Yang Luo tasted the sweet potatoes brought back by Qi Bai and the others and praised them.
In fact, the tribe already had some vegetable roots stored. These vegetable roots were somewhat similar to Chinese cabbage. As long as they were placed in a cool place, the taste might deteriorate due to staleness, but they were easier to store.
Of course, it was impossible for fresh vegetable roots to last the entire winter, so Yang Luo planned to eat all the vegetable roots first after winter came. Then he would let everyone eat meat.
Now that there was new food for the winter, Yang Luo definitely couldn’t let it go.
The bamboo cutting team led by Hu Xue and She Li had returned. This time, Yang Luo only left one old sub-beastman behind and decided to personally take all the older sub-beastmen to collect sweet potatoes.
The remaining children also had things to do.
The newly collected sweet potatoes needed to be dried, so the open space they had opened up before wasn’t enough.
At the beginning, they had cleared an open space of around 50 square meters at the cave entrance to place two stone pots for cooking and eating.
Later, due to the need to place huge bamboo, everyone opened up a space of more than 30 square meters on the right side of the cave entrance, leaning up against the stone wall of the stone mountain.
Now, a larger area was needed in order to dry the sweet potatoes.
However, the open space between the mountains and forests wasn’t easy to open up. The ground was full of various wild grasses close to the ground, high bushes that were half the height of humans, one meter high vines and even trees that were over ten meters high. This meant the task was quite laborious.
The children left behind were arranged to pull weeds and clear bushes. The oldest of the children was only in their early teens while the youngest, Lu Xia, was only three years old. Many vines were thicker than their wrists, but they still had to work hard.
Qi Bai looked at the open space that Yang Luo had marked out on the ground with branches. It was at least more than 300 square meters. He was afraid it wouldn’t be cleared in a short time.
This trip was the largest trip in the history of the tribe. It was just past noon now. Since they had to prepare dinner, everyone needed to be back within three hours. Time was very tight.
Qi Bai walked for several hours on the mountain road. In his previous life, he wouldn’t have dared to think about such a long distance and high-intensity work. Now, apart from the pain to his feet caused by coarse sand and pebbles, he only felt a bit tired. You know, walking on a mountain road was completely different from walking on flat ground.
The sub-beastmen weren’t idle on the road. Shu Lin even had the leisure to pick a yellow and white flower and put it on his head. The flower swayed with every step that he took.
QI Bai found that there were many beastmen like Shu Lin without a sense of crisis.
The slaves had no hope while Shu Lin and the beastmen who weren’t slaves were completely concerned with work. They didn’t worry about whether winter would be longer or whether enough food was stored. As long as they could eat enough today and as long as the priest and chief asked them to work, they would work honestly.
They were different from modern people who lived a lazy life and earned a salary. Seeing Shu Lin’s carefree appearance, Qi Bai felt it was more like they hadn’t opened up their minds yet. To put it bluntly, fools had good fortune.
Couldn’t it be seen that Yang Luo’s lips had turned white and his eyes red from worry these days? He probably stayed up late to do calculations. Qi Bai had seen Yang Luo doing calculations. He would squat in a corner of the cave where food was stored, holding a stone and a rope. Then he would count for most of the day.
Since the tribe chief Hou Yan was an illiterate who could only do addition and subtraction within ten numbers, Yang Luo’s job as a priest was really hard.
As he thought of this, everyone arrived at the mountain where the sweet potato was located. Everyone had eaten the sweet potato vine, so it wasn’t hard for them to find it.
Qi Bai crouched on the ground and moved slowly to follow the sweet potato vine. Then he heard Shu Lin’s somewhat startled voice. “Why does this sweet potato look so strange?”
Qi Bai wasn’t far from Shu Lin. He turned his head and saw Shu Lin holding… ginger in his hand!
Qi Bai’s eyes changed when he looked at Shu Lin. Shu Lin must be the reincarnation of a treasure-hunting rat. How come he could always find good things?
Qi Bai was clearly close by, so why couldn’t he dig up ginger?
Shu Lin smelled it. “This smell is too bad.”
Qi Bai leaned over. “What type of plant root is this?”
Due to the previous garlic incident, Shu Lin now admired Qi Bai very much. Once he saw Qi Bai coming over, he immediately handed over the ginger in his hand and said expectantly, “This is also spicy. Can it be made into delicious food like garlic?”
Qi Bai nodded and Shu Lin’s mood became brighter. He pointed to some slender leaves on the ground and said, “This is the root of this type of plant. How to eat it? Let’s eat this tonight!”
Qi Bai looked at the ginger leaves carefully. This was the first time he had seen ginger leaves that were so big. “This can’t be eaten directly, but if you cook it with meat, the meat will become very delicious. Let’s pick some and add it to the broth at night. You will know after you try it.”
“Okay.” Shu Lin nodded happily. The little yellow flower on his head swayed along with his actions.
Qi Bai’s eyes involuntarily followed this small yellow flower on Shu Lin’s head. Then he retracted his gaze and whispered, “Shu Lin, I still have a few delicious things. Please help me find them. I will make delicious food for you as long as I can find them.”
Shu Lin’s saliva was about to flow after he heard Qi Bai’s words. “Just tell me. I will definitely look for them carefully.”
Qi Bai told Shu Lin a series of spices such as pepper, star anise, fennel, bay leaf, sesame, cardamom, angelica, and of course, the most important one of all, chili.
Qi Bai wasn’t very clear about the appearance of many of these spices. After all, he usually ate ready-made dishes with spices mixed in them. He only knew the approximate taste of many of them.
However, Qi Bai still patiently explained them one by one. After all, many plants in the beast world looked different from those on Earth. Even if he couldn’t find exactly the same ones, Qi Bai would be satisfied as long as the taste was similar and they weren’t poisonous.
