LSLFBW: Chapter 75

There was a light rain that was like mist in the sky.

A young man wearing animal skin clothes was holding two skewers of fresh beef in his hands and walking leisurely up the stone steps beside the mountain wall.

In the midst of the mountains and rivers, a verdant bamboo pavilion stood quietly.

Raindrops fell on the bamboo pavilion, gathered into crystal clear droplets on the edge of the stone eaves, and dripped onto the stone platform one by one, making clear and pleasant sounds.

Qi Bai walked straight into the bamboo pavilion and placed the two pieces of meat in his hand on the stove.

He casually shook his white hair soaked by the rain, ignoring the small tuft of hair that was still stubbornly sticking up on top of his head.

He picked up the bamboo tube filled with water next to the water tank, walked through the bamboo pavilion, and opened the fence door next to it.

The plants within the fence were stretching their bodies in the rain with enjoyment.

Qi Bai checked row by row and found that many small mounds of earth had sprouted on the land where the sweet potatoes were buried. However, a few sweet potatoes had obviously grown more than one sprout, making the land seem a bit crowded.

Compared to the land planted with sweet potatoes, the radish was more low-key. Only a few plants seemed to be starting to grow leaves, and nothing else moved.

Due to the rain today, Qi Bai didn’t need to water the vegetable garden. He just gave it a rough check before walking towards the small yard next to it.

Hearing Qi Bai’s voice, Chuan Chuan pushed the bamboo door with his head and called out twice like a spoiled child.

Qi Bai walked into the bamboo nest with Chuan Chuan’s name on it. He poured sheep milk and fresh spring water into Chuan Chuan’s two food bowls respectively, and added a handful of grass. Chuan Chuan started to eat quietly.

Qi Bai looked around the bamboo nest and confirmed that the hay on the roof was very rainproof. There was no need to worry about Chuan Chuan getting wet in the nest.

Qi Bai moved the small stool from the bamboo nest and sat down. This should be the stool that Lang Ze left in the nest.

Chuan Chuan couldn’t adapt to living alone all at once. In the first few days after moving out of Qi Bai’s cave, he kept calling out from his bamboo nest.

However, the dad Qi Bai he called for was imprisoned on the bed by the duck eggs. Therefore, Lang Ze took the initiative to go to the bamboo nest to accompany him.

Qi Bai knew that Lang Ze and Chuan Chuan, a beastman and a sheep, weren’t as harmonious as they seemed. He found it funny just thinking about the way they looked facing each other.

However, the effect was still quite obvious. Chuan Chuan had now adapted to living alone in the bamboo nest.

After playing with Chuan Chuan for a while, Qi Bai returned to the bamboo pavilion.

He looked up at the bamboo pavilion that blocked most of the rain outside and felt that his efforts in the past few days weren’t in vain.

After all, embedding the thick bamboo into the stone platform and stabilizing the roof structure wasn’t an easy task.

Currently, there was only one last step left to transform the cave. It was to open a large window in the stone wall.

The moment Niu Xi stepped onto the stone platform in front of Qi Bai and Lang Ze’s cave, he saw Qi Bai pounding the mountain wall with a stone hammer, demolishing the house in a dusty manner.

“Bao Bai, why are you destroying the cave?”

The moment Qi Bai heard the sound, he took off the animal skin covering his nose, brushed off the dust on his body and walked to Niu Xi.

He took a cup of water from the covered basket next to him and poured a cup for both of them before replying, “It is too dark in my cave. I plan to chisel a window in the rock wall.”

Qi Bai’s current cave was only filled with some light coming in from the cave entrance, but that light couldn’t shine in the innermost part of the cave. Even at noon, the bamboo bed inside the stone house was still pitch black.

This was why he wanted to chisel a window around two meters wide in the stone wall.

Niu Xi glanced at it. “But if this happens, there will be two places in your cave that are leaking. Won’t it be cold in winter?”

Qi Bai shook his head and picked up the bamboo window placed next to the wall. “I made two windows. Once winter comes, I will put bricks outside the windows and seal them completely with animal skins.”

