“Washing the Chinese cabbage, I want to make pickled cabbage,” Lu Xuan said. “If the cold period is too harsh, fresh greens won’t store well, but pickled cabbage will last much longer.”
Xue Rong perked up immediately upon hearing this: “Can you teach me?”
Lu Xuan smiled and said, “Of course. It’s not difficult.”
He peeled off the outer layers of the cabbage. Since the cabbages were quite large, he cut each into four quarters, placed them in a stone vat, added cooled boiled water and salt, and finally weighed them down with stones on top.
Xue Rong asked curiously, “Why do you need to press the cabbage down with stones?”
Lu Xuan was sealing the vat with water snake skin. He replied, “During the pickling process, if cabbage comes into contact with air, it will rot. Covering it with water snake skin also prevents air from getting into the vat. The temperature shouldn’t be too low, temperatures like today’s or higher are fine.”
The current temperature was probably between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius.
Xue Rong asked, “Then how long until it’s ready to eat?”
Lu Xuan said, “About 30 days.”
In the afternoon, Lu Xuan took a hoe and chose a spot in front of his own house to start weeding. The original plot of land was a bit far away and not very large, and it was planted mostly with potatoes.
He planned to cultivate a patch of land right in front of his house to grow his favorite wild vegetables. Then he would put up a fence and plant various flowers, climbing vines, beautiful blooms.
Just imagining it was delightful. Lu Xuan was full of energy.
Oh, right, he also needed to choose another plot of land for medicinal herbs: common herbs as well as uncommon ones.
The uncommon ones, especially, would need extra careful tending.
Xue Rong came out of his house looking for Lu Xuan to play. Seeing Lu Xuan holding a tool and weeding, he squatted down to help pull weeds.
“No need to pull them. You go sit over there. I can do it myself.”
“I can help you weed, so you can plant things faster.” Xue Rong looked up at Lu Xuan. “By the way, what do you want to plant?”
Lu Xuan rested by squatting next to Xue Rong. “Some of my favorite vegetables and some beautiful flowers. I want to turn my house into a fairy-tale cottage.”
Xue Rong was deeply captivated by the scene Lu Xuan described. He ran toward his own house: “I want to go back and plant things too.”
Plant the same kind of garden as Lu Xuan, and decorate the same way.
Plant what Xing Chi liked to eat and the flowers he himself loved.
“What did you say that got Xue Rong so excited?”
Xiong Yuan handed Lu Xuan an animal hide cushion: “The cushion is done. Take a look, is it the thickness you wanted?”
Yesterday, Xiong Xuan hadn’t gone hunting. He stayed home making the furniture Lu Xuan had drawn. Because he wasn’t familiar with the techniques, he worked slowly and only finished two low cabinets.
He had wanted to give them to Lu Xuan for his use, but Lu Xuan didn’t take them. He wasn’t in a hurry, one day later or earlier didn’t matter.
Instead, he had asked Xiong Yuan to help make the lounger cushions first. They used more than half of the animal hides they had been allocated, filling them with hay and wild chestnut shells.
“This is exactly what I wanted. Thank you.”
Lu Xuan took them with delight. If he had to sew neat stitches on a wound, he could do that. But sewing animal hides into something good-looking? He couldn’t.
“Your hands are so skilled.”
Xiong Yuan laughed good-naturedly: “Your hands are skilled too.”
Just skilled in different ways.
Lu Xuan scratched his head: “So… do you want to plant a vegetable garden?”
Xiong Yuan looked at the hoe in Lu Xuan’s hand and said, “This is what you were just telling Xue Rong about?”
Lu Xuan nodded: “More or less. Planting right by the door makes it convenient to pick whatever you want to eat. Also…”
He painted the beautiful pastoral scene he had drawn for Xue Rong for Xiong Yuan as well.
After listening, Xiong Yuan turned and walked toward his own house: “Yes, planting by the door really is convenient for eating.”
That afternoon, Xiong Yue and the other two returned. From a distance, Xiong Yue was waving something in his hand and shouting to Lu Xuan: “I found a strange thing! I thought you’d definitely be interested, so I brought one back. Come look!”
Even from afar, Lu Xuan felt that the thing in Xiong Yue’s hand looked familiar. When Xiong Yue ran up to him, he realized, wasn’t this wheat?
He took the ear of wheat from Xiong Yue’s hand excitedly. Although it was even more “plus-sized” than the golden wheat bundles given as grand opening gifts, it was truly an ear of wheat!
It was still green and unripe. If it were ripe, a single kernel would be countless times larger than those in his past life.
How much flour would that yield?
Xiong Yue: “Do you recognize it?”
Lu Xuan nodded excitedly: “I recognize it. It’s not ripe yet. When it’s fully ripe, it turns golden yellow. It’s also a type of staple food, and there are so many ways to eat it, you can make all kinds of delicious things with it.”
Xiong Yue’s eyes widened with joy: “Really? That’s great! There’s a huge patch of it, even more than the Chinese cabbage.”
Lu Xuan was even happier.
“When it’s ripe, we’ll harvest it all at once.”
The three beastmen, Tian Xuan and the others, also returned with a bountiful harvest. They had caught two red deer, three roe deer, and more than a dozen wild ducks.
While eating roasted meat, Tian Xuan said, “Tomorrow morning we rest. In the afternoon, we’ll patrol the surrounding area and also catch some fish to make dried fish.”
Dried meat was good, but dried fish could also serve as a supplement when meat was scarce.
Everyone let out joyful laughter. With so few people, hunting two days in a row was very tiring.
After setting aside the portion to be eaten, the rest was divided among everyone for personal storage.
Xiong Yue handed his share of meat to Lu Xuan: “We live together anyway, and you cook better.”
