LSLFBW: Chapter 60

Yang Luo no longer wanted his help, so Qi Bai ran to the side of the square and found Hu Huo and Ma Shu, who were polishing logs.

The person currently responsible for the production of the wooden door was Hu Huo, with Ma Shu assisting him. Qi Bai was a technical consultant at most. He only came to check on the progress every day and solve any difficulties they encountered.

Hu Huo and Ma Shu had just finished polishing a log when Qi Bai came over. One side of the log was made into a protruding dovetail tenon while the other side was made into a dovetail tenon that was concave inward.

Next to them, a huge wooden door was almost completed. Hu Huo and Ma Shu lifted the newly completed log, walked to the side of the wooden door, and slowly pushed the tenon into the mortise of the previous log. The mortise and tenon fit together tightly, connecting with the previous log into a whole.

The two of them were very focused on their work. It was only after they were sure it was done that they noticed Qi Bai watching them intently.

Hu Huo pointed at the mortise and tenon joints. Even though he had done this type of joint many times, he still couldn’t help admiring it. “The wood put together like this looks really beautiful.”

Qi Bai couldn’t help nodding his head. Buildings and furniture made with the mortise and tenon joints were not only practical but also beautiful like works of art. This mortise and tenon craftsmanship was a skill worthy of praise even in the modern times where he lived.

They were now using the simplest connection method, but Qi Bai was already very surprised that Hu Huo could achieve such a level of accuracy based on the simple schematic diagram drawn by Qi Bai.

Qi Bai took a straw rope and measured the part that Hu Huo and the others had already completed. Then he selected two pieces from the pile of logs. “Add these two pieces, and the door will be completed.”

The main entrance of the tribe was a pair of large doors, each of which was around five meters long and five meters high. Qi Bai thought for a while before finally taking out charcoal. “I think we still need to add another layer of reinforcement.”

As he spoke, he drew three equally spaced band patterns horizontally on the back of the doors. “These three bands are the same as the mortise we made before. After the door is assembled, we will make three additional tenons to pass through here.”

In this way, their doors were tightly clamped by the mortise and tenon structure both horizontally and vertically. In addition, the solid logs made it difficult to push the door open, not to mention how strong it was.

Hu Huo and Ma Shu were confused by what they heard but didn’t question it. They knew it didn’t matter if they didn’t understand because they could always listen to Qi Bai.

It wasn’t until dark that the tribe members fishing at the Man-Eating River returned to the tribe together.

Yang Luo took the last two baskets of fish, sorted them, and put them on the scales. Then he handed the extra ones directly to Hu Xue and She Li. “Go to the cave and get some bison fat. Today, we will make the grilled fish that Bao Bai made last time. These fish are enough for everyone in the tribe to eat.”

It wasn’t known if it was because it was the first time Yang Luo had eaten fried fish in oil, but even after so long, Yang Luo hadn’t forgotten the taste. Unfortunately, they had too little food at the time. Many tribe members only got a taste of it. Today, everyone had to eat it.

Hu Xue took the rattan basket with a smile. “I’ll go right away.”

The stone pot was moved to the open space. There was a sizzling sound and the aroma of oil spread.

The youngest children were waiting anxiously on the side. It was just because Yang Luo said that everyone could get a piece of leftover oil residue from boiling the oil.

Hu Xue distributed the oil residues one by one. However, after the little guys got the oil residue, they immediately ran away laughing. Their target was Qi Bai, who was still doing carpentry.

After hearing the priest say that everyone would have dinner together tonight, the children like Bao Xing and Li Li, who were four or five years old, had already locked their eyes on Qi Bai.

They understood very well that even though Hu Xue and She Li were cooking, they could only eat the best food by following Qi Bai.

Therefore, at this moment, it was as if a small tail had grown behind Qi Bai. The small tail had a tendency to gradually grow longer. Qi Bai stopped what he was doing with amusement. He thought for a while before saying, “Then I’ll cook sheep milk for you.”

The tribe could now get a lot of sheep milk every day. Qi Bai really hoped that the children could drink more milk. After all, according to him as an Earth person, sheep milk was highly nutritious. It was just that it had a strong smell and not everyone liked to drink it.

Sure enough, once Qi Bai proposed the idea, Bao Xing’s face wrinkled. He hugged Qi Bai’s thigh and shook his head like a rattle. “I am no longer a newborn baby. I don’t want milk, I want to eat meat.”

The little ones next to him nodded in agreement.

Qi Bai thought for a while before saying, “Then if you promise to drink a glass of milk first, I will cook meat for you.”

This time, the children had no objections and ran happily to tell Yang Luo the news.

Qi Bai looked at Hu Huo and Ma Shu, who were also looking forward to it. It seemed that it wasn’t just the children, but the adults were also anxious.

