Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – Chapter 32

Chapter 32

In order to thank Bai Tu, Lang Qi brought two kinds of prey that Bai Tu could not resist – animal cubs, two calves three or four months old and two litters of piglets.

Bai Tu would refuse other prey, after all, most of the food left after the pig took away Langze’s food, but these were exactly what he wanted.

Breeding is more difficult than planting. The biggest problem is with the young animals. The chickens are relatively successful now. There are more than 30 chicks in three broods. The largest one is more than half a month old and follows the hen’s butt every day to look for insects to eat. The smallest one has been hatched for nearly ten days and looks strong. But even if the chicken grows up, it will only weigh a few pounds at most, which is not enough for two meals for an orc.

It is better to raise large animals, but there is a problem that the cubs are not easy to catch. No matter whether it is pigs, cattle, sheep or deer, the cubs are protected by adult prey next to them, especially cattle. The cubs always walk in the middle of the herd, and there is almost no chance to attack. Even if the rabbits encounter a herd of cattle, they only dare to choose old cows that are not valued by the herd. Except for the first time they caught an animal with a trap, they have never caught a cub again.

The same goes for piglets. Sows with piglets are more vigilant and not easy to catch. It takes some effort to catch piglets. As the rainy season is approaching, Bai An catches whatever prey he comes across and has no chance to be picky.

Lang Qi obviously knew that Bai Tu was raising cubs recently, and what he sent was what he particularly needed. Bai Tu accepted it without hesitation and gave the two brothers Lang Qi and Lang Ze a pile of prepared food.

“This is crystal pork elbow. We only made a few of them. Take these two back and try them.” There were

eight pork elbows in total, including the pig sent by Lang Qi and the one caught by the hunting team. Bai Tu did not eat them using the previous method. Instead, he cleaned them, put them in a pot and boiled them thoroughly, then removed the bones. He wrapped them tightly with clean leaves instead of plastic wrap, and refrigerated them in a cave in the back mountain. After one night, the skin and flesh of the pork elbows were all squeezed together. Because of the long stewing time, the pig skin was crystal clear after cutting, and the pork was fragrant, not greasy, soft and tasty. Lang Ze had been staring at the pork elbows when they were cooked yesterday, but had not eaten them yet.

In addition to the crystal pork elbow, Bai Tu also brought a lot of pig heads and braised pork to Langze. The pig heads were cooked overnight and were almost boneless when served. Dipped in the sauce that Bai Tu prepared himself, he almost wanted to swallow his tongue after eating it.

Not to mention the braised pork, the pork belly with alternating fat and lean meat is specially selected and cut into pieces, blanched, stir-fried, and stewed for several hours. After a long stew, you can’t stop eating the pork belly once you take a bite, and there is no greasiness of fat at all. In Bai Tu’s opinion, it would be perfect if it only lacks sugar. In the eyes of other orcs, it is a delicacy they have never seen before.

He came with a backpack on his back, and left with three big backpacks of food. Langze was finally not as reluctant to leave as he was at the beginning. He could eat so much food for several days! However, when he returned to the tribe, he realized that he was overthinking. Not to mention that he had a very fierce brother by his side, his friends who were eagerly waiting for his return would not allow him to stay too long.

Bai Tu naturally had no idea what kind of inhumane abuse Langze suffered after entering the tribe. After sending the wolves away, he hurriedly led people to dig a pit.

The silkworms that he had treasured all the way did not disappoint his expectations and had started to spin silk. Bai Tu put the silkworms that no longer ate leaves into the assembled bamboo box and couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief – even if the horse tribe was fast, the mulberry leaves delivered to the market were limited. In order to preserve more branches that were directly transported, the silkworms managed to survive for nearly ten days by relying on those branches. Finally, they stopped eating. If they continued to eat, he wouldn’t be able to find anything to feed them.

As early as returning from the tribe, Bai Tu had stuck all the remaining branches into the soil. Whether they could take root depended on themselves.

Ma Xin, who was placed high hopes by Bai Tu, brought a group of tribesmen to deliver a mulberry tree on the seventh day. In addition to the mulberry tree, there was also a box of cocooned silkworms. Bai Tu immediately found an empty cave and put the cocoons in. They would hatch in a few days, and it would be a bit scary if the scene was not shown separately.

Bai Tu estimated that the silk cocoons sent by Ma Xin plus the first batch would be enough for him to raise after the rainy season, if the ratio of males to females was right. After all, there were only twenty mulberry trees, and the leaves they could produce were limited, so he couldn’t pluck all the leaves.

