Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains

Ali carried his hide bundle and limped into the house. Chen Qi hurriedly followed and wanted to help with the bundle but was rejected by Ali. It was only his leg that was injured, not his hands. In fact, two or three Chen Qi’s hands were not necessarily stronger than his own. Ka Luo and Ake said a few words outside before they followed them in.

Chen Qi used the since-cleaned bamboo tubes from yesterday and filled two portions of broth for Ka Luo and Ali. The water fetched yesterday was already all used up. At this time, there was no spare water for Chen Qi to boil scented tea, so he had to make do with the broth. Ka Luo took it and gulped it down, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Chen Qi, how come what you make tastes better than when I make it?”

“. . . . . . Your brother made this.”

Ali also took a sip and said in surprise, “Why doesn’t this soup taste astringent? But it is salty, so you should have added the salt stone, right?”

Chen Qi remembered those bitter tasting salt stones. He turned around and brought over the pottery dish with the salt. He said to the two of them, “I removed the strange taste from the salt stones.”

Ka Luo looked curiously at the sand-like salt in the pottery dish. Ali touched the salt with his finger then licked it for a taste. “Is this really a salt stone? How did you make this?”

Chen Qi explained his process to the two men, but the two men obviously didn’t understand it, “Then, next time you come over, bring over a salt stone and I’ll show you how to process it.”

“That would be great. We won’t have to eat those awful tasting salt stones again. Ka Luo said happily.

Chen Qi’s face was full of black lines. It turned out that the beast people also found the salt stone disgusting. It must’ve been really tough for them to have to eat it for so many years.

“Chen Qi.” Aze came over and interrupted the few of them having a good chat. “The water in the pottery jars have been used up. I’ll go to the river and fetch some more.”

Chen Qi frowned, conflicted. If he went to fetch water himself, at his speed, he would not be able to fetch much water and the return trip would take more than an hour. However, Aze was still wounded. It would be unreasonable to let him fetch the water, and it was also a problem if there was not enough water to use.

Knowing Chen Qi’s worries, Aze shook his intact right arm. “I was injured in my left arm, but my right is completely fine. It is just drawing some water, so there will be no problem.”

Ali also chimed in, “Chen Qi, females are not as weak as you think.”

“That’s right. Look at my brother now, he doesn’t even look like an injured person. It’d even be fine to let him directly hunt a warthog.”

Chen Qi looked at Aze and found that, aside from the strap of cloth tied around his left arm, he looked no different than usual. If he hadn’t personally witnessed the bone-deep wound last night, he wouldn’t be able to tell that this was a wounded person. After a long silence, Chen Qi finally agreed with a nod. He picked up last night’s newly made backpack and stuffed two large pottery jars into the backpack. It just managed to fit them.

Passing the backpack to Aze, “Use this backpack to pack the pottery jars. This way you won’t have to make as many rounds and can fetch more water back.”

Ka Luo leaned in, “Chen Qi, why does this animal skin look so strange?”

“This is the backpack I made.” The beastmen here had a very odd situation. They could weave cloth and make pottery, but they couldn’t sew or change the shape of the pottery pieces. The potteryware in Aze’s home were all the same size, though Chen Qi called the shorter ones pottery dishes or plates while the taller ones were called pottery jars. Seeing that these beastmen were full of curiosity about this new backpack, Chen Qi added, “When we have some time later, I’ll teach you how to make them .”

“Then that’s settled”. Watching Aze leave with that novel backpack, Ka Luo turned and stared at Chen Qi, as if afraid he would regret it.

Amused, Chen Qi laughed slightly.

Ali began to take out the contents of his hide bundle, four wool cocoons and several hides. Ali handed the hides to Chen Qi. “These are the fur clothes Aze asked me to make. Wear these for now, and the rest will be ready before winter arrives.”

Chen Qi took them. What was called fur clothes were actually hide pieces that were cut according to Chen Qi’s size, with two holes for the arms to come out of. It was simply a crude style that could not be more primitive. Since they were sleeveless, he didn’t know how these would keep out the cold during winter. Would they use other hide pieces and tie them directly over the arms? It seemed that to wear decent clothes, he’d still need to make something himself, but nonetheless, Chen Qi still thanked Ali gratefully.

“Chen Qi, what are you going to do next?” Ka Luo found that the male his brother picked up this time always came up with many novel ideas. Each idea was very useful and he’d never seen or heard them before, so he couldn’t help wondering what he would do next.

Chen Qi put away the fur clothes, thought for a moment then replied, “Then, I’ll make some small snares to catch hares. ” If Aze was not allowed to hunt for the time being, he couldn’t just sit back and do nothing*.

*坐吃山空 zuòchīshānkōng – idiom; literally, sit-eat-mountain-empty. To consume without producing. Sit at home eating away one’s resources. An idler’s nibble a day, wears even a mountain away

“Hares run very fast. With your speed, it is impossible for you to catch them.”

Chen Qi looked at Ka Luo thoughtfully, revealing a mysterious expression. “That’s not necessarily true.”

