LSLFBW: Chapter 70

Qi Bai picked up the two wooden boards in his hand that were polished to the same height. He placed them vertically on the wooden shelf beside him, and separated out a place for the winnowing baskets.

Then he turned around, took the winnowing basket from Quan Nan’s hand with both hands and pit it on.

The wooden shelves around Qi Bai were intended to be placed in the collective cave as storage racks to transform the cave into the tribe’s warehouse.

Unexpectedly, they played a role before they even entered the tribe’s warehouse.

This five-layered rack was perfect for drying winnowing baskets filled with dried bamboo shoots.

However, originally, these carpentry work was done by Qi Bai, Ma Shu and Hu Huo together. Then Qi Bai and Ma Shu went out to look for salt a few days ago, slowing down the progress of making the wooden racks.

Fortunately, they had accumulated a lot of materials in their daily lives. Qi Bai now repaired the wood a bit and tried to build more space for drying bamboo shoots in a short time.

Qi Bai was concentrating on his work. His head got closer and closer to the tools in his hands until the wooden board was about to touch the tip of his nose. It was only then that he realized the sky had darkened.

Beside him, several rows of tall shelves were already filled with winnowing baskets. These bamboo shoots needed to be dried in the sun for at least a few days before being stored in the warehouse.

Qi Bai raised his head and saw that the tribe members in the square were also finishing their work.

Hu Xue and Zhu Zhu were carrying a large rattan basket filled with freshly peeled bamboo shoots that would be used for today’s dinner.

Hu Xue shouted in the direction of Qi Bai. “Bao Bai, everyone will have dinner at the children’s cave today. Quickly clean up and come over.”

“I know.”

Qi Bai stood up and stretched. Then he cleaned up the tools and wooden boards beside him, gathered all the wood chips together and picked them up.

Since all materials were hard to come by, Qi Bai had now become accustomed to making the best use of every material.

For example, these wood chips would be discarded as garbage in modern times. In the beast world, they were good materials for starting fires and must be properly stored.

At this moment, a figure jumped off the wall and ran towards the crowd.

Hu Meng’s hoarse voice, which was going through the process of a voice change, said, “The hunting team is back. Open the wooden gate of the tribe quickly!”

Hu Xue and Zhu Zhu put the rattan basket on the ground and said, “Hurry! They must’ve brought back some prey!”

There was no need for Hu Xue’s reminder. Everyone rushed towards the direction of the main entrance.

After the tribe’s walls and watchtowers were built, there would be people on duty on the walls every day. Once the hunting team brought back prey that couldn’t enter through the tribe’s small gate, they would come back in time to notify the tribe members to open the gate.

This was clearly the case now.

Sure enough, as soon as the main gate opened, a strong smell of blood rushed in.

No one was afraid or avoided the smell. Everyone looked at the dark gate with anticipation.

Five our five beastmen worked together to drag a big black bear into the tribe.

“Wow!”

“Blessing of the Beast God!”

Even Qi Bai sucked in a breath.

The Black Mountain Tribe had hunted a black bear before, but that was just a young bear. The one in front of them was at least four meters long, and its claws were bigger than QI Bai’s head. Even though it had been killed, it still gave off an oppressive feeling that couldn’t be ignored.

Qi Bai knew that the hunting team of the Black Mountain Tribe was no longer the same as before, but he was really shocked that they brought back such a large beast in just one day.

It had to be known that this was a black bear. Hunting them was much more difficult than hunting other small prey. Just finding their traces in the dense forest wasn’t an easy task.

After entering the tribe, the horned beastmen transformed into human form. Their animal skin clothes were hung on the wall near the exit so that they could be easily changed into when entering and exiting the tribe.

The slightly younger horned beastmen had excited expressions on their faces. The corners of their mouths were raised high and they stood there in a somewhat proud manner, allowing their fellow tribe members to watch and praise them.

But everyone had some injuries to varying degrees, revealing the danger they had experienced in their fight with the forest overlord.

Qi Bai found Lang Ze’s animal skin coat early on. After seeing the tall figure of the white wolf, he immediately ran over with the animal skin coat.

The light might be dim, but Lang Ze could still see Qi Bai’s sparkling eyes. “You guys are amazing. You actually found such a big black bear!”

Lang Ze took the fur coat and put it on casually. Compared to the excitement of Xi Zhou and Hu Qiao, Lang Ze looked much calmer.

He lowered his head and leaned close to Qi Bai’s ear, whispering, “The chief should’ve found the black bear’s cave a few days ago. He is just waiting to bring the black bear back to the tribe during the first hunt today.”

The beastmen all believed that if they could hunt a ferocious beast for the tribe’s first spring hunt, it would indicate the favor of the Beast God and was a good omen for a good harvest in the year.

Qi Bai’s eyes widened. He covered his mouth and looked around carefully. Finally, as if to keep a secret, he asked in a low voice, “How did you know?”

The corners of Lang Ze’s mouth rose due to Qi Bai’s little action and he continued in a low voice, “Near the black bear cave, there were traces of a beastman’s actions. They were the paw marks of the chief’s beast shape.” As he spoke, he pointed to the signature wall they had made which also had Hou Yan’s paw print.”

