Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – Chapter 03

Chapter 3

After chatting with Bai An and his son for a while, until the medicine was ready and Bai An went to feed it to Bai Chen, Bai Tu finally calmed down and thought.

So many things happened today. First, I found out that I had become a supporting actor with a tragic end, and then Bai Chen was injured. Bai Tu thought that no matter whether he would recover his memory in the future, he must always try his best to save it, stay away from the protagonists, and avoid repeating the tragedy in the book.

He decided to take a look at the edible plants nearby while collecting herbs tomorrow, dig up the seedlings and try to plant them. It would be best to store enough food before winter comes, so that the tribe members don’t have to risk going out hunting during the snowy season.

Judging from everyone’s situation, one can guess that the tribe’s living standards are not very good. Compared with the orcs whose beast forms are large animals, the rabbit tribe is too weak. Orcs are generally strong, but different races have different characteristics. Most of them have retained the characteristics of their animal form. Bears are more resistant to hunger, lions and tigers are strong and easy to hide, wolves have amazing endurance, and deer are fast…

Compared with other orcs, the advantages of the rabbits are not obvious enough. They are small in size and not fast enough. Their teeth and claws are almost useless in hunting. As a result, most rabbits still prefer to use human form and tools to hunt, and they are no match for the larger orc tribes around them.

There is little food, and the rabbits have to save some of it for necessities such as salt. As a result, they often hover around the starvation line all year round.

Bai Tu recalled the food that the rabbit tribe eats now. It is basically familiar animals and plants, but due to cognitive reasons, he missed a lot of plants. The cooking methods are also limited, except for roasting over fire or boiling in water.

Most of the plants and animals in the Beast God Continent are similar to those in his previous life, except that the beastmen did not give individual names to many plants. For example

, fruits that are edible are all called wild fruits, and at most they are distinguished by color or characteristics. White ones are called ginkgo fruits, red ones are called red fruits, and those that explode easily are called explosive fruits… It is worth mentioning that both plants and animals here are larger than what he had seen in his previous life. For example, the pheasants caught today weighed nearly ten kilograms each, and he had never seen such large pheasants.

Chicken eggs are almost as big as goose eggs from the previous life. The same goes for fruits. Cherries are two times bigger than a one-yuan coin. Almost all creatures in the entire Beast God Continent are plus versions. The good news is that the prey can be eaten for a long time, but the bad news is that hunting is more dangerous, especially for the rabbit tribe whose animal form is not advantageous.

But from another perspective, the benefits of breeding and planting will be higher…

In Bai Tu’s imagination, a tribesman came over quietly and asked, “Master witch doctor, what would you like to eat tonight?” They had heard that Bai Chen had stopped the bleeding, and now they were full of guilt and uneasiness, fearing that Bai Tu would be unhappy about what happened before and then refuse to stay in the Snow Rabbit Tribe.

The witch doctor is very important to the orcs. With the witch doctor around, the tribesmen no longer have to worry about getting injured when going out hunting. No matter which tribe, the food caught from hunting will be given priority to the witch doctor for selection.

Hearing this address, Bai Tu frowned and said, “Just call me by my name.” Except for those who are related by blood, everyone else in the tribe calls each other by their names, which is both convenient and straightforward.

As for dinner, Bai Tu said: “It seems that a chicken was killed? Let’s use it to make soup. It will be just right for Bai Chen to drink. It should taste good if we add some wild vegetables…” He has been eating barbecue these days, which is so monotonous. He has wanted to change the cooking method for a long time, but he was unable to do so due to health reasons.

Before he could finish, Bai An’s surprised voice was heard: “Want to drink wild grass soup?”

The tribesman who asked the question was also surprised. The scene was replayed, and the expressions of several people seemed to have returned to when they knew that Bai Chen’s wound had stopped bleeding.

Bai Tu was confused: “Can’t I cook soup?” Is it possible that there are strange dining rituals in the Beast God Continent that he doesn’t know about? The prey can only be eaten by roasting?

“Tu, are you sure you want to eat wild grass?” Bai Qi, who was happy that his brother had recovered, showed an expression that was hard to swallow, “It’s edible, but the taste is not very good, and some grass is poisonous.”

Logically speaking, rabbits can eat a lot of plants, but the evolved orcs are not the same as real animals, and the rabbits are naturally the same. Most plants taste bitter to them, and are far less hunger-resistant than meat. In addition, in the past two years, orcs nearby have been poisoned to death because of eating poisonous grass, so grass is even less popular. Safe meat and wild fruits are the best choice.

