LSLFBW: Chapter 14

Back at the tribe, everyone started to deal with the bamboo they had cut down.

Since the bamboo they brought back was very long, several people pulled out the weeds on the right side of the cave entrance and temporarily cleared a piece of open space.

Qi Bai finally felt that his surroundings were brighter after clearing such a large, open space.

The entrance of the cave was in the dense forest, and the black bear seemed to cover up its tracks by hardly moving the weeds and small trees in front of the cave entrance. This made it difficult to see the sun even at the entrance of the cave, let alone the cave. It would be pitch black if there wasn’t a fire.

Qi Bai swept a stone next to the open space and sat on it.

Half of this bamboo still needed to be cut into a length of around one meter, mainly to facilitate the tribe members getting water from the waterfall. After all, the presence of a large bamboo tube meant they wouldn’t need to use a stone pot to carry water. Even the children could easily bring water back.

For the remaining half, Qi Bai planned to cut it according to the bamboo joints and make it into small bamboo tubes. Such small bamboo tubes could not only be used for drinking water, but also as simple bowls.

After all, the stone bowls they were using were really heavy and weren’t easy to keep clean. Qi Bai often ate sand and pebbles with his meals, which was probably due to the bowls not being washed clean.

Qi Bai knew the principle of firing simple pottery, but didn’t plan to fire pottery right now. Mainly, it was because it took time, and he couldn’t guarantee success at once. Now that the tribe was so busy, he didn’t want to waste everyone’s time that could be used for storing food for the winter. He planned to experiment secretly. Then after he was successful, he would tell Yang Luo about firing pottery.

They weren’t as strong as adult horned beastmen, but the strength of sub-beastmen and half-grown children shouldn’t be underestimated. In addition, they mobilized two gathering teams this time. There were more than a dozen people working together, and their efficiency was much faster than when they were at the beach.

By the time the hunting team returned to the tribe after hunting, they could already see neatly arranged large bamboo tubes and more than 30 small bamboo tubes.

Hou Yan learned that these small bamboo tubes would be distributed to everyone in the tribe. Right now, the bamboo cut by the gathering team had been used up, so he immediately asked the hunting team to put down the prey in their hands and took the group to the bamboo forest without stopping.

The hunting party had a good harvest today. There was a lamb, three rabbits, and even a huge… pheasant?

Qi Bai looked at this ‘pheasant’ with surprise. Unlike the domestic chickens on Earth, this ‘pheasant’ was tall and very beautiful. It had colorful feathers and long tail feathers that were shining.

Hu Xue, who was in charge of cooking, came over to deal with the prey. “If you like the feathers of this mountain phoenix, I’ll tell the priest later and give you a feather.”

It turned out that it was called a ‘mountain phoenix.’ This name was quite suitable for the domineering appearance of the mountain phoenix.

“In our tribe, you are the whitest one. This feather will definitely look good on your head.” Hu Xue looked at Qi Bai’s pretty face and laughed. “You are also at the age to dress up. Unfortunately, there are too few horned beastmen of your age in our tribe. Otherwise, you will definitely receive many beautiful feathers like this when you become an adult next year.”

Qi Bai opened his mouth in embarrassment. He remembered that there were many sub-beastmen in his original tribe who liked to wear beautiful feathers on their bodies. It was because the horned beastmen would give sub-beastmen beautiful feathers and stones. Many sub-beastmen were proud of this and filled their heads in a ‘full’ manner.

That’s right, it was ‘full.’ During the mating season at the end of autumn, many sub-beastmen would wear a large circle of bright feathers on their heads.

Qi Bai quickly shook his head. “I don’t want feathers. I have never seen such prey before. I was just a bit curious.

Hu Xue laughed. “Oh, there is nothing to be shy about.”

Hu Xue had a partner in his original tribe, but it wasn’t really a partner. The two of them lived together in winter. Once spring came, Hu Xue failed to conceive so the two of them naturally separated.

There were partners who lived together in the tribe, and there were also partners like Hu Xue who only lived together in the winter.