The snares to catch hares were traps that were the simplest of the simplest, so Chen Qi did not try to explain to the two men. Instead, he took out some banyan roots and began to weave the rope. Although Ka Luo was itching to know what Chen Qi meant to do, Chen Qi clearly wanted to keep him in suspense and didn’t want to explain further. Helplessly , Ka Luo could only lean in and start to learn how to weave the rope. Chen Qi patiently taught him to use a braid-like method to weave the rope, and it did not take Ka Luo very long to learn. After weaving a few, he was even able to braid better looking ones than Chen Qi.

Later, Ali, who had been sitting nearby, was also intrigued and dropped his work to learn as well. By the time Aze returned with the water, the three of them had already made about 20 to 30 ropes.

Chen Qi got up and took Aze’s backpack. Needless to say, the two pottery jars of water were really heavy, and he almost dropped them on the ground. Fortunately, Aze was quick to give him a hand with the load. With some lingering fear, Chen Qi put the pottery jars away. It seemed that he would have to strengthen his physical fitness in the future. This weak body of his, which could not even hold two pottery jars of water, was not suitable for living here.

Chen Qi carried the empty backpack on his shoulders, then picked up the pile of ropes and a few select branches, and said to Ka Luo and Ali, “Aze and I are going to gather golden lilies and we’ll set the traps on the way. Are you coming with us?”

“Coming, of course. I have a part in making these ropes.” Ka Luo jumped to his feet eagerly.

Ali also stood up and nodded, curiosity apparent in his eyes, indicating that he would also like to have a look.

“But whether the traps will catch the hares also depends on luck.” Chen Qi informed the two in advance so they would not be disappointed if they didn’t end up catching anything.

The group of them went outside. Chen Qi picked some figs from the fig tree and smeared the fig juice over his hands as well as the ropes and branches they were going to use. The figs could cover up the scent of the beastmen well. Ka Luo also mimicked Chen Qi’s actions and applied some fig juice on his hands. Then, Chen Qi stuffed everything into his backpack before they set off.

Next, Chen Qi described what hare tracks looked like to everyone and asked them to help look for some narrow paths with weeds, since there was a greater chance of catching hares in those areas.

Previously, Chen Qi and crew had caught hares nearby, so it was not difficult to find the traces left by hares and they spotted several tracks on the way to the banyan tree.

Chen Qi took out the rope and branches, tied a finger-sized loop at one end of a rope, passed the rope through the hole, leaving a loop that was a little bigger than his fist. Then he tied the rope to a branch before firmly planting the branch into the grass next to the animal tracks. Finally, he adjusted the height of the rope, making use of the weeds nearby to hold up the loop so that when the hare passed by, it would get caught around the hare’s neck. A simple trap was set just like that.

“Will this be able to catch hares?” Ka Luo looked at the simple device and asked doubtfully.

“Probably.” This was Chen Qi’s first time doing this, so he was not 100% sure, but the method should be accurate. At the next suitable spot to set a trap, Ka Luo said that he would try it. Then, by the time they’d reached the banyan tree, the few of them had set up more than a dozen traps by the animal tracks.

Chen Qi stood under the banyan tree and looked up. The flowers on the tree seemed to be blooming a little more than they were yesterday. It was said that golden lilies tasted better when they were still buds, though Chen Qi had never eaten freshly picked golden lilies. He had just returned from his musings when he saw that Aze was already trying to climb the tree and he let out a sound to stop him. Was this man not aware that he was injured? And he was not afraid of reopening his wound either.

“It’s okay.” The banyan tree’s trunk was very rough and it was not very tall. Aze could climb it with one hand.

Seeing that the other man had already single-handedly climbed to the top of the tree with more flexibility than he could’ve mustered, Chen Qi silently swallowed his original words of persuasion and just told him to take care and to not be reckless.

Aze smiled and nodded in agreement.

Although the banyan tree was short, it was very large. Ali also flexibly climbed up the tree to help. The flowers picked were thrown to the ground. Chen Qi and Ka Luo were responsible for gathering them up from the ground and stuffing them into the backpack that had space now that some of the ropes and branches were used for the traps.

It was commendable that the females were really quick in action and the backpack was soon full. Chen Qi then asked Aze to take the flowers in the backpack home and return with some animal skins. The few of them eventually plucked the banyan tree bare of golden lilies, much to Chen Qi’s satisfaction.

On the way back, Chen Qi took a detour. He found several more places frequented by the hares and set up more traps before heading back to the house. Then, Chen Qi looked up and saw the male cheetah from yesterday, who had made him stranded on the tree.

The cheetah had just hunted an adult impala. Today, there were no pesky coyotes following nor any annoying vultures visible in the sky. It planned to enjoy a good breakfast. The life of the impala had just come to an end, and it had not yet even removed his teeth from the impala’s neck when it noticed the beastman it’d escaped from yesterday. Although the cheetah was quite far from Chen Qi and party, its whole body of fur couldn’t help but puff up.

Chen Qi narrowed his eyes slightly. It was truly inevitable for enemies to meet on the narrow road*.

*冤家路窄 yuān jiā lù zhǎi = lit. enemies on a narrow road (idiom); fig. an inevitable clash between opposing factions