LSLFBW: Chapter 73

Before Qi Bai had time to see clearly what was in Lang Ze’s hand, he heard the flapping sound of wings in the rattan basket on Lang Ze’s back.

Qi Bai looked at Lang Ze with surprise. He seemed to have guessed what Lang Ze had brought back for him.’

Sure enough, the animal skin was peeled off and revealed four green duck eggs lying inside.

Qi Bai only took a glance before quickly covering it with the animal skin again. He thought about it and felt a bit worried. Finally, he simply stuffed the animal skin into his animal skin coat and stuck it tightly to his skin.

Qi Bai saw Lang Ze’s surprised expression and quickly added, “There are ducklings inside these eggs. I’m afraid it will be too cold outside, and they will freeze to death.”

Qi Bai was a bit curious about where Lang Ze found these duck eggs. After all, there weren’t many birds around the tribe.

“I was digging for clay this afternoon when I found traces of a mallard duck on the river bank.”

Lang Ze described the path he took to find the duck. “I passed by and there was only this one duck hatching eggs.”

After listening to Lang Ze’s description, Qi Bai realized that he had actually run to such a far place. It was no wonder that he came back so late.

Lang Ze asked, “Are you going to start raising ducks with these four eggs?”

“Yes!” Qi Bai nodded. “We have to find a way to hatch them first.”

On Earth, most birds would regard the first person they saw after birth as their mother. If the ducks on the Beastman Continent had this habit then domesticating poultry might be easier than raising livestock.

Moreover, like mountain phoenixes, these ducks didn’t have very strong wings and basically couldn’t fly. If their numbers weren’t so small, Qi Bai would actually like to try to build a duck coop like he would for sheep.

Qi Bai walked very cautiously along the way, fearing that he would accidentally break the four duck eggs. After returning to the cave, he sat on the bamboo stool and didn’t dare to move.

Lang Ze looked at Qi Bai, who seemed to be imprisoned by the duck eggs, and asked with a smile, “You don’t want to hold these eggs in your arms like a duck, do you?”

Lang Ze suddenly remembered the scene of a duck incubating the eggs. It seemed that the ducks had to sit on the eggs all the time. The gray duck he found today was just like that.

Qi Bai’s eyes were filled with grievances. “What should I do? The little ducks will die if there is no warm environment.”

Qi Bai had also discovered that hatching eggs wasn’t an easy task, and he didn’t know when these little ducklings would hatch.

It was okay at night, but Qi Bai couldn’t hold them all the time during the day when he had so much work to do.

Lang Ze thought for a while before saying, “You wait in the cave for a bit.” Then he turned and walked out.

Qi Bai shifted his gaze to the mother duck that was thrown outside the door by Lang Ze. He started to wonder if it was possible to force the duck to calm down and hatch eggs.

Qi Bai quickly gave up this idea.

He saw the duck banging against the bamboo door loudly, as if determined not to obey until death.

Once Chuan Chuan was attracted by the sound and went over to check, the mother duck aggressively tried to attack Chuan Chuan with her mouth.

Qi Bai strongly doubted that if he returned the duck eggs to her now, she would take the eggs with her to the underworld.

Soon, the sound of knocking stones could be heard outside the cave.

Qi Bai covered his chest with his fur hat. He wrapped the already tightly wrapped duck eggs even tighter and slowly went to the door to see Lang Ze.

He saw a thick stone in front of Lang Ze. Lang Ze was using a stone awl and a hammer to chisel a depression on top.

He moved the stones back to the cave and placed them in the charcoal basin. Then he surrounded the large stones with burning charcoal.

Qi Bai had already figured out what Lang Ze was going to do. Was Lang Ze planning to make an ‘incubator’ for these eggs?

“Put these duck eggs in the grooves of the stone and heat them with charcoal. Then they won’t feel cold.”

Qi Bai gulped. “This won’t roast them, right?”

Lang Ze specially selected a thick stone. According to his experience, such a thick stone wouldn’t be burned hot by the charcoal. However, he wasn’t sure now. “Let the charcoal burn for a while.”

