Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains

Using charcoal ash, Chen Qi simply drew the required room structure on the ground. Although there would be a margin of error since he was just using a rope as the measuring tool, he could only do it this way right now.

Ali watched Chen Qi sprinkle charcoal ash along the path of the stretched rope. He waited until Chen Qi was finally finished, then he pointed questioningly at some small squares formed by the black lines. “Chen Qi, what are these for?”

Chen Qi looked at the place he pointed to and replied, “That is to indicate where to dig to place the stegosaurus bones as the pillar.”

“How deep should I dig?”

Chen Qi visually inspected how long the stegosaurus bones were. The stegosaurus bones were about four meters long. After thinking for a moment, he replied, “About half a person deep should be enough.”

“So, I should dig where the black lines are?” Ali turned on ‘curious baby’ mode and continued to ask.

“En.” Chen Qi replied. Remembering the bone that Aze was grinding per his request yesterday, he went back to the house and found that the sharpness of the bone had been almost grinded down. It was a mistake not to first set out to make it into a hoe last night, otherwise it could be used now.

There was no long wooden stick in the house that would be suitable to make the hoe. Chen Qi first brought out the gum fruit and set it next to the fire to heat up, intending to use it later to make the hoe.

When he went back out, he saw Ka Luo lying on the ground. Seeing Chen Qi come out, Ka Luo hurriedly waved, “Chen Qi, come and have a look.”

When Ali heard the sound, he also poked his head out of a pit in the open space where the house was to be built and shouted at Chen Qi, “Chen Qi, is this deep enough?”

Chen Qi was taken aback and hurried over to have a look. Just this short a time’s work, Ali had already dug a half-person deep pit. “How did you dig it so fast?”

“Uncle Ali is a female, ya.”

Chen Qi choked. This was really a powerful reason. It seemed that his bone hoe was not comparable to a female’s fingernails.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

Chen Qi made several rounds around the pillar pit. “Let’s put a bone into it to see the effect.”

Chen Qi went to the pile of stegosaurus bones and wanted to lift one. Although Ake could carry the stegosaurus bones while wearing a relaxed face even with Ka Luo on his back, Chen Qi almost couldn’t straighten his bent body when he picked one up, and he also dropped it on his foot since he couldn’t grip it firmly. Fortunately, he was able to move it out of the way in time and was unhurt. Ali was unable to bear the sight any longer and hurriedly came to help, stretching out his hand and taking it from him easily. Chen Qi touched his nose, slightly embarrassed.

After the stegosaurus bone was placed into the pit, it did resemble a pillar.

At this time, Aze had just returned from fetching more water. When he heard that Chen Qi wanted to place stegosaurus bones into pits to build the pillars for the house first, he went back to the river and dug up two large sacks of silt. The building method for the beast people’s houses was very simple. Gum fruits were melted and mixed together with silt and water then poured over large, piled up, stone slabs. When the moisture in the gum fruit-silt mixture dried out, the house was built.

Of course, the stone slabs would not fit in the pillar pit, but there were many stone bits and pieces in the wilderness. Aze melted another gum fruit. In the process of waiting for Aze to mix the silt with the gum fruit, Chen Qi took the other two to collect a lot of those small stones. Then, he laid a layer of the crushed stones into the pit, followed by pouring a layer of gum fruit-silt mixture. Then again with another layer of stones, and this was repeated many times until the pit was filled. All that was left was to wait for everything to dry.

In order to prevent the bone from tilting to one side because of its height, Chen Qi also used some long wooden sticks to make a simple tripod to fix the bone in place. In this way, a foundation pillar was basically completed.

Chen Qi didn’t want to waste time. He planned to do this with the rest of the pillars. In this way, there were not enough stegosaurus bones and gum fruits. So they decided to split up. Aze went to get more stegosaurus bones, while Ali took Chen Qi and Ka Luo to pick gum fruits.

When Chen Qi and crew returned from picking gum fruits, they saw Ake and Azhang coming back with their prey as well. Today it was a gazelle. Since they’d promised yesterday to help Chen Qi build the house, Ake and Azhang came back earlier in the day, after hunting a whole day’s worth of food. Ake also brought back a few sweet potatoes. Yesterday, Ka Luo had stuffed a sweet potato vine into Ake’s backpack and told him to dig up and bring back more of these while he was out. He didn’t expect that Ake actually found some while he was out hunting.

With the addition of two more females, the progress was naturally much faster. Before lunch, twelve pillar pits were dug and twelve stegosaurus bones were brought over.

Because he didn’t want to waste too much time, Chen Qi roasted the whole gazelle for lunch. This time, Ali and Ka Luo helped out too. They’d also brought with them two salt stones today. While waiting for the meat to finish cooking, Chen Qi taught them how to filter and refine the salt stones. Ake and Azhang were also next to them, carefully taking note of the steps.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

The dandelions were finished up yesterday. Chen Qi took the remaining warthog viscera from last night and directly fried them up with several pieces of wild ginger. Then he cut open two laiche fruits and poured their contents into a pottery dish. Chen Qi worried that the laiche fruits would be too sweet, so he mixed in some water as well. With that, Chen Qi made a sweet soup, a pottery dish full of the sweet potato dessert. Although it was the first time for the few of them to eat such a thing as sweet soup, they all showed various degrees of liking it. Azhang also asked Ake to give him the sweet potato vine he’d harvested today and planned to look for more sweet potatoes for himself tomorrow.

