The two had long been accustomed to Heather’s sarcasm. It was not easy to hear kind words from Heather—they were all reserved for clients only.
“Heather, you’re still here! And here I thought you would leave us behind.” Leon did not back off from Heather’s remark and showed her no mercy.
Matthias, who had been standing at the side, replied casually, “Thank you, Miss Heather, for wasting your time here with us.”
Facing their cooperation, Heather turned speechless, but she didn’t want to continue quarreling with them. After all, it was getting late, and she didn’t want to delay any more time here.
“Are you planning to eat this rabbit for dinner?” Heather asked, pointing to the rabbit in Matthias’ hand—this was her effort to change the subject.
“Yes! It must taste good,” Leon replied almost immediately.
Heather looked up and down at the gray-furred rabbit in Matthias’ hand. She grew curious as to how Matthias caught it at all. By right, this color should not be easy to detect.
“We are going to make a fire. Would you like to join us?” Matthias invited Heather again, even though Heather had refused many times prior to this.
“No.” Heather didn’t want to help; she had no intentions in roasting a rabbit.
“Heather, aren’t you bored staying in the car all alone? It will be fun doing this with us,” Leon urged Heather. In fact, Leon had a lot of fun in this forest.
“I’m good.” Heather refused again. After all, what Leon found interesting was not necessarily interesting to her.
Seeing Heather’s determination, Matthias didn’t invite Heather again and just let her be instead. Before they began hunting a while ago, Matthias and Leon found some withered grass, which they planned to make fire with.
The grass finally came in handy as Matthias looked at the flint and steel on the ground—it was all now a matter of it working or not. As he picked up the flintstone, he felt that there was a bit of residual heat on the stone that was irradiated by the sun when he got it; he felt like he had made the right choice picking this stone up.
Before leaving, Matthias tried his best to put the flintstone at a place where it could be exposed to the sun as he weighed the stone in his hands.
Leon, on the other hand, looked at Matthias expectantly. He had never seen such a way of making fire—this ancient way of making fire was especially new to him.
Seeing how Leon was staring at the flint in his hand, Matthias handed the flint to Leon and asked, “Do you want to try?”
Leon pointed to himself in disbelief. Then, he smiled and took the flintstone from Matthias’ hand, eager to try. Seeing his enthusiasm, Matthias smiled and handed it to Leon, but he didn’t tell Leon the correct way to use it as he wanted to see what he would do with the stones.
Soon after he had received the flintstones, Leon immediately rubbed the two stones together vigorously. Seeing that the friction didn’t create the flame he wanted, he rubbed the stones even more violently in an effort to try to generate more friction.
A crisp voice entered Heather’s ears, making her cast her eyes to the source of the voice curiously, only to find that Leon still failed to make fire.
Meanwhile, Matthias was not simply standing idly on the side either; he wanted to try to make fire by drilling wood. However, since there was no sunshine, the chance of success was relatively low.
Heather saw Matthias skilfully fiddle with the sticks of dry wood in his hands; she didn’t get in the car, but instead silently watched them from the side.
If they hadn’t been dressed in decent and formal clothes, they would probably look like savages now since they were using such barbaric and primitive ways of making fire. Night fell, and the forest turned extremely cold—it was not going to be easy to start a fire under such low temperatures.
Matthias and Leo both had serious expressions on their faces. It seemed that they were attending to an important matter, but it was a pity that things were not going well.
Soon after that, Leon put down the flintstones in his hands. His hands were almost raw and numb, but he still couldn’t get the result he wanted, leaving him utterly frustrated.
Matthias, on the other hand, also gave up on the wood in his hand. It seemed that the two pieces of wood he chose were not dry enough. Going back to Leon’s side, he took the flintstones next to Leon’s hands.
“You need skills for this,” Matthias said to Leon. He intended to teach Leon the correct way to make fire—that using brute force was not the way. “Well, It would be better if there were soft and fluffy materials similar to dandelion seeds,” Matthias said while looking at the dry pine leaves on the ground—pine leaves were not so easy to catch fire.
When he heard Matthias say this, Leon had a lightbulb moment and said to Matthias, “I know where to find it! Wait for me. I will bring them to you.”
Just right beside him, Leon did see this kind of material a while ago. So they are a good material for making fire, Leon thought to himself. He looked just as energetic as before.
Soon, Leon brought what Matthias wanted, whereupon Matthias grabbed the material from Leon’s hand and looked at the flintstones in his hand. He planned to use the sparks generated by the friction of the stone to ignite the fluffy material, and then cover the withered grass and pine leaves on it. Then, he would blow slightly toward the pile to make them burn.
Seeing Matthias’ calmness, Leon was certain that it would be successful this time. And when the fire rose, Leon smiled contentedly.
“Hurry up and find some firewood,” Matthias told Leon, as they didn’t have much firewood prepared in advance.
Leon reacted very quickly this time around and left to find firewood immediately. Now that there was already a fire started, he only needed to find more dried wood.
At once, Matthias moved the fire into the simple pit they had set up in advance, and he threw the firewood in front of him into the fire. There were a few large pieces of wood in it, and he figured that they would burn for a long time.