Niu Xi walked to the edge of the windowsill and saw that Qi Bai had chiseled a hole in the corner of the windowsill.

Niu Xi had seen such holes before. They were the same as the doors of the tribe’s wall. She could already imagine how the two windows would open and close after they were installed.

Looking at the simple and atmospheric bamboo pavilion, Niu Xi sincerely admired it. “Bao Bai, your cave is so beautiful.”

It was only at this moment that she finally understood why QI Bai chose this unpopular mountain wall. “I would never have thought of building such a beautiful house.”

Qi Bai’s eyes curved. “This isn’t what I thought of. I just tried my best to copy what I saw. If you like, you can make it anytime.”

Niu Xi waved her hand. “Ah, compared to this house, I like your big stove better. It is really convenient.”

Qi Bai became excited when talking about the stove. This time, he wasn’t modest and kept nodding.

As a foodie, other places were fine, but not having a stove for cooking wasn’t acceptable at all.

It was precisely because he didn’t want to make do that Qi Bai had already collected all the bricks needed for his own stove when building stoves for the children’s caver and Yang Luo’s cave. He just didn’t start construction for a long time.

It was because he wanted to wait until the weather got warmer. Then he could build the bamboo pavilion and the large stove outside the cave.

At this time, in the corner outside the bamboo pavilion near the vegetable garden, there was a large, inverted ‘L’ shaped stove.

The entire stove was divided into three parts. On the long side of the inverted ‘L’ shape were two ovens while the short side were two fire stoves. Finally, there was a shared chimney.

There were two ovens on the long side, one for baking and one for roasting.

The left hand side was a slightly taller arched oven. The shape of the oven was inspired by the roast duck. At the same time, a brick compartment was built at the bottom of the oven to hold charcoal.

This way, the oven could be used for two purposes. He could hang the meat directly on the horizontal bar above the oven and roast it with an open flame, or he could seal the oven and add charcoal at the bottom to simmer and cook it.

On the right side was a long barbecue rack. This rack was relatively simple. It was just a concave shape made of bricks. By adding charcoal into the groove, he could put bamboo sticks on the fire to cook it. He could also place thin stone slabs on top of it for barbecue.

On the short side of the inverted ‘L’ shape, Qi Bai built two stoves with a diameter of 60 to 70 centimeters to place the ceramic pots.

However, Qi Bai’s clay pot hadn’t been fired yet. For the time being, he could only use a stone pot.

In addition, once the stove was completed, Qi Bai used mortar to mix the color of the Black Mountain stone wall and applied it on the outermost layer. This way, the entire stove merged with the mountain wall.

The biggest advantage to having such a large stove was that Qi Bai could cook several dishes at the same time. This greatly saved the time he spent on cooking.

Qi Bai and Niu Xi squatted in front of the stove, whispering and studying for a long time.

By the time Lang Ze came back from outside holding a rabbit’s ears, he saw two pointed heads popping up from behind the stove.

Niu Xi looked up and happened to see Lang Ze walking into the bamboo pavilion.

“Oh!” Niu Xi exclaimed.

Qi Bai was frightened by Niu Xi and fell on the ground.

Lang Ze paused for a moment before he walked forward and helped Qi Bai up from the ground. QI Bai’s face was still full of confusion. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Niu Xi replied in a somewhat embarrassed manner, “I didn’t hear the sound of Lang Ze walking.”

“Oh.” Qi Bai sighed with relief before saying with a smile, “I was so scared. I thought a wild animal had sneaked into the tribe.”

Lang Ze shook his head. “If there is danger, Chuan Chuan wouldn’t be so quiet.”

“What are you doing here?”

Qi Bai and Niu Xi looked at each other. If Lang Ze hadn’t come back, they would’ve almost forgotten about their business.

Qi Bai quickly ran back to the cave and took out the bamboo tube he used to store the date berry seeds.

On the animal skin covered with a shallow layer of water, small sprouts not even as big as a fingernail started to grow on the tiny seeds.

