Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 073
Chapter 73
The newly caught fish were placed in a large, empty wooden box outside the house. Chen Qi went home to get some wild ginger and sugar and then went to gather at Ka Luo’s house.
After sleeping amply during day and night for three days, Ake’s spirits had improved a lot to where someone who didn’t know the situation wouldn’t be able to tell that he was a person who had just given birth. However, Ka Luo still wouldn’t allow Ake to get out of bed. Anyway, there was nothing Ake needed to do in the winter, so it was not a big deal to continue to lie down for a few more days.
Ale saw the baby female bundled in animal skins held in Ka Luo’s arms and reached out his finger with surprise to poke at the baby’s face. After a few days of feeding, the baby female grew a little, and his previously wrinkled skin had disappeared, turning into rosy, tender and smooth skin. While he still wasn’t all that cute, if Ajing saw it now, he wouldn’t complain about how ugly he looked anymore.
Ka Luo smacked away Ale’s unruly hand and passed the baby female to Ake on the bed. “Neither light nor heavy touches allowed, don’t you wake him up.” It had taken him a long time to coax the little one to sleep. That’s right. Although the baby was noiseless and quiet, the fact that he didn’t sleep all the time worried Ka Luo very much.
Chen Qi poured half a bowl of hot water, mashed up a small piece of wild ginger, added some sugar, boiled it and handed it to Ale, “Drink some sweet ginger soup to drive away the cold.” Although the hole in the ice was created by a champsosaurus, he was also responsible for deliberately preventing the hole from being frozen over again. He hoped that Ale would not catch a cold from soaking in water for a few minutes.
Ale accepted it, blew at it and took a sip. Although sugar was added, the taste of wild ginger still wasn’t very good. Ale frowned. “What is this? Can I not drink it?”
Before Chen Qi could reply, Aze expressionlessly tossed in his rejection. “No, you have to drink it all up.” How can he let food made by Chen Qi go to waste?
Ale wore a face full of bitterness. He took a deep breath then poured the half bowl of sweet ginger soup into his stomach. He immediately felt warm from within, like drinking sheep soup. Ale was surprised and wordlessly returned the pottery bowl to Chen Qi.
The beastmen living here were all gathered together. After Ale finished drinking the sweet ginger soup, Azhang coughed lightly and said, “Alright, tell us all the details about what is going on.”
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Ale straightened his expression and his back. Then, he began to relay the information that Ahxu wanted him to convey.
In actuality, the situation was not about a hyena-drake attack. Hyena-drakes had not arrived at the periphery of the tribe, but the hunting party encountered them on their return to the tribe. The hunting party was caught off guard and suffered heavy losses. Fortunately, they eventually repelled the hyena-drakes before they discovered the tribe. At that time, Ahxu was also in that hunting party and he’d noticed that the hyena-drakes had fled in the direction of the Rock-Mountain Tribe. He was worried that the hyena-drakes would encounter the tribespeople there, so he sent Ale over to deliver the news.
“Ahxu also wanted me to tell you that the hydrochoerus dragons have disappeared. You had previously left us all the food. Everyone is worried that you don’t have enough food and want me to ask if you want to come over to the Lion-Wolf Tribe.”
During winter, all the beastmen could only enter the Loya Forest if they wanted to hunt. Now there were almost no traces of any living creatures on the plains except in the river. The Lion-Wolf Tribe was relatively far away from the forest. Naturally, they couldn’t go back and forth to the forest in one day like Azhang and company could. Although their hunting area was not on this side, the fastest journey would still take three or four days.
After hearing Ale’s news, Azhang pondered for a moment, “You said that the losses were heavy. Did someone in the hunting party die?”
Hunting parties were made up of the most powerful females in the tribe. Naturally, there wouldn’t only be one hunting team in a big tribe like the Lion-Wolf Tribe. However, no matter who was in the hunting team, they were each an important combat force to protect the tribe, and for each death, the danger to the tribe increases by a point.
Upon hearing Azhang’s question, Ale hesitated for a moment and looked around at everyone. Then he honestly replied, “Nine people died and more than a dozen were injured, but the injuries were not serious.” Those seriously injured were all dead.
Azhang nodded, “Stay here for a day and learn how to cook fish with Ali.” After saying that, he stood up, “Chen Qi, Aze, come out with me for a while? There is something I want to discuss with you.”
Chen Qi and Aze looked at each other, then stood up and left Ka Luo’s house.
Once he saw Azhang had walked away, Ale secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Then he exaggeratedly exclaimed, “I didn’t expect you all to build such a big ice wall. It’s so awesome. How did you even think of it? It’s so tall, even a hyena-drake probably can’t jump over it.”
“The wall is designed to defend against hyena-drakes. After you go back, you can also propose this to the people in the tribe. If the Lion-Wolf Tribe is willing to build such a wall, it would have better defense. If they are not willing to do it, you can still build a shorter one around the place where you live. Even that would offer additional protection if there is danger.” Ali smiled and suggested.
Ale nodded, “So, what’s going on with the fish? You’re not really going to eat that kind of thing, are you?”
“Come with me. You’ll understand once I make it once for you.” Ka Luo’s child was still young. He worried that the smell of the oil and smoke from cooking would affect him. And he’s afraid Azhang took Chen Qi and Aze back to Chen Qi’s house to talk about things. Ali had no choice but to pick up a crucian carp and take it back to his own home to cook.
