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LSLFBW: Chapter 26 Part 2

Qi Bai tried to cheer up because he suddenly found a problem. He was a modern man who knew mathematics. There was no need for him to learn from the beginning with Yang Luo. It wouldn’t work just to tell Yang Luo directly that ‘your calculation is wrong.’ Qi Bai still had to save some face for Yang Luo. Fortunately, what they had to do was actually very simple. It was to try and calculate the supplies and see how many days these supplies could support the tribe.

There was so much meat hanging on the bamboo poles. If Yang Luo really counted them one by one, it would be time-consuming and laborious. If he accidentally made a mistake, even a few days wouldn’t be enough to count it. Qi Bai finally understood why Yang Luo had been so haggard in the cave before. It wasn’t possible for an ordinary person to count so many.

Yang Luo looked at him and asked, “What is the solution?”

Qi Bai gestured to Yang Luo to look at the large rattan basket under the tree.

These rattan baskets were hastily made by Hu Huo and several people in the past few days. They were specially used to store pickled meat.

Pickled meat was an important food in the tribe and definitely couldn’t be left in the cave. The losses would outweigh the gains if eaten by rats or insects. Of course, Qi Bai thought that such a worry was completely unnecessary. After all, there were so many beastmen living in the cave. Forget about rats, even a bug would be caught by the little beastmen as a snack.

Qi Bai found a few rattan baskets and lined them up under the bamboo poles. He said, “We just need to calculate how many days of food a rattan basket can hold for the tribe. We can put the same amount of food in each of the remaining rattan baskets. Then we will know how long the food we have stored can sustain the tribe.”

Qi Bai’s idea was very simple. It might be too difficult to let Yang Luo accept multiplication and division directly. So, it would be better to use the simplest addition and subtraction to replace multiplication. This intuitive sorting method could also directly calculate the remainder, so there was no need for such complex calculations.

Yang Luo nodded as if he understood. Qi Bai said, “Grandpa Priest, we can just give it a try.”

Qi Bai signaled to Huan Ping, who was already sitting on the tree branch, to throw the pickled meat to him. Huan Ping saw Yang Luo nod in agreement and started to pass the meat down piece by piece.

During the time when they were making the pickled meat, they had already controlled the size of each piece to around five catties. This made it very convenient to organize it now.

To be honest, the amount of calculations Yang Luo had to do invisibly increased ever since he divided the tribe into different levels. For example, the food for a child was half that of an adult beastman, while the food for a slave was half that of an ordinary beastman.

However, after adding up all the factors, Qi Bai finally determined that the tribe had to prepare at least 120 catties of meat a day.

Qi Bai was a bit shocked when this number was calculated. You know, this was just the consumption of meat. It didn’t include the wild vegetables mixed into the pot to fill their stomachs. Even so, Qi Bai had never had enough to eat in the tribe. It was true that one didn’t know the cost of firewood and rice until they had to manage the household.

120 catties of meat was roughly equivalent to 24 pieces of pickled meat. Qi Bai silently calculated it in his mind as he was putting the meat into the rattan basket. He finally worked out that a large rattan basket half a person’s height could only hold the tribe’s food rations for five days.

Qi Bai finally understood Yang Luo’s worries after putting away all the pickled meat.

In Qi Bai’s view, the countless wild boar meat and offal only filled 15 baskets. In other words, if they stored as much food as they had now, they would be in a dilemma of having no food to eat in the last month of winter even if the winter didn’t get longer.

Qi Bai might’ve already adapted to the hard life in the tribe, but this was the first time that he realized so intuitively the difficulties of Yang Luo and Hou Yan. This wasn’t enough food for one or two people. Even though they were a small tribe, there were 54 of them. It wasn’t easy to quickly gather food for the winter in such a short time, especially after a natural disaster.

Compared to Qi Bai’s emotions, Yang Luo was much calmer. The tribe he used to belong to had a population of more than 3,000 beastmen. Every time the hunting team returned, they would bring back prey that could be piled up into mountains. Since he was a child, he had helped the tribe members calculate whether the food they stored was enough to survive the winter. Therefore, he might not be able to calculate it clearly, but he still had an estimate of the approximate number in his mind.

Still, Qi Bai’s method of dividing the meat equally did greatly help Yang Luo. Now he no longer had to perform complicated calculations. He only  needed to know that each basket of pickled meat was enough for the tribe members to eat for five days.

After realizing this, Yang Luo quickly asked the few people who stayed in the tribe to move out the sweet potatoes originally piled up in the cave and pack them into baskets using the same method.

Looking at the basket full of sweet potatoes, Qi Bai quickly put his worries aside. It would be useless to worry all the time. He had hands and feet and lived in the mountains. Could he really starve to death?

What Qi Bai didn’t realize was that from this day on, he worked even harder.

The days passed by in such busy work. One afternoon, Qi Bai had just spread the sweet potatoes he had just picked on the ground when he heard a noise coming from the forest. He turned his head and looked outside. Then he saw the huge beast form of Xiang Yu from a distance.

The hunting team had returned with a full load!

The hunting team was out for a total of nine days this time. They brought back dozens of rattan baskets full of salt and two rattan baskets of animal skins, as well as more than a dozen prey of various sizes. Everyone in the tribe was sincerely happy, and Qi Bai also secretly sighed with relief. This small tribe was like a home to Qi Bai. Everyone was needed.

