LSLFBW: Chapter 4 Part 1

The hunting party walked into the cave against the light.

Qi Bai saw Lang Ze at a glance. Lang Ze had only just become an adult, but his height had already surpassed that of other horned beastmen.

Lang Ze might be very tall but his body was very thin. There was only a skeleton of bones left on his body. He looked malnourished at first glance.

The children let out cheers as the hunting party approached.

Qi Bai heard the voice of Bao Xing in the crowd. “It is a rabbit. The hunting team has hunted rabbits!”

“In addition, there are wild mice. We have meat to eat!”

Lu Guo was followed by a small sub-beastmen, the youngest child among all of them. At this moment, she was pulling Lu Guo’s skirt. Her pair of watery deer eyes were staring at the rabbit in Hou Yan’s hand without blinking. However, she didn’t cheer like the other children. She seemed to know that the meat didn’t belong to her. She just bit her fingers and swallowed her saliva silently.

Qi Bai had a strong impression of this child.

It was because as Qi Bai had been chiseling the stone pot all afternoon, this small sub-beastman, who looked to be only 3 or 4 years old, had been silently shrinking by Lu Guo’s side to work.

Her hands were small, and she couldn’t take all the wild vegetables that the captain gave her at one time. Even so, she didn’t ask anyone for help. She just ran one by one, carefully handling each leaf and sending it back one by one.

At this time, it wasn’t only this little sub-beastman who was different from the cheering performance of the others, but also all the members of the hunting party.

Qi Bai found that except for Hou Yan, who walked in front with three rabbits and two wild mice in his hands, the remaining nine people were empty-handed.

Hou Yan handed the prey to Yang Luo and said with some shame, “We walked outside for a long time, but only Lang Ze found these three rabbits, and Hu (fox) Huo found the two wild mice.”

Hou Yan didn’t speak loudly, and the surroundings were very noisy. So except for Yang Luo, only Qi Bai accidentally heard this from where he was standing on the side.

Yang Luo took the rabbit and smiled at Hou Yan in a comforting way.

Yang Luo wasn’t very tall. He walked onto a stone platform and motioned for everyone to be quiet. He held the rabbit above his head and showed it to everyone. “Thanks to the Beast God! The hunting team brought back prey for us. Today, everyone can have a piece of meat!”

The crowd erupted with enthusiastic cheers.

“Thank the Beast God!”

The little sub-beastman beside Lu Guo anxiously pulled at Lu Guo. “Can we eat meat too? Does everyone include us?”

Lu Guo crouched down and gently stroked the little sub-beastman’s hair. “Including us. We can have a bite of meat.”

The little sub-beastman seemed to finally have the vitality of a child and jumped happily a few times. “We are going to eat meat too! We are going to eat meat too!”

Yang Luo quieted everyone down. His gaze scanned around the hunting party before he finally said, “Hu Huo, come here.”

Hu Huo walked out of the crowd in disbelief. His hind legs were a bit lame, so he walked unsteadily.

Everyone seemed to know what was going to happen next. They stepped back, leaving Yang Luo and Hu Huo alone in the middle.

Yang Luo took off the bone knife hanging on his waist, held the largest rabbit, and motioned to Hu Huo.

Under the gaze of everyone, Hu Huo knelt on one knee in front of Yang Luo. He tried to stay calm, but QI Bai still saw tears in Hu Huo’s eyes.

Yang Luo sang ‘The Beast God is above’ before slashing the rabbit’s throat with the bone knife in his hand.

A stream of blood spurted out. Hu Huo held the rabbit’s body that stopped struggling, and drank the blood from the rabbit’s throat.

This was a blood ceremony.

Qi Bai knew from the memory of this body that only the most powerful beastmen warriors could drink the first mouthful of blood of the tribe’s hunted prey.

Such a ceremony wasn’t held every time a hunt was held. It was only when the hunting team returned with a full load during the hunting season that the tribe’s priest would hold such a grand ceremony for the triumphant warriors, and all the tribe members would watch the ceremony.

According to legend, warriors who were baptized in blood would be blessed by the Beast God and would be successful in everything.

They were now just a group of unfamiliar beastmen who gathered together by chance, but this was their first hunted prey and their first sacrifice. From this moment on, everything would be different.

The people in the hunting team finally smiled. Yes, today was just the beginning. They would definitely hunt more prey tomorrow.

The crowd was also chanting the name ‘Hu Huo.’

In this atmosphere, Yang Luo killed two more rabbits. The blood of one was given to Hou Yan, and the other was given to Hu Meng and Niu Yong, who had lit the fire for the tribe.

Hu Meng and Niu Yong didn’t expect to receive such an honor. They were so happy that they couldn’t help themselves. Hu Meng even beat his chest happily.

However, in such a lively atmosphere, Qi Bai couldn’t help wanting to peek at Lang Ze. After all, the three rabbits used for the sacrifice were all hunted by Lang Ze, but Lang Ze’s name was completely hidden.

As Qi Bai secretly looked at Lang Ze again, Lang Ze turned his head.

The person’s eyes were as deep as the sea, as heavy as the night, and like stormy waves and calm waves. Qi Bai couldn’t distinguish his emotions.

After staring at each other for a while, Lang Ze took the initiative to look away. Qi Bai also saw the slave mark branded on the back of Lang Ze’s neck.

Qi Bai lowered his head, and various emotions flashed in his eyes.

