After watching the gathering team and hunting team leave, Qi Bai returned to the warehouse door and prepared to process the sugarcane they had collected from Xishui River.
There was a big difference between the sugarcane on the Beastman Continent and that on Earth. At the very least, the variety that Qi Bai and his team discovered was thicker than the sugarcane on Earth. This made the sugarcane forest look like a short bamboo forest from a distance.
In addition, Qi Bai discovered that the root systems of these sugarcanes were more developed and the leaves were larger. Perhaps it was due to these reasons that this plant, which wasn’t cold-resistant on Earth, was able to take root in the cold Black Mountain.
When Sun Qing saw Qi Bai picking up the sugar cane, he approached with excitement. “Bao Bai, do you want to make brown sugar?”
This morning, Hu Xue boiled a large pot of brown sugar water. Except for the four children who were punished, everyone got a bowl. Sun Qing could still taste the sweet taste in his mouth. It was so delicious.
Qi Bai nodded. “It can be made into brown sugar, but only half of it can be used. The remaining half should be planted in the soil, so that we can still eat brown sugar next year.”
Sugarcane was different from other plants. Once left for too long, the water and sugar in the sugarcane would be lost. The sugarcane sprouts would become dry and it was likely that they wouldn’t survive. So even though now wasn’t a good season for planting, Qi Bai planned to stimulate the growth of a batch of sprouts and plant them quickly.
Sun Qing crouched down, smelled the sweet scent of sugarcane, and asked while gulping, “How to plant sugarcane without seeds?”
After Qi Bai’s long period of education, the people in the tribe had more or less known the meaning of seeds, not to mention that Qi Bai also brought back many seeds of various sizes from the trading day, which was very different from the sugarcane in front of them.
Qi Bai peeled off the large leaves on the outer skin of the sugarcane. He pointed to a round protrusion and said, “Look, this is the bud of the sugarcane. Find them and put them in the soil. After a while, they will grow into new sugarcane.”
Sun Qing touched the small buds on the sugarcane and exclaimed, “This is amazing. The seeds actually grow inside the tree trunk.”
Qi Bai smiled. Not to mention Sun Qing, but many people living on Earth didn’t know how sugarcane germinated. It could only be said that the world of plants was far more interesting than people imagined.
The two people moved a piece of wood to use as a stool. They sat casually next to the sugarcane, placed a large rattan basket in the middle, and started to concentrate on picking out the sugarcane segments.
Not every bud of the sugarcane could be used, such as the small bud in Qi Bai’s hand that had turned black.
Perhaps it was because it had been left for too long, or perhaps something went wrong during the growth process. In any case, it could be seen with the naked eye that this bud was unlikely to survive even after being stimulated.
Qi Bai used a bone knife to cut off this section and put it into a rattan basket. These sugarcane pieces that couldn’t be ripened wouldn’t be wasted. They would be collected and used to make brown sugar.
Soon, Zhu Zhu and Yang Luo, who remained in the tribe, also joined in with small bone knives.
Listening to the sound of Hu Huo and Ma Shu chopping wood with stone knives in the distance, Yang Luo said worriedly, “There are so many people in the tribe. How can I keep track of everyone’s scores?”
Yang Luo was the priest of the tribe. As a person of status, he couldn’t roll up his sleeves and work with everyone like Hou Yan. However, Qi Bai didn’t let him sit idly. Instead, he gave Yang Luo an accounting job. The reason was ready-made. In the entire tribe, who could be fairer than the priest?
Yang Luo found this work very interesting, but he encountered difficulties on the first day of implementation.
Qi Bai smiled and said, “Grandpa Priest, you can’t think about this matter in a positive way. Think about it in the opposite way.”
Yang Luo cut off a piece of sugarcane with a bone knife and asked, “What do you mean by thinking about it in the opposite way?”
“Look, everyone will definitely do their best to get more food. In this way, you only need to record who hasn’t completed their work every day,” Qi Bai said. “Of course, if someone performs particularly well, you can also mark them specifically.”
Yang Luo’s eyes lit up. Yes, why didn’t he think of that method? In this way, his workload suddenly decreased from remembering two or three hundred numbers every day to only a few. In addition, there was a long stone slab prepared by Qi Bai to distinguish everyone, so it wouldn’t be a difficult task to record everyone’s scores.
Yang Luo hummed a tune happily because he discovered another benefit to recording in this way. It was that if anyone was lazy, he would know it clearly, and he would definitely become the most competent priest on the continent.
