Sun Qing had woven a rattan basket. He had seen how Hu Huo wove rattan baskets in the tribe before. Today, he tried it himself, and it wasn’t that difficult.
He didn’t weave it smoothly, but it didn’t matter as long as it could be used.
Sun Qing stood up and prepared to go to the river to catch fish.
Seeing Sun Qing’s actions, Zhu Ya also stood up and said in a flattering manner, “Are you going to the river? I am a horned beastman. I am strong. I can climb a tree to help you carry the rattan basket.”
Zhu Ya’s words were reasonable. After all, everyone was used to catching fish according to Qi Bai and Lang Ze’s method, which did require the cooperation of two people.
But Sun Qing didn’t regard Zhu Ya as a companion at all, so he didn’t consider Zhu Ya when making preparations.
Sun Qing had already thought about it. He could put the bait directly in the rattan basket. This would reduce the number of fish he caught and the rattan basket might be broken, but he was only one person after all. He didn’t need too many fish. Even if the rattan basket was broken, he could just fix it. In any case, there were vines everywhere in the forest.
Sun Qing said disdainfully, “I don’t need you to follow me and make trouble.”
Before leaving, he thought of something. He turned around and said to Zhu Ya, “If you can light a fire before I come back, I can give you a fish. Otherwise, don’t even think about taking my food.”
Then he left without looking back.
The direction from the stone shed to the Man-Eating River was different from the direction from the tribe. This meant Sun Qing only knew a general direction and moved forward by guessing the entire way.
Sun Qing had only walked for a few minutes when he smelled an unusual scent in the air.
He put down the rattan basket and turned into a beast. Sun Qing’s beast was a pallas cat with a gray decorative pattern. This was perfect for hiding among the mountains and rocks.
With his short nose, Sun Qing tried to sniff the air. He followed the guidance of the smell and climbed up a stone slope. There was a huge valley under the stone slope.
Sun Qing’s breathing became short when he saw what was in the valley. Without any hesitation, Sun Qing turned around and ran hard towards the cave where the tribe was.
The tribe was bustling with activity at the moment. The hunting team had returned to the cave and were very happy when seeing the flat land in front of the cave.
It was getting dark, and four or five small fires were lit in the square.
Hou Yan directly asked someone to put a prey hunted today in the center of the square, ready to slaughter it here. The tribe members were very excited and gathered in the center to watch the excitement.
Qi Bai was directing the children to put the sweet potatoes on the ground into the rattan baskets. They had to continue to dry these sweet potatoes for a few days.
At this moment, a light gray figure rushed into the tribe like a gust of wind. Before everyone could react, he had already turned into a human form and shouted breathlessly at the tribe, “Wild boars… wild boars!”
Hou Yan stuffed the bone knife into Yang Luo’s hand and strode in front of Sun Qing. “What did you say? Explain it clearly!”
Sun Qing took a breath and shouted loudly, “The wild boar herd has come! The valley in the west! A large group of wild boars have come!”
Hou Yan immediately shouted loudly when he heard Sun Qing’s words clearly. “Hunting team!”
“Here!”
”Here!”
The members of the hunting team responded enthusiastically from the crowd.
“Sun Qing, lead the way. Everyone, follow me!”
“Yes!” The hunting team shouted in unison.
Hou Yan didn’t even have time to say a few words to Yang Luo before the hunting team almost immediately set off.
Their beast-shaped forms were too big. So, except for the leading Sun Qing, everyone else was in human form. However, they were so fast that Qi Bai felt that more than half the square was empty in the blink of an eye.
Qi Bai knew that all the people in the hunting team were holding back their energy. After all, there had been no large prey in the mountains for almost a month. The small animals they hunted every day weren’t enough for the tribe to eat every day, let alone store it.
Winter was coming. They urgently needed to hunt large prey to store food for the winter.
There was an uproar in the square after the hunting team left. Everyone was excitedly discussing wild boars and wild boar meat.
Qi Bai frowned. He thought about the wild boar group that Sun Qing mentioned. Wild boars weren’t as easy to deal with as domestic pigs. Wild boars had a bad temper and were aggressive. The wild boars on Earth were already big enough, but they could only be piglets in the beastmen world. Their ferocity couldn’t be compared.
Qi Bai estimated the fighting power of the Black Mountain Tribe’s hunting team in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. In the beastmen world, there was no such thing as retreat. Qi Bai was very afraid that the hunting team would risk their lives for the tribe’s winter food.
No!
Qi Bai took advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to turn into a snow-white snow leopard. He quickly chased the hunting team in the direction they left.
Qi Bai couldn’t help sighing with relief when he saw the hunting team. The hunting team was lying on the stone slope that Sun Qing had just left, silently observing the situation in the valley.
Qi Bai approached them calmly. Lang Ze spotted him almost instantly. Lang Ze frowned and showed a stern expression for the first time. “Why did you follow us?”
