LSLFBW: Chapter 105

As the sky turned pale, the five people sleeping in the main tent woke up and quietly lifted the animal skin curtain of the main tent.

They still had a lot to do today. The first thing was to arrange breakfast for everyone and the Black Mountain Tribe’s stall in advance.

The beastmen brought back to the Black Mountain Tribe were nominally either slaves or two-legged sheep.

However, on the Beastman Continent, there was no tribe whose slaves could eat meat to their heart’s content every meal. So even if everyone didn’t want to treat them harshly, they still had to cover up for themselves.

For example, if they wanted to cook for the slaves now, they couldn’t cook the meat soup openly. They had to cook it secretly in the tent and then secretly distribute it to everyone.

For Hu Xue and Niu Xi, who were used to cooking in clay pots, cooking in a stone pot was much slower. They patiently stirred the broth slowly with a branch.

The slaves huddled in the corner and stared at the steaming stone pot without blinking. They hadn’t smelled such a rich, meaty aroma for a long time.

Xiong Feng and Huan Ping carried a skinned goat into the tent. Qi Bai asked, “How much meat is left outside?”

“There is still one left from yesterday’s exchange,” Xiong Feng replied. “However, there are already people gathered in front of the stall outside. I just saw Diao Lan exchanging new prey with others.

This meant that there was still a lot of work to do today.

Hu Xue smiled and said, “I have never been worried about having too much meat.”

“It is so hot now. If we don’t deal with the meat quickly, it will go bad.” Qi Bai stood up and said to Hu Xue, “I’ll go and get some salt. Let’s quickly salt the meat.”

They exchanged so much meat to supply the camp and to bring enough food back to the tribe.

Qi Bai walked out of the tent and saw Xiang Yu, who was chopping wood with the beastmen slaves. He walked up to him and said, “Grandpa Xiang Yu, we need some wooden racks to hang the salted meat.”

Xiang Yu nodded cheerfully. “Okay, I’ll move it to the tent in a moment.”

Not far away were Quan Nan, who was sitting behind the stall, and Diao Lan, who was trading with other beastmen.

The Black Mountain Tribe’s camp was located among medium-sized tribes, but it only had a piece of animal skin spread out at the door. Most of the items on it were handicrafts spontaneously provided by the tribe members.

For example, wooden combs carved from wood, bamboo handles, and bamboo shovels.

For the beastmen, they only need to pick these things up and study them to roughly know how to make them.

However, they were new things after all. The utensils made by the Black Mountain Tribe were more refined, so many people were willing to exchange for them.

More importantly, everything in the Black Mountain Tribe wasn’t particularly expensive, especially Qi Bai’s wooden comb. He specifically stated that as long as it was a seed or wild fruit that everyone hadn’t seen before, they could exchange it for a small comb.

Therefore, this stall that had just been set up attracted some people who came to see the new thing.

Of course, compared to this small stall, the team waiting in front of Diao Lan with their prey was really lively.

The reason why so many people were willing to provide prey to the Black Mountain Tribe was thanks to the advertisement that Qi Bai placed at the market yesterday.

After everyone saw the horned beastmen at the street corner carrying the wild boar away and coming back empty-handed, they naturally believed what Qi Bai said.

Everyone had been here for a few days on the trading day, and the supplies in their hands had been exchanged almost completely. It was now time to go out and try their luck. If they could hunt prey and bring it back to the Black Mountain Tribe to exchange for some salt, it would definitely be a very profitable business. After all, this was the hunting season with the most prey. What everyone needed more than prey was salt.

Early this morning, some people were already waiting at the door with their prey, fearing that the Black Mountain Tribe would no longer need their prey if they arrived too late.

Diao Lan checked the goat brought by a beastman from head to toe. After making sure that it was fresh prey and that its fur was still intact, she took out a handful of salt from the small salt bag behind her and handed it to the beastman.

Qi Bai watched the two people who were at ease and didn’t disturb them. He went into the main tent and moved a bag of salt to the tent at the back.

He filled a stone basin with warm water and let the beastmen in the tent soak and rub their hands in the water. It wasn’t until the third basin was filled that the water in the stone basin slowly became clear.

Hu Xue and Niu Xi were both veterans in making salted meat in the tribe. They held bone knives to the prey and cut off strips of meat of appropriate sizes with just one or two cuts. Then they handed these strips of meat to the slaves around Qi Bai.

How could these slaves normally get so much meat, not to mention the snowflake-like salt in the animal skin bag? Several of them took the meat with trembling hands out of fear that they would accidentally drop the meat on the ground and get beaten instead.

After hanging strings of salted meat on the wooden rack, Qi Bai wiped the sweat from his forehead.

In such hot weather, the tent where the meat was being cooked was like a sauna. Looking at these skinny sub-beastmen, Qi Bai was worried that they might accidentally faint from the heat.

“Stop. Go out and get some fresh air. Come back later to continue.”

The slaves looked at each other in bewilderment upon hearing this. No one dared to be the first to step out of the tent.

Niu Xi pushed the wild boar skeleton in front of him away and pulled up Tu Ruo. “Let’s go. It is too hot.”

“Drink two sips of broth before you go out.” Hu Xue stopped them and handed over a large bamboo tube filled with broth. “By the way, deliver the broth to the tent in front.”

Tu Ruo didn’t care that the broth had just been served from the pot. She gulped it down and handed the stone bowl back to Hu Xue. Then she put a few large bamboo tubes on her back and silently waited for Niu Xu.

