LSLFBW: Chapter 88

Qi Bai stood outside the cave and heard the two creatures in the house talking in a dissonant manner.

“Why are you standing at the door?” Lang Ze’s voice came from behind him.

Qi Bai turned and pointed to the cave, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “The little ducks have hatched.”

Lang Ze raised an eyebrow slightly. “Isn’t this a good thing?”

Qi Bai had spent a lot of time and energy on these duck eggs.

Qi Bai sighed.

He had always firmly believed that he would be the one to witness the birth of the ducklings. Even when he left the tribe, he thought the worst possible outcome would be that they would identify with Shu Lin.

No matter how much he planned, Qi Bai never expected that the first creature the little ducklings saw after they were born would be Chuan Chuan.

This way, he had to worry about them rejecting beastmen.

Just as Qi Bai was thinking nonsense, Lang Ze had already opened the cave door.

He saw three gray little ones following the lamb closely, quacking non-stop.

They turned to look at Qi Bai and Lang Ze after hearing the door opening. Chuan Chuan even trotted in front of Qi Bai and buried his head in Qi Bai’s arms, looking frightened.

Lang Ze pulled Chuan Chuan away with some disgust.

He knew that Qi Bai wanted to train this lamb to become the future leader of the flock.

However, Lang Ze wasn’t optimistic about him. Just looking at his current appearance, he had no potential to become a leader apart from his big size.

Three little ducks followed behind Chuan Chuan, looking up at the two strange beastmen who had broken into their territory.

Qi Bai approached cautiously and quickly reached out to pick one up. “How did you get down here?”

These little guys were quite capable. After all, the stone containing the duck eggs was placed on a charcoal basin, and there was burning charcoal next to the basin. If one of them wasn’t careful and jumped into the charcoal, it would become a roasted duck.

“Quack!”

The down of newborn ducklings was soft and felt very comfortable to touch.

Qi Bai placed the three little ducks on the palm of his hand and checked them one by one, making sure they were all lively and energetic.

Perhaps it was because they had already identified Chuan Chuan as their ‘mother’, but the ducklings weren’t very enthusiastic towards Qi Bai. Even though they were in his hands, they kept flapping their little wings towards Chuan Chuan.

Qi Bai pointed to a duckling’s mouth and said earnestly, “Even though you saw Chuan Chuan first when you were born, I was the one who incubated you wholeheartedly every night.”

Qi Bai pointed to his stomach. “Do you remember this place? Do you have any impression?”

The ducklings didn’t understand and kept struggling.

Qi Bai handed the ducklings to Chuan Chuan. “Look, they only recognize you now. They are your brothers. You can’t eat them.”

Qi Bai originally wanted to name the ducklings according to the order in which they were born. However, he missed the hatching process. Now he had to put the three of them beside each other according to size.

He wrote down their characteristics very carefully and pointed them out one by one. The ducklings then had their own names: Duck One, Duck Two, Duck Three.

The three little guys were all wet. Qi Bai lifted the animal skin on the stone and saw that the water originally placed in the middle of the duck eggs to regular temperature had spilled over. The bottom of the green-colored remaining egg was soaked in the water.

Qi Bai quickly took the egg and wiped the water stains off it.

Qi Bai knew in his heart that the little duckling in this egg was probably in great danger. After all, its siblings were already running around but it was completely motionless.

Still, Qi Bai didn’t give up on it. He changed to a clean animal skin, put the last egg back, and planned to hold on for a few more days.

Lang Ze saw Qi Bai’s somewhat lost expression and paused for a moment before saying, “You are still young now. You will definitely have your own children when you grow up.”

Qi Bai blinked and looked at Lang Ze in confusion. What did this have to do with having children or not?

Qi Bai realized that something was wrong. He and Lang Ze seemed to have a slightly different understanding about raising small animals. “Wait a minute, you don’t think that I am raising Chuan Chuan and the little ducklings because I want to… have children, right?”

Lang Ze didn’t answer, but his expression clearly showed that he agreed with this statement.

Qi Bai gulped as he suddenly recalled the gazes of the other tribe members…

It was over. No wonder why everyone was so enthusiastic when seeing Chuan Chuan.

Qi Bai originally thought that his tribe members simply liked Chuan Chuan. Now thinking about it, they were simply comforting a sub-beastman who didn’t have children but really wanted one.

The others didn’t matter, but Lang Ze knew his original intention behind raising the four-eared sheep and ducks.

Lang Ze was silent for a moment before saying, “But other people don’t want to be the mother of the four-eared sheep and duck.”

Qi Bai opened his mouth awkwardly before he gave up struggling. Since it had come to this, he might as well just go for it.

Also, it was a bit hard to explain on the Beastman Continent the fact that people of Earth liked to be other people’s fathers.

Early the next morning, the tribe members gathered in the square again. Lang Ze was ready to leave with a team of six.

They had either a large wooden board or a wooden wheel tied to their bodies. These were the materials that could be assembled into a cart.

On both sides of the saddle, there were several large rattan baskets stacked together where originally there were only two. Once they were full, they could be placed in the cart.

This time, the team was full of beastmen about to reach adulthood. Everyone looked at them with envy instead of worry.

Several young beastmen tried hard to raise their heads, apparently enjoying such gazes.

However, the others weren’t discouraged. Lang Ze had already told his tribe members that both horned beastmen and sub-beastmen would have the opportunity to go to the Red Bird Island in the future. This time, more horned beastmen were chosen just to be able to carry back more food.

Just like when Lang Ze and Qi Bai set out a few days ago, the members of the bird hunting team brought enough food to ensure that they could reach Red Bird Island as soon as possible.

Yang Luo walked out of the crowd and blessed them.

