Stella Grace was very nervous. “Well, you should eat in moderation even if it’s very good for you. Too much of anything will ruin your body. You should take the suitable amount only.”
Jasper Milton chuckled and teased, “What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that I will ‘eat’ you?”
“That…” Stella casually drew circles in the sand with a branch. “I’m a little tired today.”
Jasper laughed even more cheerfully. “What are you thinking about?”
Stella looked at him.
“Don’t you think it’s a little inappropriate for us to wear wet clothes? It’s still a bit cold by the sea at night,” Jasper said again.
Stella didn’t say a word.
“Haha, it’s not like I haven’t seen it before.” Jasper looked relaxed with a casual smile on his face.
Stella was even more embarrassed. “Let’s forget about it today. I’ll make grass skirts and quilts with leaves tomorrow.”
Jasper did not press on further. He lay comfortably on the beach and looked at the stars shining in the sky. “The stars here are very bright. I still remember that I liked to look at stars when I was a child. At that time, there were stars all over the sky. Nowadays, you can barely see them anymore.”
Stella lay down beside Jasper and said, “The industrial pollution has become more prevalent. There are many cities which are shrouded in smog and haze. Therefore, by the sea, especially in places that haven’t been developed, it is like heaven on earth.”
Jasper held onto Stella’s shoulder and said, “Promise me that even if we are rescued from here, we will never be separated.”
Stella remained silent.
The silence made Jasper panic, and he looked at her.
“Okay,” she answered.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead before getting up and resuming cutting the bamboo.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she pushed herself up.
“I’m making a ladder. This bamboo is around 10 meters high. I’m going to cut it so that we have two sticks about 4 metres tall, and make a hole every 50 centimetres. Then, I’ll slot in some shorter bamboo sticks to make a ladder,” Jasper said while working. He compared the two pieces of bamboo and made a mark at the same interval.
He split the remaining two meters of the bamboo in the middle and cut it into seven-centimeter-long pieces.
This was mainly because as the bamboo got taller, it got thinner at the top. The size of the bamboo pieces was different, so the size of each hole was much smaller than that of the bamboo pieces.
Stella helped Jasper to work on it.
He was worried that Stella would cut her hand because this was a slow work that needed a bit of strength. “You can make two pairs of chopsticks with the remaining bamboo. Make it long, so you don’t have to worry about being scalded by hot food anymore.”
“Oh, okay.” She proceeded to make an extra two pairs and even fashioned a spatula out of excess bamboo.
Jasper saw the chopsticks she made and smiled. “Did you make extra chopsticks for our future guests?”
Stella also felt that it was funny, so she laughed.
“Or are you preparing them for our child? Don’t you think that it’s a little early for a kid to be eating with chopsticks?” Jasper joked.
He didn’t know whether it was from the red glow of the fire or her own embarrassment, but Stella’s face was tinged pink and looked wonderful even without makeup.
“I made them as backup just in case we lose our pair,” Stella explained.
“Alright. Look at the crabs. They looks like they’re already fully cooked.” Jasper reminded her.
Stella picked up a crab with the freshly made chopsticks. Because the head of the chopsticks was a little too big and the balance was off, it was a little difficult to pick up the crab.
It turned out that making chopsticks was also an art.
She finally picked up two crabs with much difficulty and put them on a big leaf to let them cool for a while. Then, using a dagger, she hemmed down the size of the chopsticks so they would be easier to use.
After that, she smoothed out the edges of the chopsticks so they wouldn’t be as clunky as she held them, and further reduced the size of the head. Using her newly-adjusted chopsticks, she took out another crab from the pot. This time, it was much easier.
“Try them first. Is it good?” Jasper asked.
Stella pulled the crab open and started to suck out the juice.
It was salty and delicious.
She gave a thumbs-up. “It’s very delicious, but I’m worried that we won’t have enough fresh water.”
“Don’t worry. We have a pot and an endless supply of sea water. We can still make distilled water. We can also look for a fresh water source when we go out to search for some wild vegetables and other things tomorrow morning. When we’re free, we can dig up a few more ponds to store the water,” Jasper said.
“We can eat our bamboo shoots in the morning, maybe even stew them with the pork. We can go out after breakfast.” As she talked, she worked on removing the shell off the crab legs and offered one to Jasper.
“There’s no need to do that for me. You should have more.” He was concerned that her hand would be hurt by the shell.
“Then you should stop your work for now and have some crabs first. There are so much here that I don’t think we can finish it all.”
Jasper looked at his watch, rinsed his hands with water, and sat next to Stella to eat the crabs.
Stella listened to the whirring sea breeze and the sound of waves hitting the rocks. If this was a vacation rather than survival on a deserted island, it would feel so much better.
Jasper resumed work on his ladder after finishing off one crab.
Stella managed to finish two. She broke the abalone open and cut it into thin pieces before boiling it in a pot briefly and eating it. It tasted unusually good.
“Try this.” Stella took a small piece, boiled it in the pot, and handed it to Jasper.
“It’s really good. The chefs working in restaurants probably only has similar cooking skills. The difference is that we are eating the freshest food.”
“Haha, yes, the rarest food are the freshest ones.” She shared the abalones with Jasper, and cut the sea cucumber into thin pieces.
“Have you noticed that abalone and sea cucumber tasted almost the same, just like how different kinds of shellfish have roughly the same taste?” she suddenly asked.
“There are still some differences. For example, the meat of the scallop is circular in shape. It’s in several portions and is chewy when eaten. For oysters, their meat will melt the moment it enters your mouth. Clams are larger and we can eat more of its meat. Seafood is by no means the same.” Jasper explained seriously.
“… I feel like you’re some kind of food critic.”
“In all actuality, this is the first time I’ve gotten to eat so much.”
“But you ate a lot back at that place near my school,” she reminded him.
“Not as much as today. Didn’t I only eat some roast lamb that time?”
Stella smiled. “That sounds right. Oh, I think the remaining pork can last us for another week. Let’s refrain from eating the remaining three legs tomorrow and dry them out under the sun instead. That should make them last for quite a few months.”
After Stella finished speaking, she paused for a moment.
Even though she said a few more months, she wouldn’t be able to live for that long.
If she died, Jasper would be the only one left on the island. That would be too cruel to him.
“What are you thinking about? Why did you stop?” Jasper looked at her.
Stella came to her senses and continued, “I think we’ll eat the ribs tomorrow. I’ll make a big pot of them and we’ll be able to eat them for the whole day.”
“Right. Before we go out, we should wrap them up in the plastic bags and hide them under some rocks. This should prevent the wild beasts from getting to them,” Jasper said, in sync with her thoughts.