LSLFBW: Chapter 89

Upon hearing this, Qi Bai immediately put down the bamboo tube in his hand and ran to Shu Lin.

Sure enough, some small insects were found at the roots of several seedlings. In addition, there were some newly sprouted weeds mixed in between the vegetable beds and the seedlings.

Qi Bai would inspect his vegetable garden every day when he was in the tribe.

He didn’t expect that after being away for a few days, his small vegetable garden was almost occupied.

Qi Bai wasn’t very panicked about this. After all, the land in the vegetable garden was untreated black soil. It was inevitable that there would be some grass seeds and insect seeds mixed in.

It was just that there were no pesticides to kill insects and weeds. Everything needed to be solved through manpower.

Qi Bai sent Shu Lin and Xiong Shan back. On the way back to the children’s cave, he happened to meet Zhu Zhu who was walking out of the cave with a wooden barrel. “Priest Yang Luo isn’t in the tribe.”

Qi Bai stopped and looked into the cave. There was no one inside. He smiled and said, “I’m not looking for the priest. I’m looking for Bao Xing and Bao Yuan.”

Zhu Zhu pointed to a corner before turning to head to the center of the square.

Qi Bai didn’t walk far in the direction indicated by Zhu Zhu. Sure enough, he saw a group of little kids. They were squatting together, digging vegetable roots and insects in the soil with wooden sticks.

The tribe provided food to the children, but children of this age had big appetites. The beastmen children wouldn’t let themselves go hungry.

So whenever they had free time, they would think about how to fill their stomachs with other things.

Qi Bai noticed this point about them. They were just catching bugs anyway. It didn’t matter where they were caught.

Qi Bai smiled and said to them, “Would you like to help me catch bugs? Ten bugs can be exchanged for delicious food!”

Li Li dug a white fleshy worm out of the soil. She was about to secretly put it in her mouth when she was stopped by a small hand.

Sun Yuan looked at her with a stern expression. “You can’t eat it.”

Ta Yun, who was squatting beside them, said quickly, “Yes, Bao Bai said this can’t be eaten. You should put the insect away quickly.” Then he stuffed the insect in Li Li’s hand into her small animal skin bag.

Li Li wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth and said with a pursed mouth, “I’m hungry.”

It wasn’t just Li Li. All the children squatting in the fields and catching insects felt hungry.

At this time, the air was filled with the rich aroma of milk. Mixed with this milk aroma was a sweetness that they had never tasted before, making all the children squatting in the fields drool.

Ta Yun was older than the other children and looked to be at least seven or eight years old. Unlike Sun Yuan, who was seriously carrying out the task taught by Qi Bai, Ta Yun still remembered what Qi Bai had said before he asked them to pick up the insects here.

She told Li Li, “As long as you can catch ten bugs, you can exchange them for delicious food from Bao Bai. You will have nothing if you eat the bugs now.”

Bao Xing leaned over, opened the small animal skin bag, and said in a worried voice, “But I don’t know how many bugs I caught. Can you tell if I have ten bugs?”

Ta Yun took a look into Bao Xing’s bag and said seriously, “Ten means a lot. You only have these few. You definitely don’t have ten.”

She raised her head, looked at the small portion of land they had just walked through, and said, “You will only have ten if we pick up all the bugs in Bao Bai’s land.”

Once the other children heard Ta Yun’s words, they all showed a look of sudden enlightenment and started to search the soil even more diligently.

At this time, the owner of the vegetable garden wasn’t idle either. He was paying his hired helpers under the bamboo pavilion nearby.

He beat the red bird eggs, squeezed the sweet and sour berries, added the sheep’s milk, and stirred well.

After standing for a while, he poured the delicate egg milk into a ceramic dish, put it into the oven, and baked it with charcoal.

Qi Bai observed the situation inside the oven through the gap in the baffle. He only removed the baffle in front of the oven after a brown-yellow milk skin appeared on the top layer of the egg milk.

The hot air gushed out of the oven, and the aroma of sheep milk custard greeted him.

Qi Bai used a bamboo stick to scrape off some of the edges and corners of a ceramic plate. The sheep milk egg custard was springy and smooth in the mouth. The sour taste of the berries neutralized the smell of the sheep milk and the red bird eggs, leaving only a faint aroma of milk and egg.

Qi Bai pursed his lips, savoring the taste in his mouth.

The only pity was that he didn’t have any sugar now, so the sheep milk custard tasted a bit bland. Otherwise, if he sprinkled some sugar on the surface of the custard, it would be more perfect as a caramel pudding.

However, Qi Bai hadn’t eaten any proper desserts for several months so this was already very satisfying. He took out all the ceramic plates and bowls from the cupboard. As he placed them, he shouted toward the small vegetable garden. “The egg custard is ready. Come quickly.”

The children, who had been paying attention to Qi Bai’s actions, threw the dirt in their hands into the air and ran into the bamboo pavilion with joy.

Qi Bai smiled and said, “Line up one by one.”

Bao Xing ran the fastest and was now in first place. He hurriedly handed over the small animal skin bag in his hand to Qi Bai.

Qi Bai originally just wondered how many bugs could there be in such a small vegetable garden. He thought the children could catch them all in a short amount of time. However, it was only now that he realized there were quite a lot of them.

Bao Xing alone caught 14. Qi Bai counted them one by one and told him the number.

Bao Xing jumped up and said happily, “Can I have your new food?”

“Of course.” Qi Bai nodded and pointed to the wash basin behind him that was already filled with water. “Go over and wash the dirt off your hands. Then we can eat together.”

