Chapter 25
Petting himself was always a bit lacking. It wasn’t that the chipmunk’s fur wasn’t soft enough, nor was it a psychological factor. It was purely because—when he changed back to his beast form, his hands also became claws. The sense of touch was completely different from a human’s palm, so it just didn’t feel the same.
With a carrot dangling in front of him that he couldn’t eat, Hua Shi’an didn’t even sleep well. The next day, he got up before the sky was light. With a disabled but determined spirit, he dragged his injured right foot and limped out of the tree hollow.
The sky was a hazy gray, and the mist-shrouded camp flickered with firelight. People were bustling about, lighting several fires with withered branches, fetching water from the river with bamboo tubes, wrapping chestnuts in leaves… busy preparing for the coming morning.
Looking at this scene from a distance, Hua Shi’an’s heart completely sank.
There wasn’t a single squirrel. What was missed was missed.
After a night, his sprained ankle had swollen even more. It was inconvenient to stand for a long time. Hua Shi’an looked at the camp and shook his head in regret, then turned to walk back to the tree hollow.
“Shi’an!”
Just as he opened the bamboo door, a soft call came from behind. Hua Shi’an turned to see a tall beastman running towards him, holding a leaf, his body exuding a damp, watery vapor.
The grassy smell, mixed with a hint of bitterness, was carried by the wind. The beastman had hurried over from the river. He anxiously spread the leaf in his hand, presenting a ball of dark green grass paste to Hua Shi’an, his face filled with a sincere and honest smile. “Shi’an, this is for you.”
The grass paste was very finely ground. Hua Shi’an took it and looked at it for a long time but couldn’t tell what it was. He tilted his head and turned his gaze to Mo Huaishan. “For me? What is this?”
“That, that thing you mentioned last time, called Pu, Pu…”
“Dandelion?”
“Yes!” Mo Huaishan nodded quickly, seeming a bit nervous, and smiled shyly. “You said last time that dandelions can treat illnesses and injuries, so I went to pick some and ground them into a paste with a stone. I, I washed them with water, Shi’an. If you can’t eat it, you can just apply it to your foot. Maybe it will heal faster.”
The beastman’s voice grew softer and softer, his head drooping lower and lower, and the tips of his ears gradually turned red.
Holding the heavy dandelion paste in his hand, Hua Shi’an’s heart warmed, and a faint smile appeared on his lips. “This will be very helpful for my injury. Thank you, Huaishan. You went to the forest to find dandelions so early in the morning. That was very thoughtful of you.”
“It’s nothing. I, I just picked it on the way.” Mo Huaishan raised his hand and scratched his head, his fluttering gaze not daring to meet Hua Shi’an’s eyes. As if he were about to catch fire, his neck flushed red.
Going to the forest “on the way” so early in the morning?
Hua Shi’an didn’t believe it at all and looked at him with a half-smile.
The beastman became more and more flustered and quickly waved his hands. “Then, then I’ll be going, Shi’an. I’ll bring you some chestnuts later.”
“Hey!” Hua Shi’an called out to him. “What are you running for? I’m not finished talking.”
Knowing that Hua Shi’an’s injured leg was inconvenient, the beastman who was about to flee silently walked back and stood obediently in front of Hua Shi’an with his head bowed.
With his sprained foot, he couldn’t go out. Hua Shi’an gave Mo Huaishan a series of instructions:
“You’re going with the gathering team to pick pine cones today, right? When you pass by the river, remember to check the fish traps. If there are fish, collect them and say we set them together. If there are no fish, no fish, then you say the Lord Priest set them, and you don’t know what they’re for.”
“You also have to remember to check the trap we dug yesterday. There probably won’t be anything after one night, but you have to let the tribe members know the location and tell them not to go that way, in case they step on the trap and fall in.”
Listening to Hua Shi’an’s instructions, Mo Huaishan’s throat inexplicably tightened. He stared blankly at Hua Shi’an, the tip of his nose tingling slightly, and an indescribable feeling welled up in his heart.
He wanted to ask why he cared about him, why he was so good to him, taking care of him…
But his mouth opened and closed, and in the end, Mo Huaishan didn’t say a single word.
Without a word, his eyes suddenly turned red. Hua Shi’an blinked blankly and asked in a soft voice, “What’s wrong? I left early last night. Did they give you a hard time?”
“No, they didn’t. I’ll be going now, Shi’an. You should rest and recover.”
As if someone were chasing him, the beastman turned and ran after speaking, almost fleeing in panic.
Hua Shi’an shook his head helplessly. “Be careful!”
