Bai Wu
In the bluish-gray night, the bright moonlight streamed down, bathing Bai Wu’s face in its glow.
He lay in his soft nest, his eyes fixed on the night sky. The pale moon reminded him of the Guangsu cake—thick, soft, and sweet.
If he were to take a bite, his mouth would be filled with sweetness; the cake would melt in his mouth, then slide down his throat to his stomach, filling it with a warm, comforting feeling.
Bai Wu swallowed, closing his eyes, trying to savor the taste of the Guangsu cake.
Just then, his brother’s soft snoring began beside him, the lingering sound echoing softly.
Damn it.
His thoughts were completely interrupted.
Bai Wu turned to look at the young man lying on his back beside him, and sighed inwardly. He had been reincarnated into a beastman world, becoming a sub-beastman; he might never taste Guangsu cake in his life.
Bai Wu stared at the moon outside, growing hungrier with each glance. His stomach churned with acid with a burning sensation.
He hadn’t eaten enough that night; he probably wouldn’t last.
Bai Wu turned over and sighed again.
Even if that huge stew cooked in a clay pot that night were placed in front of him now, he wouldn’t be able to eat it.
Luckily, his consciousness hadn’t returned in the first eighteen years of his life; otherwise, eating like that every day would have driven him to suicide.
If he had known he’d be reborn like this, he would have preferred to be reborn as a pig.
Even pig feed might taste better.
Bai Wu rubbed his stomach, deciding he had to prepare something good to eat these next few days. He would pick up his culinary skills from his past life, and stop pretending to be stupid.
Otherwise, he’d starve to death sooner or later.
Bai Wu pulled the feather blanket his brother had been lying on over his stomach, and forced himself to sleep.
The next day, when he woke up rubbing his eyes, his brother was no longer in the nest. He stretched out his foot to check; his brother’s bed was already cold.
Bai Wu sat up and peered over the fence of the hut.
In the morning light, his dad sat by the fire pit in front of the hut, simmering something in a clay pot.
The faint aroma wafting from the hut told Bai Wu that breakfast this morning was unlikely to taste very good.
“Awake?” His dad looked up and met his eyes, beckoning him.
“Dad.” Bai Wu yawned with his hair disheveled. He straightened his feather skirt, climbed out of the hut, put on his animal-skin shoes, and climbed down the wooden ladder to the grass.
The late spring morning was still a bit chilly; he shivered as soon as he stepped out of the hut, goosebumps rising on his pale arms.
He walked to the edge of the mountain and looked around.
The sun hadn’t risen yet; white morning mist shrouded the distant mountains.
Their tribe lived on the edge of the mountains.
From the foot of the mountain to its mid-slope, nests built by the tribespeople were everywhere.
As bird beastmen, their living habits were very similar to those of birds.
Bai Wu glanced back at the nest where his brothers slept.
Their nest was essentially a large bird’s nest; the lower part was a platform built of stones, the upper part was an enlarged version of an Earth bird’s nest, and above that was a thatched hut supported by four wooden beams.
Simple yet peculiar, with a distinctly exotic style.
Bai Wu took a deep breath of the slightly cool morning air, expanded his lungs, and stepped outside.
Their home was situated on relatively high ground, halfway up the mountain where most of the tribespeople lived.
Below, there were many more nests—white stone, wooden, with thatched huts of red, yellow, and gray providing shelter from the rain and sun. It was a beautiful sight.
At this time, everyone from the different households came out to move around.
Whether beastmen or sub-beastmen, they were all bare-chested and bare-legged, wearing only feathered skirts around their lower bodies; their strong, beautiful muscles were dazzling.
Bai Wu stood at the foot of the mountain, looking at his people whose physiques rivaled those of models, and reached out to touch his own subtly defined abs.
Having been reincarnated, his physique was slightly better than in his previous life.
Just as Bai Wu was engrossed in watching, a voice suddenly rang out behind him, “What are you standing there for?”
Bai Wu shuddered, instinctively covering his ears, and turned to glare angrily at his brother, An.
An said, “Aren’t you going to eat breakfast? Aren’t you going to gather today?”
Bai Wu replied weakly, “I’ll go.”
Bai Wu went down to the river to wash up, then returned to the hearth in front of their nest to eat breakfast.
His father, his dad, and his brother, An, were all there.
His dad, Chuan, ladled food from the earthenware pot for him. “You ate so little yesterday, you must have been starving last night, right?”
Bai Wu walked over and plopped down next to his dad, stubbornly denying it. “No, I fell asleep very early.”
Chuan looked up at the two brothers and chuckled, “An just said your stomach was rumbling all night, and kept him awake.”
Bai Wu’s white cheeks flushed instantly. He said, embarrassed and annoyed, “Dad, don’t listen to his nonsense. His snoring kept me awake half the night.”
An reached out and slapped the back of his head. “Who’s making noise? You want a beating, don’t you?”
Bai Wu nimbly dodged the attack, turning to glare at his brother.
A brotherly battle seemed imminent.
Sitting to the side, their father, Mo, looked up. “Eat.”
At Mo’s words, the two brothers fell silent.
Bai Wu snorted twice, ignored his brother, and looked down at the food in his bowl.
He could vaguely make out vegetable stalks, smoked meat, and insects—anything but good stuff.
Bai Wu’s stomach, already churning with hunger, felt seventy or eighty percent full at that smell.
Besides this, there was nothing else to eat. Bai Wu had no choice but to pick up his chopsticks and force himself to eat.