Amidst the cheers of the Black Mountain people, the bird hunting team marched forward fearlessly.

Within the tribe, the gathering work that had been suspended for a few days had to resume.

In the tribe’s square, everyone gathered in groups of twos and threes, waiting for today’s mission. Shu Lin waved to Qi Bai. “Bao Bai, come here quickly.”

Little Xiong Shan heard the voices of his male mother and pulled at the animal skin coat on Shu Lin’s chest, revealing a small brown head.

Qi Bai greeted him with a smile, and Xiong Shan waved his little paws excitedly.

Qi Bai saw the rattan basket beside Shu Lin and asked with a smile, “Shu Lin, are you going out to gather too?”

Shu Lin nodded. “Yes, Priest Yang Luo has agreed that Yang Ling and I can return to the gathering team.”

Qi Bai nodded. Xiong Shan and Yang An were over a month old. It really shouldn’t be a problem for their male mothers to join the gathering team at this time.

Just then, several captains of the gathering teams came back from talking to Yang Luo.

Tu Ya’s baby hadn’t been born yet, and Diao Lan was still the temporary captain of their team.

The tribe had collected a lot of dried bamboo shoots. Naturally, the amount of bamboo shoots that could be dug up these days had decreased. Therefore, only Niu Xi led a gathering team to the bamboo forest today. The other teams had new arrangements.

Diao Lan said, “We are heading to the west of the tribe today.”

No one had any objections about the place for gathering.

However, when he saw the west, QI Bai suddenly remembered that in early winter, he found a lot of radishes in the snow. This was a good opportunity to go and check it out.

After all, in his small vegetable garden, the growth of radishes had always been inferior to other young seedlings.

Qi Bai squatted on the ground and examined it for a long time, seemingly thinking about something.

He saw that the top of these radishes were covered with lush green leaves. There were even some small flower buds blooming at the top.

Of course, even if these radishes looked full of life, no one started digging them up.

After a winter, the core of the radish root was empty, not to mention that there were many wild vegetables in the mountains and forests in the spring.

Qi Bai followed Diao Lan. His knowledge of gathering was still limited to autumn and winter. He wasn’t updated yet on what wild vegetables and fruits were edible in spring.

Once the rattan basket was almost full, Qi Bai asked, “Diao Lan, do you know what wild grasses that ducks eat?”

Last night, Qi Bai and Lang Ze found some fresh wild vegetables and fed them to the ducklings. They ate them, but Qi Bai was still a bit worried and thought of asking Diao Lan.

Diao Lan thought for a moment before saying, “Ducks live in water. They will eat wild vegetables and shrimp near the water.”

Diao Lan told Qi Bai the appearance of several wild vegetables and Qi Bai wrote them down one by one.

Shu Lin, who wasn’t far away, heard this and came over happily. “Bao Bai, have your eggs hatched?”

“Three little ducklings have hatched,” Qi Bai replied. He paused and emphasized, “They aren’t babies. They are ducklings.”

However, Shu Lin obviously didn’t listen. He had been looking after the duck eggs for Qi Bai for several days and had long been curious about the ducklings inside. Upon hearing this, he immediately said, “Can you let me see these ducklings when we return to the tribe?”

Qi Bai smiled and nodded. “Of course.”

After handing in the tribe’s gathering mission, Qi Bai and Shu Lin came to the waterfall.

Shu Lin was collecting some fresh young leaves on the bank downstream, while Qi Bai took a bamboo tube, squatted in the puddle in the shallow water, and started picking up the lively little shrimps.

This almost transparent shrimp wasn’t uncommon in shallow waters, but apart from the children in the tribe, few other members of the tribe would try to catch it.

The reason was very simple. It could be seen from the fact that Qi Bai took half a day to fill this small tube that not everyone could afford to waste this amount of time.

The moment Shu Lin learned that the ducklings were kept in a duck coop that had been prepared in advance, he gave all the young leaves he had collected to Qi Bai and went straight to the duck coop with Xiong Shan.

Since the ducklings had already identified with Chuan Chuan, they would cry out if they didn’t see him for a moment. However, Qi Bai was worried about keeping them together.

After all, no matter how human-like Chuan Chuan was, he was just a lamb and these ducklings were too small. It would be a big deal if they were accidentally stepped on or crushed.

Fortunately, the sheep pen and duck coop were built together and shared a bamboo wall. Qi Bai cut a small window in the middle of the two bamboo houses so that the two sides could see each other.

After Shu Lin and Xiong Shan opened the small door of the duck coop, they saw Chuan Chuan putting his head on the window, blinking as he watched the ducklings jumping up and down in the duck coop.

Soon, Qi Bai chopped the tender leaves and small shrimp into small pieces and walked over with a bamboo bowl.

Shu Lin pointed to a small stone basin on the edge of the duck coop and asked, “What is this used for?”

Qi Bai touched his nose as he replied, “This is for the ducklings to swim in.”

Ducks usually lived near water, but it was impossible for Qi Bai to let the ducklings roam free now. He could only settle for the next best thing and build a fake ‘swimming pool’ for them. This way, they could not only swim in the middle but also drink water directly from it.

The ducklings weren’t as close to Qi Bai as they were to Chuan Chuan, but they didn’t reject Qi Bai feeding them. This was the only psychological comfort to Qi Bai, the injured old father.

The two men and the little bear squatted on the ground and watched the ducklings playing. They didn’t stand up until the ducklings had almost finished eating all the food in the bowl.

Qi Bai was just about to replace the stone basin in the duck coop with fresh spring water when Shu Lin suddenly said, “Bao Bai, the wild vegetables you raised are about to be eaten by insects.”