Quan Lie and Huan Ping could only come back for a short time before they hurried back to the bamboo forest. They needed to cut more bamboo. Quan Lie had an estimate in his mind that those two big trees could hold a lot of bamboo poles.
Qi Bai ran to Yang Luo’s side and showed him the bamboo pole. At this time, he was at peace. It happened that the wild boar Yang Luo was holding only had its belly touching the ground. It was about to be completely skinned.
Yang Luo didn’t let Qi Bai go back to weave the straw ropes, but let him stay here to marinate the meat. It was the first time that Qi Bai faced such big prey. There was so much meat that he couldn’t help looking it up and down.
Compared with the abundant pork belly of domestic pigs, wild boars had more bright red lean meat. They looked like athletes at first glance.
Salt used to pickle meat had always been the most precious thing in the tribe. Even though everyone knew that enough salt was needed to pickle meat so that it wouldn’t spoil, how could ordinary tribes have so much salt?
Everyone marinated a large piece of meat with a small amount of salt. It didn’t matter if it was a bit rotten as long as it could last until the first snow fell. Then the meat would be frozen solid.
However, Qi Bai had discovered the salt in the seawater. This meant the Black Mountain Tribe was no longer short of salt this year. Therefore, when marinating the meat this time, Yang Luo made up his mind to add more salt.
Yang Luo took out the bamboo tube filled with salt from the cave. He picked out a few cleaner leaves from the large leaves on the ground and slowly poured the salt on them.
A group of people were sitting around a ‘cutting board’ made of large leaves. Everyone had a small pile of salt at hand. The scene really looked like sitting on a kang while working in the countryside. Unfortunately, the land under their butts wasn’t warm.
However, when Qi Bai saw Niu Xi cut off a large piece of meat with a bone knife, he quickly made a suggestion to Yang Luo. “Grandpa Priest, these meats will be hung on bamboo to dry in the sun. I think it would be best if each piece of meat could be cut into thin slices around five catties. Otherwise, I’m afraid the bamboo and straw ropes won’t be able to bear the weight.”
Qi Bai’s worry wasn’t unreasonable. After all, there was no support in the middle of these bamboo that were 20 to 30 meters long. Their meat had to be dried outside for a few days. If the straw rope was accidentally broken during this period, their meat would be in trouble.
Yang Luo asked, “What is load bearing?”
“This is it.” QI Bai thought for a long time but couldn’t find a suitable adjective. He simply took out a straw rope beside him and tore it in half with his hands. “It is like this. If the meat hanging on the bamboo is too heavy, it might break the bamboo and straw rope. We can cut each piece of meat into smaller pieces, so we don’t have to worry about it.”
Yang Luo frowned and thought about it. In fact, the main reason he cut the wild boar meat into such large pieces was mainly to save some salt.
He might’ve already decided to use more salt, but could the same amount of salt be used for thick and thin slices of meat? Yang Luo was a rare beastman with good math skills. He could still calculate such a simple account. But at the same time, he also knew that the thin slices would make the wild boar meat better for pickling. “Can the hunting team bring back so much salt when they go to the seaside?”
Yang Luo had never seen the sea with his own eyes and was always worried.
Qi Bai nodded heavily. “Don’t worry, Grandpa Priest. The clan leader has taken so many beastmen with him this time. They will definitely bring back more salt. You don’t need to worry about this. If you cut the meat into the same weight, it will be easier for you to calculate the food in the future.”
In the end, Yang Luo agreed with Qi Bai’s opinion. After all, the salt couldn’t be considered a waste. After marinating the meat, they wouldn’t need to add so much salt when stewing it later. The salt would eventually be eaten by the tribe members.
Of course, what impressed Yang Luo the most was Qi Bai’s suggestion of making calculations easier. Yang Luo looked at the piles of meat. It might really be a problem when these pickled meats were put away. “Okay, let’s do as you say.”
Since three wild boars were being processed at the same time, Yang Luo directly called the three people responsible for cutting the meat and carefully demonstrated the size and weight of the meat to the three people. It was the first time for Niu Xi and the others to do such delicate work. They all listened very carefully and took a piece of meat back for reference.
Niu Xi was responsible for cutting up the wild boar in front of Qi Bai. The meat that needed to be marinated couldn’t come into contact with water, or it would easily rot. Of course, the people of the Black Mountain Tribe had no habit of washing meat at all, so there was no need to worry about this.
