Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 075
Chapter 75
It was not just Ka Luo and Ake, but Azhang and Ali very much liked the new name for the little female. Ka Luo raised the little female up high and said, “Yao, Ayao, you will be called Ayao from now on.”
The little female was a little uncomfortable being shaken by his father. His small mouth flattened down and he looked as if he was about to cry. Ake hurriedly took the little female, patting his back lightly and quickly coaxing him. “Take it easy, Ayao is still a baby.”
Seeing that everyone liked the name, Chen Qi was also relieved. Because of the joy brought by the name, everyone temporarily forgot about the threat of hyena-drakes.
Although there was a snowstorm overnight, the snow in the yard was not thick, so Chen Qi only cleared the snow from the paved roads. After daybreak, the snow field was quiet, giving the illusion that last night’s snowstorm and hyena-drakes were just imagined.
“Chen Qi, what are you doing?” Aze, who had just come out of the house, saw that Chen Qi had cleared away the snow on the paved road and was beginning to clear a section of road along the perimeter of the courtyard, so he could not help but feel a bit baffled.
“I want to make a running track.” Chen Qi halted his actions with the wooden shovel to rest for a little while, and took a breath before answering Aze’s question.
Even before winter started, Chen Qi had wanted to exercise to improve his weak constitution. Unfortunately, he had been busy with various things all the time. Besides, Chen Qi himself was a person who did not particularly care for athletic activities. Thus, the matter had been delayed repeatedly until he ultimately shelved it for the time.
In his original world, Chen Qi worked in an office for several years after graduating from university. His daily exercise only amounted to the 10 minutes commute from the rental house to the office. After coming here, his range of activities was all around the house and its surroundings. If Chen Qi attempted to go for a run now, he was afraid his heart would be ready to beat out of his chest before he’d have run 500 meters. After last night’s episode of powerlessly waiting in the house, Chen Qi realized once again that if he wanted to walk side by side with Aze in this world, he could only become stronger. So the first thing to change was his physique.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Aze went back into the house and brought out a wooden shovel. Although he didn’t understand the new words ‘running track’, if Chen Qi wanted to make it, he would help him do so.
When Aze arrived, the others had seen the people busily gathering together and asked about the situation. Chen Qi explained it to them briefly. Then, they also went back to their houses and picked up wooden shovels to help. Even Ajing handed over the noisy little wolf cub to Ake, who was taking care of the little female, and carried a wooden shovel almost two times as tall as him.
When there were more people, the work would naturally be done quicker. Before noon, the area Chen Qi needed for the running track was cleared out. The track started along Chen Qi’s house, circled around the periphery of the yard, and then ended at the flagstone road next to Ali’s house. The yard was almost the size of a football field. It was unclear if this running track would be more than a kilometer long.
The slate they’d been using to build the houses with had long been used up, but there was still a small pile of river sand left over. Chen Qi dug up a layer of dirt from the surface of the track, then mixed it with a small pile of river sand and melted gum fruit to resurface on the track. This should prevent the running track from becoming muddy when it snowed. The only drawback was that it would not be able to be used immediately.
As soon as the snowstorm stopped, the weather became clear again. Ake, who had been laying down for a week, finally got to go out. He also asked to take turns guarding the wall. Although the two males were still a little worried, they couldn’t talk him out of it. Of course, they only accepted him taking day shifts.
That didn’t bother Ake at all, as long as he didn’t have to continue to lie on the bed. He happily kissed Ayao’s little face, put on a fur cloak and went off to work.
Chen Qi asked Ali to help him make two sets of loose fur clothing. The style of the fur clothing was a bit like sportswear, but because the fur did not have any elasticity, it was especially made loose for the convenience of movement and was practically straight, from top to bottom. It actually looked like they were wearing a fur sack.
Ajing held a small bamboo tube filled with dye-fruit liquid, a brush and some gum leaves and walked over to Chen Qi, who was struggling with how to improve this ugly sportswear.
“Chen Qi.” Ajing crisply called out to him.
Ajing was very thin when he first arrived. But in this short period of time, his face finally had some meat on it after being fed by Chen Qi and Ali with various things. His skin was pale and his facial features were very delicate. He was dressed in a red fur coat and was as adorable as a beautiful porcelain doll. Unfortunately, he had suffered many hardships at an early age, Ajing did not like to laugh. He had even more facial paralysis than Aze. It was only when he ate delicious food did his eyebrows and eyes curve. Chen Qi felt distressed every time he saw him.
“What is it?” Chen Qi crouched down and asked with a smile.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Ajing handed the gum tree leaves to Chen Qi. The bags of gum tree leaves that had previously been collected had already been written on by the few of them. Now these leaves were collected by Aze from around the original Yanshan tribe not long ago. More than a dozen bags filled and it was enough for them to write on until the end of winter. “How do you write ‘running track’?”
Chen Qi was dumbfounded. Previously, Chen Qi had asked them to try to record their daily life with the characters they’d learned. Because they knew very few characters, what they ended up writing, naturally, was very short. Chen Qi told them to ask if they didn’t know the characters they wanted to write. After the lesson, they would practice writing the characters over and over. Although this method was a bit simple, the effect for learning characters was still good. At least now everyone could stumble through and finish one sentence in their journal. Yes, there was only one sentence. Although this was a relatively small amount, it was already very difficult for these beginners. Chen Qi was also very satisfied with the progress. There was no school here, and no exams. It was fine to just let them learn slowly according to their interests. There was plenty of time.