Shu Lin was confused. “Bao Bai, are there so many things to pay attention to when cooking? But we used to cook them directly before. None of these things sound delicious.”
Qi Bai asked him, “Do you think the fish roasted with garlic yesterday was delicious?”
“Of course, it is delicious.” Shu Lin gulped and didn’t continue to ask. “I will definitely find these things. Then you will be the first to cook them for me.”
“Okay.”
The two of them happily agreed.
They chatted enthusiastically while not stopping the work in their hands. A lot of sweet potatoes had already been piled up in the rattan basket.
As the sun started to set in the west, Yang Luo whistled in the forest.
Qi Bai and Shu Lin heard the sound. They quickly placed the rattan baskets on their backs and headed toward the gathering place.
Today’s harvest was good. More than 20 baskets of sweet potatoes were picked in just one afternoon.
The wild sweet potatoes weren’t as large as those grown in modern times, but a whole mountain, or the dozen surrounding mountains, was more than enough to feed their 54 beastmen.
The resources in the mountains were very rich. It just depended on whether the beastmen were diligent enough or had enough knowledge to find these plants.
Of course, for the beastmen, it didn’t matter how many plants there were because they were just side dishes. It was almost impossible to eat enough with just plants. Meat was the number one staple food on their plates.
As they were returning home, they happened to meet a hunting team that was also returning to the tribe.
The hunting team’s harvest still wasn’t ideal. They brought back a small roe deer and a few wild mice.
“We still haven’t found enough traces of large prey. The rabbits and wild mice are becoming increasingly difficult to find,” Hou Yan said.
Yang Luo thought for a while before saying, “Hold on for a few more days. If it is still like this, you can go hunting in a farther place.”
“What do you mean?”
Yang Luo pointed to the rattan basket. “We found sweet potatoes. Even if there is no prey brought back by the hunting team, we can still hold on for a few days. You can go hunting in a farther place and bring back salt by the way.”
Hou Yan looked at the sweet potatoes on the backs of the tribe members. “Let’s eat some sweet potatoes today to see if we can fill our stomachs. Otherwise, I can’t take most of the horned beastmen away. It is too unsafe for you.”
Yang Luo nodded. “This time, you can choose some of the underage horned beastmen to take away, leaving Hu Huo and the others behind.”
“That is the only way.”
Qi Bai was at the front of the team. The moment he entered the tribe, Qi Bai heard a fierce quarrel.
“He is a slave! So what if I beat him?” An irritable young man’s voice was heard.
“He isn’t a slave. He doesn’t have a slave mark.” Another young man’s voice was heard. The owner of the voice was pretending to be calm, but Qi Bai could still hear the tension in his voice.
A 4 or 5 year old beastman sat on the ground, while an 11 or 12 year old sub-beastman was firmly protecting the little beastman.
The mark on his forehead showed that this sub-beastman was a slave.
Each tribe had a different location for the slave mark. For example, Lang Ze’s slave mark was branded on the back of his neck. It was only in the most brutal tribes that the tribe would brand the slave mark on the face of the slave.
The child in front of him might’ve been in such a tribe.
Beside Qi Bai, Shu Lin ran over anxiously and shouted, “Sun (pallas cat) Qing, what’s wrong?”
The sub-beastman called Sun Qing saw Shu Lin and knew that the priest was about to come back. He felt even more flustered. Nevertheless, he stood in front of the little beastman without flinching, glaring at the boy opposite him.
The young man was called Zhu (pig) Ya. His hair was messy and there was a lot of grass debris on his face. He looked unconvinced. “Sun Qing is a slave, and his brother is also a slave. I just kicked him, and he wanted to hit me. These slaves want to rebel now!”
In fact, Zhu Ya was embarrassed to say that he accidentally kicked the little beastman called Sun Yuan. He saw that Sun Yuan flipped over and thought it was fun, so he kicked the beastman a few more times. Sun Yuan didn’t say anything, but the slave named Sun Qing rushed up and fought with him.
A slave actually dared to fight with him. The key point was that he lost. He had to transform into a beast form to escape from Sun Qing’s hands. At that time, he knew that Sun Qing was a sub-beastman and felt even more ashamed. However, he couldn’t do anything to Sun Qing, so he could only roar helplessly on the spot.
Generally speaking, the horned beastman wasn’t only in beast form but also taller in human form than the sub-beastman. However, during the development period of adolescence, the difference between the two wasn’t big. Moreover, since Sun Qing was so good at fighting, Zhu Ya naturally thought that Sun Qing was a horned beastman. He hadn’t expected the other party to actually be a sub-beastman.
“I will expel Sun Qing from the tribe. Such a slave can’t stay in our Black Mountain Tribe!” Zhu Ya saw that Sun Qing didn’t take him seriously at all, and couldn’t help shouting loudly.
The little beastman, who was originally sitting on the ground, screamed when he heard Zhu Ya’s words. He turned into beast form and turned out to be a horned beastman.
His beast form was much larger than his human form, but he was a child who was only 5 years old after all. His height was only as high as an adult’s calf.
But even with such a weak beast form, Sun Yuan wasn’t inferior in momentum. He struggled away from Shu Lin’s hand and opened his mouth to pounce on Zhu Yu, who threatened to expel Sun Qing.
“Yuan Yuan!” Seeing Sun Yuan rushing forward, Sun Qing rushed over, and the two of them fell to the ground.
Shu Lin was even more anxious after seeing this. He glared at Zhu Yu.
In the crowd, Lu Guo stretched out her hand and pushed Lu Xia behind her. She looked at the approaching Yang Luo and Hou Yan with a pale face.
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