Such things were common in the tribe. Some sub-beastmen had too many children. Even the sub-beastmen themselves couldn’t remember who the father of each child was.

In short, the concept of marriage at this time was still quite confusing.

“Bao Bai, come and count the number of bamboo tribes before distributing them to the tribe members.” At this time, Yang Luo shouted from a distance. Qi Bai hurriedly responded and ran over.

Qi Bai counted the number of bamboo tubes. There were a total of 12 large bamboo tubes and 39 small bamboo tubes.

There were currently 54 people in the tribe. They needed to make 15 more small bamboo tubes. Qi Bai said, “The chief has taken the hunting team to the bamboo forest to cut new bamboo. Once they come back, we can make enough bamboo tubes for every tribe member.”

Yang Luo nodded. “Then I’ll leave it to you.”

Soon, Qi Bai saw the hunting team returning to the open space with bamboo. The beastmen were stronger than the sub-beastmen, so they didn’t need the sub-beastmen to do it. They quickly cut more than 20 small bamboo tubes according to the position of the small bamboo joints.

Qi Bai moved these bamboo tubes to the side of the stone pot. Two of them were specially made by Qi Bai for Lang Ze.

The two bamboo tubes were made into the style of wine containers. The upper half of the bamboo tube had removed the extra tube body and was made into a long handle. The lower part retained the tube body of the bamboo tube, so that it was convenient to get food without getting their hands dirty. The two stone spoons that Hu Xue and She Li had been using could finally be retired.

Tonight’s dinner was wild vegetables stewed with mountain phoenix meat. The lamb was grilled on fire. For the remaining rabbits, Yang Luo tied them up with straw ropes and put them in the cave.

The prey in the mountains were very aggressive and would either starve to death or die of anger after being caught, but it was generally no problem to keep them for one night.

Qi Bai was helping Hu Xue on the side. He handed the small bamboo tube to Hu Xue while Hu Xue used a large spoon made of bamboo tube to put the food into the bamboo tube. Hu Xue soon discovered the usefulness of this thing.

She could quickly divide the rice into the same amount. The bamboo bowl wouldn’t spill even if it was filled with soup. It was really convenient.

Once everyone received their dinner, Qi Bai found Lang Ze with his bamboo tube.

At this time, Lang Ze had already finished his meal and was studying some bones he had picked up from somewhere. He was occasionally grinding them on rough stones.

“Lang Ze, are you full? Let’s go catch some fish later,” Qi Bai whispered to Lang Ze.

The work of the tribe basically stopped after sunset. They could allocate the rest of their time freely. It was difficult to feed everyone with the food distributed by the tribe alone, especially for some beastmen with large appetites. Many people would take advantage of the night to find some extra food to fill their stomachs.

Piranhas were the favorite late night snack of the tribe members at this stage.

Everyone preferred to eat beast meat rather than fish, but there were so many fish in the Man-Eating River. There was no danger after mastering the method of catching fish.

“Okay.”

“Let’s catch more fish tonight. I’m going to try a new way to eat grilled fish before letting other people in the tribe try it.”

“Yes.” He agreed casually, but Lang Ze was also looking forward to it after hearing that Qi Bai had a new way to eat.

Qi Bai quickly finished his own dinner. Then the two of them went to ask Yang Luo for a rattan basket.

Aside from his animal skin bag and small bone knife that he brought with him when he fled, Qi Bai currently only had two private properties. One was his smelly sheepskin, and the other was the bamboo tube that had just been distributed.

The rattan baskets and other things were all the property of the tribe. They had to apply to Yang Luo if they wanted to use them.

There were already some people at the Man-Eating River when they arrived there.

Hu Meng was dropping a rattan basket from the branch of a big tree. He saw the two of them and greeted them enthusiastically. “Bao Bai, Lang Ze, you are here too. I just came here. You will have to wait a while.”

Qi Bai also replied loudly, “It’s fine. We still have to look for bait.”

It hadn’t rained recently. The earthworms were no longer breathing on the ground, so it would take some time for them to find the bait.