Qi Bai looked at Lang Ze’s thin and upright figure in the afterglow of the setting sun. After just a few days’ absence, he seemed to have grown a lot taller. His clean and neat face seemed to be losing the last bit of youthfulness, making him full of unpredictable fragility and tenacity.

At this time, Lang Ze also searched for Qi Bai’s figure in the crowd. There was a gleam in his eyes, and he nodded slightly at Qi Bai. The scene overlapped with when he left a few days ago. Qi Bai’s steps forward paused slightly. For some reason, he suddenly retreated.

However, the others obviously didn’t notice the emotional fluctuations between the two of them. Yang Luo pushed through the crowd, pounced on the rattan basket full of bamboo tubes, and gently opened the leaves covering the bamboo tubes. Sure enough, he saw a full load of salt. His prayers over the past few days had finally come true. The Beast God really hadn’t abandoned their tribe.

The problem was that after bringing back a full load, their cave seemed a bit small.

Qi Bai lived in the outermost part of the cave. During the days when Lang Ze was away, he slept alone in the corner without feeling anything. Now there were more than a dozen people in the cave again, all of them tall, horned beastmen. Qi Bai was shocked to find that there was only a small area left for him to sleep.

Looking into the cave, it was no longer as empty as when they first arrived. Back then, they could make a fire and hold sacrifices in the cave. But now, the open space in the cave was filled with rattan baskets, firewood, and bamboo tubes. As a result, Qi Bai saw many tribe members huddled together when sleeping. Fortunately, the temperature was low now. They could keep each other warm by huddling together.

Now with the presence of Lang Ze, a person with a strong presence around him, Qi Bai suddenly felt that even the entrance of the crowd had become crowded. Fortunately, he had been sleeping in beast form these days. His beast form was very small and wouldn’t take up much space.

Qi Bai and Lang Ze’s animal skins had been tanned. He took Lang Ze’s animal skin and said to him excitedly, “Lang Ze, look at this animal skin. It is really beautiful.”

At this point, he lowered his voice and added, “The method you taught me is still the best. I secretly compared the tanned animal skins of other members in the tribe. They aren’t as good as ours.”

Lang Ze took the sheepskin from Qi Bai’s hand. Qi Bai said with some frustration, “It is a pity that I didn’t find the small yellow flowers you brought back, or the animal skin we made would definitely be very fragrant.”

“The Moon Spirit Flower.” Lang Ze took the animal skin and stroked it gently with his hand.

Seeing Qi Bai’s puzzled expression, he continued saying, “That little yellow flower is called the Moon Spirit Flower. On the grassland, there are patches of Moon Spirit Flowers growing. When the Moon Spirit Flowers are in full bloom, it is the most beautiful scenery on the grassland.” It was his sub-beastman father’s favorite flower. It was also the flower that his father would bring back every time he went hunting.

“Next year when the flowers bloom, I will pick them for you.”

Qi Bai didn’t notice that a horned beastman wanted to give him flowers. He was just busy planning happily. “You are right. We should pick more when the flowers bloom next year. I don’t know if it will still work if we add them to the grass juice after making them into dried flowers. We can try it next year. If it works, we can save more petals.”

“Yes,” Lang Ze responded softly.

Qi Bai muttered as he tidied up his little nest, “The stone surface of the cave is very cold now. Be careful when you sleep. It is best to lay a layer of hay first.”

Seeing Lang Ze nod, Qi Bai turned into a snow-white little leopard and crawled into his little bed.

As early as when the animal skin was completed, Qi Bai had folded up the piece of skin and placed it on the hay. He only needed to turn into his animal form when sleeping at night and crawl into the small nest made of sheepskin to keep warm all night long.

Lang Ze looked at the motionless animal skin. After enduring for a long time, he finally reached out his hand. As a result, he saw a small white head suddenly pop out. His two round ears moved as he looked at Lang Ze with some confusion. Lang Ze withdrew his hand. “Animal skin isn’t breathable. Be careful not to suffocate yourself.”

The little snow leopard nodded obediently. “Meow~”

……

They were both silent for a moment.

Lang Ze’s Adam’s apple moved up and down. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end, he didn’t speak.

Qi Bai covered his face with his paws in annoyance. He felt the tips of his ears getting hot. Fortunately, the fur blocked it, and it couldn’t be seen. It was all due to his animal form. Everything he said sounded like he was acting like a spoiled child. It was so embarrassing.

Qi Bai crawled back into bed and thought, ‘Forget it, just go to sleep. I won’t know anything once I fall asleep.’

The next morning, Qi Bai was still a bit scared when he woke up. He struggled in the quilt for a long time. By the time he finally prepared himself mentally and came out, he found that the place where Lang Ze slept was empty. Lang Ze had already left the cave.

Qi Bai took small steps and trotted to the waterfall. He quickly washed himself with cold water and felt that he was fully revived. He pulled himself together and ran back to the cave.

It didn’t look like the tribe was ready to eat. Everyone gathered together and looked at Yang Luo, who was standing on the stone platform.

Qi Bai found a place to sit down and finally heard the news he had been waiting for for a long time.

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