He paused before adding, “It doesn’t matter if it is cooked. We can eat the cooked eggs. I’ll find new ones and try another method.”

Lang Ze was very satisfied with his own idea. He turned his head and said, “You can make the mushroom scrambled eggs we had last time.”

Qi Bai saw Lang Ze’s serious expression and said in a serious tone, “You can’t make scrambled eggs with eggs baked like this.”

However, eating unshelled eggs seemed to be a specialty of some places. He didn’t know whether it tasted good or not.

Qi Bai immediately stopped his dangerous thoughts. What they should do now wasn’t to think about how to eat them, but to try his best to hatch them. One would give birth to two, two would give birth to four, and four would give birth to more eggs.

If he could adjust the temperature of the stone basin to be almost the same as the body temperature, he might be able to hatch the duck eggs in it.

After all, in the wild, female ducks would occasionally leave. Many ducklings could survive in such circumstances. There was no reason why they couldn’t adapt to the warm environment created for them by Lang Ze and Qi Bai.

Growl.

The two of them were discussing things, but Qi Bai’s stomach became the first to make its presence felt.

Qi Bai secretly pursed his lips.

In order to wait for Lang Ze today, he stayed at the kiln for a long time. Usually, his time had already been prepared at this time. He did feel a bit hungry.

Lang Ze took out Qi Bai’s big chopping board. “You sit in peace. I’ll prepare dinner.”

Qi Bai sat at the bamboo table, seemingly keeping an eye on the eggs. However, his hands were never idle as he was polishing an ink-colored stone.

Qi Bai had already made the body of the little wolf using Lang Ze’s fur, but Qi Bai had never shown the little wolf to Lang Ze because he was still short of the final step.

It was to equip the little wolf with a pair of suitable eyes.

Lang Ze’s eyes were closer to black when he was in human form and were as blue as the deep sea when in beast form.

However, a dark blue stone that was almost black wasn’t common. Qi Bai searched for a long time before he finally found the piece in his hand.

The stone was inky black all over, with a blue-green cast in the sun. It looked a bit like the blue-green ink jadeite.

What Qi Bai had to do now was polish it to be smooth and delicate.

Lang Ze didn’t know what Qi Bai was polishing in his hands. He was only concentrating on preparing dinner for Qi Bai.

Lang Ze plucked the feathers from the duck and piled them all in the rattan basket.

He had never collected these feathers that couldn’t be eaten or used, but he knew that many sub-beastmen liked them.

In particular, many people would specially collect the feathers after Yang Luo hung many feathers on the walls of the cave.

The beastmen who already had partners would collect beautiful features and stones whenever they came across them while hunting and bring them back to the tribe.

There was also a long phoenix tail feather placed in Qi Bai’s stone cabinet. Lang Ze guessed that Qi Bai should also like these things.

Therefore, Lang Ze planned to wash these feathers and make them into a pendant to give to Qi Bai.

It was a pity that the duck he encountered today was a gray one. It would’ve been better if there was a brighter one in the nest.

Of course, what Lang Ze didn’t know was that the ducks with more beautiful feathers were all male. They generally didn’t incubate the eggs, so it wasn’t easy to find them in the nest.

Lang Ze processed the duck feathers very quickly and asked Qi Bai, “Can we eat roasted duck?”

Lang Ze had learned a lot of cooking methods from Qi Bai, but he felt that his cooking wasn’t delicious. Only the barbecue skills were okay.

Qi Bai nodded. “Yes, I’m fine with it.”

After receiving a positive answer, Lang Ze evenly spread the marinade on the duck. Then he cut the fresh venison that the two of them had received today into small pieces and put them on bamboo skewers.

Compared to Qi Bai’s preference for a combination of meat and vegetables, Lang Ze’s diet obviously only consisted of meat.

Lang Ze finished these preparations and lit the charcoal basin again. He placed the bamboo sticks on the charcoal, brushed them with butter, and slowly cooked them.

The aroma of barbecue soon filled the air.