What the Horse Tribe needed most was salt, and Bai Tu did not exchange for anything else. He wrapped the salt with a few layers of leaves and gave it to the other party. The rainy season had already begun, and the next time he would come to deliver silkworms would be at least after the rainy season.

“If it becomes like this again, put it in the pot and boil it again.” Bai Tu told the other party that silkworms will break out of their cocoons after ten days of cocooning. If they are not boiled in time, the silkworms that break out of the cocoons will lay eggs in the rainy season. Very few silkworms can survive the rainy season, unless they are raised in caves artificially. The mulberry leaves are full of water in the rainy season and are not suitable for raising silkworms. The Ma tribe does not have low-temperature caves to place silkworm eggs, so directly reeling out the silk has the highest utilization rate.

After Ma Xin and others left, Bai Tuma led the picking team to plant mulberry trees without stopping, and cut down the branches where they had lush branches for grafting.

The branches that were used to feed the silkworms on the way had been withered for more than ten days. However, they were alive when they were inserted into the soil. After being irrigated by rain in the past two days, they were more energetic than when they were first inserted into the soil. Bai Tu was looking forward to the silk quilt even more.

There is no idle orc in the tribe. Children aged seven or eight will go out with stone knives to cut grass or pick up branches. Although everyone started preparing more than half a month ago, they still feel it is not enough, because this year is different from previous years!

Not to mention that there were more than twice as many prey in the mountain behind the tribe as before. Just talking about food, in the past everyone would cut a piece of meat and roast it directly on the fire. As long as it was cooked, it would be fine. Usually several people shared one fire, which was very economical. In addition, due to the lack of food, the firewood they collected could not be burned up, and there would often be a lot left after the rainy season.

This year, Bai Tu taught everyone more than one way to eat it. The onions and ginger he planted grew well, and with the addition of seasonings, the taste is even more irresistible. The price is that everyone spends more and more time on eating. In the past, time was spent on how to hunt, but now it is spent on figuring out how to eat. Food that takes a long time to cook is often more fragrant, but it also means that more branches are needed.

With delicious food right in front of them, Bai Tu didn’t need to say anything as the others started to prepare firewood. The teenagers were at their most active, and in the past they would find a place to play or rest after finishing their work, but now they all took the initiative to collect firewood, and the number of branches in the tribe increased at a speed visible to the naked eye.

However, having too much firewood brings another hidden danger. That night, Bai Tu instructed everyone when they were preparing to divide the meat: “The fire must be kept away from the branches. No matter whether it is raining or not, you cannot block the cave entrance when lighting a fire in the cave. You must leave some air vents.”

The first sentence is because firewood is piled up in almost every cave after being picked up, because it is easy to produce smoke when it is wet by the rain when it is lit. If the fire is too close to the wood, sparks will splash on it if you are not careful. There have been incidents of orcs causing fires carelessly when using fire. The mountain with traces of fire still remaining on the way back and forth is the best proof of this.

Property loss caused by fire is secondary. The most important thing is the impact on personal safety. Adults can run out as soon as the fire breaks out, but children are in danger. The cubs in the tribe are so small, and their bodies are covered with soft and thick hair. They can be ignited almost instantly when they come into contact with sparks. The lightest injury is to become bald.

The cave entrance is not blocked in order to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. The rabbit tribe’s caves are dug deep, and it gets cooler as you go deeper. It is inevitable that some orcs will block the cave entrance to light a fire in the cave to cook in order to prevent rain. It is convenient but too dangerous. If you light a fire in a sealed environment, it will be too late if something goes wrong.

After explaining the two things, Bai Tu asked Bai Qi and others to divide the food – a recent discovery is that people remember most clearly what is said before dividing the food. If they divide the food first, people can run at least a quarter of the way, and even if they don’t run, they will be distracted thinking about how to eat the food in their hands.

When the cool and light drizzle turned into a crackling downpour, the food for the tribe to get through the rainy season was ready. Although there was no guarantee that they would eat and drink to their heart’s content throughout the rainy season, it was definitely enough for them to eat according to their usual meals.

Because I have been busy growing crops and fruits recently, I put the captured prey into the cave for preservation after cutting it up. Now it is raining heavily and I cannot go out to hunt or pick, so it is just the right time to process these foods.