Qi Bai smiled and put down the tools in his hands. He walked into the cave while thinking. By the time he returned to the square again, Qi Bai was holding a large steamer and a large pottery jar in his hands.

At this time, Bao Xing had already asked Yang Luo for unsalted pig trotters and pig ears, sweet potatoes, and sheep milk as requested by Qi Bai. He was waiting by the fire.

Qi Bai took the ingredients, roasted the hair of the pig trotters and ears on the fire, scraped off the burnt hair with a stone knife, boiled them in cold water, took them out and cut them into small pieces. Then he put them in a ceramic pot, added seasonings and continued to boil them.

After making sure there was enough water in the pottery jar, Qi Bai took the sweet potato, peeled it with a bone knife, cut it into pieces and placed it in the steamer to steam. Once the sweet potato was steamed, he took it out and placed it in a stone pot to press it into a fine paste. Then he slowly poured the cooked sheep milk and stirred it evenly.

The color in the pot changed from dark to light and finally to light orange. The children’s eyes became brighter and brighter.

“Brother Bao Bai, are you okay?”

“Brother Bao Bai, this is so beautiful.”

In order to cover up the taste of the sheep milk, Qi Bai deliberately didn’t add a lot of milk. During the stirring process, the sweet potato puree slowly turned into a somewhat thick sweet potato milkshake.”

“Okay,” Qi Bai said. “Go get your cups.”

He poured the steaming hot milkshake into a bamboo cup and garnished it with one or two red or blue berries. It was so beautiful that one might be reluctant to drink it.

At this time, no one disliked the strong smell of milk anymore. The sheep milk with sweet potato became soft and glutinous. The sweet taste of the sweet potato mixed with the taste of milk made the tribe members, who rarely ate sweet food before, love it.

At this time, Yang Luo was blowing the hot steam of the milkshake, but he hadn’t forgotten the pork that Qi Bai was cooking in the pot. He asked in confusion, “Why did you pick these unpalatable meats? In addition, it looks no different from the pork we usually cook.”

People usually liked to eat meat in chunks, so no one paid too much attention to leftovers like pig trotters and ears. There were still quite a few of them stored in the cave at this moment.

Qi Bai explained, “The cooking method is the same, but the way of eating is different. Thus, the taste is different.”

Today, Qi Bai wanted to cook these pig trotters and ears into pork jelly. Pork jelly might be a meat dish, but it had a refreshing taste. They would never get tired of it, no matter how much they ate. It was perfect to be eaten with fish and meat.

The meat had been cooked for more than an hour at this time. Looking at the soup that had become thick, Qi Bai used animal skin to pad his hands and took the pot off the fire.

“Is this ready to eat?”

Qi Bai shook his head. “I’ll eat this last.”

Yang Luo looked at it a few more times out of curiosity. Ultimately, he couldn’t figure out what was going on. However, Hu Xue and She Li had already prepared dinner and were inviting everyone to come over and eat.

Grilled fish, fish soup, meat skewers, and the sweet potato milkshake made by QI Bai. The Black Mountain Tribe’s dinner could be called quite sumptuous.

Faced with so much food, Hu Meng, standing at the front of the line, only wished he had more hands.

At this time, Hu Meng was holding a bowl of sweet potato milkshake in his left hand and a bowl of fish soup in his right hand. There were three large skewers of barbecue placed horizontally on the bowl of fish soup.

He could get two skewers of grilled fish, but he didn’t want to put the grilled fish on the milkshake bowl or he wouldn’t be able to see the milkshake with red berries. Finally, he opened his mouth towards Hu Xue. Hu Xue cooperated very well and stuffed the grilled fish into his mouth.

Hu Meng bit the fish with satisfaction. He carefully left the team with the bamboo bowl in his hand.

Zhu Ya, who followed behind him, was much smarter. He persuaded Sun Qing to agree to wait for him on the side. Then he took Sun Yuan to run back and forth to line up and carry food. Soon, the ground where the three of them gathered was filled with food like a picnic.

It was just then when he shared the barbecue with Sun Qing in a flattering manner, Sun Qing didn’t even look at him.

Sun Qing was worriedly looking at Sun Yuan, who was trying to be careful not to let the barbecue get on his face.

Sun Qing naturally didn’t understand what mysophobia was. He only knew that according to Sun Yuan’s eating method, forget grabbing food. Even if everyone shared the food, his food wouldn’t be hot.

Sun Qing’s mouth twitched. Then he grabbed a handful of his barbecue and smeared all the oil on Sun Yuan’s face.

Sun Yuan looked at Sun Qing in disbelief. Sun Qing nodded at him and tried to persuade him. “Your face is all oily now. It doesn’t matter if it gets more oily. Just eat with big mouthfuls.”

