Chapter Fifty-Five: The Indomitable Cat-Monster Gourmet(Coo1 appears to be a typographical error or not standard text. Please provide the correct text you would like translated.)

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Li Can vaguely remembered that it had been more than half an hour since the sound of that collision. During this time, the dying stray cat had managed to drag itself to the entrance of the restaurant, all for the faint hope of survival for the kittens in its belly. The pain and despair it endured could only be known by itself.

Li Can was by no means a man of great compassion; this could be glimpsed from the merciless methods he used to deal with monsters. Yet the stray cat's actions suddenly brought to mind that car accident a year ago. If not for his parents shielding him with their bodies at that time, he would not still have the chance to breathe now.

Li Can roughly swept the debris from the table, and after carefully laying down the cat's body, he immediately found disinfectant alcohol on the second floor to clean his hands and his small knife. He had no experience delivering animals, but that did not hinder his logic.

The stray cat was dead; the urgent task was to cut open its belly and extract the kittens inside. Li Can first determined the spot for the incision, then, imitating scenes he had seen on television, sterilized the area with alcohol. He acted decisively with the knife.

Fortunately, the stray cat was truly dead; otherwise, he would have worried about causing it further pain with his clumsy hands. As soon as he sliced it open, the contents slid out through the incision—not organs, but the amniotic sac enveloping the kittens. The sac was already ruptured and the amniotic fluid lost, indicating that the birthing process had long begun.

Without hesitation, Li Can extracted the kittens—there were five in total. Setting down the knife, he tore open the amniotic sac by hand, and the kittens, covered in viscous fluid, slipped out through the gaps.

Racing against time, his movements deft, Li Can snipped the umbilical cords with scissors, but did not immediately release them. Instead, he twisted them to compress the cords between the blades, then used a dry towel to wipe the mucus from the kittens’ mouths and nostrils, creating conditions for them to breathe. He then dried the mucus from their bodies to prevent them from catching cold as the moisture evaporated, and finally placed each one on dry old clothes beside him before moving on to the next.

Fortunately, Li Can was accustomed to such scenes, so he did not feel nauseous or unsettled—his nerves were strong. Five minutes later, five curled-up kittens lay on the old clothes; but, to his regret, only one showed faint signs of breathing, while the other four were completely unresponsive.

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Even when he gently pressed their chests, there was no change.

“Damn it all,” Li Can cursed. If the driver who ran over the cat had been in front of him, he might not have been able to resist throwing a punch.

“There’s no time to hesitate,” he muttered, taking a deep breath and resolutely abandoning the four kittens who might have had a slim chance, focusing all his attention on saving the last one.

Though smaller than the others, this kitten was fighting to breathe, its tiny limbs flailing with a fierce will to live.

Li Can took off the T-shirt he was wearing; its lingering warmth was just right to mimic the temperature of a mother cat’s belly. He gently wrapped the kitten in it, then guided its mouth to the mother’s belly to nurse.

The scene was heart-wrenching. Less than three centimeters behind the kitten’s head lay the mother’s slit-open belly, blood still seeping out. “This is the continuation of life,” Li Can murmured, stroking the kitten’s fragile, endearing head. Even for a hardened man who had skirted the edge of life and death, the sight melted his heart.

“Luckily, your eyes haven’t opened yet; you don’t have to witness this cruel scene.”

Once he was sure the kitten was stable, Li Can, unwilling to give up, tried to resuscitate the other four, but there was no response—their bodies were already cold.

“Four siblings and the mother—five lives exchanged for one,” he thought, grief gnawing at him. He took one last lingering look at them before covering them with the old clothes.

“To live on is your destiny. Be strong, little one.” Li Can sat beside the sole surviving kitten, who seemed to respond, kicking its tiny legs in a show of spirited resistance.

“I’ll call you Braveheart, then—a name that means living with strength.”

…

Half an hour later, whether from fullness or exhaustion, Braveheart drifted into a deep sleep. Seeing this, Li Can carefully placed it in a cardboard box he had prepared in advance.

There were plenty of such boxes on the second floor, nothing unusual. He lined the box with several pieces of old cotton clothing; the environment was dry and looked warm.

Still uneasy, Li Can put the box in the kitchen. With hot water boiling in a pot, the kitchen was warmer than the front hall, and since he would be cooking soon, it would be convenient to keep an eye on it.

After settling Braveheart, Li Can wrapped the mother and the four kittens in old clothing and dug a deep pit in the wasteland behind the restaurant to bury them.

By the time he returned, it was already past four in the morning. Not daring to waste a moment, he carried two thick legs back to the kitchen to get on with his work.

The water in the pot was already boiling.

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He tossed all the cleaned black bones into the pot, added two large pieces of ginger, two handfuls of scallions, and half a bottle of cooking wine to blanch them.

Blanching is a common cooking method. It reduces the gaminess of the black bones and uses high temperatures to draw out impurities.

As for how to create a new bone broth, he would have to think as the soup changed.

Li Can returned to the table. The monster’s two legs were massive, almost comparable to beef shanks. He used a butcher knife to chop off the claws and discarded them; their grotesque appearance was too sinister, exuding a sense of evil no matter how he tried to break them down. He had no intention of dealing with them further.

He ran his hands over the monster’s legs. Each had three joints, an extra one compared to normal creatures, with no clear distinction between front, back, left, or right. It was easy to guess their flexibility was high. The more flexible, the firmer the flesh, which meant the texture would be good.

As usual, Li Can slit open the skin, removed the membrane between skin and flesh, and stripped out the pale yellow tissue with its extremely sour taste. This tissue was not a continuous mass but separated in chunks, connecting the white meat.

Once cleaned, the remaining meat hung from the leg bones in clusters, looking very much like oval grapes. Squeezing a piece, Li Can felt its remarkable elasticity. More importantly, though the color of this meat was the same as the tentacle flesh—white—it was not at all translucent. At first glance, it resembled boiled frog meat.

“Leg meat, leg bones, translucent tentacle flesh, black cartilage,” Li Can mused, stroking his chin. “Even after discarding the shriveled torso, the head, the spiny skin, and the claws, the remaining ingredients are still plentiful. The leg bones can be chopped for another soup, the leg and tentacle meat can be prepared separately using two different methods, and the black cartilage can be simmered on its own… In other words, I can create four distinct dishes from these ingredients.”

Li Can smacked his lips. He had previously regretted not bringing back the little monsters, but now, seeing how much this one tentacled beast had provided, he realized his freezer might not have held any more.

“In that case, tonight I’ll just cook the black cartilage and leg meat. I’ll stew the leg bones tomorrow, and as for the tentacle meat—I’ll need to think carefully about how best to prepare it.”

With that, Li Can made up his mind.

(To be continued…)