Qi Bai crushed the berries he had picked in the morning and sprinkled them on the custard. Then he gave the children a corresponding amount of sheep milk custard according to the number of bugs they caught.

This was the agreement that Qi Bai had made with everyone in advance. Even when facing the children, he carried it out seriously and didn’t give them less.

However, Qi Bai discovered a problem. It was that the children’s knowledge of numbers was really lacking.

Most of the children had caught more than the ten that was agreed upon, but they were all waiting for him to count them one by one. They had no idea how many bugs they had.

Qi Bai wouldn’t lie to the children now, but it wouldn’t do for them to remain ignorant like this. You know, children of four or five these days could count to 100.

Thinking of this, Qi Bai had to become serious. It wasn’t just the children, but also many other people in the tribe who couldn’t count. A beastman like Tu Yu, who could count to 10, was already the best in the tribe.

Qi Bai was lost in thought while eating the custard.

At this time, Bao Xing held a pottery bowl and asked, “Brother Bai Bao, can we come to help you catch bugs tomorrow?”

Qi Bai thought about it, and an idea came to his mind. He said, “Come over again tomorrow afternoon. I will make this egg custard for you then.”

Li Li raised her hands high. “Can I ask Lu Xia to come with me?”

The children didn’t stay together all the time. For example, Lu Xia lived in the cave with her mother and didn’t come here today.

Qi Bai hadn’t expected Li Li to be so righteous. He said with a smile, “Of course.”

“That’s great!”

The children had eaten their fill and swung the small animal skin bags in their hands as they ran down the mountain with their short legs.

Sun Yuan was the only one left. He placed the ceramic bowl with half the egg custard left on the stone bench and slowly climbed down from the bench. He held the ceramic bowl in his arms and looked at Qi Bai intently.

Sun Yuan’s eyes were distinct. Qi Bai could understand what he meant even without him saying anything.

Qi Bai touched his little head and asked, “Do you want to take it back and give it to your brother?”

Sun Yuan nodded happily.

Qi Bai smiled and patted his shoulder. “Go ahead. Remember to return the bowl to me tomorrow.”

However, Qi Bai didn’t know that this small bowl of egg custard not only made the children who didn’t come to pick bugs envious, but it also made Bao Yue catch Bao Xing and beat him up.

There was no way. They were both younger brothers, but the contrast was too great. It didn’t work if she didn’t beat her younger brother.

Therefore, once everyone had finished gathering the next afternoon, a dozen children came to Qi Bai’s cave.

But their attention was soon drawn to the black stone slab next to the small vegetable garden.

They saw a vertical line neatly drawn on the blackboard with white powder.

Seeing that everyone was interested in the number 1 on the blackboard, Qi Bai felt relieved.

It wasn’t that there was no mathematics and other subjects on the Beastman Continent. However, this knowledge wasn’t as systematic as that developed on Earth over thousands of years, and it was difficult to learn.

In addition, in order to ensure their absolute status in the tribe. Most of the knowledge was passed down from generation to generation among priests.

It was just that these things weren’t difficult for Qi Bai. For example, the knot counting method that gave Yang Luo a headache could easily be solved using modern addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Qi Bai had always fallen into a misunderstanding about helping everyone solve problems.

In fact, from Hu Huo’s understanding of the mortise and tenon structure and Lu Guo’s control over the temperature of the pottery kiln, it could be clearly seen that the beastmen weren’t stupid. On the contrary, they were very smart and knew how to draw inferences from one example.

However, there were only totems and simple characters on the Beastman Continent. He didn’t know how much his tribe members would accept the knowledge of Earth.

Thus, he planned to teach this knowledge slowly to the children first. After all, children should be the fastest to accept new things.

The first thing he planned to try was simple Arabic numerals.

Bao Yue rushed to the front of the stone slab and looked around. Then he asked Qi Bai, “What’s next?”

This was the simplest number, and older kids like Bao Yue had the concept of ‘1’, so they already started to ask about the follow-up.

Nevertheless, Qi Bai kept it a secret. “The next number will appear tomorrow.”

After Qi Bai said this, the children stopped pestering Qi Bai with questions and soon cheered up. After all, they came here for serious business today.

Seeing the children in the fields, Qi Bai rolled up his trouser legs and started digging the ground with a stone hoe, preparing to finish the farm work he had accumulated.

The first thing Qi Bai had to do was separate the ginger seedlings and sweet potato seedlings that grew too densely.

Previously when Qi Bai planted ginger and sweet potatoes, he put the whole piece directly into the soil. Not long after, sprouts appeared in the ground and there was more than one sprout in each pit.

Leaving them to grow like this would definitely result in a reduction in yield, so Qi Bai had long wanted to separate them.

Qi Bai’s movements were very careful. He swept the soil gently, trying not to damage every tiny root of the plant. He separated the seedlings one by one and planted them in the soil.

But this time, Qi Bai chose a ridge as a control group.

The sheep manure that was previously piled up around the sheepfold had almost fermented. It had now become loose and uniform with almost no odor.

However, Qi Bai had never used fertilizer before. He could only explore it bit by bit.

The method he chose was very simple. He spread sheep manure into the deeply dug land, covered it with soil as a base fertilizer, and planted the plants.

Keeping other conditions unchanged, he could tell whether it was effective by observing the growth of crops in the two ridges of land.

In addition, Qi Bai also planted the sprouted taro that he had collected earlier into the small vegetable garden.

After all this busy time, it was when the number on Qi Bai’s blackboard increased to 4 that Lang Ze finally returned to the tribe with the bird hunting team.