The processed timber was also left here, to be transported back together with the dried mud bricks when the time came.
On the way back, everyone discussed how to trade for salt. Lu Xuan felt that since everyone’s energy would be focused on building the house in the coming days, they should trade for as much salt as possible at once, salt doesn’t spoil.
“What if the other party raises the price arbitrarily?”
In his past life, salt was one of the cheapest seasonings. In his mind, trading one goat for a hundred jin of salt would be more than enough.
Xiong Xuan said in a deep voice: “Back in the tribe, although salt was precious, it was never as expensive as ten rabbits for one jin. At most, I can accept one rabbit for one jin. Prey is scarce during the cold period, and we need to store enough food for ourselves. We can’t just let them name any price.”
Tian Xuan took over the conversation: “On the way back, be careful not to be followed.”
Xiong Xuan: “I’ll be careful.”
Lu Xuan thought about the progress of the house and spoke up: “Are we going hunting tomorrow?”
Xiong Xuan looked at him and asked: “Why? Do you have something in mind?”
Lu Xuan thought for a moment and said: “If we don’t go hunting, let’s first decide on the location for the house, then clear the weeds and level the ground, and dig the foundation.”
Xiong Xuan nodded: “Then let’s skip hunting for now and focus on the house.”
The next day, even Xiong Yan came back. After discussion, they finally chose a plot of land close to the river and marked out an area to build the house.
“I want to build a two-story house!” Xiong Yue said excitedly.
Lu Xuan scratched his head: “I’m not confident about a two-story house. How about we just build a single-story one?”
Xiong Yue looked a bit disappointed: “All right.”
Xiong Yuan ruffled his hair and said to Lu Xuan with a smile: “He’s just acting like a cub, curious about everything. Being able to build a house out of mud and wood is already so much better than an animal hide shelter.”
After choosing the location, they began to dig the foundation. Lu Xuan used vines as measuring tools and cooking ash to mark the lines.
Tian Xuan assisted him. The others had never seen such preparatory work done before building a house and stood around watching curiously.
After marking the areas that needed foundation digging, Lu Xuan wiped the sweat from his forehead, his eyes filled with the ease and joy of success.
“All right, now it’s time to start digging. All the marked black frames need to be dug out.”
Let’s first try building a wooden house. Lu Xuan had already marked the interior layout of the rooms with grass ash. From the traces of the grass ash, one could see it was a three-bedroom, one-living-room house of about 150 square meters.
The areas marked with black frames were where the walls would go. Xiong Qi waved his claw and roared, “I’ll do it!”
In his fully shifted beast form as a grizzly bear, his sharp claws dug into the earth effortlessly. Lu Xuan watched as the soil quickly piled up.
He then said to Tian Xuan, “Let’s move the soil aside first.”
The three cubs, as if they had found something fun, stuck their rear ends up and followed beside the grizzly bear, pawing at the soil with their four little claws. All the soil they dug up landed on themselves.
Lu Xuan darkened his face and lifted them aside. Bathing and drying their fur was such a hassle, you know.
Soon, a foundation 30 centimeters wide and 50 centimeters deep was dug. Lu Xuan placed the dried mud bricks into the foundation as a demonstration for the others.
“After all the mud bricks at the foot of the mountain are dried, just do it like this. Don’t spread too much mud between the bricks.”
Xiong Yue squatted beside the foundation and said, “The mud bricks at the foot of the mountain aren’t enough either.”
Lu Xuan said, “Right. Besides the foundation, we also need to make a stove and a heated pit. We still need to make many more mud bricks.”
Xiong Yue’s eyes lit up: “What is a heated pit?”
Lu Xuan explained, “It’s a place to sleep, but underneath the heated pit there is space to build a fire. When the cold period comes, sleeping on it won’t be cold.”
Xiong Yuan said happily, “That way, the cubs won’t be cold either.”
In the afternoon, the four beastmen, Tian Xuan, Xiong Qi, Xiong Xuan, and Xiong Yan, went together to cut trees. The two sub-beastmen, Xiong Yue and Xiong Yuan, continued pulling weeds. Lu Xuan selected a plot of land and started organizing it into a vegetable garden.
He first cleared the weeds off the top, then picked out hard things like broken stones from the soil. But when it came time to turn the soil, he ran into difficulty.
Without a plow, how could he turn the soil? He sat on the ground with his brows tightly furrowed. He had seen one as a child, it was made of iron, and the front part became shiny after long use.
There was no way to make one now. Even if he had iron, he wouldn’t know how.
The three cubs woke up from their nap and burrowed straight into Lu Xuan’s arms.
“Wuwuwu…”
Daddy, Daddy, what’s wrong?
“Aoaoao…”
Why are you unhappy, huh?
Lu Xuan hugged the three cubs and rubbed them for a good while. His gloomy mood completely cleared. Indeed, fluffy things were healing.
“Daddy isn’t unhappy. Daddy is just thinking about something.”
“Ah ah—”
What is Daddy thinking about?
Lu Xuan stroked the lynx cub while holding back a laugh. Every time he heard its cry, he wanted to laugh, it didn’t sound at all like a majestic, agile big cat that dared to hunt large animals.
“Daddy is thinking about turning the soil.”
The lynx cub immediately jumped to the ground and began pawing at the soil with its four claws, looking at Lu Xuan. The meaning was obvious.
Daddy, Daddy, is it like this to turn the soil?
Lu Xuan’s old fatherly heart felt like it was soaking in warm water, so gratified.
“Hahaha, you’re still too small. Go play. This is something for adults to do.”
The lynx cub, the largest of the three cubs, led the leopard cat cub and the fishing cat cub, and in the blink of an eye, they jumped into the pile of weeds and ran off somewhere.
