One man and one wolf slowly walked down the stone steps. The tribe was in chaos with everyone busy moving.
However, there weren’t many horned beastmen like Lang Ze who transformed into their beast forms to carry supplies. This was because most tribe members actually had very simple belongings.
The beastmen of the Xiaoniu and Horse Tribes living near the wall were currently dismantling their tents. They had already handed over all their food upon arriving at the Black Mountain Tribe, so they only needed to roll up the animal hides from their tents and take their bamboo and stone bowls for eating. This made their journey to their new homes effortless.
The beastmen crammed into the three large caves were similar to the Xiaoniu and Horse Tribes. They needed only a single animal hide bundle.
Qi Bai and Lang Ze passed through the crowd and arrived at their new home.
The bamboo stick they drew was numbered ‘21-22.’ These houses were located on the outer side of the first row of houses, a few dozen meters away from the tribe’s wall.
The giant wolf flicked his tail, lay down at the doorway and placed the rattan basket on the ground.
The horned beastmen’s beast forms were enormous, a fact considered from the very beginning of the construction of the houses. This meant that even though there wasn’t a courtyard in front of the houses, a sufficiently spacious area was provided to ensure that the horned beastmen could move freely in their beast forms.
Similarly, the roofs and doors of the houses were built higher.
Qi Bai and Lang Ze had always been neighbors. On the mountain, Qi Bai’s cave was on the left. This meant that when they arrived at the foot of the mountain, Qi Bai naturally chose the house on the left.
Lang Ze naturally had no objections. After Qi Bai carried all the rattan baskets down from his back, he stood up again.
Qi Bai touched his ears in a somewhat embarrassed manner. He had clearly seen along the way that most of the tribe members had very little luggage. Even those who lived in the Black Mountain for a year only had two or three rattan baskets and didn’t pack like him. Despite Lang Ze carrying such large rattan baskets, eight of nine of them probably wouldn’t be enough.
However, Lang Ze obviously didn’t see this as a drawback. Instead, he deeply reflected on himself after seeing the supplies stored in Qi Bai’s cave and then the bone tools and animal hides he had collected in his own cave.
He now had a mate. He couldn’t eat all the food as before. He had to save enough food for his mate to eat his fill.
Of course, his partner also liked many strange and unusual plants. He would have to collect more of them in the future.
Qi Bai naturally had no idea what Lang Ze was thinking. The two of them made three trips back and forth.
Chuan Chuan and Yaya didn’t have to move for now and could continue living on the mountain. Apart from them, everything useful like the animal hides, stone slabs from the cave, and the bottles and jars from the bamboo pavilion, were moved to their new house down the mountain.
Qi Bai thought nothing was missing and stood in the kitchen looking at various rattan baskets on the ground, wondering where to begin. Just then, Lang Ze appeared at Qi Bai’s doorstop, carrying a large piece of dead wood on his shoulder.
Qi Bai saw what Lang Ze was carrying and quickly ran out. “Why did you bring that down as well? There is no room left in the house!”
Qi Bai thought Lang Ze had gone next door to unpack his things. It turned out that Lang Ze actually went back to the cave.
Lang Ze was carrying that leopard climbing frame that Qi Bai had made for him.
Perhaps because his beast form was a snow leopard but Qi Bai retained some cat-like habits. He sometimes transformed into his best form to sharpen his nails. Therefore, he made himself a leopard cat tree, one of his few forms of entertainment.
Now things were different from the cave. Everyone lived close together, and his neighbors were all around him. It would be embarrassing if anyone saw him, a grown man, playing with a cat tree at home.
Lang Ze looked at the kitchen, full of rattan baskets, and nodded. “Then put it at my place. My house is quite empty. Come play there whenever you want.” Then he carried the tree towards the house next door.
Qi Bai watched Lang Ze carry the tree away, feeling a bit anxious. He hesitated over whether to ask Lang Ze to take it back or not.
However, the leopard climbing frame was really fun. He even made a super comfortable little nest on it. It was a bit of a shame to leave it gathering dust in the cave.
Qi Bai’s ears turned slightly red and he thought in a resigned manner, ‘Not many people should go to Lang Ze’s house, right? Losing face in front of Lang Ze doesn’t seem so hard to accept…’
“Bao Bai.”
Qi Bai turned around when he heard someone call his name and saw Xi Zhou and Hu Qiao walking towards him together. Both of them were carrying bone knives, seemingly preparing to go out.
However, Hu Qiao seemed somewhat listless compared to Xi Zhou’s happy appearance.
Qi Bai looked at the dejected Hu Qiao and couldn’t help feeling sorry for the young man.
At the beginning of the mating season, Qi Bai made a bet with Hu Xue and the others, guessing whether Quan Nan would become mates with Lang Ji or Hu Qiao. They all ended up losing.
It was because until the end of the mating season, all three of them were still single.
Qi Bai greeted the two of them with a smile and asked, “Where are you going?”
Xi Zhou answered, “The chief is taking everyone to the bamboo forest to cut some bamboo. We came to ask if you wanted to come along.”
Lang Ze had already set up the climbing frame. He heard the commotion outside and pulled out a bone knife and straw rope from his rattan basket. “I’ll go with you.”
They originally lived in a cave where most of their cabinets were embedded in the stone walls. Now that they had moved down the mountain, they didn’t have any suitable furniture. Cutting some bamboo would be perfect for making bamboo doors and cabinets.