Only the old people in the tribe who were short of food would put unwanted bones and weeds in the pot and cook them, which was better than starving. But even if it is not poisonous, there is not much use in eating only wild grasses. You will feel hungry again after a while, and you will lose strength if you eat it for a long time.

Witch doctors have a high status. In the impression of most orcs, witch doctors have very strict requirements on food. They only want the freshest and tenderest meat, and sometimes they even require it to be killed on the spot. Bai Tu’s requirements are too low. Not only is he not picky about meat, he actually wants to eat grass that tastes mediocre and may even be poisonous. Everyone is of course shocked.

Hearing that it was not that they could not cook it, but they were hesitant just because of the smell and the fear of poison, Bai Tu immediately breathed a sigh of relief. There were many plants nearby, and if they didn’t choose carefully, some poisonous ones would inevitably mix in. This was not a problem for him: “This is easy. I know which plants are poisonous. I just need to pick them out.”

Hearing this, several orcs around were suddenly a little excited and wanted to say something, but in the end they didn’t dare. They looked at each other and swallowed back what they were about to say.

Bai An looked around, shook his head slightly at his tribesmen, and arranged tasks: “You go to get the prey and prepare dinner, Qi goes to help Tu prepare food.”

The weather on the Beast God Continent is somewhat similar to the monsoon climate, divided into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, but the temperature and rainfall changes are more obvious. The days in summer are unusually long. It has been more than two hours since the hunting team returned, but the picking team has not returned yet. This proves that it will take some time before dark, so we can prepare dinner slowly and without worry.

With the help of Bai Qi, he chopped the plucked chicken into pieces and soaked them in cold water. Bai Tu took him to dig wild vegetables and found some onions and ginger to remove the fishy smell.

As early as two days ago when he was looking for herbs, he discovered that the plant species here were astonishingly rich. There were several kinds of plants around the tribe that had different living environments in his memory, making it difficult to tell whether the place they were in belonged to the tropical temperate zone or the frigid zone.

Bai Tu looked up at the sky. In the eyes of the tribesmen, temperatures of thirty or forty degrees were not considered the highest temperatures. It would only be a little cooler when it rained, but once it rained it would almost continuously for dozens of days, so the period in the middle of summer could also be called the rainy season, and the heavy snow in winter was said to be enough to drown a person.

Thinking of this, Bai Tu suddenly felt that there was no need to distinguish between temperature zones, because the temperature changes were not at the same level as the Earth where he lived in his previous life.

Think about it from another perspective. If there weren’t enough plants, the rabbit tribe would have a hard time surviving the winter. Only when the surrounding plants are particularly abundant like this one to attract animals to come and feed, can the tribe survive. Although the animal form is a rabbit, due to long-term eating habits, the rabbit tribe’s demand for food is much greater than that of real rabbits.

There was a clump of sand ginger by the water. He was busy picking herbs in the past two days and didn’t touch them. Now they came in handy. Wild onions were not difficult to find. Bai Qi was a member of the picking team before joining the hunting team. After Bai Tu found a few plants and showed them to him, he immediately started looking around.

Bai Tu used the time he was looking for wild onions to dig wild vegetables. His way of digging wild vegetables was different from the Rabbit Tribe’s way of just pulling up a handful of weeds and taking them back. He only picked vegetables that were guaranteed to be edible, like great thistle, which can be used as a medicine and as a vegetable. Another example is wild amaranth, which can be eaten in cold dishes or stews…

They didn’t go too far, and it took the two of them less than an hour to go back and forth, and the picking team had already returned.

Tu Bing from the picking team is Bai Chen’s partner. She had heard about what happened in the tribe, and when she saw Bai Tu, she immediately came over and said, “Master Witch Doctor, let me get these things.”

Bai Tu was helpless: “Don’t call me Master. I’m not a witch doctor. Just call me by my name. I can carry the things.”

“But your wound hasn’t healed yet.” Tu Bing had a good reason. The title could be changed, but she had to do the work.

Bai Tu had no choice but to hand over the onions, ginger and wild vegetables and ask the other party to help cut them.

Tu Bing then went to look for the stone knife with a bunch of plants in his hands as if he had accepted a great mission.

