The Primitive Adventures of a Chipmunk 93

Chapter 93

Three people sleeping on a narrow bamboo bed, it was difficult to even turn over. The main thing was that Hua Shi’an was not used to sleeping with two unfamiliar sub-beasts. He barely slept all night and got up early the next day.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face, the sky had not yet begun to lighten.

He had thought he had gotten up early enough, that he was the first in the tribe to get up. But who would have thought that as he strolled towards the camp in the dark, he would see a firelight from a distance, and the busy sub-beasts by the fire pit.

“Look, there’s a person over there. Is that the Lord Priest?”

“Impossible. The Lord Priest wouldn’t get up so early.”

It was easy to see from the dark to the light, but difficult to see from the light to the dark. Hong Yinglan and Yan Zhile squinted for a long time, and it wasn’t until the person in the darkness got a little closer that they could see clearly.

They hadn’t seen each other for twenty days, and last night they had only seen him from a distance. Seeing their long-awaited friend through the faint light, the two sub-beasts could no longer hold back. They casually threw their cooking utensils to the side and, in three big steps, stumbled towards Hua Shi’an.

“Lord Priest!”

“Lord Priest, Lord Priest!”

The distance was not far. In the blink of an eye, the two sub-beasts were in front of him. Hua Shi’an’s lips moved, but before he could speak, the two of them almost simultaneously threw themselves into his arms, hugging him from the left and right.

Hua Shi’an was a little taller than them. From his perspective, two furry heads were nuzzling in his embrace. It was an irresistible warmth. Hua Shi’an was stunned for a moment, a soft laugh escaping his lips as he hugged the two sub-beasts back.

“I’ve missed you so much, Lord Priest.” Yan Zhile was ecstatic, like a parched land meeting a welcome rain, and he kept trying to burrow into Hua Shi’an’s embrace. It was not just longing, but also gratitude. He held Hua Shi’an’s arm tightly, his voice gradually becoming choked:

“Thank you, Lord Priest. Thank you for going into the forest to look for people despite the danger. I thought, I thought my mother was dead. I never thought I would see her again. I’m so happy…”

Emotions seemed to be contagious. Hong Yinglan, who had buried her head in Hua Shi’an’s right side, her shoulders trembling slightly, couldn’t help but sob. “Lord Priest… it’s so good to have you in the tribe. Thank you for leading us to live, and thank you for helping us find our relatives.”

“Oh my, oh my.”

One after another, they made Hua Shi’an feel embarrassed. He rubbed the two sub-beasts’ heads and patted their backs. “It’s a good thing to be reunited with your relatives. You should be happy, you should be happy. Why are you crying?”

“Alright, alright, no more crying. How have you been recently? Has anything happened in the tribe? Did you plant the sweet potatoes I asked you to plant before I left? And the kudzu powder we made before we left, have you eaten it? Is it delicious?”

A series of questions, and the two sub-beasts had no time to cry.

Yan Zhile let go of Hua Shi’an, wiped his tears with the back of his hand, and answered seriously, “Nothing has happened in the tribe. The sweet potatoes were planted a long time ago, and they’ve all sprouted. You guys have been gone for many days.”

Hong Yinglan wiped her tears and added to Yan Zhile’s words, “We’ve eaten the kudzu powder, Lord Priest. It’s especially delicious. We’ve been looking for kudzu root in the forest whenever we have free time recently. We’ve made a lot of kudzu powder, dried it, and stored it in a pottery vat.”

“Speaking of pottery vats, Lord Priest, we’ve fired the kiln twice recently. The firing was perfect, and the tribe has more and more pottery to use!”

“And Moo Moo. We take it out to graze every day. Moo Moo is not afraid of people now.”

“Oh right, the rabbits, the rabbits have given birth! We’ve separated them into nests as you said. The cubs have grown a lot these past few days.”

“A lot of the crops in the fields have blossomed. I feel like there will be fruits soon.”

