The pine trees were thick and lush. Lang Ze tapped the trees a few times and pine cones with needles fell down with a rustling sound. Once he knocked down most of the cones from one tree, Lang Ze didn’t need to climb down. He simply leaped to the next pine tree.
The brown pine cones stood out starkly against the pristine white snow. Qi Bai carried a leather bag and followed Lang Ze’s direction, happily collecting pine cones as he walked.
Suddenly, Qi Bai felt a gaze on him. He looked up and saw a squirrel behind a pine tree ahead. It was clutching its paws and staring at him in disbelief.
Qi Bai had just noticed the large pine cones in this forest, the smallest being over twenty centimeters long. He hadn’t expected the squirrels here to be so large. The one in front of him was as tall as an adult beastman’s calf. On Earth, it would definitely be considered a giant squirrel. However, the tree trunks in the forest were all very thick, making it appear somewhat small.
Qi Bai quickly stuffed the pine cones in his hand into his bag. Then he pointed to the tree and said, “There are so many pine cones here. You can’t possibly eat them all by yourself, so share some with us!”
The squirrel saw that Qi Bai didn’t intend to attack and became a bit bolder. It leaned forward to reveal its entire pointed little face, making a threatening sound in its throat.
Qi Bai glanced at it and picked up the pine cones even more enthusiastically. “Your insults won’t do any good. I’ll come back in a few days.”
Lang Ze heard Qi Bai muttering to himself under the tree, braced his feet and leaned down. “Should I catch it?”
Qi Bai waved his hand. “Forget it, we just stole its food. It would be too embarrassing to eat it too.”
Lang Ze sized up the squirrel watching them. Then he returned to the branch with a powerful movement.
This little thing didn’t have much meat on it and it was very fast. It definitely wasn’t as worthwhile as picking more pine cones.
The squirrel, initially dismissed for its lack of meat, realized the terrifying nature of these beastmen. It leaped nimbly, scrambled up a tree and soon disappeared.
Qi Bai and Lang Ze worked in perfect harmony. Soon, Qi Bai had filled the two large rattan baskets on Lang Ze’s saddle.
Of course, along the way, the squirrel’s relatives and friends often came to watch.
Qi Bai emptied the last of the pine cones from the animal skin bag into the baskets and said to Lang Ze, who had just jumped down from the tree, “These squirrels are really interesting.” Qi Bai rarely saw wild animals showing interest in beastmen.
Lang Ze looked up at the towering pine trees that blocked out the sky. “These trees are near the dwelling place of the Beast God. They live here, so perhaps they have never seen beastmen before.”
It wasn’t noon yet when the two of them returned to the tribe.
Lang Ze continued to hammer the stone jar with his stone hammer while Qi Bai moved a small stool and sat beside him, shelling pine cones.
Qi Bai used a bone knife to split the pine cone in half. Then he pried it open along the slit to reveal the pine nuts hidden at the base. He patted the nuts into a ceramic basin, piling the remaining pine cone shells aside.
Pine cones were excellent firewood, but these freshly picked cones still contained some moisture. Therefore, Qi Bai planned to dry them outdoors for a few days before using them for firewood.
As he shelled the pine cones, Qi Bai also cracked open raw pine nuts, crunching away.
The outer shell of the raw pine nuts was very hard and had no prepared opening. Fortunately, the beastmen had strong teeth, making it easier for Qi Bai to crack them than sunflower seeds.
Lang Ze watched as Qi Bai’s cheeks bulged. He spat out two pieces of pine nut shells every now and then, making him look more and more like a little squirrel hiding in the forest.
Qi Bai saw Lang Ze staring at him and assumed Lang Ze wanted some too. He pushed the earthenware bowl forward and mumbled, “Eat it yourself, my hands are dirty.”
The fresh pine cones were covered in oil, and Qi Bai felt his fingers were sticking together. He decided to let Lang Ze eat them himself.
Lang Ze took two from the bowl and popped them into his mouth.
He didn’t find the pine nuts particularly special. They were even more troublesome to eat than chestnuts. Lang Ze was someone who didn’t like spitting out the shells when eating chestnuts, so he was even less inclined to eat these tiny nuts that were no bigger than finger knuckles.
Qi Bai silently shook his head. Such large and fresh pine nuts were very expensive on Earth, yet Lang Ze was complaining.
Peeling pine nuts was much more troublesome than cracking them open. Once school ended, everyone passing by Qi Bai’s house stopped to look at the nuts in his hands.
Shu Lin’s eyes widened after tasting the pine nuts. “This is delicious!”
Qi Bai recalled that Shu Lin’s beast form was a red squirrel, and couldn’t help asking curiously, “Have you never eaten this before?”
