The way Mao Xiaoshu carried on, you’d think he was about to reveal a state secret. Qin Ziheng thought he had something momentous to say and even instinctively held his breath, only for Mao Xiaoshu to blurt out that line.
Qin Ziheng laughed out loud. Mao Xiaoshu didn’t know what he was laughing at, but he grinned foolishly along, those eyes like two pools of water curving up, blooming into a smile. Qin Ziheng rubbed his head again.
There were many Cluck-Cluck Beasts, one pot of water wasn’t enough to scald them all. Qin Ziheng heated two potfuls before all thirty-odd bamboo partridges were done. It was still early, around a bit past nine. Since the meal wasn’t urgent, Qin Ziheng thought it over: dividing the labor would be more efficient, so he had Mao Xiaoshu dig the cave while he plucked the fowl.
Mao Xiaoshu actually would rather have worked with him at the river, but he didn’t want to disobey Qin Ziheng, and in the end he went.
Since the river would freeze in the snow season and wild beasts might break into the tribe, the beasts’ food-caves were all set well off the ground. Remembering his sister’s food-cave, dug up high, inconvenient to fetch fruit from each time, but, as his sister said, a high food-cave was safe because wild beasts couldn’t climb up, Mao Xiaoshu decided to dig his high too. He was a good climber anyway, when it was time to fetch things, he’d fetch them.
In the end he picked a spot across from the big tree, above and to the right of the cave, about six meters off the ground, and started digging away, stones tumbling down thunk after thunk.
Killing chicken was easy, not as hard as killing ducks, but the fowls’ heads were small and the feathers many, terribly hard to pluck clean. Fortunately Qin Ziheng was patient, and plucked each one carefully.
Plucked, the bamboo partridges were even smaller. Qin Ziheng couldn’t bear to throw away the heads and intestines. The traps had only just been made, and the partridges had no defenses, so the catch was still decent, but before long there probably wouldn’t be catches like this anymore, for however foolish, animals do have some brains.
Four months of snow season, over a hundred days, only with food could they get through it. Qin Ziheng didn’t dare waste a bit. And he’d asked Huya and learned that some beast in the tribe sold salt-stone, he thought to store up more food and see whether he could trade for some salt-stone.
He really couldn’t stand no salt. There was no currency here, only barter, to get salt-stone he could trade meat, beast hides, and the like.
Qin Ziheng crouched until his legs went numb, and finally, seeing the bamboo partridges still piled into a “mountain” beside him, got up helplessly and hauled over a big stone to sit on.
Guoguo spotted a figure at the river from far off, and recognized him at a glance, it was Uncle Qin.
Not yet very familiar with Qin Ziheng, Guoguo didn’t dare go over, and ran instead to the cave to find Mao Xiaoshu. But Mao Xiaoshu wasn’t in the cave, stones kept tumbling down thunk-thunk beside it, and one look told Guoguo his uncle was digging a cave.
“Uncle.” He tipped his head up and called.
Before long Mao Xiaoshu poked out a round cat head. “Mew?”
Mao Guoguo said, “Uncle busy?”
Mao Xiaoshu nodded. “Mew.”
“Then Guoguo will help.”
The stones Mao Xiaoshu dug out had to be carried away, not too big, Mao Guoguo could manage them.
Qin Ziheng had heard Mao Guoguo’s voice long since, and seeing him help didn’t stop him. Mao Guoguo held a ball-sized stone and looked around, not knowing where to put it. Qin Ziheng called out, “Toss it here by the river.”
Mao Guoguo immediately ran over and threw the stone into the river. Only up close did he notice the water at Qin Ziheng’s feet was full of Cluck-Cluck Beasts, more than he could count, and his eyes went wide as he stood there dumbly.
Where had Uncle Qin gotten so many Cluck-Cluck Beasts?
Qin Ziheng beckoned to him, and when Mao Guoguo came close asked whether he’d eaten.
Mao Guoguo nodded, he’d had wood-root before coming.
Qin Ziheng felt his belly and, finding it indeed a bit rounded, said, “Then off you go and work. A little exercise and you’ll be hungry, Uncle will cook you meat later.”
Mao Guoguo nodded obediently.
Small as he was, he could already do things. With a back-basket he could have put the stones in it and carried many at once, if Qin Ziheng did it, it would be done in no time and there’d be no need for Mao Guoguo’s help.
Mao Guoguo ran back and forth carrying one stone at a time, working as if at play. But work he could do was work he ought to do, let him do nothing and he’d be even less willing when he was older, lazybones are raised, not born, so Qin Ziheng didn’t stop him.
In one morning Mao Xiaoshu had only dug a couple of meters deep, worn out until his little curls were sopping. A food-cave for storing food had to be dug eight or nine meters deep to be truly cold, so food kept a long while wouldn’t spoil, at this depth it was only faintly cool. Mao Xiaoshu took Qin Ziheng up to look, and the temperature was about like a refrigerator’s chill, chicken should keep two or three days without spoiling, so there was no great rush. Qin Ziheng told Mao Xiaoshu to rest first and talk after lunch.
Lunch was chicken again, as usual. Qin Ziheng stewed a full pot. Bamboo partridge was wonderfully fresh, the smell fragrant and rich, the meat firm and faintly sweet. Mao Xiaoshu ate with great satisfaction, he’d been busy all morning at hard labor, and even after finishing the whole pot he still didn’t feel very full.