There were three pigs, two cows and one antelope left in the cave. One of the pig and the cow were driven here with the help of the wolf tribe. The tribe had several traps dug on the edge of the territory. The first time was when the wolf tribe was hunting, a cow panicked and jumped into the trap. Langze immediately ran over to report the news. This behavior was almost the same as delivering the prey to the door. In order to thank the other party, Bai Tu sent a pot of stir-fried beef. Langze immediately showed off in the tribe like a child who got candy.

The next day, Bai An came back and said that many wolves were around the two territories, and while hunting, they could also help drive other prey into the rabbit traps.

Bai Tu: “…” The wolves also put a lot of thought into getting food.

However, the prey on the edge of the territory is limited after all. When the prey are scared away, the wolf tribe can only leave without any help. Yesterday, an orc encountered a wild boar while wandering there and drove it directly into the trap, inadvertently helping the rabbit tribe again – animals that have been hunted by the two tribes for a long time are accustomed to running in the other direction, and those chased by the wolf tribe almost come directly to the rabbit tribe. In the past, the hunting times of the two tribes did not overlap, and everyone did not pay attention to this problem. After all, running to the territory of another tribe basically means failure.

Now that he has discovered this, Bai Tu feels that he can take advantage of it after the rainy season. By chasing one tribe after another and encircling them, and adding traps, the probability of success will be higher. Although this is often done during normal hunting, the orcs in the same territory cannot be too dispersed. If the prey rushes out of the encirclement, they can only be chased. If they run too far, they can only catch one or two prey at a time, and if they catch too many, they cannot bring them back.

It would be different if you set up a few traps in places where prey would run away when frightened. It would be shorter and save time. The most important thing is that you can directly raise small prey if you catch them.

Bai Tu imagined it in his mind without stopping his hands, and smeared salt all over the processed fish inside and out.

The biggest failure in preparing so much food was the fish pond dug in the cave. He underestimated everyone’s enthusiasm for fishing, especially when they could be caught with a fish basket. At least twenty fish were brought back almost every day.

At the beginning, the small fish pond he asked the orcs to dig was only two meters square. It was no problem to raise dozens of fish, but it would be a bit difficult to raise hundreds. It was okay if there were more small fish, but the key was that the number of big fish was increasing, so a new problem arose – lack of oxygen.

The water in the cave was not circulating and oxygen was limited. As the density of fish increased, more and more fish turned over. Fortunately, Bai Dong and his friends reacted quickly and fished out all the fish that turned over and kept them separately. If they couldn’t keep them well, they would clean them and put them back in the cave for preservation.

Before Bai Tu came back, all the fish that had been belly-turned were either roasted or fried and eaten by everyone. After he came back, the fish that had been belly-turned were marinated and prepared to be stewed. The ones in my hands now are from today.

It was raining heavily outside. After Bai Tu pickled the fish, he took it back to the cave where he raised his prey from the innermost part of the cave. In order to facilitate walking on rainy and snowy days, the rabbit tribe dug a secret passage between several caves on different levels, so that they could walk back and forth without leaving the cave. However, it was only limited to caves used for breeding and storing food. If they wanted to go back to their own cave, they had to walk some distance.

Bai Tu had no plan to go back. He was still thinking about the fish pond and how to make the water flow without artificial intervention. Bai Tu frowned. It’s impossible to bring the mountain spring water here, right? The water used to raise fish cannot be drunk, and the remaining water must be drained out somehow, which is time-consuming and laborious. If there are small fish or fish eggs in the water that flows out, it will be not worth it.

To make the water in the pond flow automatically, Bai Tu thought, first of all, the water must have a drop in height, flowing from high to low. This is simple, just ask someone to come and dig a fish pond with steps. However, the prerequisite for doing this is that there is always water on top. In his previous life, he had seen that fish tanks used electricity to pump water. This condition is definitely not available now, so he can only think further ahead. In the period without electricity, how did humans move water…

waterwheel!

Bai Tu’s eyes lit up, not only because he had found a good way to raise fish, but also because the water wheel was so useful!

The weather in the Beast God Continent is a bit extreme. If it is going to rain, all the rain will be concentrated within this month. After the rainy season, until the arrival of winter, there will be very little rain. Similarly, after winter, there will be very little rain during the rainy season. During these two periods, crops need irrigation in particular. It is very tiring and time-consuming to carry water by manpower. If there is a water truck, it will be different. A water truck can easily solve the problem of insufficient water source height, saving time and effort.

If we can successfully make a waterwheel, not only will it be possible to irrigate the farmland along the river, but even places farther away will not be a problem. We can water wherever we plant, and in the future, we will be able to successfully grow crops without being restricted by water sources.