【Brain Storage】
“Extreme Winter is coming.”
“Will we survive this time?”
In a small Cave, three Cat-ear Elders sat together, looking at one another. Fear and sorrow were written across their brows.
Every time Extreme Winter arrived, it brought a terrible disaster for them. Many of their people starved or froze to death, and in just a few short years, the once lively Cat Ear Tribe had dwindled to only a little over twenty people.
And this time, there was no way out.
“If that day really comes, do everything you can to keep the children alive.”
“The most important thing is to get enough food. If we can keep the Fire Seed burning, there’s still hope!”
“But it’s not that easy. Have you forgotten the last Extreme Winter? The Wolf Ear Tribe nearly gave away all their stored food to trade for a Fire Seed.”
During Extreme Winter, the price of a single Fire Seed was far higher than it was in ordinary times.
In that disaster, many members of the Wolf Ear Tribe starved to death. The Cat Ear Tribe fared even worse.
“...”
The brief silence was suddenly interrupted by a voice.
A Cat-eared Girl ducked inside and spoke to the three of them.
“Mother, Chun and the others are back. They brought back a lot of prey, along with a few Outsiders.”
...
Su Cheng blinked, his mind still foggy. His cheek stung as if it were on fire. All he could remember was someone slapping him awake by the river, then somehow stumbling along after them as if he were drunk.
This was a vast, seemingly endless forest. Beneath the dim, yellowish light, he could just make out towering mountains stretching into the distance through the dense branches of the trees.
The people who had brought him back had built a Camp in the forest, where they hunted to survive.
The Camp was very crude, with branches, Dry Grass, and stones scattered everywhere. Beast-hide tents stood in disorderly clusters, like hay piles. About twenty people lived here, ranging in age, all of them women. There wasn’t a man or child in sight.
Some were sorting the leaves and Dry Grass they had gathered, some were sharpening stones into points, and others were weaving Straw Rope or working on Animal Hide that had already been dried, using Stone Knives.
Without exception, they wore simple Beast-hide Dresses that barely covered their private parts. Their thighs, arms, and bellies were left largely exposed.
Had he traveled back to primitive society?
Su Cheng was fully awake now. He remembered celebrating his birthday last night and going to sleep in his rented apartment. He hadn’t even been drinking, so how had he ended up here the moment he opened his eyes?
Still, more than facing a group of wild people, what he wanted to know was why they had furry ears and tails!
They looked incredibly realistic, not at all fake.
Were these Beast-eared Girls?
Good grief, were wishes really that powerful these days?
On his twenty-fifth birthday, he’d wished for the heavens to send him a blue-eyed, blond Beast-eared Girl with twin tails. Then he’d traveled to another world right afterward. Was this heaven?
Staring at all those lively, adorable Beast-eared Girls, Su Cheng was dumbfounded.
When the Hunting Team returned, some Beast-eared Girls were already shouting excitedly, and the whole Camp seemed to spring to life.
The Beast-eared Girls put down their work and ran over happily. Some helped unload the prey, while others carried Bamboo Tubes filled with water to their people.
“Chun, you caught so much prey today. You’re amazing!”
“There’s even a Gopher! Those little things are so fast. How did you catch it?”
“A Moose this fat will feed us for days.”
Everyone’s face was beaming with joy. They chattered excitedly, then swarmed together to carry the prey to the center of the Camp and lay it on a huge, smooth stone.
It seemed nobody was paying any attention to the few Outsiders the Hunting Team had brought back.
“Hey, you’re pretty lucky. Who knows how long you were unconscious by the river, but somehow the beasts didn’t eat you.”
As Su Cheng stared around wide-eyed, a familiar voice suddenly reached him. A tall woman had emerged from the crowd at some point and walked up to him.
She was about as tall as Su Cheng, around 1.8 meters. With the sunlight blocked out, he could see the confusion in her eyes, set in a cool, strikingly beautiful face.
Su Cheng recognized her as Chun, one of the Hunting Team members who had brought him back. Long Rabbit Ears twitched atop her messy black hair, and her eyes were a bright, deep red. Combined with her icy expression, they gave him a chill.
There was no denying she was beautiful, with a fine figure too—tall and straight, her full chest and rounded hips shaping alluring curves beneath her coarse Beast-skin Clothing. Her sun-kissed skin was full of vitality, her waist and stomach toned, and her legs had the taut, clean lines of a drawn Bowstring.