The facts turned out to be just as Qi Bai expected. Within ten days after the tribe implemented the points system, Yang Luo only had to record someone once, and there was a reason for it.
The four people spent most of the day dividing the sugarcane. Then they found a piece of land with sufficient sunlight on the far left side of the Black Mountain wall.
Simply circle the land with branches, loosen the ground in the middle with a plow, and stack the sugarcane nodes neatly, trying to make sure each bud on the sugarcane faced upwards.
Once everything was done, cover it with a layer of loose soil and water it thoroughly.
The next step was to wait and hope that these sugarcanes could sprout more.
As for the remaining few baskets of sugarcane segments, they were moved into the children’s cave, waiting to be made into brown sugar.
At noon, all the tribe members who had gone out returned to the tribe as if they were returning home. This was the beginning of the tribe’s construction.
Lang Ze arranged the processing of prey and came to the center of the tribe’s square.
Qi Bai and Sun Qing nailed the wooden strips tied with straw ropes into the soil. Then they looked up and saw Lang Ze and his men. They smiled and said, “You came back at the right time.”
On the ground, it could be seen that a house floor plan drawn with straw ropes had been completed.
Ma Ling looked at the house, which was in the middle of nowhere, and asked in confusion, “Why build it here?”
Qi Bai pointed to the large open space behind him near the wall and said, “Those spaces should be reserved for building houses for the tribe members to live in. What we are going to build now is a place that can accommodate everyone to rest.”
Even though this was a house used as a sample, it would require a lot of manpower and material resources, so Qi Bai was very concerned about it.
The structure of the house he was planning on the ground consisted of two large rectangular rooms with a small square room in the middle.
In the two large rooms, Qi Bai planned to build a large kang that could accommodate dozens of people. It could solve the sleeping problem of the newly joined tribe members, as well as serve as a place for the tribe members to rest in the future. It was very practical.
As for the small room in the middle, Qi Bai planned to temporarily put a few long tables and benches in it to make it a canteen for the tribe. The stove would be placed at both ends of the two large kangs, and the inner wall connecting the stoves would be made into a double-layer fire wall. As long as a fire was lit in the two large rooms, the smaller room in the middle would also be warm.
In this way, they only had to build one house, and they could solve the two most important issues of accommodation and food at the same time.
The moment he said this, Ma Ling, Xiong Feng, and several veterans immediately turned into their beast shapes and led the construction team to start digging the foundation.
However, there were many houses to be built this time. Even if there were some prepared bricks in the kiln, they still needed to be used sparingly.
Lang Ze said, “I will take some people to bring back some stones to make the foundation.”
Huan Ping nodded. “We have a cart now. It will only take some time. We can bring back a lot of stones in no time.”
Using stones as the foundation was familiar to everyone. The only drawback to this method was that the stones were of different shapes and required a lot of effort to hammer them flat. However, what the beastmen lacked the least was strength. They just had to be well fed, and everyone wouldn’t stop hammering.
Shu Lin brought a basket of burnt quicklime to the side of the foundation being excavated. Once he turned around, he found that his little bear had run a long way and was holding onto Qi Bai’s legs, refusing to let go.
Shu Lin walked over with an empty rattan basket on his back. Seeing the unhappy faces of the people, he couldn’t help asking, “What happened?”
Qi Bai said with some self-blame, “I want to dig a cellar to store food for the tribe.”
Shu Lin blinked, and his attention was successfully diverted. “Why bury it underground? Wouldn’t it be better to put it in the warehouse?”
“There isn’t that much space in the warehouse,” Qi Bai explained. “Vegetables like sweet potatoes and radish will be better preserved underground.”
Qi Bai was suddenly inspired by this when he saw the cellar in the Amo Tribe.
In China, many people buried the harvested food on the spot or put it in a cellar. As long as the humidity and temperature were maintained properly, the vegetables buried underground would be no different from fresh ones when taken out.
Therefore, he wanted to dig a cellar three or four meters deep between the warehouse and the children’s cave to store the food that had been preliminarily dried.
However, Qi Bai overlooked one thing. It was that the Amo Tribe not only used this method to store food, but also used such cellars to imprison the two-legged sheep. It was precisely due to this that as the cellar was dug deeper and deeper, Dai and Hu Bu’s faces became paler.