Sun Yuan thought about it. Finally, he leaned toward Lu Guo next to him with some disgust, looking up at her.

Lu Guo smiled and gently wiped the oil off his face. She watched as Sun Yuan continued to eat carefully with his head down. Then she asked Lu Xia, who was sitting on her lap, “Do you still want to eat meat?”

Lu Xia looked at it eagerly but shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat, nor that she didn’t have her share. However, she had just drunk two bowls of milkshakes, and her belly was already round. She couldn’t eat anything else.

What made Lu Xia even more devastated was that at this moment, QI Bai cut the almost solidified pork jelly into small cubes. He evenly arranged them on a large stone slab and distributed them to the tribe members one by one.

Seeing Lu Xia holding her stomach and gulping, Qi Bai smiled and told her, “You can take it first and eat it when you are hungry at night or tomorrow. It is just that it is a bit cold. Don’t eat too much at once.”

“Yes.” Lu Xia nodded immediately and took the four pieces of pork jelly that Qi Bai gave her.

Since this was Qi Bai’s first time making jelly, he didn’t know whether his tribe members would like it or not. Therefore, he didn’t make much and each person could only get a few small pieces.

In fact, he was completely worrying too much. The beastmen had never eaten anything with such a soft and elastic jelly-like texture, not to mention that they could occasionally eat chewier pig trotters and ears in the jelly. Everyone was amazed by this unique food.

Qi Bai returned to his seat with the last few pieces of pork jelly and saw Lang Ze sitting in the same posture as when he left.

Since there was enough fish today, Lang Ze was almost completely focused on crunching the fish bones. He never spat out bones when eating fish, so QI Bai couldn’t tell how much Lang Ze had eaten.

Qi Bai thought silently in his heart, ‘I really want to take Lang Ze to a buffet. I will definitely make back the value.’

Of course, it wasn’t a loss now. Qi Bai, who was already full, drank half a bowl of sweet potato milkshake after watching Lang Ze wolfing down the food.

Suddenly, a cheer came from outside the campfire. Qi Bai turned around and saw a figure climbing up the tree trunk to the treetop.

Qi Bai quickly grabbed Lang Ze’s hand, his eyes sparkling. ‘Hurry. I don’t know what they are playing over there. Let’s go join in the fun!”

Lang Ze only had time to grab the last two skewers of grilled fish before he stood up. Then QI Bai led him to the front.

Xiong Feng’s big head was very conspicuous in the crowd. Following his direction, Qi Bai immediately found Shu Lin in the crowd. He hurriedly asked, “What’s going on?”

Shu Lin was obviously very excited. He pointed at a piece of animal skin on the top of the tree and said, “Tu Ya said that she will have a baby with whoever can take that piece of animal skin down.”

“He got it! He got it!” The shouts of children were heard all around him.

Qi Bai looked up at the tree and saw Ma Shu holding the animal skin. He quickly climbed down the tree and was pushed directly in front of Tu Ya by Ma Ling.

Lang Ze also followed their gaze but didn’t understand why the two of them were so happy. It was a very common thing for beastmen and sub-beastmen to be together, which was far less cost-effective than taking advantage of this time to eat more. After all, it was only by eating enough food that they could become stronger.

Tu Ya looked at the ground with a slightly red face. She just wanted Ma Shu to grab the animal skin today. After all, the only other adult horned beastmen in the tribe who didn’t have a partner were Hu Huo and Lang Ze. Hu Huo obviously didn’t want to find a partner, and anyone with a discerning eye could see that Lang Ze followed Qi Bai every day. So when she said this, it was almost as if she was asking Ma Shu to grab the animal skin.

Of course, at this time, Ma Shu didn’t notice Tu Ya’s little thoughts at all. This was probably the craziest time in the life of Ma Shu, who was too calm. He only heard what Tu Ya said and rushed directly to the tree without any hesitation.

He still felt a bit of disbelief when looking at Tu Yu in front of him at this moment. He didn’t expect that he, who was once a slave, could really become partners with Tu Ya.

Ma Shu excitedly carried Tu Ya on his back and ran around the big tree in the midst of the cheers of his fellow tribe members.

The young children followed him, calling Tu Ya’s name as they ran.

“That’s great!” Shu Lin said excitedly.

“Yes, yes!” Qi Bai also nodded continuously.

Xiong Feng, who was standing next to them, scratched his head. Then he took a step forward, picked up Shu Lin, and followed behind the children. Shu Lin was obviously very happy lying on Xiong Feng’s back and kept waving to Qi Bai, asking him to come over and play together.

Lang Ze, who had been chewing fish bones silently behind them, watched Qi Bai playing happily. He finally put down the grilled fish and looked again at the tribe members dancing in circles under the tree.