them weren’t going to run away—they could just go pry some open when they got hungry.

So, they end up with a lot of spare time and don’t know what to do with it, leaving them to lie on the beach staring into space, sunbathing, or browsing forums. For many, alcohol is a great way to kill boredom.

Beyond that, some more forward-thinking players have recognized the high alcohol content of the low-quality rum. In a crisis, this stuff can serve as a substitute for alcohol for sterilization and disinfection; if they ever suffer a serious injury, it might just save their lives.

A small fraction of players who struggled to adapt to *Island Survival* had built up a massive amount of stress in just a day and a half and desperately needed alcohol to relieve it.

Not to mention, that low-quality rum was a scarce source same ast  fresh water at sea. In short, Nan Liujing’s inbox was flooded.

Since Nan Liujing didn’t touch tobacco or alcohol, he hadn’t fully grasped the value of low-quality rum before, but now he understood exactly what was going on.

The first thought that flashed through his mind was: I’ve got the materials to build a shelter.

For now, however, Nan Liujing forced himself to suppress his excitement, keeping his current top priority in mind. He sifted through the mountain of private messages to find a few players willing to accept a 1:1 exchange, used the empty containers they had sent in advance to scoop out the appropriate amount of rum, and completed the transaction with them.

In the end, Nan Liujing acquired 5 liters of olive oil—enough to last him a very long time.

As for the remaining 15 liters of low-quality rum, he set aside 5 liters and relisted them at a rate of 50ml for any one basic material, again requiring buyers to provide their own containers.

No matter what materials or how many the makeshift shelter required, it wouldn’t hurt to stock up.

Nan Liujing set this price based on the lowest offer he’d seen in his private messages. In his view, if one person was willing to accept it, there would be plenty of others who would too. If sales were slow, he could always lower the price later that night.

As it turned out, the bottom line for alcoholics was indeed very low. Shortly after the low-quality rum went on sale, Nan Liujing’s private messages started flashing nonstop again. And these people certainly weren’t just buying 50 or 100 ml to sample—they showed up with empty mineral water bottles, plastic containers washed ashore, and pots and pans from loot chests, demanding, “Fill it up!”

In a market of 100,000 people, a mere 5 liters of low-quality rum was like a drop in the ocean—it sold out in no time.

Meanwhile, Nan Liujing’s stock of basic materials had dwindled to 47 wooden planks, 47 canvas scraps, 27 palm leaves, and 39 iron nails.

Nan Liujing had originally planned to collect more wooden planks and palm leaves, but other players also surmised that these were essential materials for building a shelter and were more willing to trade their currently useless canvas scraps and the iron nails that always drop from dismantled chests.

After the trade was completed, Nan Liujing didn’t sell the remaining 10 liters of low-quality rum; instead, he spent the afternoon processing all the ingredients.

All the purple mussels and kelp were cooked and then processed a second time. He carefully removed the meat from the mussels, while the kelp was rinsed repeatedly with seawater until even the sand hidden in the crevices was washed away, then laid out to dry on the spread-out canvas scraps.

To Nan Liujing’s quiet relief, a 95-hour countdown appeared above both the drying purple mussel meat and the kelp. This proved his method was viable, and the process wouldn’t take long—in just four days, he would have a batch of dried mussels and dried kelp ready.

Since Nan Liujing only had a small stainless steel bowl to use as a pot, the process was very inefficient. During this time, the campfire went out twice, and Nan Liujing used up 2 planks and 4 stamina points, and chopped another 20 pieces of firewood.

The burnt-out campfire yielded a pile of ash and two pieces of charcoal.

Before the third campfire burned out, Nan Liujing quickly scooped the 50 raw oysters from their shells, rinsed them with seawater to remove impurities, and cooked them. Since they were cooked in seawater, there was no need to add extra salt.

He then rinsed the stainless steel bowl with seawater, wiped away the remaining seawater with a piece of canvas, and placed it over the campfire.

He poured in olive oil. Once the oil was hot, he added the sliced garlic and black peppercorns. The last bit of residual heat from the campfire was just enough to sauté the garlic and peppercorns until they released their aroma without burning.

Let the oil cool, then pour it into an airtight glass jar. Carefully place the cooked oysters one by one into the jar until it is full. Finally, cover the top layer with a final layer of olive oil to completely seal out the air.

Seal the jar tightly, and your garlic oil-soaked oysters are ready.

Since the oysters are quite large, he filled a full three glass jars.

【Garlic Oil-Soaked Oysters★】

【Category: Cooking】

【An ordinary jar of oil-marinated oysters, with the garlic adding an extra layer of flavor. Eating one restores 5 HP.】

【Suggested Price: 150 Sol.】

【Condition: Fresh】

【You have unlocked a new recipe: garlic oil-soaked oysters.】

Seeing the new pop-up, Nan Liujing paused in surprise: “Recipe? Where is it? What’s it for?” He searched through his tablet thoroughly but couldn’t find it anywhere. Nan Liujing decisively gave up.

“Never mind. If it’s useful, I’ll find out eventually.” Putting that aside, he looked at the three golden glass jars in front of him and felt slightly satisfied. “An extra 1 Stamina per oyster—it was worth the effort.”

What pleased him most was that after cooking them, the oysters had all returned to their fresh state—their shelf life had been successfully extended!