Everyone was eating breakfast.
The food was mostly a hodgepodge of ingredients.
After breakfast and washing the dishes, everyone went to find their respective groups to go out with, either gathering or hunting.
Generally, the able-bodied beastmen went hunting, while the sub-beastmen gathered.
The elderly and sentries stayed behind in the tribe, while the children played nearby.
Everyone had their own destination.
Bai Wu, carrying a basket on his back, followed his brother An to find the young sub-beastmen gathering group.
The sub-beastmen were already waiting there in twos and threes.
After a while, everyone arrived.
A sub-beastman called out, “Shall we go?”
As he spoke, he took off his animal-skin shoes, and tossed them into a covered basket. With a whoosh, the feather skirt around his waist bounced up to his neck, becoming a scarf, and the basket bounced onto his back.
He transformed on the spot into a large white bird, two or three meters long and over a meter tall!
The others quickly took off their shoes and transformed into large white birds as well.
These large white birds were entirely grey-headed with white feathers, their beaks were vermilion, and their bodies were covered with various grey feathers. Their long tail feathers trailed on the ground, shimmering and radiating a platinum-like light in the sunlight, resembling majestic phoenixes.
Bai Wu was instantly surrounded by a flock of large white birds.
He glanced around, then clumsily transformed into a large white bird.
His beast form was more slender, without a single grey feather; his feathers were a luminous white, and his beak was a dazzling red.
Even among a flock of birds, he stood out conspicuously.
The lead white bird cried out, flapped its massive wings, and soared into the air.
The other white birds followed behind, flapping their wings as well.
Bai Wu stood at the very back, finding a current of air to fly, and struggled upwards.
Above was blue sky, below was green fields.
Bai Wu cried out again, flapping his wings, and flew even higher.
He flew upwards using the current created by the birds in front without much difficulty.
Once they were halfway up, the mountains and rivers below seemed to flatten, their colors dimming, while the sky above shone even brighter.
The lead beastman cried out, flapped his wings, turned, and led his people south.
Today they were going to gather in the forests to the southeast.
They flew high, the clouds beside them like mist, wispy and cool, and the moisture condensed on their feathers before quickly tumbling down.
Bai Wu flew listlessly, feeling his wing roots go numb from flapping so much. Only then did the lead sub-beastman begin to fold his wings and swoop down.
Below was a dense forest of mixed vegetation.
The forest was interspersed with wild grasses and shrubs, a seemingly abundant collection of plants.
Below was a thick layer of fallen leaves and humus.
Bai Wu followed at the back. His feet touched the ground, stepping into the fallen leaves, and nearly slipping.
He stumbled, gripping the rope of his basket. His brother supported him by the arm to steady him, and glanced at him disdainfully, “So weak, and you still haven’t eaten properly.”
A sub-beastman nearby chuckled.
His comment drew laughter from the surrounding sub-beastmen, who remarked that Bai Wu was the least food-loving sub-beastman they had ever seen.
Bai Wu looked up dejectedly, a multitude of rebuttals stuck in his throat, but none of them seemed appropriate, so he simply rolled his eyes.
After a few lighthearted banter, everyone had packed their baskets, looked around, and begun searching for their prey.
The group of sub-beastmen dispersed into the forest, keeping a distance of several dozen meters between each other.
Only An and Bai Wu remained together.
Bai Wu followed his brother, but he wasn’t as fast or as sharp-eyed. Before he could even collect what he saw, his brother had already pocketed it.
After repeating this a few times, he turned and said tactfully, “I think I can manage on my own.”
An smiled, revealing a set of small white teeth, “What if you run into a snake again? What if you get chased by a snake until all your feathers fall out?”
In fact, Bai Wu had only been chased by a snake once.
The incident occurred a little over two months ago. He had just regained his memories of his past life and hadn’t yet learned the necessary jungle survival skills when he encountered a brightly colored venomous snake.
How exactly he escaped the snake’s jaws was largely forgotten; he only remembered the cacophony of screams and chaos, a hysterical frenzy where people and animals were thrown about.
Hearing the commotion, all the nearby sub-beastmen rushed to help.
Before Bai Wu could even recognize everyone, he had already utterly disgraced himself.
The past was too painful to recall. Bai Wu opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He had been conscious for over two months, and he still hadn’t mastered the skill of catching snakes.
They conducted a thorough search of the jungle—ferns, fungi, wild vegetables, wild fruits, insects, wild animals, wild birds…everything edible, they would collect as much as possible.
Having been gathering with the team for so long, Bai Wu knew every type of food in this land intimately; he could no longer mistake one for another.
The two of them placed the various items they had gathered into their baskets.
Bai Wu chatted with his brother while gathering herbs. “Brother, I want to go to Xilin to collect green root this afternoon.”
“Aren’t you afraid of snakes?”
“Can’t I just go around them if I can’t beat them? Didn’t you say there’s a lot of green root in Xilin? I want to collect some to make something else.”
Green root is the root of a plant. It is very fibrous with a rough texture, bland taste, and a slightly bitter flavor. Eating too much can cause acid reflux.
In late spring when food is plentiful, nobody wants to eat it, and gathering teams generally don’t go there.
Bai Wu looked at his brother with bright eyes, hoping he would agree.
Unexpectedly, An casually said, “There’s some in this forest. I’ll dig some up for you later.”
“A little isn’t enough. I want to get two baskets.” Bai Wu nudged him with his elbow. “Want to go? I’ll make you something delicious if you bring back a lot.”