Niu Xi also imitated Tu Ruo and poured the broth in the stone bowl. She almost jumped in pain due to the scalding heat and swallowed the broth with great difficulty.

With the demonstration of Niu Xi and Tu Ruo, the other sub-beastmen slowly came over and held the stone bowls they received with care.

Qi Bai walked out of the tent and stopped before he had time to breathe in the fresh air.

In the neighboring Bloodthirsty Tribe, several bearded beastmen sniffed the air with their nostrils flaring. Finally, they turned toward the direction of the tent where the soup was being cooked, revealing greedy eyes like wild beasts.

These cold eyes met Qi Bai’s directly. Instead of being embarrassed about being discovered, they raised the bloody leg bones in their hands and made sounds toward Qi Bai. Qi Bai carefully listened for a long time before he understood that they meant ‘exchange.’

At this time, an angry growl came from Huan Ping behind Qi Bai.

The moment the two beastmen saw Huan Ping, they finally hesitated, took a few steps back, and turned away unwillingly.

Huan Ping stretched his muscles and said, “I’ll guard here. These people don’t look like they will follow the rules.”

According to Lu Ming, the beastmen of the cannibal tribe wouldn’t actively attack the slaves still in the camp, but Huan Ping’s worries weren’t wrong. There were such neighbors eyeing the,m and they couldn’t take it lightly.

It wasn’t until noon that Lang Ze, who had gone out with Ma Ling, returned to the tribe.

Qi Bai stepped forward and asked, “How is it? Have you found other tribe members on the trading day?”

Ma Ling shook his head. “Almost all the wolf-shaped slaves in the entire Northern Wilderness have been taken away by the Rough Wood Tribe. Now we can’t find any other members of the Silver Moon Tribe outside.”

This wasn’t intentionally done by the Rough Wood Tribe. It was because the beastmen who fled from the Silver Moon Tribe were all troublemakers. After hearing that the Rough Wood Tribe were willing to accept two-legged sheep, all the tribes got rid of the slaves in their hands as soon as possible.

The remaining remote small tribes that the Rough Wood Tribe didn’t visit wouldn’t appear at the trading day at all, let alone inquire about the news.

Lang Ze wasn’t too disappointed with this result. The Silver Moon Tribe was a tribe on the grassland. Even if his people became slaves, most of them should be around the grassland. He was already very satisfied to meet Lang Ji, Lang Kuang, and the others here.

Lang Ze opened the animal skin bag on his body and took out a wooden object from it. “We got this from a wandering beastman’s stall.”

Ma Ling quickly stepped forward, full of curiosity. “Bao Bai, do you know what this is? It is just a small piece of wood, but it is more expensive than prey. The wandering beastman behind the stall is also very weird. No matter what we ask, he won’t answer.”

Qi Bai held the wood in his hand and examined this somewhat cross-like structure. The more he looked at it, the more frightened he became. How could it look so much like the simplest crossbow?

The only difference was probably that this crossbow didn’t have a string.

Lang Ze said, “It looks like a weapon.”

Qi Bai nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. “Yes yes, this is a very powerful weapon. Where is the person who made this weapon? Take me over to have a look.”

This thing didn’t look like a product from the Beastman Continent at all. Instead, it looked more like a product of a higher level of technology.

Could it be that he wasn’t the only person who transmigrated in this world?

Qi Bai squatted in front of the cloaked beastman, tirelessly repeating the secret code between transmigrators.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work no matter whether it was ‘the moonlight shines brightly before the bed’, or ‘odd changes while even stays the same.’

Qi Bai talked until his mouth was dry, but the beastman in front of him seemed unable to hear his voice and just kept polishing the wood in his hand.

Qi Bai was a bit discouraged. It seemed that he had thought too much. Yes, transmigrators weren’t like cabbages. Even if they were cabbages, there weren’t many of them on the Beastman Continent.

Qi Bai gave up trying further and said quietly, “Why did you only make the crossbow body and not add a bowstring to it?”

However, it was this question that made the beastman react. “You call this a crossbow?”

Qi Bai stretched out his tone as he said, “Oh, so you didn’t know this was a crossbow?”

The beastman raised his chin slightly, revealing half of his chin under his cloak. “Nonsense. Of course, I know.”

Qi Bai said, “If you know, why did you only make half of it and sell it at such a high price?”

The beastman snorted. “I never said that this was a complete weapon. They just didn’t recognize it.”

Qi Bai came closer and whispered, “Where did you learn how to make a crossbow?”

The beastman put down the block of wood in his hand and stared. “I made this myself.”

Qi Bai pretended to be unconvinced. “If you can make such a weapon, how can you be a wandering beastman? I guess the weapon you made must not be very powerful.”

The beastman snatched the crossbow from Qi Bai’s hand and said angrily, “You are no different from those people. I won’t let you use my things.”

Qi Bai stopped Ma Ling from going forward. “We exchanged this for salt. You can’t take it back.”

The moment he finished speaking, a small bag of salt appeared in front of Qi Bai.

Qi Bai held the bag of salt in his hand and suddenly said, “I know what to use to make the bowstring.”

The beastman raised his hand suddenly. “You keep talking about bowstrings. What is a bowstring?”

“Right here.” Qi Bai pointed to the middle of the crossbow and looked at the wide groove. “It seems that you used a bowstring like a straw rope before. Unfortunately, it isn’t strong, and the lethality is very limited.”

The beastman’s breathing quickene,d and he asked, “What can I give in exchange for this bowstring?”

“I don’t lack anything.” Qi Bai looked at the various semi-finished weapons on the stall and smiled. “But I lack people.”