“Baa~”

Chuan Chuan made a sound at the right time, reminding the two of them that he was still hungry.

Qi Bai pointed at the pottery pot beside him and said, “Chuan Chuan’s milk is already heated up. Let him have some first.”

“Okay.”

Lang Ze walked over with the clay pot and saw the lamb crossing his legs in front of himself, looking at him lazily.

“…Now that the weather is warmer, shouldn’t he move out?” Lang Ze wondered.

Qi Bai nodded in agreement. “Once I build the fence, I will make a small sheep pen for Chuan Chuan inside the fence. He will definitely get bored if he is locked up at home every day.”

Lang Ze turned his back to Qi Bai and raised his chin slightly at Chuan Chuan. “Then build the fence quickly.”

Lang Ze got up, stretched out to touch the big rock, and said to Qi Bai, “You try it.”

Qi Bai put down the tools in his hands and slowly moved over. The big stone had been baked by charcoal for a long time and the groove had already become warm. Qi Bai found that this temperature was indeed good. It was a bit warm but not hot.

Qi Bai said in surprise, “It seems to really work!”

Qi Bai found a piece of clean animal skin, folded it several times, and placed it on top of the stone. Then he carefully placed four duck eggs on the animal skin.

He filled a bamboo tube with half a bucket of water and placed it in the middle of the four eggs. If the temperature inside the animal skin was too high, the water could help relieve it and give Qi Bai some time to remedy the situation. It also increased the humidity to prevent the eggs from drying out.

Finally, he covered the duck eggs with a layer of animal skin. In order to allow the little ducks to breathe normally and not be suffocated, Qi Bai also gently opened a small corner of the edge.

After doing all of this, Qi Bai felt that the burden on him was suddenly lifted, and could finally sigh with relief.

As Lang Ze served the barbecue on the table, Qi Bai ran out of the cave and took back the small winnowing basket on the stone table.

Some flower petals he had collected from the surrounding area in the past few days were drying on the winnowing basket.

Perhaps it was because the more people lacked something, the more they wanted it. In any case, Qi Bai always wanted to drink tea when he came to the Beastman Continent.

In the winter, he made berry tea. Now he was ready to try flower tea.

He put the dried petals into a bamboo cup and brewed it with hot sheep milk. The petals swirled and stretched out in the bamboo cup. It looked beautiful, but it didn’t taste very good.

Qi Bai smacked his lips together, not understanding why such a fragrant flower would taste bitter after brewing. His face wrinkled, and he waved to Lang Ze. “This type of flower might not be suitable for making tea. I’ll look for other flowers and tea leaves later.”

In fact, Qi Bai knew that he had to find a way to find sugar if he wanted to make milk tea.

However, on the Beastman Continent, the salt-making technology was kept strictly confidential. As far as Qi Bai could remember, he had never seen purified sugar.

Of course, it wasn’t difficult to make some sugar for daily use. Beets, sugar cane, barley, wheat, glutinous rice, or anything else would do. He just had to find one or two of these plants, and he could try to make sugar.

However, where were they?

The wildflower tea might taste average, but they didn’t waste it. Then they found that after drinking the bitter taste of the flower tea, a hint of sweetness emerged in their mouths. This discovery surprised both of them.

After dinner, Lang Ze saw Qi Bai doing something on the bamboo bed.

Qi Bai spread animal skins on the bed before piling thick hay on top of it.

He turned to Lang Ze and said, “I will transform into a beast to warm the bed first. Help me get the eggs later.”

Lang Ze smiled. “Do you really want to hatch the eggs yourself?”

Qi Bai nodded seriously. “I can’t keep an eye on the temperature of the big rock at night, but I sleep very well.”

“Oh, by the way,” Qi Bai blinked at Lang Ze. “Don’t forget to help me light the charcoal fire before you go out in the morning.”

After seeing Lang Ze nod, Qi Bai changed into his beast form. A little snow leopard lay on the hay nest. His big tail moved in a circle, surrounding the little snow leopard’s body and making it look soft and warm.