A breeze stirred, ruffling her black hair.
She was the very image of a cool, mature beauty; there wasn’t much wildness about her.
Emmm, and her hands were ridiculously strong too—at least, they sure packed a punch when she slapped him.
Su Cheng’s face still stung as if it were burning.
The only flaw was that her left leg seemed to have been injured; she limped slightly when she walked.
She looked Su Cheng over, then spoke in a cold tone.
“This is our Camp. You can rest here for a while, and leave whenever you like. Of course, if you’d like to stay and join our Tribe, you’re welcome to do so. But you’ll have to follow the Tribe’s Rules. Here, you only get food if you work.”
Then Chun turned to the other four: a Wolf-eared Girl, a Fox-eared Girl, and two Deer-antlered Girls.
They had no Tribe of their own, or had been cast out by theirs and left to wander alone. They had spent a long time roaming grasslands, mountains, and forests, so they didn’t feel much of a sense of belonging to any Tribe. Although they were willing to return with the Hunting Team for now, nobody knew whether they would ultimately choose to stay.
“There are several empty Tents east of the Camp. You can sleep there tonight. There’s Dry Grass over there too; sort it out yourselves. We’ll give you some food later, so don’t wander off.”
As she gave them instructions, her gaze swept over the four Beast-eared Girls. It lingered for a moment on the Wolf-eared Girl, her expression complicated.
Su Cheng instinctively looked over and couldn’t help twitching the corner of his mouth.
Even to him, this Beast-eared Girl looked awfully frail. She was tiny, with dry, sallow skin, and her tail drooped limply. Only her pair of pointed Wolf Ears showed any life, twitching faintly.
Her face and body were filthy, and she hunched her shoulders like a little stray kitten abandoned by the roadside.
What Su Cheng couldn’t understand was that this little twig of a girl looked so small and skinny that a gust of wind could blow her away, yet her chest was surprisingly full—not flat at all.
As they spoke, another cheer rose from the center of the Camp.
A Cat-eared Girl was already wielding a Stone Knife, one foot braced on a stone slab as she began to butcher the Moose they had caught that day.
The Stone Knife wasn’t very sharp, so her method of slaughtering and butchering the animal was extremely brutal. She hacked off its head with the dull blade, collected the blood in Bamboo Tubes and other containers, then tore away the hide with brute strength. Only then did she cut open its belly and pull out the organs one by one.
Next, she handed the Moose over to several other Cat-eared Girls who were helping, then continued processing the other prey.
The Cat-eared Girls swung their Stone Axes briskly, hacking the large pieces of meat and bone apart. Then they divided up the work and quickly cut all the meat into slices.
“Meat’s being handed out! Meat’s being handed out!”
The onlookers were buzzing with excitement.
Before long, the Cat-eared Girl in charge handed out meat and Berries to the people one by one.
The seven members of the Hunting Team, led by Chun, each received a generous five or six large pieces of meat and plenty of Berries. As their leader, Chun also received some of the Moose’s organs.
Everyone else received just two small slices of meat and a few Berries.
Su Cheng hadn’t expected to get any, but he received a small piece of meat about half a palm in size, along with a few fruits.
There was a clear disparity in the food distribution, but nobody seemed to object.
Su Cheng found it easy enough to understand.
The Hunting Team was the main fighting force of this little Tribe, and its source of meat was far more dangerous to obtain than Berries or Dry Grass. If they weren’t fed enough to keep up their strength, the Tribe would be on the brink of being wiped out.
Then Su Cheng witnessed a shocking sight.
The people grabbed the bloody meat and tore into it, stuffing Berries into their mouths at the same time. Chun even tossed the Moose’s organs straight into her mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed them whole.
Dozens of people, including the four Beast-eared Girls who had come with Su Cheng, devoured the raw meat with gusto. His pupils contracted in shock.
Holy crap!
They really ate it raw!
What the hell!
This wasn’t the kind of Beast-eared Girl he’d wanted!
All the adorable charm he’d felt before had been tossed into the farthest corner of his mind.
Su Cheng felt his skin crawl, afraid that if they weren’t satisfied, they’d turn around and eat him too. The Wolf Ear Girl beside him looked especially frail, yet she ate ridiculously fast, clearing her meat and fruit in a few quick bites as if she were afraid someone would snatch them away.