Qi Bai had assumed that given Shu Lin’s beast form, their original tribe must’ve lived in a forest or stored similar food. However, Shu Lin seemed like he had never seen it before.
Shu Lin shook his head. “No, we are beastmen so we naturally eat meat. But these little things are quite tasty. Where did you get them?”
Qi Bai pointed towards the pine forest. “The pine trees are very tall. You have to be very careful when you go to pick them.”
“I dare say that no one in the tribe can compare to me when it comes to climbing trees.” Shu Lin smiled confidently as he grabbed Xiong Feng’s hand. “Let’s go pick some to eat as well.”
“Let’s go together,” several other sub-beastmen chimed in.
Soon, a gathering team was assembled.
Not all tribe members enjoyed eating pine nuts, but food was scarce in the mountains during winter. If they saw food they could gather, their first instinct was to hoard it regardless of the taste.
As a result, by the afternoon, the training ground was less than half empty for the first time.
However, the tribe’s training wouldn’t be complete without Chuan Chuan.
Today, Chuan Chuan’s opponent was an adult horned beastmen in sheep form, significantly larger than Chuan Chuan. Chuan Chuan had experienced fighting the four-eared sheep leader and showed no weakness against the much larger beastmen. He displayed a lot of confidence.
QI Bai carried the rattan basket filled with pine cones to the large tree in the center of the square. He worked while watching Chuan Chuan train.
Yang Luo sat down next to Qi Bai. He took out a small bamboo scroll from his wolf-skin cloak, and started to read the items aloud one by one. “Gathering firewood, making pottery blanks, building carts and daily patrols. All the tasks in the tribe can be completed by less than a hundred people. Winter has only just begun, and we’ve stored so much food that everyone can just eat and not work.”
The beastmen didn’t hibernate but their lifestyle was similar to that of hibernating animals. They minimized activity and food intake to ensure that they could survive the winter.
After experiencing last year’s busy life and adding the tribe’s current warm environment, Yang Luo clearly didn’t want to go back to the days of hibernating during the winter.
Qi Bai patted the pine cones in his hand. “Do you remember the stones I brought back from the mountain where the wild bulls were crushed? I will study them these next few days. If they are the stones I am thinking of, we won’t have to worry about having nothing to do all winter.”
Yang Luo recalled the basket of stones. “They are just stones. What use could they be?”
“They are very useful,” Qi Bai said. “In my hometown, there is a type of stone that yields metal as hard as bones when burned. They are easier to obtain than bird bones and are excellent for making tools.”
Life in the tribe was just right for Qi Bai. He had a school to study in the morning, a training ground to practice in the afternoon and the rest of the time was spent thinking about making delicious food. Every day was leisurely and fulfilling.
However, Yang Luo’s words gave Qi Bai a wake-up call.
Next spring, the tribe members would need to use points to qualify to join the Black Mountain Tribe. If there was too little work in the winter, many people would indeed not have enough points.
Moreover, he really needed to put metal smelting on the agenda since he wanted to use the metal to make some farm tools for next year’s land reclamation.
Early the next morning, Qi Bai carried a basket of red-brown stones to the kiln site.
The wooden sheds at the kiln site had long been cleared away, and a large brick building had been erected in the middle of the site. Only the room on the left side of this brick building had a kang and a fire wall. The larger room on the right was a simple storage room for finished products and raw materials.
Several pottery kilns damaged by the stones had also been repaired. Once Qi Bai arrived, Lu Guo and Niu Xi had just sealed off one of the kilns and welcomed him into the house.
The house was warm with hot water boiling on the stove. The kang was mostly covered with various pottery blanks, presumably being dried, except for a small portion that was still empty.
Qi Bai took out a large handful of roasted pine nuts from the inner pocket of his cloak and poured them all into a dried pottery blank. “These are the pine nuts I roasted last night. I brought them for you to try.”
Niu Xi didn’t stand on ceremony and grabbed a small handful, chewing them with a loud crunch.
Lu Guo didn’t forget the important matter. She picked up the crimson stone Qi Bai had carried and asked, “After clay is burned in fire, it becomes hard. Does stone also become hard after being burned in fire?”
Qi Bai replied, “No, stone becomes more brittle after being burned in fire.”
Qi Bai knew that Lu Guo was always good at drawing inferences from one instance to another. His understanding of smelting was currently only theoretical. Discussing it with Lu Guo, who had extensive experience in pottery making, might lead to better ideas.
Lu Guo asked, “Then what are we going to make by firing it?”
“We don’t want the stone. We need something else inside the stone. I’m not sure what is inside the stone right now, but it should be iron judging from the color.”
Niu Xi also chimed in, “Iron? I’ve never seen the iron you mentioned in a stone before.”
Qi Bai smiled. “Iron can change. It doesn’t appear on its own. We have to find it.”
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