Lu Xuan took it with a smile. Sub-beastmen ate less than beastmen, but because he had three cubs, he received even more meat than Xiong Yue.
“Alright. When the wheat ripens, I’ll really show you what I can do.”
The next day, there wasn’t much to do. But because of the garden scene Lu Xuan had drawn, Xiong Xuan and Xing Chi were both tilling the land in front of their own houses at their mates’ request.
The four single beastmen had no such need. Lu Xuan directed them to dig another plot of land, he wanted to plant medicinal herbs, which the entire tribe would use. They had no objections.
Even if it were just for Lu Xuan alone, they still wouldn’t object. It was only right for beastmen to help sub-beastmen.
Besides, digging and weeding was far too simple for them, so simple that it was a bit dull.
Lu Xuan was making salted meat. He had just hung up a piece of meat coated with salt when his vision went dark, and then a piece of meat was gone.
Some kind of bird had grabbed his meat and flown off. Damn it, Lu Xuan cursed angrily.
It was flying in the sky, there was really nothing he could do.
Just as Lu Xuan was about to swallow his frustration and accept the loss, Tian Xuan shifted into his black bear form, picked up a tree branch, and threw it with force. It hit the bird’s wing squarely. The black bird let out a shriek and began to fall.
Lu Xuan whipped his head around to look at Tian Xuan. That actually worked?
Tian Xuan watched the black bird trying to keep flying but continuously falling lower. His tone was indifferent: “It’s injured. It’s flying low.”
Lu Xuan understood, it was a matter of the right timing, the right place, and the right circumstances.
When the black bird fell to the ground, Lu Xuan quickly ran over to retrieve the meat. Unexpectedly, the black bird then transformed into a half-grown child.
His face was covered in tears. A thin branch was embedded in his shoulder blade, and blood flowed down his arm, dripping onto the ground.
He just stared at Lu Xuan, teardrop after teardrop falling.
Lu Xuan’s earlier anger vanished completely. Looking at the child, a sense of pity arose in him.
“You…”
Before he could finish speaking, the collar of his shirt was pulled from behind, and his entire body lifted into the air. Then he was caught by Xiong Yan.
Lu Xuan was completely bewildered, having no idea what had just happened. Suddenly, there was a sharp sting on his neck. He reached up and touched it, blood.
A fine, piercing pain traveled through his brain and then to his carotid artery. Where he had been standing, Tian Xuan stood with his back to him, one foot stepping on that… child’s… neck.
The child lay on the ground, half his face soaked in blood. His eyes were wide open, looking in this direction, but there was no life left in them.
“Ugh~”
Lu Xuan vomited. He vomited so much he couldn’t tell day from night. Even after throwing up bile, he couldn’t stop the physical revulsion.
He vomited until his eyes filled with tears. By the afternoon, he had developed a low fever.
The fever lasted three days before breaking. During those three days, Lu Xuan was groggy and lethargic. He knew how brutal life here could be.
But a child of seven or eight years, crying one moment, had tried to kill him the next. The wound on his neck had only broken the skin, but the feeling of nearing death still lingered.
He had come within a hair’s breadth of meeting the original host.
People and animals were, after all, different. The feeling and psychological tolerance of killing a person versus killing an animal were also different.
Lu Xuan sat in front of his house, soaking up the sun. He wondered if he was being overly sensitive. If that person had succeeded, he would have lost this second chance at life, would he have hated that child?
“A child living in the wasteland…” Lu Xuan took a deep breath. For a moment, he felt very complicated.
“He wasn’t a child.”
Tian Xuan sat down beside Lu Xuan. “He was a black-feathered bird beastman. Their kind are naturally youthful in appearance and live on high cliffs. They rarely come down to the ground. This one must have gotten separated from his group.”
Lu Xuan tilted his head and looked at Tian Xuan. It took him a while to process what Tian Xuan had just said.
“Are you saying he was an adult beastman?”
“Yes. Older than me.”
Tian Xuan’s voice was calm yet gentle. He looked into Lu Xuan’s eyes, still carrying a trace of concern.
“He wasn’t a cub. He was an adult beastman, older than me.”
“Lu Xuan, are you feeling better now?”
Lu Xuan didn’t say whether he was better or not. He stared blankly at an empty corner of space. After a long moment, he looked at Tian Xuan and said, “Thank you. You saved me again.”
Tian Xuan said, “No need to thank me. Saving you is only right.”
Lu Xuan smiled faintly and asked Tian Xuan, “Am I being too sensitive?”
Tian Xuan didn’t fully understand the meaning of “sensitive,” but he understood Lu Xuan’s feelings. The first time he had killed a beastman, he too had felt shock and fear.
“The tribe you lived in must have been very peaceful.”
Lu Xuan searched through the original host’s remaining memories and nodded with a smile. “Yes, everyone likes to shift into their beast forms when it was warm at noon and huddle together to bask in the sun. But I’m a sub-beastman. I don’t have a beast form. Back then, I was very envious. I always thought that if I had a beast form, I could bask in the sun with them too.”
But a tribe like that had been destroyed by wandering beastmen.
“I won’t be like this again.”
Knowing that the one who died was an adult beastman, not a child, did make Lu Xuan feel somewhat better. But when he had looked into those hollow, lifeless eyes, his entire cerebral cortex had gone numb. The physical reaction that followed had been beyond his control.
Lu Xuan’s improvement lifted a weight off everyone’s hearts. At the same time, they silently pinned a “fragile” label on him.
Even Xue Rong, who considered himself the weakest in the tribe, developed a tender affection for Lu Xuan.
“Xuanxuan, from now on, I’ll take good care of you.”