“Wow, it’s really warm!”
Wu Jie couldn’t help but exclaim when he felt the temperature of the heated kang bed!
Beside him, Wu and Bai Nu, along with Wu Feng, wore equally delighted expressions!
Even Bai Nu’s face, which had always been colder and more stern than Wu Chen’s when dealing with outsiders, now carried a smile.
He patted the heated kang bed and turned to look at Lin Xi: “Female beast Lin Xi, when would you like those ten Giant Beasts?”
“Giant Beasts?” Lin Xi was momentarily stunned, then recalled Bai Nu’s earlier promise. After some thought, she hesitantly replied, “Not for now. In a few days, if I need them, I’ll have Wu Chen inform you.”
She wanted to first see if her preserved meat method would actually work.
“Alright.”
Bai Nu had no particular opinion about this – ten Giant Beasts were nothing. He alone could hunt three of them, and he could capture them for her anytime before the harsh winter arrived.
However, there was another matter at hand.
Thinking of this, Bai Nu looked at Lin Xi again: “But no one knows how to build these heated kang beds. I plan to have Wu Feng’s household build one first, and I’ll need you to help teach them. Once Wu Feng and Wu Jie have learned, they can teach the other Beastmen in the tribe.”
This request wasn’t a problem for Lin Xi, and she readily agreed.
After confirming that the heated kang bed was indeed highly effective, Wu and Bai Nu departed.
Wu Feng and Wu Jie remained at Lin Xi’s place. Wu Jie was already impatient, wanting to immediately drag Lin Xi and Wu Chen to his home to start building the kang bed.
But he was stopped by Lin Xi’s question: “Have you prepared the stone bricks, stone slabs, and clay needed for construction?”
In the end, Wu Chen fetched two leftover stone bricks and slabs from outside the cave to show Wu Feng, telling them to first gather materials matching these samples.
After Wu Feng and Wu Jie left, Lin Xi quickly asked Wu Chen to find a massive stone for making the jar, while she stayed home to skin and gut the remaining unprocessed prey.
But when she actually held the bone knife and faced the pile of thoroughly dead animals, Lin Xi’s heart still raced with anxiety!
Although in modern times she hadn’t been completely helpless in the kitchen, the most she had ever done was handle fish or chop already-prepared chicken.
But these prey before her still had their heads and fur intact.
With every movement she made, she couldn’t help imagining the animals suddenly opening their eyes and biting her!
Lin Xi tried hard not to look at the faces of the prey she lifted, forcing the bone knife from their necks down toward their bellies.
She not only had to skin these animals but also ensure each hide remained completely intact.
As noon approached, the weather grew somewhat warm. After processing three small animals, Lin Xi was drenched in sweat, but her skinning technique gradually became more proficient.
Consequently, a sense of self-satisfaction rose unbidden in her heart!
Actually, it’s just like skinning raw chicken legs! Just requires more effort! Nothing I can’t handle!
About an hour later, Wu Chen slowly returned from the southern slope, carrying an enormous stone on his back.
The stone appeared to be about one and a half meters in both length and width, and Wu Chen carried the massive rock step by step up from the lower slope.
When Lin Xi saw this, she was so shocked that the freshly skinned hide in her hands fell directly to the ground!
What kind of monstrous strength is this!
Give him a lever, and he might actually be able to move the Earth!
It wasn’t until Wu Chen walked up and set down the giant stone from his shoulder that Lin Xi realized the inside had already been hollowed out by him.
He had dug the giant stone directly into a stone vat according to Lin Xi’s description before carrying it back!
Lin Xi immediately breathed a sigh of relief!
Although the stone vat was still heavy even with its interior hollowed out, at least it wasn’t that absurdly heavy anymore!
It wasn’t that she didn’t want the Beastmen to be truly that powerful, but she was genuinely worried about whether his heart, body, and limbs could withstand such immense strength over time!
However, recalling the Giant Beast Wu Chen had hunted during the Mate-bond ceremony—such a massive creature that he had proactively sought help from Wu Feng’s father and Wu Jie to carry back—she thought, at least he knew to ask for assistance when needed. He wasn’t that foolish after all!
By this time, Lin Xi had almost finished processing the remaining prey.
She picked out some edible parts from the organs she had removed from the prey and set them aside.
The rest were placed into a soft fruit shell specifically used for garbage, which she then took downhill to bury in a designated spot.
Although these organs were discarded, they couldn’t be carelessly thrown away, as doing so could easily attract carnivorous beasts.
Even though the tribe was full of Beastmen who feared nothing, she and Wu Chen lived quite close to the tribal border—
And she was afraid!
After disposing of the garbage, Lin Xi prepared to start salting the meat.
Since salted meat must not come into contact with water, Lin Xi did not wash the meat. Instead, she used a grass stem dipped in water to scrub the newly made stone vat and left it to air dry.
Seizing the opportunity, she took a basket made from a soft fruit shell and had Wu Chen carry her to an area rich in Salty Stones, where they collected many small fragments.
By the time they returned, the stone vat had just dried.
The processed prey was meticulously broken down, cut into strips and chunks, and then layered like Northeastern-style pickled cabbage—one layer of meat, one layer of Salty Stones.
For thicker sections of meat, she made a slit in the chunks and inserted two small stones into the cuts.
The meat from the prey filled more than half of the vat. The salted meat would need to be turned and sun-dried later, but that would have to wait a few days.
Lin Xi patted the top layer of meat contentedly and let out a satisfied sigh: “Mission accomplished!”
After salting the meat, it was still before evening.
With no movement yet from Wu Feng’s father or Wu Jie, Lin Xi pulled Wu Chen back into the cave.
She had him remove the animal skin blanket from the kang bed, then measured it and retrieved the remaining animal hides stored at home. Using the last bit of daylight, she began sewing a kang mattress to cover the bed.
Both Lin Xi and Wu Chen knew how to sew.
But neither of them was particularly skilled at it.
Before meeting Lin Xi, Wu Chen had sewn his own Animal Hide Skirts, but since they were just for his own wear, he hadn’t put much effort into it—
As long as they didn’t leak, it was fine.
As for Lin Xi’s needlework, her stitches were relatively small, but the lines were often uneven, frequently veering off course as she sewed!
Since they already had the previous straw bed and animal skin blanket, the remaining area for the kang mattress wasn’t too large.
Lin Xi and Wu Chen each took one end, and by the time the sun set, the entire mattress was perfectly sewn.
This was just the bottom layer of padding. Since neither of them were skilled at sewing, the seams of the beast hide on the padding were always uneven.
But for today, they would have to make do!
Lying on it, Lin Xi felt the warmth beneath her body and thought that tomorrow, once they properly cut and laid out that four-horned beast hide, it would be perfect!