As the sky brightened, after breakfast, the hunting and gathering teams set off with their back baskets. Once they left, the bustling tribe gradually quieted down, leaving only the chirping of insects and the sound of bamboo splinters clashing.
With no TV and no phone, staying in the tree hollow was really boring. Whenever he was idle, Hua Shi’an would always think of the time he was bedridden, passing the days by watching documentaries, and he would feel down.
He couldn’t stay idle for a moment. After weaving another pair of coir shoes with the remaining coir rope in the tree hollow, Hua Shi’an couldn’t sit still any longer and limped out of the tree hollow.
It seemed that they had known he wouldn’t stay obediently in the tree hollow. The human crutch, Yan Zhile, had been left behind in the tribe and came to meet him as soon as he came out.
After being supported by Yan Zhile for a walk around the camp, Hua Shi’an suddenly knew what he should do. The back baskets and winnowing baskets were almost finished, and the bamboo doors were being woven. It was time to put the bamboo beds and chairs he had been longing for on the agenda.
As for his injury… his foot couldn’t move, but his hands could. At worst, his mouth could still move.
With something to do, time flew by. The bamboo utensils in people’s hands had just taken shape, and in the blink of an eye, it was noon.
The warm sun made people drowsy. Hua Shi’an inserted the last bamboo strip into the split bamboo pole, and a “bed board” for one person, made with a mortise and tenon structure, was completed.
Next, all he had to do was make a bed frame out of bamboo poles and then connect the bed board and bed frame in the same way, and a sturdy single bamboo bed would be finished.
He was a bit tired. Hua Shi’an pounded his sore arms. Just as he was about to rest for a while and have a drink of water, a messy sound of footsteps and laughter came from not far away. He looked up to see more than a dozen people from the gathering team returning.
They couldn’t finish picking them all. In just one morning, all the back baskets they had taken out were full. To free up the back baskets to continue packing pine cones, they had to bring some of the pine cones back to the tribe first.
The joy of the harvest was on everyone’s face. They didn’t even have time to rest. They panted as they poured the pine cones onto the open ground, at most wiping their sweat, greeting Hua Shi’an, and then hurriedly leaving with their empty back baskets.
A unique pine resin fragrance filled the air. The green pine cones were large and plump, comparable to an adult beastman’s fist, and soon a tall hill was piled up in the open space.
The front line was giving its all, so the rear couldn’t fall behind. Hua Shi’an didn’t even bother to rest. He decisively put aside the half-finished bamboo bed and led the tribe members who had stayed behind to process the pine cones.
The pine cones they brought back were a mix of those picked from the ground and from the trees, most of them a bit green. Although the pine cones had entered their mature stage, the hard scales still tightly enveloped the pine nuts, making them very difficult to peel.
For this reason, Hua Shi’an led the tribe members to pick out the cracked pine cones, which were slightly easier to handle, one by one. When the pine cone hill in the open space was divided in two, he divided the few remaining tribe members into two teams.
Yan Zhile took the young people to the stream to pick pebbles. The pile of cracked pine cones was left to them. Later, when they returned with the stones, they would start cracking them directly, knocking the hard scales of the pine cones loose from the top, and then they could slowly shake out the pine nuts.
As for the other pile of pine cones, which had no cracks at all and were particularly difficult to handle, Hua Shi’an led a few elderly people… starting with making a fire.
The uncracked pine cones were as hard as stones. Violent hammering would only crush the pine nuts inside into dregs. Pine cones were hard to come by. To be able to eat more pine nuts, Hua Shi’an decided to use the most primitive and simple method: roasting the pine cones.
They first burned large pieces of dry wood until there were no open flames, then gradually threw the pine cones into the fire. They used the embers from the burnt-out wood to slowly roast them, turning them repeatedly to prevent them from burning.
They roasted them until the surface was blackened, the pine oil was dried out, and the scales had slightly opened, then they could be taken out.
This process was very tedious. There were many pine cones, so they started several fires at once to roast them, which also wasted a lot of dry wood.
Fortunately, the roasted pine cones were very easy to process. With a knock of a stone, the pine nuts could be easily shaken out, even easier to handle than the pine cones that had cracked on their own.
Moreover, the pine nuts roasted this way could be eaten directly. The rich pine fragrance mixed with the smell of charcoal was original and delicious, simply to die for. Unfortunately, Hua Shi’an had just had a taste when the gathering team returned again, bringing back another pile of pine cones.
Roasting over a fire in broad daylight, the sweat on his body never dried.
Life is not easy. Hua Shi’an sighed: Sigh, all for a bite to eat!