Fortunately, they wouldn’t run around randomly and stayed within the designated area, so Lu Xuan felt comfortable letting them play freely.
After resting, Lu Xuan stood up and wanted to find some tool to turn the soil. Suddenly, an image flashed through his mind.
He almost jumped for joy. He remembered, once when he went to the countryside to treat cattle, he had seen a wooden plow in a villager’s home.
That family’s wooden plow had already been abandoned. He had taken a few extra looks because it was unusual. Making one shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Lu Xuan drew on the ground. The memory was actually quite blurry, but the main structures of the curved-shaft plow, the plow handle, the plow beam, the plow board, etc., took shape on the ground.
After drawing, he held one arm with the other and rubbed his chin while thinking.
“This should be correct, right?”
“What are you drawing?”
Lu Xuan was startled. He looked up in surprise: “Tian Xuan? You’re back?”
Tian Xuan nodded, squatting down beside him. He looked at the diagram on the ground and asked again: “What are you drawing?”
“Oh, this is called a curved-shaft plow. It’s a tool made of wood for plowing the land. Before planting, the soil needs to be loosened. I couldn’t find a suitable tool, so I thought of one I’d seen before and wanted to try to make it.”
Tian Xuan looked carefully and said, “Let me try to make it.”
Lu Xuan nodded happily: “Good, let’s try together.”
Tian Xuan stood up and said, “Then I’ll go find some wood now. Do you want to come with me and see which type is more suitable?”
“No problem.”
Only after Lu Xuan stood up did he notice a very thick, very tall tree not far away. He walked over in surprise and stretched out his arms. After measuring, he realized it would take three of him to wrap around it.
“How did you transport this down?”
The sub-beastman’s wide-eyed surprise seemed as if they had done something extraordinary. Tian Xuan’s usually calm eyes brightened a little, and a slight curve lifted the corner of his mouth.
He said: “We shifted into beast form, one at the front and one at the back, and carried it back.”
Lu Xuan imagined the scene of four bears carrying an extremely thick tree trunk and silently gave a thumbs-up.
“Impressive.”
For some reason, the image of the cartoon bears Briar and Bramble suddenly flashed through his mind. Looking at Tian Xuan’s expressionless face, Lu Xuan couldn’t help but let out a “pfft” laugh.
He quickly pressed down his lips, forced himself to calm down, and said: “How about we work on it tomorrow? It’s getting late now. You must be tired after carrying it all the way here. Go rest.”
Tian Xuan looked at the orange clouds on the horizon, then thought about the thing called a plow. Unsure how much time it would take to complete, he nodded in agreement with Lu Xuan’s words.
“Xiong Qi and the others have gone back to the animal hide shelters. Let’s go back too.”
The two places were very close. When they arrived, Xiong Yue was cutting wild vegetables, and Xiong Yuan was peeling potatoes.
Xiong Xuan was playing with the cubs. Lu Xuan thought he was teaching the little ones to hunt. Xiong Yan was chopping meat, and Xiong Qi was grilling fish.
From inside the animal hide shelter came the cry of bear cubs. Xiong Yuan immediately put down the potatoes and walked toward the shelter, with Xiong Xuan following closely behind.
Lu Xuan took over peeling potatoes for Xiong Yuan. Tian Xuan went to play with the cubs.
The potatoes were dug yesterday. Lu Xuan rubbed them and felt they could be eaten without peeling. He picked out the bad ones and peeled those, then carried them in animal hide to wash at the stone basin.
The basin was a hole chiseled out of stone, then smoothed into shape, used for temporary water storage.
Soon, the aroma of meat wafted out. Everyone, who had been busy all day, was starving. The roasted meat along with the wild vegetable and egg soup was all devoured, not a single drop of soup left.
The sky hadn’t completely darkened yet. In the remaining twilight, everyone cleaned themselves up, then went into the animal hide shelters, covered themselves with warm furs, and went to sleep.
Lu Xuan was startled awake by a bear roar. He sat up dazedly. Outside was still pitch black, with only starlight shining down on the earth.
The three cubs, frightened, threw themselves into Lu Xuan’s arms. Xiong Yue huddled next to Lu Xuan and said in a trembling voice, “Outside, Xiong Yan and Xiong Qi are fighting with someone. From the sounds, it seems like more than one beastman.”
Lu Xuan’s heart skipped a beat. He thought of the group of rat beastmen in the wasteland forest, but listening carefully, the sounds were different.
He comforted him, “It should be nothing serious. Otherwise, Tian Xuan and Xiong Xuan would have joined in.”
Xiong Yue calmed down considerably upon hearing this. “You’re right.”
The situation was indeed not serious. In less than half an hour, the sounds of fighting outside stopped.
Then Xiong Yan’s voice rang out: “Two skinny foxes came to steal food. Perfect, tomorrow we’ll skin them and make hide clothes.”
Lu Xuan: …That’s not really necessary, is it? Real foxes would be fine, but these can turn into humans… Sorry, he needed a moment to process that.
“It’s all right. You can sleep peacefully.”
It was Tian Xuan, standing outside their animal hide shelter. Lu Xuan knew he was probably protecting them. His heart warmed. “You should sleep too.”
But when he actually tried to sleep, he couldn’t.
Lu Xuan lay awake in the darkness. The past few days of peaceful life had made him forget that this was the wasteland, a place where wandering beastmen and exile beastmen gathered.
Even though this place was more remote, it didn’t mean it would never be discovered. Hadn’t they run into the red-haired orangutan on their very first day?
Today it was two skinny foxes. What would it be next time? Could it be beings that even Tian Xuan and the others couldn’t defeat?
As soon as dawn broke, Lu Xuan stood before everyone with dark circles under his eyes. He said, word by word: “Let’s make traps.”