It was dark, and Yang Luo finally started to direct everyone to prepare dinner.

This would be their first hot meal since they escaped. Everyone could get a piece of meat, so they were full of energy.

After Qi Bai and nine others polished it for an afternoon, the original concave stone had the shape of a stone pot. It wasn’t flat, but it was usable.

Hu Meng and Niu Yong felt that they had endless energy. Only two people lifted the stone pot. They first lifted the stone pot from the entrance of the cave to the outside of the cave, and cleaned the stone pot with leaves in the rain.

The cleaned stone pot was moved to the stone steps that had just been piled up by the hunting team.

Once the stone pot was firmly placed, it was cushioned with smaller stones. Hay and dry branches were piled under the stone pot, and the branches were used to draw the fire.

In this way, a simple stove was ready.

Hu Xue and She Li were the two captains of the other three gathering teams. They had been preparing the ingredients in the afternoon. Now that the stove was ready, they naturally started cooking.

In fact, cooking was just pouring all the rainwater collected with large leaves into the pot, and then throwing all the cleaned wild vegetables into the water.

Hu Xue took a thick branch and stirred it slowly in the pot, while She Li was always careful not to let the fire go out.

Taking advantage of this gap, Hou Yan and several beastmen started to deal with the three rabbits and two wild mice skillfully.

The processing of the fur was much simpler than Qi Bai imagined.

Hou Yan cut the fur on the rabbit legs with a bone knife. He gently separated the rabbit skin from the rabbit meat with his hands. Once the two rabbit legs were processed, the whole rabbit skin was like a bag on the wild rabbit.

Hou Yan pulled the rabbit skin down hard, and the whole rabbit skin was completely peeled off. The wild mice were processed in a similar way, with his movements flowing like water.

Hou Yan put away several animal skins. These skins would be important wealth for the tribe. Tanning animal skins was also one of the most important tasks in the tribe. It required complex processes and time.

Then Hou Yan started to process the meat. He took out the internal organs separately and placed them on large leaves prepared in advance.

Then he used a stone knife to cut heavily at the stone slab.

The stone knife hadn’t been polished. It was very blunt and easily broken by bones, but this couldn’t dispel the high spirits of the people at all. Several beastmen cut the beast meat with the knives in their hands.

At this time, the water in the stone pot hadn’t been boiled yet. The people didn’t care about this and directly put the processed meat into the stone pot that was already full of wild vegetables.

It was the first time that Qi Bai had seen such a cooking method. He didn’t have much hope for the taste of the food, but he was still infected by the atmosphere and started to work.

Once all the ingredients were added to the pot, the rest of the time was spent adding to the fire and waiting for the food to be cooked.

Since the stone pot was very large and the thermal conductivity of the stone wasn’t good, it would take at least one or two hours before everyone could eat a hot meal.

But such a wait time was undoubtedly happy. Everyone sat around the stone pot, holding the important things they brought back when they went out during the day, in other words, the stone bowl for eating.

It was called a stone bowl, but it was actually a stone with some depressions. Qi Bai also picked up a small stone bowl with a smooth surface near the stone mountain and washed it very carefully with clean water.

Everyone talked and laughed, sweeping away the dull scene of yesterday’s escape.

The smell from the stone pot wasn’t good, but Qi Bai felt it was extremely tempting. He had only filled his stomach with some raw wild vegetables and wild fruits that day. Now it started to protest.

By the time bubbles started to appear in the water in the stone pot, Qi Bai’s stomach had already growled several times. The first time his stomach growled, Qi Bai was a bit embarrassed. Then he soon no longer had such thoughts.

It was because everyone’s stomach was growling. Compared to Qi Bai’s shyness, Lang Ze didn’t hide his hunger at all. Lang Ze seemed to be unaffected by the previous sacrifices and his wolf eyes didn’t move away from the stone pot as if he was staring at prey.

But no one went up to fight for it. Everyone looked at Yang Luo.

Under everyone’s eyes, Yang Luo walked to the side of the stone pot. He also held a stone bowl in his hand, but this didn’t mean he would eat first. On the contrary, he decided to personally serve everyone a bowl of hot meat and vegetable soup today.

Yang Luo first pointed to Hou Yan and Hou Yan didn’t refuse. He came forward with a stone bowl. Yang Luo gave Hou Yan a piece of meat and added a lot of vegetables and soup according to what was agreed upon before.

At this point, everyone stepped forward in turn with their bowls.

Hu Meng looked at the meat he got and smiled so hard that his teeth were exposed. He immediately threw the meat into his mouth, bone and all. However, he was reluctant to swallow the meat and instead chewed it carefully. It seemed like he wouldn’t spit out any bone residue.

Niu Yong, who made the fire with Hu Meng, was completely the opposite.

He held his stone bowl and drank the broth in small sips. Then he started to eat the vegetables in the bowl. In the end, there was only a piece of meat left, but he was still reluctant to eat it. He wanted to get another bowl of vegetables so that the vegetables would always have the taste of meat.

Niu Yong clearly remembered that even though Yang Luo said that each person could only get a piece of meat, there was no limit to the amount of vegetables today.

It was said to be unlimited, but the wild vegetables collected by the collection team were limited after all. Each person could only eat two or three bowls at most.

At this time, there was no residue left of Hu Meng’s meat. He looked at the meat in Niu Yong’s bowl and could only drool and regret.