One after another, the two sub-beasts filled in the twenty days that Hua Shi’an had been absent.

Everything was developing in a good direction, and life was getting better and better. Hua Shi’an was extremely gratified and smiled with joy. “Not bad, not bad. I—”

“Lord Priest, what, what’s wrong with your arm?”

He had been so busy talking that he hadn’t looked at his body. After moving two steps to the side, Hong Yinglan immediately saw the shocking wound on Hua Shi’an’s arm and covered her mouth in alarm.

Hearing this, Yan Zhile stretched his neck and looked at Hua Shi’an’s arm. Seeing the two-inch-long wound, his pupils contracted sharply, and the tears he had just wiped away were welling up in his eyes again. “What happened? Such a large wound must be so painful…”

Seeing that the two sub-beasts were about to start crying again, Hua Shi’an suddenly sniffed and said nonchalantly, “I think I smell something burning. Are you guys cooking something?”

Now they really had no time to cry. The two sub-beasts looked at each other and ran off.

In fact, nothing was burning. The pottery pot was boiling with clear water, and there were other tribe members around, so it was impossible for anything to burn. The two sub-beasts had forgotten while they were chatting and had been tricked by Hua Shi’an in a moment of carelessness.

But it was indeed getting late. It would be dawn in a while. After a brief chat about Hua Shi’an’s wound, Hong Yinglan and Yan Zhile washed their hands and got busy around the fire pit.

There were a lot of things piled up in the camp. Two large vats of kudzu powder, five back baskets of fresh wild vegetables, and two basins of fresh meat by the firewood pile, which looked like turkey meat. There were also a few basins of dried vegetables and dried mushrooms soaking in water in the open space.

Although there were thirty-six more people, thirty-six more mouths, but this amount of ingredients… wasn’t it a bit too much?

Hua Shi’an thought for a moment and then directly asked Hong Yinglan, who was closest to him, “Yinglan, are all these ingredients in the camp for this morning’s meal? Isn’t it a bit too much?”

“Not at all.” Hong Yinglan looked back and explained softly, “Chief Mu specially told me last night that the Tree Shrew Tribe has just arrived and doesn’t have much food left. We should help them fill their stomachs first. They’ll have the strength to find food after they’ve eaten.”

“I’ve calculated. With our people and the people of the Tree Shrew Tribe, there are more than two hundred people. With just these ingredients, we’ll probably have to drink a lot of soup to barely get full.”

On their way back, they had relied entirely on the food of the Tree Shrew Tribe. It was just one meal. Of course, Hua Shi’an would not be stingy. It was just that he had almost forgotten about this himself. He hadn’t expected Chief Mu to still remember.

Hua Shi’an nodded to show he understood and squatted beside Hong Yinglan with nothing to do. His peripheral vision swept over the deboned turkey meat in the basin, and he couldn’t help but ask again, “When was the turkey caught? Didn’t you guys eat it yourselves?”

Speaking of this, Hong Yinglan’s little face fell. “The hunting team brought it back yesterday at noon. We were originally thinking that you guys should be coming back, so we saved some to eat. We only cooked a small half in the evening. But then you guys came back, and you even brought back a group of outsiders.”

Meat was a scarce resource. They were reluctant to eat more themselves, and they had saved some for their tribe members. But now they had to share it with outsiders. It was normal for the little sub-beastman to have some resentment in his heart.

Hua Shi’an smiled and teased, “Then why didn’t you hide it? We could have eaten it secretly at night.”

“I, I had originally thought so,” Hong Yinglan pouted. “But the chief said it wasn’t right. It was just half a piece of turkey meat, and we had to eat it secretly. If they saw it or smelled it, they would say we were being stingy.”

“Exactly!”

Yan Zhile chimed in from the side, “The hunting team worked so hard to catch the turkey. Why should we share it with them! If they see it, they see it. We’ll eat our own. Are we going to have to share our meat with them in the future?”