The orcs make soup in a simple and crude way. They put the slaughtered prey directly into the pot without draining out the blood. They don’t add any seasoning except salt. You can imagine the taste. This is not what Bai Tu wants to drink.

His cooking skills are not top-notch, but at least he has lived on his own for so many years and has learned to cook for himself to save money since junior high school. With years of experience, he has his own way of processing ingredients.

Soak out the blood with cold water, blanch the scallion and ginger to remove the fishy smell, cut off a small piece of fat from the pork that is allocated to you, first stir-fry the chicken pieces with the lard, then add water and chicory root and simmer slowly.

The barbecue had already started on the other side, and Bai An came over and asked him if he wanted to eat some barbecue first. The pot looked like it would take a long time to stew.

Bai Tu shook his head. After eating barbecue for a few days, his teeth were sore from chewing it and he really didn’t want to eat it anymore.

The soup would take some time to prepare, so Bai Tu ate some wild fruits to fill his stomach first. There are not many fruits that mature in early summer. The picking team brought back three backpacks a day. It seemed like a lot. After excluding those kept for storage, the remaining fruits were divided among dozens of orcs, and each person had only two or three in his hands. The ones in front of Bai Tu were the most.

Bai Tu ate the fruits that looked like mangoes and cherries, leaving behind one that looked like an enlarged apple. Most people in the tribe are like him. They will not eat all the food they get, but will save some for later times when food is scarce.

Knowing that Bai Chen’s wound had stopped bleeding and discovering that their tribe had a witch doctor (even if the witch doctor himself had always denied it), the atmosphere during the meat distribution in the Snow Rabbit tribe tonight was more cheerful than in the previous few days.

Before, he either stayed in the cave or went out to find hemostatic drugs, and when he came back he was busy applying the drugs to himself. In addition, no large prey was caught in the past few days, so this was the first time that Bai Tu saw the distribution of food from beginning to end.

Because he had saved Bai Chen, today, all the meat and fruit placed in front of him were the best parts. After he had distributed his share, the remaining meat was first distributed to the hunting team and then to the picking team. The fruit was distributed first to the picking team. After the two teams had divided the fruit, the elderly and children who did not participate in the collective labor were distributed next.

The wild boar was quite big, so they didn’t eat all of it. Instead, they left about half of it in a food storage cave in the shade. The cave was deep and out of sunlight, so the prey could be stored for several days even in the hot summer.

The empty flat ground during the day is now full of people, basically three or five people are grilling meat over a fire. The way they do it is very heroic. Large pieces of pork are directly inserted into tree branches and grilled in turns. When they are almost cooked, they sprinkle some salt on them.

Everyone had different tools in their hands. Some used stone knives, some used bone knives, and some used sheets similar to fish gill covers.

Bai Tu sat by the fire at the entrance of the cave so that he could take care of Bai Chen. Bai An and his son sat next to him. Many people knew what happened in the evening, but except for a few familiar people, the other orcs just watched curiously and did not come to disturb them.

“Chief, do you have any extra stone knives or sharp sticks?” Bai Tu added two branches to the fire. These past few days, he had been relying on stone pieces he had picked up temporarily to collect herbs. They were not sharp enough and were very inconvenient to use. He wanted to dig more plants tomorrow, but relying solely on his hands was not an option.

The beast form is good at digging the soil, but he can’t keep changing back and forth. Moreover, the beast form has many inconveniences. The claws are not good for gripping and can easily damage the roots of plants. It is important to keep the roots if you want to plant plants.

Bai An immediately gave him the bone knife he had been using: “This is made of cow bones, very strong, and can be used for many years.”

Bai Qi looked at the bone knife with envy: When will he become a strong orc like his father and brother?

Just when he was feeling lost, he suddenly smelled a familiar yet unfamiliar fragrance. Bai Qi sniffed to find the source of the smell: “What smell?”

Bai Tu knew the source clearly. He moved away the heavy wooden board that served as the pot lid and took a look at the bubbling chicken soup: “The chicken soup is almost ready.”

“Tu, the chicken soup you stewed smells so good.” Bai Qi leaned next to the stone pot, swallowed unconsciously, and suddenly felt that the barbecue in his hand was not fragrant anymore. He had always thought that the soup tasted bad, but now he realized that it was just because they made it bad.

Bai Tu stirred the soup with a clean branch and put the lid back on: “It’s not cooked enough yet, simmer it for a while longer.” Bai Chen was still unconscious and could only drink the soup, so he decided to simmer it for a while longer.

