Lang Ze’s figure overlapped with the shadow in his dream. Qi Bai couldn’t distinguish between reality and the dream for a moment, which made him instinctively feel a bit afraid.
However, seeing Lang Ze’s slightly retreating steps, QI Bai felt an inexplicable emotion in his heart.
“Meow~”
The little snow leopard opened his eyes wide as if he couldn’t imagine that such a sweet sound came from his throat.
The long tail moved in a panic, and he tried to block himself with his fur.
Lang Ze stopped moving. “Did I scare you?”
The little snow leopard crouched down, and his round ears exposed outside shook slightly.
Qi Bai heard Lang Ze chuckle before a big hand rubbed his head. “Hurry up. The rain has stopped, and the gathering team will set off soon.”
“Hmm.”
It was only when he heard the bamboo door being gently closed that the little snow leopard’s tail moved away from his eyes. He stared blankly ahead.
Qi Bai had been on the Beastman Continent for a year. During this year, he had almost no physical needs and rarely solved them himself.
This might be a bit abnormal for most adult men, but Qi Bai adapted well.
After all, before transmigrating, Qi Bai had been seriously ill for a long time. His physical weakness and unstable hormones caused by long-term medication resulted in Qi Bai’s life being ascetic when he was on Earth.
In addition, due to his identity as a sub-beastman, Qi Bai had almost given up on finding a partner on the Beastman Continent. He never thought much about it. He just thought he exercised too much every day and had no energy to do anything else.
Qi Bai never expected that on an ordinary morning, the world would bring him such a big surprise.
It was no wonder the adult beastmen in the tribe always had an attitude of ‘you will know when the time comes’ as to whether the children had reached adulthood or not.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have physical needs, but his physical needs were completely different from those of humans.
Qi Bai turned into human form, trying his best to ignore the changes in his body that were completely inconsistent with the human body structure. He attempted to explain everything he was experiencing with a scientific attitude.
That’s right, science could explain it.
For example, most animals in nature had an estrus period. Beastmen could transform into beast form, so it seemed very reasonable for beastmen to also have an estrus period.
It was just that the muscular chest and strong waist in his dream…
“Wait.” Qi Bai bit his finger. “First of all, as a person, I can’t have such thoughts about my friends.”
“This is all due to instinct. My body follows the laws of nature to grow up, and it naturally produces some charming thoughts. The reason why I dreamed about Lang Ze must be because we have the best relationship.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
However, the finger that accidentally touched his lips seemed to remind him of how Lang Ze touched this place last night, not to mention that Lang Ze in his dream didn’t just use his fingers…
“Ah!” Qi Bai fell back and covered his head with the animal skin blanket in despair.
On the mountain road, two carts were slowly moving forward.
Qi Bai stared at the red fruits on the cart in a daze.
“Bao Bai.” Shu Lin waved his hand in front of Qi Bai’s eyes. “Did you hear what I said to you?”
“Hmm?” Qi Bai came back to his senses. “What did you say?”
Shu Lin dodged a branch and said, “I said that the red fruit cake you made is really delicious. Xiong Feng and Xiong Shan like it very much. We picked a lot of red fruits. Can I go and learn how to make it from you tonight?”
Qi Bai replied, “Of course.”
It was only then that he realized Shu Lin had come alone, and his little follower wasn’t here. He quickly asked, “Where is Xiong Shan?”
Shu Lin gave him a strange look. “Xiong Feng doesn’t have to hunt today. Xiong Shan is with his father in the tribe. You already asked this when we set out in the morning.”
Qi Bai coughed lightly. “Really?”
Shu Lin came up to Qi Bai and looked him over carefully. “You’ve been acting weird these past few days.”
Qi Bai pushed Shu Lin’s face away. “No, I was just thinking about building the fire wall.”
Shu Lin immediately forgot about investigating what was wrong with Qi Bai and instead asked with great interest, “Are we going to build the fire wall that can make the house warm today?”
“Yes.” Qi Bai nodded.
Several construction teams took turns working, and the outer wall of the tribe’s rest hall had been completed. They now needed to build a kang and the fire wall inside the house.
Once everyone returned to the tribe, Xiong Feng and his companions were using carts to carry clay bricks from the kiln one by one.
Hu Huo and Ma Shu had already made new cart boards. The two wooden-wheeled carts were left in the tribe to transport soil and bricks.
After leaving most of the sub-beastmen to dry sweet potatoes and dried red fruits in the square, Qi Bai brought two teams to the new house.
The fire wall in Northeast China was said to be great for keeping warm in winter. However, this fire wall wasn’t as simple as a double-layered brick wall. The flue inside the fire wall also had its own particularities.
As the main person in charge of the housing construction team, Xiong Feng looked at the drawings of Qi Bai, the chief designer of the Black Mountain Tribe. He scratched his head in distress. “I don’t understand.”
On the stone slab in Qi Bai’s hand, there was a ‘己’ shaped flue drawn on it. This was the most reasonable form of a flue that Qi Bai had researched in the past few days.
The hot air entered the fire wall from the stove, flowed upward along the spiral flue layer by layer, and finally connected to the chimney, allowing the smoke to escape smoothly.
In this way, the smoke stayed in the wall longer and the heat could be retained to the greatest extent. The effect of the fire wall could be maximized.
The structure of the kang was basically the same except that the construction of a kang must also take into account the uniform heating of the kang’s surface to prevent a situation where one part of the kang was hot while another part was cold.
