The Primitive Adventures of a Chipmunk 16

Chapter 16

As the sky darkened, the open clearing between the trees was illuminated by the reddish glow of the fire.

The clearing did not fall silent with the night; it was bustling with activity.

Fetching water, adding firewood, wrapping chestnuts in leaves, weaving winnowing baskets by the firelight… people were busy with their own tasks, preparing for the coming night, preparing for tonight’s dinner.

Three days wasn’t a long time, but the tribe had undergone some changes.

The open glade in the forest was no longer empty. More than ten meticulously woven large winnowing baskets were placed side by side, far from the fire, drying plump chestnuts, green purslane, and slightly yellowish salt crystals.

The injured were gradually recovering, the food and salt were steadily increasing, and bamboo utensils and coir skirts were being woven. Everything seemed to be developing in a good direction, but Hua Shi’an was a little worried.

The ideal was plump, but for three consecutive days, the well-prepared hunting team, which set out early and returned late, had come back empty-handed. The beastmen were frustrated, and Chief Mu began to doubt whether his decision to form a hunting team was correct.

The gathering team was doing slightly better. The chestnuts they had brought back in the past few days were plentiful and fresh.

Hua Shi’an had thought they had found a new chestnut forest and was happy, but the gathering team leader, Hong Yunlang, told him that there were almost no chestnuts left on the ground. For the past few days, they had been transforming into their beast forms to climb the trees and pick them.

What did this mean? It meant that the chestnut forest was almost stripped bare. To eat chestnuts in the future, they would have to wait until next year or spend a lot of time searching for a new chestnut forest.

Living off the land meant that their food source was always unstable. Hua Shi’an looked through the night at the vast, flat meadow by the river. The farming genes engraved in his bones slowly awakened. His hands were itching; he suddenly wanted to plant something.

But what could he plant now?

Purslane? There was no shortage of that; the forest was full of it. Chestnut trees? Those were deciduous trees. It would be considered fast if they bore fruit in three to five years. By the time they could eat the chestnuts, the daylilies would have withered.

After much deliberation, it seemed that the only things he could plant were blueberries and ginger.

The triennial plant evaluation conference was about to begin, and Hua Shi’an still held a sliver of hope. Who would have thought that after dinner, the contestants who had brought stone lychee and ginger last time would bring him horsetail, jequirity beans, and a skinny version of purslane—spotted spurge—this time?

In the end, the first place winner, chosen with great difficulty, was… half a golden bamboo.

It seemed too late to back out now. To keep the tribe members’ enthusiasm, and to keep his word, Hua Shi’an tearfully gave away the coir skirt he had spent three days knitting.

Night breeds filth, making one prone to emo and overthinking. At such times, all one needs to do is empty their mind, hug their arms, and have a good sleep. All troubles will disappear upon waking.

Well, there are occasional exceptions.

He still hadn’t made a toothbrush. Early in the morning, Hua Shi’an, squatting by the river and brushing his teeth with salt on his index finger, was: a little troubled.

There was nowhere to put the food. For the past few days, the tribe members had been mainly weaving winnowing baskets and had only started weaving back baskets yesterday. Thinking that he was going to the forest later and a back basket would be convenient, Hua Shi’an hurried to the clearing after washing up.

He rushed, but he was still a step too late.

He had underestimated the tribe members’ demand for back baskets. By the time he hurried over, the few available back baskets had already been snatched up by the gathering team.

When out and about, a back basket was much more convenient than empty hands. The tribe members who had gotten a back basket were ecstatic, as if they had picked up money on the street, their mouths grinning from ear to ear. This made it a bit difficult for Hua Shi’an, who also wanted a back basket, to speak up.

Forget it, let them have their fun for a few days.

Just as he was about to give up and go eat breakfast, Chief Mu, carrying a back basket, squeezed out of the crowd. Hua Shi’an’s eyes lit up, and he quickly rushed forward in three big steps.

“Chief.”

A person suddenly appeared beside him. Chief Mu subconsciously tightened his grip on the back strap, holding the back basket tightly behind him.

Seeing that it was Hua Shi’an, his expression visibly relaxed. He grinned and greeted Hua Shi’an, “Morning, Lord Priest. The chestnuts are roasted. Why aren’t you eating?”

Hua Shi’an smiled faintly. “I’ll eat later. I have something to talk to you about.”

“Oh? What is it?” Chief Mu looked at him with interest.

He really did have something to discuss. Hua Shi’an said truthfully, “I’m not going to the salt spring today. The two beastmen already know how to boil salt, so we can just let them do it slowly. There’s no need to send anyone else over.”

“Alright. Ju Ming is a steady worker. I’m relieved to leave the salt boiling to them.”

Chief Mu readily agreed, then squinted at Hua Shi’an and asked with unconcealed curiosity, “Is the Lord Priest planning to weave coir skirts? I heard that Yan Zhile kid has been showing off everywhere since early this morning, saying it’s the coir skirt you knitted for him.”

“Haha, I’ve seen that skirt too. It’s really beautiful, and it feels different to the touch. By the way, is it very troublesome to knit? Why don’t I arrange a few more people to help you?”

The words “I want a coir skirt” were practically written on his face. Hua Shi’an chuckled. “It is a bit troublesome, so I’m not knitting for now. Ju Ming and the others are knitting the coir skirts now. There’s no need to send anyone else over. Let them knit while they boil salt, and take their time.”

Chief Mu was shocked. “Huh? Two beastmen… knitting coir skirts?”

Hua Shi’an nodded. “They learn fast, and their knitting is quite decent. Don’t look down on them, Chief.”