Yan Zhile had a loud voice. One shout and the whole camp would tremble. Hua Shi’an was afraid that people would come over and hear him, so he quickly waved his hands. “Alright, alright. Don’t be so excited. This is the only time. We won’t share our meat with them in the future.”

“I’m hungry. Let’s cook first, let’s cook first.”

Of course, he had to cook. But the head chef was back. A different idea suddenly popped into the second chef Yan Zhile’s mind. He chased after Hua Shi’an and asked, “Lord Priest, besides mixing it with boiling water, is there any other way to eat kudzu powder?”

Hua Shi’an: “There are many ways to eat it. You can stir-fry it, or make it into noodles. But my arm hasn’t fully recovered yet. My hands can’t—”

“You don’t have to do it. You can just tell us what to do. We’ll do it.”

“That’s fine too. Let’s go.”

Coincidentally, the water had just boiled. Hua Shi’an decided to teach them how to cook hot and sour noodles.

He diluted an appropriate amount of kudzu powder with cold water, mixed it into a slurry, and then added an appropriate amount of boiling water to cook it, making a sticky and slightly translucent cooked starch.

He poured the cooked starch into a powder basin, added a little cold water, and mixed it with the remaining dry powder. At this point, the kudzu powder had turned into a grayish-white ball, a little moister than a flour dough. It could be picked up with chopsticks, but the kudzu powder would slide down.

At this point, the noodles were more than half successful. All that was left was to find the bamboo sieve that had been woven a while ago, wash it, put the dough in it, flatten it, and then hang it over the pottery pot.

The bamboo sieve was a little large. Yan Zhile held it with both hands, and Hong Yinglan patted the dough with force. The long, thin noodles, like a stream of water, slipped through the cracks of the bamboo skin into the boiling water.

After the noodles were in the pot, Hua Shi’an had them cook the wild vegetables as well. Both were easy to cook and could be taken out after a short while, and were scooped into pottery bowls and bamboo tubes respectively.

Eating the noodles alone would be tasteless and definitely not enough. So Hua Shi’an had them cut the deboned chicken into cubes, and with the rehydrated mushrooms and wild vegetables, he stir-fried a fragrant topping.

As the sky was getting light, the tribe members came over, following the smell. The people of the Tree Shrew Tribe also arrived at the camp one after another.

It was finally time to eat. One bowl/bamboo tube of noodles and wild vegetables per person, two spoonfuls of topping, and two ladles of boiling water. The cold food was hot again.

Noodles were a strange thing. Not to mention the people of the Tree Shrew Tribe, even the people of their own tribe had never seen them before. Curious about the new food, the people had originally wanted to ask Hua Shi’an a few questions, but the oily noodles were so tempting that they all decisively threw the questions out of their minds and feasted with their bowls.

He had been hungry for a long time. Fei, who had not had a hot meal for a long time, picked up a bamboo tube and, following Hua Shi’an’s example, mixed the topping evenly. The slippery noodles couldn’t even be picked up with chopsticks. Fei tried several times before she managed to scoop up the noodles. She tried her best to restrain herself and slowly brought them to her mouth.

As soon as the noodles entered her mouth, Fei was stunned.

There was salt, there was flavor, and there was oil. The noodles were Q-bouncy, smooth, and chewy. The rich flavor of the meat and the spicy flavor were intertwined, constantly stimulating her taste buds. Every bite was an ultimate enjoyment.

This was too delicious. It was no exaggeration to say that she had never eaten such a delicious and appetizing food.

Fei could still hold back. After one mouthful of noodles, her tribe members could no longer hold back. Surprised cries and unstinting praise exploded like thunder:

“Wow, what is this? It’s so delicious!”

“There are even meat pieces in it. So fragrant, so fragrant. I’m captivated by the fragrance.”

“Chief, do you recognize it? What is this slippery, transparent long strip?”

“Delicious, delicious. I love this taste. The soup is also so good.”

“Chief, you should go and ask. What did they use to cook it? Even the wild vegetables that have soaked up the soup are especially delicious! We should go and pick some today too.”