Qi Bai eagerly raised his hand. “I’ll come too.”
Lang Ze patted Qi Bai’s head. “You stay in the tribe and unpack. I’ll bring the bamboo back, okay?”
Qi Bai glanced at his overflowing doorway and nodded somewhat sheepishly. He seemed to have too many things.
After the others left, Qi Bai rolled up his sleeves and immediately got to work.
The houses assigned to everyone had the same layout. The kitchen was right inside the entrance, the stove was to the left of the door and further ahead was the door to the bedroom.
The stoves in the houses were similar to the two-tiered stoves in front of Qi Bai’s caves. These stoves were quite common in rural China, consisting of a large round pot and a taller oven.
Qi Bai designed the stoves this way primarily to take into account the unique dietary habits of the beastmen.
Frying and stir-frying weren’t the main methods here. Everyone relied on roasting meat to fill their stomachs, so an oven for roasting meat was essential.
The stoves were provided but everyone had to find their own pots.
In fact, it wasn’t just that there were no pots. The entire house, apart from the brick structure, was practically a new house. It didn’t even have a door.
Qi Bai took the earthenware pot out of the rattan basket. The pot had been taken from the stove in the bamboo pavilion. It was slightly larger than the stove, with a bit of the rim protruding. This didn’t affect its use.
Qi Bai sealed the edges of the earthenware pot and the stove with yellow mud mixed with water. He added water to the pot and lit a fire under the stove.
This was partly to warm the house, but more importantly, he wanted to check for any leaks in the heated kang and the firewall, repairing any leaks while the kang bed was empty.
Qi Bai looked at the empty doorframe and thought for a moment. Then he picked up a thick piece of animal hide from the rattan basket and hung it on the bedroom door.
There wasn’t time to make a new door now. He used the hide to keep the heat inside for the time being.
Qi Bai took a step back, feeling that his method was feasible. He quickly went to Lang Ze’s room to finish his earthenware pot and doorframe as well.
This way, both of them would have a warm kang to sleep on that night.
Qi Bai completed the most important part and started tidying up the smaller, miscellaneous items.
He first arranged the small bamboo tubes filled with various seasonings around the stove. Many of these seasonings were originally stored in small earthenware jars, but those jars were too light and had mostly broken in the earthquake. Qi Bai replaced them all with bamboo tubes.
In comparison, the large earthenware jars had contained a lot of things. They were more stable and suffered less damage in the earthquake.
Qi Bai placed several jars containing pickled bamboo shoots and salted eggs against the wall. Then he placed the rattan baskets containing taro and sweet potatoes next to them.
Most of these vegetables were harvested from the small vegetable garden next to Qi Bai’s cave.
In the spring, Qi Bai divided the small vegetable garden into two parts. He added base fertilizer to one and the other one he planted directly.
After a year of comparison, Qi Bai confirmed that under the same conditions, the plants with added base fertilizer were indeed stronger and produced more than the other plants.
However, these unselected seeds weren’t very stable in their characteristics. For example, the size and number of sweet potatoes produced by each plant were different.
Despite these uncertainties, the food obtained from dense planting was much more abundant than that from plants growing sparsely on the mountain.
Looking at the piled up food, Qi Bai made up his mind. Next spring, he would lead his people to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land. Still, this was a matter for later.
After putting away the large items, a large space was cleared in the kitchen and the whole house was now warm.
Qi Bai touched the heated wall, and a wave of warmth traveled from the wall to his palm.
Qi Bai silently praised the wisdom of his ancestors for the umpteenth time. The heated walls and heated kang were simply winter wonders.
He confirmed that there were no leaks in the walls and the kang. Then Qi Bai spread the kang mat he had prepared in advance on it.
Qi Bai prepared two layers of mats for the heated kang. The first layer was a thick mat woven from coarse, dry grass. It was mainly used to insulate against the yellow mud on the bed. The upper layer was a soft mat woven from fine dry grass.
Finally, a whole animal skin blanket was laid on the bed. Qi Bai lay back on the thick blanket, feeling incredibly comfortable.
However, Qi Bai didn’t indulge himself for too long. He got up from the bed, took out a small stone hammer, found a few red bird feathers and went to the wall opposite the heated kang.
The red bird feathers were very sharp. They couldn’t be made into bone artifacts with the divine wood water like bones, but they still had their unique uses.
Qi Bai took the small stone hammer and hammered the feathers into an upward-curving shape. Then he gently nailed them to the bedroom wall.
The feathers weren’t as hard as nails but they were fine for hanging light items.
Qi Bai carefully took out a string of ornaments made of feathers and bird bones from a rattan basket.
The hollowed-out bird bone made a crisp sound with Qi Bai’s movements, and its light feathers traced a graceful arc.
Even in modern times, such an ornament would be a collectible work of art.
This was a gift from Lang Ze six months ago.
At that time, Lang Ze hadn’t said anything. Qi Bai simply took it as payment for cooking for Lang Ze.
Looking back now, hadn’t Lang Ze already expressed his feelings so early?
However, this ornament seemed to have some precedent. The other gifts from Lang Ze started to assert their presence.
Qi Bai turned his upturned lips downwards and took out a large piece of pickled meat.
He would cook a good meal to reward his companion.
Any support on Patreon will be appreciated and you will also get access to advance chapters.
https://www.patreon.com/rainbowturtle
If you just want to support or buy me a coffee, you can consider Ko-fi:
https://ko-fi.com/rainbowturtle