“No, I’m not looking down on them. I just didn’t expect it.” Chief Mu laughed twice, then seemed to realize something was wrong and suddenly looked at Hua Shi’an. “Then the Lord Priest is planning to go…”

Hua Shi’an: “I’m planning to take a walk in the forest, dig up some blueberries and ginger, and plant them around the tribe.”

“Plant?” A trace of confusion flashed in Chief Mu’s eyes.

Hua Shi’an explained, “It means digging up the plants from the forest, roots and all, and planting them in front of our own doors. That way, if we want to eat blueberries or ginger in the future, we can just pick them right outside our doors.”

Chief Mu scratched his head in confusion. “Can’t we just find them in the forest if we want to eat them? Why go through all this trouble?”

Hua Shi’an patiently analyzed for him, trying to be as colloquial as possible, “The plants in the forest don’t grow together in one place. If you want to pick a back basket full of blueberries, you might not be able to do it in a day because you have to search and pick at the same time, which is time-consuming, laborious, and depends on luck.”

“Planting is different. One or two plants might not show much effect, but—”

Hua Shi’an slowly turned around, raised his arm, and pointed to the flat, open meadow by the river. “What if we plant a whole patch? A large patch of blueberries planted in front of our homes. When the harvest season comes, we can pick as many as we want.”

“Moreover, plants growing in the wild are sometimes subject to drought and sometimes to flooding. The yield, ahem, the number of fruits is usually not very large. If we dig them up and plant them under our noses, we can water and fertilize them, and take good care of them. The number of fruits on the branches will inevitably be more, not less.”

It wasn’t difficult to talk to a smart person. Although he had lived by hunting and gathering for most of his life and had never come into contact with farming and planting, Chief Mu quickly understood Hua Shi’an’s meaning.

“Brilliant, this method is brilliant!” Chief Mu looked at the meadow and nodded repeatedly. His hands, hanging at his sides, gradually clenched into fists, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter. “Plant chestnut trees, plant this whole meadow with chestnut trees, and we’ll never have to worry about food again!”

Too hasty. Hua Shi’an slapped his forehead and quickly added, “Let’s forget about the chestnut trees. It takes many years for chestnut trees to blossom and bear fruit. It’s too slow.”

When Hua Shi’an mentioned chestnut trees, he was thinking of transplanting seedlings, but Chief Mu—

“How can that be? If we dig up the fruit-bearing chestnut trees from the forest, won’t they still bear fruit?” Chief Mu said with certainty.

Hua Shi’an was stunned for a moment before he reacted and burst out laughing. “Chief, we’re planting for convenience. You’ve seen how tall and large those fruit-bearing chestnut trees are. Even if our entire tribe goes out, can we bring back two in a day?”

Digging up a ten or twenty-meter-tall tree would exhaust them to death.

Chief Mu’s mouth turned down. “But we mainly rely on chestnuts to fill our stomachs now. No matter how many blueberries we plant… they’re not filling.”

Hua Shi’an: “Chestnut trees are tall and conspicuous, not hard to find. The gathering team already knows where there are many chestnut trees. They just need to remember the direction and go look for them in the future. What we need to plant are plants that grow fast, have a short growth cycle, and produce a relatively large amount of, uh, fruit.”

“Are there really such plants?”

“There must be, we just need to look more carefully.”

Chief Mu nodded, patted Hua Shi’an’s shoulder, and said earnestly, “You know a lot, you decide. But I’m still not at ease with you going to the forest alone. Take a beastman with you. You can choose one yourself. Anyway, their hunting team can’t catch any prey.”

Manpower was scarce now, and for a task that wouldn’t show results in a short time, Hua Shi’an didn’t want to trouble others. He was about to refuse subconsciously, but when he heard the words “you can choose one yourself,” a thought occurred to him, and he suddenly changed his mind. “Then I won’t be polite. Mo Huaishan, let him come with me.”

Chief Mu’s smile froze, and a crack appeared on his calm face. But he didn’t directly refuse Hua Shi’an. He said politely and circuitously, “How about Feng? Ju Qifeng, or Hong Yunlang. They’re both smart and agile.”

“Is Mo Huaishan not good? I’m familiar with him,” Hua Shi’an pretended not to understand.

Seeing that he couldn’t fool him, Chief Mu sighed helplessly and started talking about the old stories of the Red Pine Tribe, “Your Chipmunk Tribe is the farthest from the Red Pine Tribe. There are many things you don’t know…”

It was similar to what Hong Yinglan had said. His beast form was different from others, he was a jinx to his parents and those close to him, and he was called an ill omen by the tribe.

Because he valued Hua Shi’an and considered him a key protected person, the chief was reluctant to let Mo Huaishan get close to him, for fear of causing him an accident. And an unintentional remark also revealed that the previous inexplicable distancing was indeed instructed by Chief Mu.

Genuinely concerned for Hua Shi’an, Chief Mu was extremely earnest.

But as Hua Shi’an listened, he smiled. He looked up and met Chief Mu’s gaze. “You all say I’m a benefactor to the tribe, a messenger sent by the beastmen. But do you know, Chief? On the night we escaped from the Clear Sky Forest, I was almost caught by a goshawk. It was Mo Huaishan who pulled me back from the goshawk’s talons.”

“I don’t know if he’s a jinx to others, but he should be quite lucky for me, because he literally saved my life with his own hands.”

He really didn’t know about this. Chief Mu’s eyes widened, and he was speechless.

After a moment of silence, he lowered his head helplessly, a barely audible sigh escaping his lips. “Alright then, let Shan go with you—”

“No need, Chief,” Hua Shi’an interrupted him, smiling. “I just thought about it again. At this juncture, it’s better to find food first. Planting is not urgent. I’ll think about it myself for now, so as not to delay the beastmen’s hunting.”

“Oh right, Chief, that back basket of yours… can you lend it to me for a while?”