Qin Ziheng ate only three bowls, Mao Guoguo gnawed two drumsticks, and the rest all went to Mao Xiaoshu, who still wasn’t full. Seeing him lick his lips as if he could go for a bit more, Qin Ziheng pressed his forehead, struck by the helplessness of a poor household with a bottomless-pit of a brother, and thought he’d have to cook two more that evening.
For the next two days, the moment Mao Xiaoshu got up he went to dig the cave, while Qin Ziheng checked the traps in the grove, brought back any catch, reset the traps, then heated water and killed fowl.
Both were busy till late every day. Guoguo came by during the day to help carry stones, and once it was dark it didn’t stop Mao Xiaoshu from digging. Qin Ziheng finished killing fowl by afternoon, and after cooking and eating dinner it was already pitch dark, but even so he didn’t rest, hauling stones trip after trip by moonlight.
On the sixth day the food-cave was finally done. The spot Mao Xiaoshu had chosen was very steep. Qin Ziheng climbed up to look again, the cave was deep but not tall, he had to stoop going in, but at the very back Mao Xiaoshu had dug it wide and high, about one meter five tall and nearly three meters wide, more than enough to store two people’s food.
The fowl killed earlier had been kept outside the food-cave. Qin Ziheng sniffed and found they hadn’t spoiled yet, but they still had to be moved inside, where it was colder.
There were plenty of stone chips on the floor, even swept clean, laying meat straight on the ground felt unclean to Qin Ziheng, so he wove a big bamboo mat to spread on the floor and then dumped the cleaned fowl onto it.
These days had worn the two of them out, but the haul was considerable.
Not counting what they’d eaten these days, they’d stored a hundred thirty-one pheasants. At two catties each, once cleaned a bird had only a catty-odd left, so many as they were, that was only two hundred-some catties of meat, and that counting the inedible bones.
The day before, Qin Ziheng and Mao Xiaoshu had shouldered a basketful, taken a hundred catties into the tribe, and traded some beasts for a few pieces of salt-stone.
The Beast World’s salt-stone really was expensive. Mao Xiaoshu had always been going on about “salt-stone,” and Qin Ziheng had privately supposed it was some salt-flavored stone, after trading for it, he found it truly was “stone.” A hundred catties traded for only ten catties, and the salt-stone’s salt content wasn’t high, stewing meat, Qin Ziheng broke off an egg-sized piece, and the chicken soup was only barely flavored, so ten catties wouldn’t last long either.
Now there was still a hundred-odd catties of chicken left.
If there were rice, and other vegetables, this meat could feed them for two months.
But there was no staple here, they relied entirely on meat to fill their bellies. A single beast like Mao Xiaoshu could eat about six catties of food in one meal, Qin Ziheng himself needed a catty a day. That was fourteen catties a day, four hundred twenty a month, about seventeen hundred for four months.
And that was reckoning two meals a day. At three meals a day, the food to prepare would be even more.
So little stored so far, Qin Ziheng still felt uneasy, he had to think of another way.
But Mao Xiaoshu was laughing with delight, in high spirits all day. When had he ever seen so much meat? He figured a few more days of catching bamboo partridge and the snow season would be no worry, no fear of going hungry. At the thought his whole body had strength, one night he even got up in the dead of night, wanting to go check the grove for a catch.
Fortunately Qin Ziheng noticed in time and pulled him back, coaxing him a long while before he lay down, hugging Qin Ziheng’s arm and saying he was so happy, no need to fear hunger in the snow season.
But over the next few days Mao Xiaoshu couldn’t smile anymore.
The bamboo partridges had gotten clever and stopped falling for it.
Even though Qin Ziheng found new spots and dug fresh traps, the catch was scant. Before, one trap yielded five or six, even seven or eight, now some were flat-out empty, others held just one or two.
Checking the traps over the following days, Mao Xiaoshu lay at the edge of a trap and, seeing not a single Cluck-Cluck Beast inside, refused to believe it, poking his head in to rummage through the bamboo leaves fallen at the bottom, worried a partridge was hidden under the leaves where he couldn’t see. But after rummaging back and forth and finding no partridge hidden, just genuinely none there, he went teary-eyed, looking as if the sky had fallen, unable to make sense of it: why had there been so many Cluck-Cluck Beasts a few days ago, and now none?
Several times, checking the traps, Qin Ziheng saw a few bamboo partridges standing not far off. They didn’t run at the sight of people, just stood fixedly, clucking at them, and somehow their manner struck Qin Ziheng as rather smug.
They seemed to be saying, “You two-legged beasts, always singling us out to eat, now see if you can eat dirt.”
Qin Ziheng thought he was overthinking it, but whether by coincidence or not, two of the partridges, clucking away, actually turned their backs to him, dropped two turds, and then flapped their wings, squawking.
Qin Ziheng: “…”
His gaze darkened a shade. He patted Mao Xiaoshu’s back and consoled him. “It’s all right. We’ll stop catching fowl. Tomorrow we’ll go into the woods and find something else, give the Cluck-Cluck Beasts a breather, and come back in a few days.”
Mao Xiaoshu sniffled, looking terribly sad, and said, “Okay. Xiaoshu will listen to Qin Ziheng.”