Chen Qi took the brush and gum tree leaves, and Ajing leaned close to him. He watched him dip the tip in a little of the dye-fruit liquid and slowly wrote the characters for ‘running track’, stroke by stroke. After Chen Qi finished writing, he handed the brush to Ajing. “You try to write it now.”
Ajing looked at what Chen Qi wrote, and copied it accordingly. Although the order of one or two of the strokes was occasionally reversed, the characters were not written incorrectly. Chen Qi held his hand and guided him to write the characters several times, stroke by stroke, until Ajing stopped writing with the wrong stroke order. Then he let him practice on his own.
After copying ‘running track’ over a hundred times, Ajing took out a new gum tree leaf and neatly wrote “Chen Qi built a running track today.” Then he signed with his name and the date, April 25.
This date was set by Chen Qi. He considered the first day he came to this world as January 1. Then every 30 days was another month. There was no distinguishing between shorter or longer months. Seven days in a week. The Moonless Day was Sunday, and the first day of a month was Monday. By calculations, it was now 115 days in, which was the 25th of the fourth month.
Of course, this date was only used by the few of them. Chen Qi planned to wait until winter was over to see how the date should be adjusted for when the first snow comes the following year. After all, the winter here was too long. It has been over three months now, but he heard Aze say that winter was not even halfway over yet.
Ajing carefully dried the writing in his journal and put it into his storage box, which Aze had made out of wood for him. There was already a small stack of written journals in it, as well as the mermaid stories and the Thousand Character Classic he had copied several times.
After Ajing left, Chen Qi took off the sportswear and sewed a rope at the cuffs, so that the cuffs could be tied up when wearing it. Then there would be no need to worry about the cold wind coming in from the cuffs. The jacket was loose, so the opening of the hem was naturally large. Chen Qi found a rope as a belt and tied it up. The look of the whole suit felt completely changed. It was no longer like a clumsy sack, but it was loose and actually looked good, with a bit of a wild sense of fashion. Although Chen Qi couldn’t see what he looked like now, he was still very comfortable with the clothes adjusted this way.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Although the track could not be used yet since the gum fruit had not yet completely dried, Chen Qi began to warm up in the house and planned to run only two laps along the flagstone road. He was afraid that he would not be able to run even one lap of the running track if he didn’t get used to running first for a couple of days.
After writing the journal entry, Ajing came back to continue practicing calligraphy and saw Chen Qi twisting and writhing strangely over yonder. “What are you doing?”
Chen Qi replied while stretching his legs, “I’m warming up to go out for a run.”
Ajing cocked his head slightly in confusion. What is that? Beastmen did not have any awareness towards the concept of exercise. Because they, the females, were in motion every day, it was hard for them to imagine that some folks would need to exercise because they have been inactive for a long time. Here, even the males, in the summer, needed to go out frequently. Those who were inactive for a long time would simply starve to death.
Chen Qi, who was warming up, thought of something and stopped his actions to ask Ajing, “Ajing, do you want to run together?” As the saying goes, education should start from childhood and it would be a good idea to start letting Ajing build up his constitution. After that, if he encountered danger, there’d be hope to be able to escape from it better and he wouldn’t end up injured by hyena-drakes as before, unable to fight back.
Although Ajing still doesn’t know what running is, he still nodded his little head. He liked Chen Qi very much and liked to stay near Chen Qi, so no matter what it was Chen Qi wanted to do, he was happy to agree to his request.
Chen Qi rubbed his little head and taught him to do warm-up exercises. Since Chen Qi did not exercise very often, his warm-up exercises were still the radio-broadcasted gymnastic exercises from his student days. Now he just rolled his wrists, moved his ankles and then pressed his legs to stretch the ligaments. Seeing Ajing earnestly imitating his movements, Chen Qi thought to himself, should he also include the broadcast gymnastic exercises as lessons?
As soon as the warm-up exercises were finished, Chen Qi opened the door and a gust of cold wind rushed towards him. Chen Qi couldn’t help shivering. Usually, he would wear four or five fur clothing pieces as well as a cloak when going outside, so he’d be wrapped up like a zongzi. Today, he only wore two pieces to go out for a run, and when the wind blew, he almost backed down.
Ajing had transformed all except his face to the beast form and he was naturally unafraid of the cold wind. As soon as Chen Qi opened the door, he immediately ran out. Can’t even compare with a seven-year-old child? Chen Qi secretly encouraged himself, gritted his teeth and ran out.
Ake, who was patrolling on the wall, saw Chen Qi and Ajing running towards him and his heart jumped with shock. He came down from the wall nimbly and quickly bounded towards the two of them, asking anxiously, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Chen Qi was dazed. The cold wind made his throat dry and uncomfortable. Before he could explain anything, he saw that Ake was about to worriedly rush home, he quickly grabbed the other man’s sleeve and waved his hand repeatedly. “No… It’s all fine. We… we were just exercising.”
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: Next chapter is broken into two, due to being longer than usual.
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.