Niu Xi exclaimed, “Wow! Can these small leaves grow date berries? This is amazing!”

Qi Bai nodded. After six or seven days of stimulating growth, the seeds of the date berry had sprouted in the bamboo tube. Now it was time to transplant them into the soil.

Qi Bai had previously promised Niu Xi that he would give her a few seedlings so that they could grow date berries together. Therefore, after seeing the seeds sprout, Qi Bai immediately told Niu Xi the news. This was why Niu Xi came to find Qi Bai.

It was just that the two of them were so engrossed in the discussion that they almost delayed the matter.

QI Bai motioned to Niu Xi to bring the bamboo tube filled with soil. He carefully placed the seedlings in the soil, covered them with a thin layer of soil, watered them, and handed them back to Niu Xi.

You have to pour some water into the bamboo tube every few days. Also, try to let them get more sunlight.” Qi Bai said softly as he transplanted the young shoots into the bamboo tubes.

Niu Xi held the bamboo tube in his arms, carefully wrote down every word Qi Bai said, and nodded from time to time.

“I’ll move the rest to the vegetable garden next to it.” Qi Bai pointed to the land within the fence. “This is the first time I’m growing these as well. If there is anything wrong, let’s discuss it.”

Niu Xi nodded happily, almost drooling over the seedlings in the bamboo tube. Then she left contentedly.

After seeing Niu Xi off, Lang Ze lifted up the rabbit in his hand.

Qi Bai seemed to see the words ‘roasted rabbit’ on Lang Ze’s face.

The low wall that was half a person high behind the stone table was carved into a cupboard by QI Bai. At this time, there weren’t many things in the cupboard. There were only some seasoning jars on the top layer and some bowls stacked below.

Qi Bai took out the largest ceramic baking tray, placed the whole rabbit that Lang Ze had cleaned on the baking tray, and spread the marinade on it.

At the same time, he cut some radish, bamboo shoots, and fresh wild vegetables as side dishes and evenly arranged them around the rabbit meat.

He placed the ceramic plate into the preheated arched oven, blocked the oven exit with a wooden baffle and filled it with charcoal before waiting.

Qi Bai picked up the fresh beef he brought back from the tribe and suggested, “Shall we slice the beef and roast it on the stone slab?”

Lang Ze naturally had no objection. Seeing Qi Bai busy washing vegetables and cutting meat, he picked up the stone hammer that Qi Bai had placed on the ground and chiseled open the window along the marks Qi Bai had drawn.

It took patience and skill to cut fresh beef into thin slices. Fortunately, Qi Bai’s small bone knife was very sharp. He cut all the beef that the two people received into palm-sized slices and stacked them layer by layer on the ceramic plate.

Looking at this pottery plate, Qi Bai suddenly had an idea and put a few small green leaves in the middle of the beef.

You know what, it looked really delicate and delicious.

Qi Bai took out a small bamboo basket from under the stone cabinet and moved the stone slab on the large water tank, which was full of mountain spring water.

After the temperature rose, Qi Bai moved the salted food into the cave and the large water tank finally played its due role.

Qi Bai used a bamboo tube to scoop out water and poured it into the vegetable washing basin beside him. He put the vegetables from the bamboo basket into the vegetable washing basin and started to watch them carefully.

These vegetables were collected by Qi Bai on his way to the bamboo forest this morning. There were all types of vegetables in them.

Among them, Qi Bai’s favorite was a large-leaf vegetable that looked a bit like lettuce. Due to the varying colors of the leaves, people in the tribe called it the ‘flower leaf vegetable.’

For this reason, Qi Bai transplanted a few of them into his small vegetable garden. He hoped they would bloom, bear seeds, and grow into more leafy vegetables.

He washed the dirt off the leaves, shook off the water, and put them in a ceramic dish.

Lang Ze, who was chiseling the stone wall, saw this and inadvertently glanced in Qi Bai’s direction, only to be caught by Qi Bai.

Qi Bai picked up the ceramic bowl containing vegetables, deliberately picked a fresh leaf, put it in his mouth, and chewed it.