Bai Qi was no longer thinking about eating the meat. His attention was always on the stone pot, which he glanced at from time to time.

The children sitting by another fire not far away turned around frequently. They were Bai Dong and others who had talked to Bai Tu in the afternoon and later helped move branches.

Bai Tu looked at the group of children with eager eyes and smiled. When the time came, he took out a bowl and put some chicken in it for Bai Qi, letting him share it with the other children to taste it.

A chicken weighs 10 kilograms, and after removing the feathers and internal organs, it still weighs more than 7 or 8 kilograms, enough for four or five people to eat.

Bai Tu served a bowl. The bowls of the Snow Rabbit tribe were particularly large. They were carved from a whole piece of wood and required two hands to hold when drinking. There was still half of it left in the pot, and Bai Tu asked Bai Ansheng to feed some to Bai Chen.

After Bai Qi and several children divided the chicken, Bai Tu asked them to serve wild vegetables and soup.

A group of children stared at the wooden bowl intently until it was passed to them. They picked it up and took a sip with great care, and were amazed. As for wild vegetables, he was a little cautious. After watching Bai Tu eat them, he carefully followed his example, picked up one with a branch and put it in his mouth. His eyes suddenly lit up.

After being stir-fried and then stewed, the chicken has no fishy smell at all, leaving only the fresh fragrance of the chicken. The chicken soup is infused with the nutrients of the meat and thistle roots. It is a pure natural food and is more delicious than the chicken soup Bai Tu had drunk in his previous life.

Bai Tushang was surprised, not to mention the group of children, who were all amazed. This was completely different from the soup they had drunk before! Wild vegetables are delicious too, not bitter at all! And it’s non-toxic!

Several children had already eaten the barbecue and drank delicious chicken soup and wild vegetables that they had never had before. They were humming with comfort.

Tu Shi looked at the cave not far away with envy, and then Bai Dong patted him on the head: “Don’t think about it, those are kept to exchange for salt, I’ll catch one tomorrow!”

The other two pheasants were still alive and were tied up and placed in an unused cave near the ground. This is also one of the customs of the tribe. Live prey will not be slaughtered immediately. They will be raised when food is sufficient and killed for meat when food is no longer available, or they can be used to exchange for other supplies when there are too many.

After all, raw meat can only be stored for a short time. If it goes bad, eating it can cause illness. Few tribes want it in exchange for supplies. Living prey will at most be a little thinner, but it can be stored for a longer time.

“I really want to join the hunting team.” Tu You said expectantly. Joining the hunting team means he can catch prey and get more food.

After Bai Tu finished eating, he sat down to rest away from the fire. He noticed that Tu Bing, who was not far away, kept looking over here, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself. Bai Tu remembered that Bai An had said before that Tu Bing was the first to discover that he was missing, and then led people to find the injured him and brought him back, so he simply asked: “Is there something you want to say?”

Tu Bing hesitated for a moment, then mustered up the courage to speak: “Tu, what was that grass you put in the pot just now? Can we dig it up and cook it later?”

What Bai Tu said sounded like a normal thing, but Bai An on the other side turned pale with fright, and shouted: “Bing! Don’t talk nonsense!”

The witch doctors of the Beast God Continent don’t like other orcs to pry into their affairs. Bai An has witnessed with his own eyes a tribe punishing orcs who disrespected the witch doctor. The scene was bloody. Even after several years, he still shudders when he recalls it now.

Tu Bing was young and had not seen the witch doctor in person like Bai An had. Although she had heard many stories about him, she believed that Bai Tu, who had saved her partner, was different from the witch doctor that was feared in the rumors, so she took the risk and asked about food with a glimmer of hope.

After being warned by Bai An, Tu Bing stopped asking questions and just looked outside the cave worriedly: “It’s going to rain soon…”

The summer rains in the Beast God Continent would last for dozens of days. During the rainy period, the rabbit tribe’s hunting success rate was very low. Sometimes they could not catch large prey and could only survive on wild fruits. However, this year there were fewer fruits in the territory, and the food stored in the tribe was only half of last year, which was not enough for the rainy season.

There is not enough food, and the first ones to be abandoned in the tribe are the injured orcs and the weak children and the elderly. Priority must be given to ensuring that the strong orcs survive. This is a tradition that has lasted for hundreds of years and will not change because of anyone.