Well, it really was the primitive era.
Living off raw meat and blood was just everyday life.
Su Cheng took a token bite of the sour green apple, then glanced at the piece of raw meat in his hand and twitched the corner of his mouth. When he looked up, he found himself staring into the eyes of the Wolf Ear Girl beside him, who had already finished eating.
Her eyes were shining as she stared straight at him.
More precisely, she was staring at the meat in Su Cheng’s hand. The liquid at the corner of her mouth could have been drool or juice from crushed Berries.
Her eyes were bright and clear, seemingly full of longing.
At such close range, Su Cheng could clearly hear her swallow.
“Do you want some?”
At his words, the Wolf Ear Girl’s ears immediately perked up.
After a long moment, she cautiously nodded.
“I do.”
Her voice was clear and sweet, with a childlike quality.
“Then you can have it.”
Go on, eat up. Once you’re full, you won’t eat me too, right?
...
Before everyone had finished eating, Su Cheng ran off to the eastern side of the Camp by himself.
He didn’t want his dream of soft, adorable Beast-eared Girls to be shattered completely.
This area was more open than the center of the Camp, with only seven or eight Tents huddled together. One of them was like a candle in the wind, with nothing left but its wooden frame; its Animal Hide and Dry Grass had all been stripped away.
The Tents were arranged around a patch of scorched earth, with a little charred wood ash still scattered across it.
Su Cheng gave the area a quick look. At least five Tents were unoccupied, with nothing inside.
A hay pile stood not far from the Tents. Su Cheng carried over some Dry Grass, picked a Tent at random, and ducked inside.
He hastily made a bed, then lay down and stared up above him, taking a deep breath.
At last, he had a moment to catch his breath.
Even now, his mind was still a little hazy. Everything that had happened felt unreal.
He had somehow traveled to another world with no warning or preparation, landing in this unfamiliar place with no idea what was going on, surrounded by Beast-eared Girls who wore Animal Hide and liked to devour raw meat.
He hadn’t brought anything with him—he’d arrived completely naked. If Chun hadn’t given him these Beast-hide Clothes, he would’ve had to walk all the way here with his dick swinging!
Primitive society, Beast-eared Girls?!
He really did like them, but this was still too absurd.
Besides, he had no idea what to do next. He’d studied computer science at university, not wilderness survival. What was he supposed to do here?
Leave? The thought had barely crossed his mind before he quickly rejected it. Both reason and instinct warned him not to go wandering around if he didn’t want to die sooner.
Besides, Su Cheng couldn’t think of any reason he had to leave. With soft, sweet-smelling （tentative） Beast-eared Girls by his side, what more could a man want?
He’d made the wish himself, so he’d have to accept it, even if it made him cry.
Moonlight poured into the Tent and fell across his legs. He had no idea which kind-hearted Beast-eared Girl had built this nest before, but when he lay down inside, almost all of his legs below the knees stuck out.
Su Cheng lay in his brand-new doghouse, his thoughts drifting.
He found it strange that this little Tribe of Beast Ears consisted entirely of women.
Was that normal?
At least by Su Cheng’s objective understanding, a Tribe couldn’t survive if everyone in it was female—or male, for that matter—regardless of its size.
And he didn’t think he’d seen any children in the Camp.
No new blood, no fresh recruits.
How had such a small Tribe survived until now?
The Beast-eared Girls’ laughter and cheers continued in his ears. He was immersed in them, yet felt as if he were standing apart; everything seemed completely alien to him. He didn’t know how long it took before the girls finally got their fill of celebrating and everything gradually quieted down.
Then footsteps sounded, and the Beast-eared Girls returned to their Tents to rest and recover.
Just then, as Su Cheng lay quietly, a translucent screen suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Host: Su Cheng.
Talent: Encyclopedia.
Dexterous Hands and Clever Mind.
Danger Sense.
Encyclopedia: You can look up any knowledge you want in the book, and you can also obtain relevant information by scanning with your retina.
Dexterous Hands and Clever Mind: No matter what you study, you can learn it quickly and put it into practice successfully.
Danger Sense: Your ability to sense danger has been greatly enhanced.
Warning: Extreme Winter Climate is approaching. Host, please improve your current living conditions as soon as possible and do your best to survive.
Is this... a cheat?