Qi Bai looked down at his hands. What could he tell from such marks? He definitely wouldn’t be able to recognize them if they were placed in front of him

The two of them were whispering to each other, not noticing that they were getting farther and farther away from the crowd. They had completely entered the shadows of the wall.

Qi Bai smiled and said, “It must’ve been very difficult for the tribe chief to prepare so much.”

It was indeed not easy for Hou Yan to prepare this. Not only did he find the black bear’s cave in advance, but he also had to keep an eye on it occasionally to prevent the bear from leaving and to observe its hunting patterns.

Most importantly, in order to make the finding of the black bear seem more like an accidental event, Hou Yan lead the team around the mountain aimlessly several times before finally arriving at the vicinity of the cave.

The plan was well planned. In fact, most of the beastmen really thought that finding the black bear was their good luck.

However, he was careless and was discovered by Lang Ze, who told Qi Bai immediately.

Fortunately, neither of them were talkative. They just let go after they said it.

Qi Bai realized that Yang Luo had been looking forward to something all day. “It seems that the priest should also know.”

Just as they expected, Yang Luo appeared not long after on the scene in full dress.

Under Yang Luo’s guidance, everyone gathered around the black bear, cheering for the favor of the Beast God and looking forward to a good harvest this year.

Hou Yan took out a bone knife, peeled off the animal skin, removed the bones from the bear meat and gave a portion directly to Hu Xue and Zhu Zhu.

The two of them took the meat and hurried back to the cave to start preparing today’s dinner.

Hou Yan continued cutting the meat without stopping.

But this time, all the meat was handed over to Yang Luo, who blessed it before distributing it to every member of the tribe.

This was the first prey of spring. The tribe that obtained it would also be blessed by the Beast God.

Qi Bai and Lang Ze each carried a large piece of bear meat and walked towards the children’s cave where an enticing aroma was emanating.

The fires under the three stoves in the cave were burning brightly at this time.

Braised pork with bamboo shoots was being simmered in two earthenware pots.

In a ceramic pot, stir-fry the pork belly until slightly charred. Then pour in hot water, blanch the bamboo shoots and simmer them. Once the water in the pot had almost evaporated, add salt and oyster sauce. Then they would have two large pots of braised pork with bamboo shoots that would make their mouth water just by looking at it.

In the last clay pot, a sweet potato milkshake was cooking. It was not only the favorite food of the tribe members, but also the dinner that Xiong Shan and Yang An could eat now.

Since it was dinner for all members of the tribe, the two babies naturally couldn’t be left out.

But this alone wasn’t enough to feed all the tribe members.

At this time, Zhu Zhu was sitting on the edge of the big stone table, cutting the salted meat and vegetable roots. Quan Nan was sitting next to him, stringing the salted meat and vegetable roots together.

Three or four charcoal braziers had been moved onto the large stone table by Bao Yue, Niu Lu and others. Charcoal was neatly arranged inside. They would be used for grilling meat later.

“Ah! Dinner!”

“Today’s meal is really fragrant. My stomach has been growling for a long time!”

“I want two bowls of stew!”

Qi Bai stepped over the stone bench and sat obediently next to Lang Ze. He held a bamboo bowl and waited for Hu Xue and Zhu Zhu, who were distributing food in a circle.

It wasn’t known if it was because the oyster sauce made food delicious, if it was because Lang Ze was sitting next to him and ate everything with relish, or perhaps it was that food that everyone was scrambling to eat was delicious.

In short, Qi Bai ate so much tonight that his stomach was full. He burped a bit and felt that he hadn’t enjoyed eating as much as he did today, even when he was at the beach.

At this time, the moon was hanging high in the sky. The square was filled with moonlight and it was brighter than inside the cave.

The tribe members came out of the children’s cave one after another and strolled leisurely in the square.

Qi Bai and Lang Ze walked along the stone steps towards the cave. Qi Bai’s steps were brisk. The moment he saw some small wildflowers growing on the roadside, he went over to smell them. He thought they smelled good, so he picked some and played with them.

“Baa~”

The moment they arrived on the stone platform, they heard Chuan Chuan’s voice through the bamboo door. It seemed that he was complaining that they had delicious food but didn’t bring it. Of course, it might also be that Chuan Chuan was unable to sleep due to the aroma of the date berries.

Qi Bai thought of this and called out to Lang Ze. “Don’t go to sleep yet. I left you something good!”

After saying this, he ran into the cave, took down the date berries from the top of the stone cabinet, and sat down at the stone table outside the cave.

He had to share it with Lang Ze, but he couldn’t afford to waste the seeds this time.

Qi Bai used a bone knife to split the bamboo. He made a small bamboo stick to pick out the seeds on the outside of the date berries. Then he opened the animal skin bag containing the date berries.

Lang Ze smelled a fruity fragrance in the air. He strode over, sat next to Qi Bai, watched Qi Bai’s movements carefully, and helped him pick out seeds carefully.