Despite having spent so much time struggling, the bison hadn’t left and was now panting heavily at the same spot as before.

Li Younan slowly pulled out his hunting knife.

...

Tonight was destined to be an incredibly busy night.

The bison was slaughtered in the afternoon, but processing it would take a long time.

At this moment, three high-definition cameras were set up around Li Younan, able to record the process of him butchering the bison from all angles.

As someone with top-tier butchering skills, his actions of opening up the bison and disassembling it into pieces were filled with an almost artistic beauty.

Every cut Li Younan made was extremely precise, akin to a surgical operation.

While performing this task, he spoke to the camera: "In China, there is an ancient story about a man named Pao Ding who slaughtered cattle for a king."

"His movements while butchering were incredibly skillful, the sounds he made resembled music, and his butchering actions were like dancing."

"The king was astounded by his butchering skills and asked him, ’Why is your slaughtering technique so exceptional?’"

"This guy named Pao Ding explained that what he pursued was the ’way,’ which transcended the mere technical level."

"When he looked at cattle, he no longer saw them as a whole but could clearly observe the muscle structure and bones inside their bodies, and he could even interact with the cattle spiritually without using his eyes. He guided his knife along the natural structure of the bison, in the seams of the muscles and bones."

Li Younan’s wrist relaxed, as the hunting knife made a flourish in his hand, and then he said with great swagger, "Doesn’t this story sound very abstract? Well, when you watch me dissect, you’ll get a tangible sense of this story."

After showing off, his gaze turned very serious.

Li Younan’s movements were extremely fast, explaining to the camera which muscle was called what, where it started, and where it ended as he butchered.

The entire bison was dissected layer by layer, cut into pieces according to the names of the muscles.

The container for the beef was the intact hide he had initially skinned.

In the yard, Li Younan had already set up a rack made of wooden branches to hold the meat, and he quickly moved the dismembered bison back into the yard.

Except for things like hooves that were practically useless, Li Younan even collected the bison’s blood, filling a whole wooden barrel and carried it back to the shelter.

For the rest of the evening, Li Younan had to work overtime to process this beef.

The high-grade salt given by the show was very useful. He directly broke off more than half of it, cutting the beef into strips, then hung them in the space above the fireplace for smoking and roasting.

This highlighted the advantages of having a large house: hanging this meat would not affect Li Younan’s activity space.

By nighttime, the temperature had already dropped to a few degrees, akin to the temperature of a refrigerator’s storage compartment, and the disassembled beef had become small pieces, so the temperature dropped instantly, preventing spoilage for the few remaining unprocessed pieces overnight.

Moreover, Li Younan’s plan for a hot shower tonight had to be canceled.

The large pot of boiled water had another purpose.

He gathered all the condiments in the house, including wild ginger and wild onions, as well as the beef that couldn’t be cut into strips and was inconvenient for hanging and smoking, minced them all, mixed with bison blood, added plenty of salt, and concocted two whole barrels of blood meat paste.

Then he brought over the cleaned small intestines of the bison and used the previously made wooden funnel to stuff the blood meat paste into blood sausages.

This was a minority ethnic food that Li Younan often ate on the Western Sichuan Plateau.

The stuffed blood sausages needed immediate cooking, and the boiling water in that big pot was just right for the task.

The cooked blood sausages were hung on the beams of the house for drying and smoking. Whenever he wanted to eat them, he could just cut a piece and roast it, enabling long-term preservation while utilizing the bison blood perfectly.

By the time these tasks were completed, it was late at night, so Li Younan built a fire with pine wood in the yard and continued his work by the firelight.

Next, he needed to render all the bison’s fat into tallow, and the meat from the massive bison head needed to be carved off.

When Li Younan finished all tasks and had processed the entire bison, it was already deep into the night.

He roughly estimated that the bison weighed about 300 kilograms. Excluding the hooves, horns, bones, and the grass and excrement in the stomach that weren’t edible, Li Younan secured at least 100 kilograms of meat.

Once all the tallow was rendered, it amounted to more than twenty kilograms!

The fat contributed to about ten percent of the bison’s weight, but not all fat was easily rendered. Even so, the twenty kilograms of tallow were enough to last him until next year.

There’s still butter too!

All this meat was hung in the shelter for smoking.

In addition, there were over ten kilograms of internal organs, and some scraps like the tongue and face of the bison.

Having completed everything, Li Younan’s stomach started growling, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten dinner.

He hurriedly cut a portion of freshly cooked blood sausage, pan-fried it on low heat, and eagerly tasted it.

The blood sausage was savory and juicy, with the wild ginger and wild onions he collected earlier perfectly suppressing the gamey taste, leaving only the resilience of the beef and the rich nutrients of the blood, providing a very satisfying taste.

Li Younan couldn’t resist letting out a satisfied "Hmm," and naturally didn’t forget to tell the audience in front of the camera, "The taste is excellent! It’s a pity there aren’t any spices here; otherwise, I could cook it even tastier."

Having eaten and drunk his fill, Li Younan didn’t forget to milk the young ewe.

Only then did he notice the ewe had been staring up at him all along.

Li Younan chuckled and casually pointed to a piece of beef hanging on the rafter: "You want some too?"

The young ewe silently turned its head.

After milking, Li Younan didn’t have time to further process the hide and the head, so he washed up briefly and lay in bed to rest.

Although Li Younan didn’t really lack food before this, there was always a sense of urgency without a large animal hunted down.

Now with abundant food supplies secure, he could be carefree for at least the next two months, and his tension seemed to ease all at once.

That night, he slept extremely soundly.

The next day when Li Younan woke, it was already late morning with the sun high in the sky.

He stretched comfortably and turned on the camera: "Today is a day where I don’t want to work! Let’s rest for two days, doing nothing, just relaxing... My plan is to stay around my shelter for the next few days and improve it further. Of course, before that, we need to handle this hide and the bison head."

Li Younan was well aware that the forthcoming time would be plentiful, and many previously trivial tasks that seemed uninspiring could be tackled.