Ka Luo said a few words to Ake then followed them out to help out. Ajing remained seated at the table, working hard at practicing calligraphy. Anyway, he couldn’t help with these adult matters. He might as well write a few more words so that he could make a request for Chen Qi to cook his favorite food. He hadn’t had fries for a long time. After writing the Thousand Character Classic a hundred times, he would ask Chen Qi for this. Thinking up to here, Ajing happily continued writing and practicing. The little wolf cub was already curled up into a ball, sleeping in the corner of the table and snoring.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Ale was part of the crew that had helped out when Ali’s house was first being built, but back then they had only helped to build up the framework. Now, the house was already full of things and the whole atmosphere was completely different.
The interior structure of Ali’s house was similar to the living room in Chen Qi’s. The heated kang was also connected to the stove. Ale reached out his hand and touched the warm surface. He looked at Ali with a little resentment, and with a flat mouth, said, “I should have stayed with you guys.”
“You will be able to move here after this winter,” Ali comforted.
That’s true. Having thought that he’d be able to move back after winter, Ale was happy again. Although the Lion-Wolf Tribe was safe, there were too many people and there would be more restrictions. Ale always felt that living there was not as comfortable as before. It seemed that he would have to work harder this winter in order to coax the male from the Lion-Wolf Tribe to come here with him.
Once in the mouth, the texture of the fishbone was very similar to that of the fish meat. So they could only pick out the fishbones in advance in order to prevent the fishbone from being swallowed. What Ali taught was to mash the fish into minced meat, carefully remove the fishbones, wrap them with a little bit of rice berries, and fry them into fish balls in a pan of oil.
“The fish bones must be carefully picked out. If they are not cleanly removed, they could easily be eaten and may get stuck in your throat. You probably have heard of the stories where people starve to death because of eating fish.”
Ale swallowed and nodded quickly, wondering why such dangerous food should be eaten.
Having shared the words of caution with Ale, Ali saw that the balls were almost done frying, so he scooped them out into a pottery bowl. The smell wafted over and Ale could not help sniffing. “It smells so good.”
Ka Luo gave him a look as if recognizing a kindred spirit. Then he simply put some into his pottery bowl and ate happily.
Ale looked on with envy, but Ali didn’t say he could eat it yet, so he didn’t want to be impolite and take some for himself. Ali smiled and clipped one for him. Before he could remind him to be careful since it was hot, Ale tossed the whole fish ball into his mouth in one go. As a result, it was so hot that he struggled and gasped because it was so delicious he didn’t want to spit it out. He finally swallowed it down with tears in his eyes, “It’s delicious.” For those whose three meals a day consisted of either roast meat or stewed meat and now adding in stir-fried meat, this fried fish ball was just like the food from the heavens.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
“If it tastes good, you can learn how to make it. When you go back, you can teach the others. The Lion-Wolf Tribe is near the tributary of the Dosa River. Since the hydrochoerus dragons have disappeared, you can go to the river to catch fish if you lack food in the future. Don’t venture into the forest again.” Ali explained, a little long-windedly, then handed the rest of the raw fish to Ale and asked him to make it according to his prior demonstration.
Not every female could be omnipotent like Ali. Ale was apparently not very good at cooking. With the worry that the fish bones would get caught in his throat and cause him to starve to death, he forced himself to check for the presence of fish bones in the mashed fish three times. Whenever he fried the fish balls, either the temperature control was not good enough and they burned, or he was too worried they would be scorched and fish them out too soon, resulting in the fish meat being undercooked. Ali tried offering him several pointers but failed to get him to successfully fry a golden fish ball.
Ka Luo looked at him sympathetically. He thought that his cooking was not as good as Chen Qi’s and Ali’s. But now there was someone worse than him, so he would miss out on a lot of delicious food.
Ali was silent for a while, then finally shook his head and patted him on the shoulder helplessly. “Next time, let Ahxu come in person to deliver news.”
“…..” Ale’s head drooped down low, but he thought to himself that as long as he communicated the steps, the others would definitely be able to learn to fry fish balls.
In order not to let Ale waste any more food, Ali handled the rest of the fish himself.
Dinner was back at Chen Qi’s house. Ali brought over the fried fish balls, then, together with Chen Qi, cooked various kinds of fish food, such as fish cakes and fried fish biscuits, etc. Because the fish bones were tough and could not be cut through, it was difficult to find the fish bones hidden within if the fish meat was not mashed up. So the food that could be prepared was actually very limited. However, the newly caught giant shrimp had no bones, so Chen Qi directly chopped them into pieces and cooked up a dish of stir-fried shrimp.
Ale felt that this was the best and richest meal he had ever eaten in his many years of living. He even had the illusion that he had lived until now just to eat this meal. He must firmly remember all the steps and teach them to the other tribespeople so that everyone could get rid of the days of only having meals that were either roasted or stewed.
Halfway through the meal, Ale suddenly put down his chopsticks and looked at Azhang with a slightly tangled look, as if remembering something. “I forgot to say before that among the dead females from the hunting team was Aqing.”
“…..” Azhang looked at Ale. Such an important thing could be forgotten? What frame of mind must Ahxu have been in for him to have sent out this unreliable person to deliver news?
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: Sorry for the wait on the chapter. Hope all you readers, new and old, are enjoying the story.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: MushroomNight73
Proofreader: Yume
Editor stepping into the realm of MTL translating, starting with CLWP. Support this translation with a Ko-fi. Three Ko-fis will add an extra chapter from the stockpile to the next weekly release.