Next, Matthias was about to deal with the rabbit tied up not far away. As he had to make fire a while ago, he had to temporarily tie the rabbit to a tree at the side.
The rabbit’s eyes were a bit hollow. It seemed that it didn’t know that it was going to die here. Matthias didn’t have any reservations; he directly took the knife and cleaved it at the rabbit’s neck, quickly ending its life.
Heather, who had been watching from a distance, seldom saw such a killing scene directly. She quickly turned her head away. The rabbit looked rather cute, but in Matthias’ eyes, it was nothing but a meal.
After killing the rabbit, Matthias directly put the rabbit on the fire. He was fast, indicating that he had done this before.
Since he was roasting rabbit meat, it didn’t matter if he roasted it with the skin or not. Hence, Matthias didn’t even cut open the rabbit to clean its organs.
The entire process was rough and crude. This was the first time Heather saw such a scene, and she was curious as to where he had learned all these skills from.
After Matthias did all that, he took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood off his hands. Then, he turned and said to Heather, who was not far away from him, “Why do you keep staring at me?”
Heather looked at Matthias coldly. “You were not only savage, but also very skilled. You must have had similar training before.” Heather could at least tell this about Matthias.
Matthias nodded. “Yes, this is a skill that everyone in the Locke Family must master.” He didn’t mind being honest with Heather.
Hearing that, Heather looked at Matthias meaningfully, but she didn’t quite understand why the Locke Family had such training. With that in mind, she barely squeezed out a polite smile in response.
“Your family sure is a special one.” Heather’s understanding of the Locke Family was only from books, and apart from Matthias, she had really not met anyone from the Locke Family before.
“The Locke Family is not only special, but also very traditional,” Matthias continued, following Heather’s words.
This made Heather even more curious about what the Locke Family was like. Matthias rarely mentioned his family, but today, he took the initiative to talk about it with her, which made her feel a little strange.
Besides, she noticed that Matthias frowned whenever he mentioned the Locke Family. From that, it seemed that he had a very complicated relationship with his family.
“Matthias, are these enough?” Leon ran over with a pile of firewood. He didn’t like the thorny pine leaves; he felt that holding smooth wood was so much better.
“Yes. Just put them aside.” Matthias told Leon to put down all the firewood in his hand, and there was an unpleasant smell of burnt fur in the air.
Leon looked over at the rabbit on the fire—it was dark and looked a little horrible to be eaten. Seeing Leon’s expression, Matthias also turned his gaze to the rabbit that was roasting, and he decided to turn the rabbit since the outer layer was almost done roasting.
The burnt fur was sticking to the meat, and it was impossible to tell from the outside whether the inside was cooked or not. Hence, Leon also curiously leaned forward to take a look.
They were already able to smell the meat, so Leon sniffed harder—the scent made his stomach growl even louder.
“How much longer do we have to do this?” Leon grew impatient. All he could think of now was the taste of the rabbit’s meat.
“It needs to be heated for at least half an hour more. It’s still too early.” Matthias was not in a hurry. One mustn’t be impatient over these sorts of things—if the cooking time was too short, bacteria might still remain in the meat.
Only ten minutes had passed, and there were more than twenty minutes left to wait. Leon, who was idle now, didn’t know what to do.
Matthias continued to stare at the rabbit meat that was roasting before him, seemingly very focused. Heather could smell the scent of the roasting rabbit meat; even without any seasoning, it still smelled amazing.
The outside was all scorched and black, and the smell of meat was still mixed with a hint of burnt smell. Seeing that, Leon gulped hard and immediately asked Matthias, “Should I peel the burnt parts off?” Without peeling it, there was no way to tell if the meat inside had been fully cooked.
“No.” Matthias stopped him. “Just make the fire smaller.” After all, roasted food had to be charred on the outside for it to be tender on the inside. Moreover, the oil dripping from the rabbit skin by the fire will make the fire bigger.
Leon watched happily from the side, while Heather only wrapped her hands around her chest; she felt cold as the temperature dropped. As if they had telepathy, Matthias suddenly turned around and said to Heather, “Are you cold? Come closer to the fire. It’s warmer here.” He invited Heather to come closer to the fire.
Hearing this, Leon hurried over and said, “The temperature difference between day and night is too much. It’s so cold right now, so it’s better for us to stay by the fire.”
Heather looked at the two of them. Not wanting to torture her body, she moved a little closer, but still kept a little distance from them. Leon kept squeezing toward Matthias, and the two of them looked like brothers.
It was unexpected to Heather that Leo and Matthias would grow so close. This surprised her, but it didn’t seem to be such a bad thing after all. Right then, she smiled lightly and felt a warmth envelope her heart.
It had been a while since she had done such a time-consuming and useless thing. After what happened today, Heather did indeed find it quite interesting, and she thought she would definitely look back fondly to this in the future.
“Heather, get closer. It’ll get warmer if the three of us are closer together,” Leon turned his head and shouted at Heather as nighttime in the forest was exceptionally cold.
Matthias also turned his head to look at Heather, as if sending out a silent invitation. The shadows of the flames danced on their faces, flashing and dimming as if it would never extinguish.