Hou Yan heard Lang Ze’s voice and saw Qi Bai. He glared and scolded in a low voice, “Nonsense! It is too dangerous here. Go back to the tribe quickly!”
Qi Bai turned into human form and crawled on the ground like them. He said softly, “Grandpa Chief, I won’t cause any trouble for you. I’ll just watch from a distance.”
He looked into the valley. Qi Bai couldn’t help sucking in a breath. No wonder why the hunting team was observing so cautiously from the stone slope and didn’t go hunting directly.
There were at least 30 wild boars in the valley!
Each of these wild boars looked very strong. They had thick fangs, and all of them were over two meters tall. The leading wild boar was nearly three meters tall. From a distance, they looked like a black meat mountain.
What surprised Qi Bai even more was that there were no small children or very old boars in this herd of wild boars.
They looked a bit embarrassed. Even when they were resting in the valley, they didn’t relax their vigilance.
Qi Bai estimated that this group of wild boars should’ve fled from afar. The young and old among the boars were probably lost during the escape. The remaining ones were the strongest ones in the herd.
This wasn’t good news for the Black Mountain Tribe.
The hunting rules of the beastmen were similar to the animals on earth. They generally didn’t hunt down the strong adult individuals in a herd, but would besiege the children. These children didn’t have rich survival experiences and weren’t as strong as adult beasts. The beastmen could use the least loss to gain more prey.
However, the situation of this group of wild boars was very tricky.
More importantly, they weren’t sure if other large prey would come here before winter if they let this group of wild boars go. This time, they were determined to hunt enough meat.
Hou Yan asked the cleverest Ma Ling to guard here and waved for everyone to walk into the forest.
They couldn’t go head-on facing such prey. They needed to use a strategy.
Hou Yan looked around and said, “Do you see the big-bellied wild boar in the group? She should be pregnant with piglets, so she won’t move too quickly. Later, Lang Ze and I will rush to the front to provoke the first boar. Hu Huo will try to attract the attention of other wild boars on the hillside. The rest of the people will rush directly to the sow.”
The pregnant sow would be more irritable, but her actions would be restricted. This was already their best choice.
“Your goal isn’t to kill her directly as long as you can seriously injure her. It is best to injure her legs so that she will naturally be abandoned when the wild boars leave.”
Hou Yan took a deep breath. “The important thing is that you must protect yourself. Do you hear it clearly?”
Qi Bai couldn’t help looking at Lang Ze in a worried manner. The job that Hou Yan arranged for himself and Lang Ze was the most dangerous.
It looked like the two of them were only provoking the leader, but in a group of wild beasts, provoking the leader was equivalent to provoking the entire tribe.
Look, the wild boar leader was always surrounded by several strong boars. The hierarchy between animals was sometimes more strict than that of beastmen.
However, Qi Bai couldn’t see any fear in Lang Ze’s eyes. On the contrary, Lang Ze seemed to be looking forward to the confrontation with the wild boar leader. His eyes were shining.
Even if Qi Bai was worried, he couldn’t speak up to stop it now. The hunting team was now a ‘troop’ and Hou Yan was the ‘general’ of this troop with only ten beastmen.
Everyone was currently full of fighting spirit. Qi Bai, a sub-beastman who didn’t know about hunting, couldn’t shake the morale of this troop at will.
However, even though there were ten people here, it could be seen from the tactical arrangement that Hu Huo couldn’t enter the battlefield directly. His leg injury meant that it would be difficult for him to escape once he rushed into the battlefield.
Thus, nine beastmen needed to face more than 30 fierce wild boars. The strength of this battle was really a bit different.
At this time, Hou Yan turned around and said to Qi Bai and Sun Qing, “You two should hurry back to the tribe. By the way, call Zhu Ya back and tell the tribe members to wait in the cave.”
Hou Yan saw Sun Qing and realized that Zhu Ya was still nearby. This place was very close to the stone shed. If the wild boars were frightened and ran away, Hou Yan was afraid that Zhu Ya would also be in danger.
Qi Bai was about to say something, but Hou Yan shouted, “Don’t make trouble. Go!”
Qi Bai had to turn around and leave with Sun Qing.
However, unlike Hou Yan’s arrangement, Qi Bai didn’t go back to the tribe directly. He said to Sun Qing, “You go to the stone shed and call Zhu Ya. The two of you go back to the tribe together.”
Sun Qing asked, “What about you?”
Qi Bai didn’t hide it. “I am really worried. They are too dangerous like this. I have to go and take a look.”
Sun Qing heard this and didn’t say anything else. He turned and went in the direction of the stone shed.
Qi Bai turned into a beast again. The advantages of the beast form were reflected at this time.
Qi Bai might not be able to fight directly due to his small size, but his small body made it easier to hide when used for scouting.
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