Niu Yong, who was cooperating with Hu Meng at the riverside, said, “No need to find bait. We have some fish that we just caught. You can help us clean the fish. The entrails of these fish can be used as bait.”

Niu Yong’s group was a bit clumsy and they didn’t have a bone knife. This meant they often pierced the fish’s belly. So at this moment, they were eager for Qi Bai and Lang Ze to help them deal with the fish.

Qi Bai and Lang Ze agreed. They took Niu Yong’s fish to the big tree where they cut the fish last time, and started to deal with them one by one.

After accumulating a small pile of fish entrails, Hu Meng also jumped down from the tree. The two of them happily took away the fish that Qi Bai and his companion had dealt with.

This time, Qi Bai didn’t put vines on Lang Ze’s body again. Qi Bai still felt a bit embarrassed when thinking about this, but Lang Ze didn’t seem to remember anything and climbed up the tree with the vine basket.

After the previous discussion, they caught a total of 20 piranhas this time, filling one rattan basket.

They returned to the tribe. Lang Ze went to find firewood and the stone that Qi Bai mentioned, while Qi Bai took two fish to find Yang Luo.

Yang Luo saw the fish in Qi Bai’s hand and thought Qi Bai was here to exchange for feathers. He didn’t take the fish but directly took out a beautiful mountain phoenix tail feather from the animal skin bag, inserting it into Qi Bai’s white hair.

There were many mountain phoenix feathers, but there were only three of the largest and most beautiful tail feathers. Yang Luo had already separated the other feathers for other people. This tail feather was specially reserved for Qi Bai by Yang Luo.

The red tail feather looked particularly bright against Qi Bai’s white hair.

Many of the beastmen’s beast forms were white. For example, Yang Luo’s beast form was a white goat. However, few beastmen had white hair. Yang Luo’s teacher once said that such beastmen were ‘abandoned by the Beast God’ and would bring misfortune to the tribe.

Even so, Yang Luo never thought of giving up Qi Bai as they were escaping. Now that they had established a tribe, Qi Bai not only figured out how to catch piranhas, but also brought salt to the tribe. Yang Luo thought of this and felt even more pity for Qi Bai.

Then thinking about his attitude towards slaves these days—forget it. Yang Luo had the idea of breaking the jar. In any case, he had completely deviated from his teacher’s teachings. Let it be. In any case, other people in the tribe didn’t know about ‘being abandoned by the Beast God.’

Yang Luo put his left hand over his right hand and looked at Qi Bai casually. “You look pretty good.”

Qi Bai almost forgot what he was doing due to Yang Luo’s series of actions. He quickly took the feather out of his messy hair with one hand, and raised the fish with his other hand. He said quickly, “Grandpa Priest, I’m not here to exchange feathers. I want to exchange some fat and salt with you.”

Fatty meat wouldn’t taste good if boiled directly in a stone pot. So for the first meal after slaughtering prey, Yang Luo usually didn’t put the unpalatable fat into the pot. He cooked some fresh and delicious pieces of meat first.

Yang Luo felt that this child was a bit ignorant of good and bad. Just now, several underage sub-beastmen were watching. He didn’t give them any feathers and left the most beautiful one for Qi Bai. Now Qi Bai dared to say that he didn’t want it.

Yang Luo glared at him. “What do you want those things for?”

Qi Bai immediately said with a smile, “Grandpa Priest, I found wild green onions and wild garlic today. I want to make a new type of grilled fish, which requires fatty meat. Once I’m done, you must come and taste it.”

Yang Luo took the fish and said unhappily, “Wait.”

Soon, Yang Luo came out of the cave with a piece of fat and thin pork belly, as well as a small bag of salt wrapped in leaves. Qi Bai took the meat and salt, thanked Yang Luo, and was about to return the mountain phoenix’s tail feather to Yang Luo.

Yang Luo waved his hand. “Forget it. Everyone else has it. You can take this one.”

Qi Bai thought about it before putting the feather away carefully. “Thank you, Grandpa Priest. I will definitely keep it well.”