Shu Lin had never seen a cannibal tribe, but he had heard Niu Xi and Quan Nan talk about the dangers of the Amo Tribe. He felt very sympathetic toward their plight. He thought for a moment before saying, “Come with me to the kiln to break bricks. That is very fun.”
Dai shook her head and used a shovel to shovel soil into a rattan basket covered with large leaves. She glanced secretly at Qi Bai, obviously not wanting to leave.
Seeing the two people’s stubbornness, Qi Bai smiled helplessly. “Forget it. If you want to follow me, just follow me. It is a good thing to be able to face it bravely.”
Qi Bai crouched down and rubbed the little brown bear’s head. “Isn’t that right?”
Little Xiong Shan grinned, hugged Qi Bai’s leg, and wanted to climb up Qi Bai’s body.
Shu Lin, who was standing by, reached out and grabbed the little bear. “You are too heavy. You can’t climb on others.”
The little bear was pulled away and made a humming sound with some grievance.
Qi Bai leaned over and hugged Xiong Shan in his arms. “I can hold you. No matter how big you grow, Uncle Bai can hold you.”
Shu Lin pinched the little brown bear’s nose. “I’m leaving. Do you want to come with me or stay here and play?”
Xiong Shan grabbed Qi Bai’s neck with his two paws. He turned his head hard and faced Shu Lin with his butt.
This annoyed look made everyone laugh. Shu Lin reached out and patted his chubby little butt hard. “Then I’m leaving.” After saying that, he turned around and left. You know, if there wasn’t absolute trust, beastmen wouldn’t hand over their children to others casually.
Qi Bai rubbed the soft little brown bear twice. Then he found a clean rattan basket, put the little bear in it, and carried it on his back.
Xiong Shan could no longer be carried on the head, but Qi Bai was still worried about putting him on the ground. After all, they were digging a cellar here, and he didn’t want the little bear to be hurt accidentally. He felt more at ease carrying Xiong Shan on his back.
At first, Xiong Shan was quite excited and cried in the rattan basket. Then he soon became quiet. Zhu Zhu glanced into the rattan basket and said with a slight smile, “He is asleep.”
A cool breeze blew through the valley. Qi Bai was worried that he would catch a cold if he slept outside, so he whispered, “I’ll send him to the children’s cave.”
The children’s cave was busy at this time.
Hu Xue and She Li took charge of the tribe’s cooking again, but now they no longer had to cook for 50 people, but for more than 100 people. Two people definitely couldn’t handle it at all, so behind them were half-grown children who were learning to cook.
Others sat around the stone table, picking vegetables.
“Hey, are these red fruits?” Qi Bai stopped in front of a basket of red fruits and looked into the rattan basket.
Tu Yu said, “It is red fruit. There are a lot of them on the road leading to the Man-Eating River.”
Niu Xi said with some regret, “But we can’t eat so much. The fruit is wasted on the tree.”
Qi Bai said, “They won’t be wasted. We can cut the fruit into thin slices and dry them into dried red fruits like we did with the bamboo shoots before. This way, we will have fruits to eat even in winter.”
Niu Xi’s eyes lit up. “Do you want to cook it like dried bamboo shoots?”
Qi Bai thought about it and shook his head. “No need. Fruits and dried bamboo shoots are different. Just cut them and dry them.” At the very least, most of the dried fruits he had eaten in his previous life were made directly from fruits.
Tu Ya clapped her hands and said, “That is too easy. We made a lot of winnowing baskets for drying bamboo shoots. Now they will come in handy.”
As they were talking, a few people gathered together to discuss the collection route for the gathering team tomorrow.
Qi Bai placed Xiong Shan on the innermost bed and covered him with a small piece of animal skin before returning to the place where he had dug the cellar.
As the cellar was dug deeper and deeper, Qi Bai and the other diggers sank beneath the ground little by little. However, the aroma of food in the children’s cave seemed to be able to reach everyone’s noses.
Soon, Hu Xue and She Li came to the tribe’s square carrying a few large clay pots, calling on everyone to come and eat.
Qi Bai held a bamboo tube used to hold rice and found Lang Ze at the end of the group.
As if sensing Qi Bai’s breath, Lang Ze turned around when Qi Bai walked over.
Qi Bai looked at Lang Ze and asked, “Are you on duty tonight?”
Lang Ze shook his head. “What’s wrong?”
Qi Bai’s lips curved up. “Then let’s go pick red fruits together. I want to make some delicious food.”
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