“These sweet potatoes can be stored for a long time, and the longer it is stored, the sweeter it will taste. If you find more, you can store some to eat in the winter.

“Chen Qi, you’re so awesome! How do you know so much? Are there any other things as delicious as the sweet potato?” Ka Luo’s mouth was full of food yet was not too busy to give compliments.

Chen Qi smiled with amusement and refilled Ka Luo’s empty bamboo tube. “Yes, there are still many delicious things you haven’t eaten before. I’ll let you know if I find them.”

“It’s a deal.” Ka Luo took the bamboo tube filled with the sweet soup again and ate it happily. He completely forgot that there was a whole gazelle roasting on the fire nearby. However, the beastmen were used to eating roast meat everyday. Naturally, it could not compete with this new sweet soup in terms of attractiveness. Chen Qi sighed softly. He should have left the sweet soup for dessert.

After the meal, Ali called Chen Qi aside, while the others were responsible for tidying up the mess of dishes. Although everyone wiped out the big pottery dish of sweet soup first, there were four females so there were no leftovers from the gazelle either.

Ali handed Chen Qi several pieces of cloth he’d brought over this morning. “These are what I’ve weaved and kept when I had nothing to do before. You can use them for now.”

“But I haven’t paid you for the last pieces of cloth.”

“These are gifts for you.” Ali smiled and stuffed the clothes into Chen Qi’s arms. “You taught me how to make backpacks and how to set traps. This morning I also set up several traps around the tribe to catch hares. Since I can catch the prey, what would these few pieces of cloth amount to? Besides, Aze used to exchange a lot of prey for useless pottery ware with me. You can also treat this as him paying in advance.”

Chen Qi hesitated for a moment and then stopped rejecting it. Anyway, he would still have many future encounters with Ali. Since he could also repay him later, he didn’t need to be in a hurry. With these pieces of cloth, he could finally change out of the clothes he’d been wearing for several days now.

Crossing  to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP)  is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

After a short rest, everyone got back to work. The gum fruit-silt mixture required a lot of water. Azhang and Aze were responsible for fetching water and digging up more silt. All four of the hide-backpacks were being fully utilized. The others gathered nearby stones, and if there were any pieces that were too large, Ake was responsible for smashing them into smaller sizes.

It was not until almost evening that all twelve stegosaurus bones were done. Chen Qi was exhausted. He sat on the ground and didn’t have the strength to stand back up. Aze handed him a bamboo tube filled with cooled boiled water that he took and gulped down.

“Ka Luo, tomorrow I will be leaving for a night, so you don’t have to come over. I will send Chen Qi to the tribe in the morning. Do you still have the room I used to live in? Let Chen Qi stay there for the night, and I will pick him up the day after tomorrow.” Aze said to the equally tired Ka Luo that was sitting next to him.

Although Ka Luo was tired, he wasn’t as flat-out-didn’t-want-to-move-from-the-ground as Chen Qi. He leaned comfortably against Ake’s side and asked Ake to massage his sore shoulders. He raised his head at Aze’s words and asked, “Brother, where are you going?”

“He is going to bring back the eyes from the locust dragon. We had encountered a long-dead locust dragon on the way back before.” Chen Qi explained.

“What will you do with the locust dragon’s eyes?” Ali interjected. The eyes of the locust dragons were thin and hard. What can they be used for?

“To make windows for the house.”

“Windows? What are windows?”

“It is something that’ll allow people to see things outside the house from the inside.”

Azhang’s eyes lit up. So the inside of the house wouldn’t be as dark? “Chen Qi, when you’re going to make the windows, you must let me know. You two are not allowed to secretly finish them without me.”

“Me too, me too!” Ka Luo hurriedly raised his hand. Although he did not quite understand what windows were, Azhang’s reaction must mean it was something very useful.

Chen Qi nodded helplessly, “Okay.” With them, the progress of the house construction could be faster. Chen Qi was naturally happy to let them come.

Chen Qi had been active all day and really didn’t want to move anymore. Since everyone was still here, Aze wanted to take this opportunity to check on the traps to see if any more prey were caught today. Who knew where Ka Luo got his energy from, but when he heard there was trap-checking happening, he also quickly followed. However, perhaps because they’d already caught most of the surrounding hares, Aze only brought back one hare this time.

After collecting the prey from the traps, Ka Luo and the others went back to the tribe. Chen Qi originally wanted them to take the gazelle they’d brought back from their hunt earlier, but nobody wanted it. He even suggested roasting the gazelle and letting them leave after dinner, but Azhang said that there were still many things to be done in the tribe and that it was dangerous to head back too late, so Chen Qi had to give up.

After they left, Chen Qi sat outside the door in the afterglow of the setting sun and looked at the nearby picturesque scene of the dozen or so standing stegosaurus bones. His heart was filled with satisfaction.

This was his future home.