Niu Xi’s bone knife wasn’t very sharp, but it was like a sharp blade in her hand. She gently cut the connection between the wild boar meat and the bone, estimated the size required by Yang Luo, and quickly cut out a flat piece of pork. Due to this beginning, the next step was much easier. Niu Xi’s meat-cutting technique became more and more skilled.
Everything fell into place, and the work accelerated.
The children crouched down beside Niu Xi. The moment Niu Xi cut the meat, they quickly took it to the ‘cutting board’ made of leaves.
Qi Bai and his companions took the wild boar meat and spread salt evenly on the meat. Then he used a bamboo stick to poke a larger hole at the top of the pork and passed the woven straw rope through it.
At this time, the children hurriedly handed the even-sized pieces of meat to Xiong Feng, who was waiting under the tree. Xiong Feng’s human form was nearly two meters tall. He could easily hand the meat to the child sitting on the tree branch with just one hand.
The child gently lifted the bamboo pole stuck on the tree branch and hung the skewered meat on the pole.
If the meat was hung too densely, Xiong Feng would hold a bamboo stick under the tree and gently move it around. This ultimately ensured that no piece of meat would touch each other.
A meat pickling production line was working in an orderly manner with unexpectedly high efficiency. By the time it got dark, everyone had finished processing the meat of five wild boars.
At this time, if they looked toward the middle of the square, they could see five large bamboo poles hanging between the two big trees. Each bamboo pole was full of pickled meat.
From a distance, it looked like a grape rack full of fruits. This made people salivate.
The moment the meat of the five pigs was marinated, Qi Bai heard his stomach rumbling. The sound seemed to be contagious. Qi Bai soon heard rumbling sounds from the crowd.
It wasn’t known who started laughing, but everyone laughed out loud.
Having a growling stomach wasn’t considered a shameful thing in the beastmen world. Everyone laughed at this moment because they were happy about the good harvest.
Everyone might’ve been busy for the whole afternoon, but Hu Xue and She Li couldn’t rest. They were the sub-beastmen responsible for cooking. However, they didn’t complain. Being able to cook for the tribe was a sign of the priest’s trust in them. It was a job that came with honor, and there were people rushing to do it no matter how hard it was.
Qi Bai took advantage of this time to go to the stone wall on the right side of the cave to check on the remaining six wild boars.
Qi Bai took a branch and tried to test from a distance. He was regretful to find that two of the six wild boars had already died. The remaining four seemed to have given up hope of death. The wild grass that Qi Bai had placed in front of them at noon showed no signs of being touched.
This couldn’t be blamed on the wild boars. This afternoon, the beastmen pickled their own type into meat strips right in front of them. if it was Qi Bai, he would probably be scared to death.
Seeing that these wild boars obviously couldn’t hold on much longer, Qi Bai didn’t bother them anymore. He just went back to the stone pot and told Yang Luo about the situation of the wild boars.
Yang Luo hesitated for a moment before saying, “We will pickle the two dead ones tonight and pickle the rest early tomorrow morning.”
Qi Bai nodded. He looked at the unfinished rice in the stone pot and hurried into the forest. Since he had to continue working at night, he only had this small amount of free time. He had to seize it.
Today was precisely the third day since Qi Bai and Lang Ze applied the grass juice for the first time. He needed to apply the grass juice to their animal skins for the second time.
Fortunately, Lang Ze had originally picked a lot of materials. Since Lang Ze was a slave, it wasn’t good for him to store things privately. Therefore, these extra materials were originally placed where Qi Bai usually slept. As for the few things that Lang Ze didn’t have time to prepare, he told Qi Bai the location of these plants as early as when he left the tribe.
After all these days of training, Qi Bai was no longer the loser who passed by plants he needed but didn’t find them. Following the directions guided by Lang Ze, Qi Bai quickly gathered the materials for the grass juice.
He packed up the collected plants and brought them back to the tribe. Then Qi Bai mixed several types of grass juices together and crushed them. He took them to the place outside the stone wall where they dried animal skins and smeared the grass juice on the animal skins little by little. Fortunately, the animal skins of the two of them weren’t big. It didn’t take much effort to apply the grass juice.
Qi Bai looked at his own animal skins and then the animal skin tanned by everyone this afternoon. He always felt that his ones were the best. He leaned forward and smelled them. Even though he couldn’t smell the fragrance that Leather described, the stench of flesh had almost dissipated.
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