It could be said that making a kang was a skill that not everyone could do.
Qi Bai said, “This is just a simple idea of mine. We need to slowly explore how to do it. I won’t leave until the kang is built.”
Xiong Feng felt relieved when he heard that Qi Bai would stay here. He smiled foolishly at Shu Lin beside Qi Bai, picked up the stone shovel, and started working.
At the same time, the double-layer wall was built upwards. Once it reached the flue that needed to be closed, the bricks changed from horizontal to vertical to form a partition.
Everyone soon found the pattern. The fire wall rose little by little and finally merged into the chimney.
At the same time, the kang and stove connected to the fire wall were gradually built.
The kang was covered with yellow mud mixed with hay. Finally, the edge of the kang was smeared with mortar.
Xi Zhou ran over and shouted, “Make way, the fire is coming!”
The people who were originally gathered in front of the stove made way for him. Xi Zhou put the burning stick under the stove to block the firewood entrance.
Soon, thick white smoke rose from the room.
Yang Luo covered his nose. “How can we handle so much smoke?”
“Ahem.” Qi Bai coughed and said, “It is normal to have smoke. Xi Zhou, come and check where the smoke is leaking the most. Then plug it with yellow mud.”
Most of the smoke now was water vapor in the yellow mud. Of course, there were also places where the smoke was really leaking. They just needed to block it quickly.
Upon hearing this, Xi Zhou agreed without thinking too much. He picked up a piece of yellow mud with a stone chip, walked around Lang Ze standing next to Qi Bai, squatted on the ground, and started covering the wall.
Lang Ze looked at the busy backs of Qi Bai and Xi Zhou and frowned slightly.
The Black Mountain Tribe was only so big. The moment the fire was lit in the stove, the beastmen weaving mats on the other side heard the news, and the entire new house was soon surrounded.
Qi Bai finally squeezed out of the crowd. Now there was nothing for him to do here. He had to wait for the fire under the stove to slowly dry the kang and the wall. Then he could go and check them.
Qi Bai dusted himself off and wanted to go see the dried fruits that had been drying in the past few days. However, just as he passed by the middle of the square, he was suddenly pulled to the back of a big tree by a hand.
Qi Bai was taken aback. Then he looked closer and found it was Lang Ze. “You… what are you doing?”
Lang Ze watched him quietly until Qi Bai was a bit uneasy. Then he asked, “You have been avoiding me these days.”
Qi Bai blinked. “I wasn’t avoiding you.”
Lang Ze didn’t refute him but just said, “I’m going out.”
Qi Bai was stunned for a moment. “Where are you going?”
Lang Ze stared straight at him and answered, “I’m going to the beach.”
“Oh.” Qi Bai asked, his eyes dodging, “Why do you suddenly want to go to the beach?”
Lang Ze answered, “The number of prey has been decreasing these days. They seem to be very uneasy, which isn’t a good sign. We must prepare enough salt in advance.”
Qi Bai didn’t participate in hunting and was busy building a house recently. Of course, the main reason was that he was indeed avoiding Lang Ze. In short, he just learned about the news.
Qi Bai asked quickly, “How could this happen? When are you going to leave? I’ll go with you.”
Lang Ze’s tense body relaxed a bit. “You stay in the tribe.”
Qi Bai shook his head. “There is nothing for me to do in the tribe now. Xiong Feng and Xi Zhou can build the kang and fire wall in the other room.”
“Hmm?” Qi Bai didn’t get a response, so he looked up at Lang Ze. “Speak.”
Lang Ze smiled and said, “The tribe members we brought back from the Northern Wilderness only trust you. We can’t leave the tribe at the same time.”
What Lang Ze didn’t say was that if possible, he really didn’t want to be separated from Qi Bai for a moment. The situation outside was unclear now, so it would be safer to let Qi Bai stay in the tribe.
Qi Bai was a bit discouraged. “Okay, then I’ll stay and take care of everyone. Who are you going to take this time?”
Lang Ze leaned back and gently leaned against the tree trunk. “Salt making is the biggest secret of the tribe. Before everyone decides to join the Black Mountain Tribe, this secret can’t be told to everyone for the time being.”
Whether it was salt making or pottery making, it wasn’t so much that they needed to keep these secrets as it was that they needed to protect themselves.
Lang Ze continued, “This time, let Lang Ji, Lang Kuang, and Quan Liu go with us. There will be ten of us in total, and the tribe will have someone to protect it.”
Lang Ji and Lang Kuang were both members of the Silver Moon Tribe and were trustworthy people.
Quan Liu was the slave that Qi Bai exchanged with the Rough Wood Tribe. As early as the trading day in Xushan, Diao Lan had recommended him to Qi Bai. It seemed that his performance in the hunting team was also very outstanding, which made Lang Ze notice him.
Qi Bai nodded. “That’s good.”
“We will probably be back in six or seven days this time.” Lang Ze turned his head and finally expressed the reason why he had found Qi Bai. “When I return to the tribe, can we reconcile?”
The leaves overhead swayed gently, and the shadows under the trees lengthened and shortened.
A large tree that several people could hug separated the two from the noisy crowd.
Qi Bai just felt that the world was too quiet, so quiet that he could hear the sound of his own heartbeat.
They weren’t having a quarrel at all, so what type of reconciliation could they have?
Qi Bai thought so in his heart, but only a single syllable came out of his throat.”
“Hmm.”
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