“What kind of good life are they living in the Squirrel Tribe, eating these delicious things every day?”

The beastmen were wolfing it down, their voices louder than the last. Fei was slurping her noodles with her bamboo tube, wishing she could pretend not to know them, wishing she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want them to praise it. It was normal to praise delicious food. But this was too exaggerated, as if they were starving ghosts who had never eaten before. It made… it made them look like they had never seen the world.

There were only the voices of the Tree Shrew beastmen in the camp. The squirrel beastmen held their bowls without a word.

It wasn’t that the noodles were not delicious and not worthy of praise. On the contrary, it was precisely because the noodles were so delicious that they couldn’t praise them. They had to pretend that they ate them often, every day, and that it was not strange at all.

Yes, the Rangrang Tribe had always lived such a good life.

Secretly competing with the Tree Shrew Tribe, the beastmen were holding it in with great difficulty. Hua Shi’an was having a great time on the side. He was slurping his noodles and laughing, and he managed to finish his breakfast with a smile.

The tribe had grown larger, and with the addition of the people of the Tree Shrew Tribe this morning, the once spacious camp had suddenly become crowded. There were people everywhere, at the foot of the trees, by the fire pit. Some people who had come late couldn’t even find a seat and were eating standing up with their bowls.

Dry firewood, utensils, cooking utensils… there were also many things piled up in the camp. It was a mess. Hua Shi’an couldn’t stand the sight of it.

He had to find a way to tidy it up. The stove had not yet been built, and they were still using a simple fire pit for cooking. The tables, chairs, and benches should also be put on the agenda. With so many people, it would be less chaotic to eat sitting down. And the rainy season would be coming soon. This open-air camp should also be renovated.

He had more than a few ideas. Hua Shi’an also wanted to build a house for himself. But to do it all at once, once and for all, the materials for building a house or renovating the camp should be chosen from wood, which was stronger than bamboo.

In a tribe that only had stone tools and bone knives, how could they cut down trees?

“Lord Priest!”

A loud shout interrupted his thoughts. Hua Shi’an looked up to see Hong Yunlang, with whom he did not have much interaction, running towards him with a bag of things.

The beastman had large strides and reached him in the blink of an eye. He stuffed a heavy package into Hua Shi’an’s hands without a word and then explained quickly, his breath even, “Last time, last time Qiuyu said you were looking for strange stones. We paid special attention. These are all what we picked up when we were out hunting. See if you can use any of them.”

“So many? You’ve worked hard.” Hua Shi’an smiled at Hong Yunlang.

The package was very heavy, probably weighing more than ten pounds. Hua Shi’an untied the coir rope with great anticipation, unwrapped the coir sheet, and a pile of strangely shaped stones came into view.

Literally strangely shaped, triangular, heart-shaped, concave in the middle, and long strips shaped like animal teeth… looking at this pile of various stones, the corner of Hua Shi’an’s mouth twitched, and he forced a smile that was uglier than crying.

He had said he was looking for stones, but he was looking for limestone, iron ore, copper ore… not this pile of “art of nature.”

They had brought them back from so far away. At least he had to look at them one by one. Hua Shi’an patiently sorted through them, looking at them and throwing them on the ground.

The pile of stones at his feet grew higher and higher, and the package became noticeably lighter. There were only a few left. Hua Shi’an had no hope at all. But just then, a smooth-surfaced stone came into view.

The dusty stone looked unremarkable at first glance, no different from the crushed stones that could be seen everywhere on the roadside, very inconspicuous. But the moment his fingertips brushed over the surface of the stone, the unexpected texture made Hua Shi’an slightly taken aback.

Silky and fine, as if he were stroking a piece of silk. Hua Shi’an picked it up. It was heavier than he had imagined, its weight far exceeding its appearance. The mystery was revealed as he turned it over. Dark brown rust spots were scattered on it, inadvertently revealing its secret as a metal ore.

Iron, this was a genuine piece of iron ore!