Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 011
Chapter 11
Aze’s tribe was called the Rock-Mountain Tribe because it was backed by a small, rocky mountain. Twenty years ago, it merged several small tribes around it, and the total population was about 1,000 people. It was a relatively well-known, medium-sized tribe in the area. During the winter three years ago, the hyena-drakes suddenly attacked the tribe every day for a whole month. More than one third of the females in the tribe had perished while protecting the tribe. Although they eventually repelled the hyena-drakes, the tribe’s losses were too heavy. After all, the Rock-Mountain Tribe was too close to the Loya Forest. Before the coming of the next winter, many males worried that the hyena-drakes would come again and suggested to the patriarch to leave the place. Finally, the patriarch decided to lead the tribespeople to seek refuge with a larger tribe nearby that was further away from the Loya Forest, the Lion-Wolf Tribe.
Of course, there were still some people in the Rock-Mountain Tribe at present, but most of those who’d remained behind were injured, old, or were females who had lost their mates. They were those who were afraid of being burdens once they joined the new tribe and would rather bury themselves in this place where they’d grown up from childhood. Most of the young children and males did not choose to stay.
The Rock-Mountain Tribe did not have walls or anything like that. Only a few withered trunks served as fences. A middle-aged female was sitting on the canopy of a tall fig tree on the periphery. He only nodded faintly when he saw Aze coming, and his eyes held surprise when he noticed Chen Qi.
Chen Qi walked into the tribe and saw a mess of square houses that seemed to have been built without any planning. Some buildings were crowded together and some were far apart. The direction of their doors were in all directions, and the crooked roads and corners of the buildings were overgrown with weeds. Some houses were half-collapsed. The doors without fur curtains gave the appearance of peering into a dark abyss. None of the houses had any windows. The houses were only half the size of Aze’s, and although their height was a little bit higher, Chen Qi could still reach the ceiling if he stood on tiptoes and reached out his hand.
Chen Qi wordlessly looked at these houses that were totally unsuitable for people to live in for a long period of time. He could not imagine what it would be like to be cooped up in such a low, narrow house for several whole months in the winter. It seemed that if he wanted to live comfortably, he would have to build himself another one. “Aze, I’ll build a new house next to yours.” Chen Qi sighed lightly as he spoke to the man walking beside him.
Aze stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Chen Qi’s back with surprise.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Chen Qi turned around and asked curiously, “Why’d you stop?”
“Let’s go. I’ll take you to Uncle Azhang first. Those who stay here need to report to Uncle Azhang.” Aze took a few quick steps forward to hide his overflowing happiness. Then, as if recalling something, his thin lips curled upwards slightly. “I’ll help you build the house.”
Chen Qi smiled. “Okay.” Of course, he wouldn’t let Aze help him build a house like his. He didn’t know if he could imitate those house designs from his past, but as a person from a civilized society, no matter what he made, it still had to be better than what these primitive folk did. Thinking about it like that, Chen Qi became a little eager to try.
Most of the people who remained had moved to the foot of Rock Mountain, and the only households who had persisted to live in the old center of the tribe were Aze’s younger brother, Ka Luo, and two females, Ali and Azhang.
Aze was now taking Chen Qi to see Azhang, who was currently the acting chief of the Rock-Mountain Tribe and was responsible for tasks such as leading the females to hunt and arranging their defenses.
Chen Qi noticed that only the houses on the periphery of the tribe were so run down. Most of the houses near the center were still intact, but with a single glance, it could be seen that no one lived in them.
A female dressed in gray fur was in front of the house, working on a pile of branches to break each one into smaller sections of equal sizes. These were reserved firewood for use in the winter. The more firewood stored, the greater the chances of surviving the winter.
However, Azhang wasn’t preparing this pile of firewood for himself. Females have the ability to transform into partial or full beast forms to cope with the cold of winter, but those who were seriously injured lost this ability. Ali had suffered a serious injury on his right foot and he was unable to walk well. In recent years, he even struggled to turn into his beast form. Therefore, Azhang had begun to prepare a large amount of firewood since the first snow had arrived. On one hand, it was for Ali, on the other, it was for the other elderly females who’d remained in the tribe that had limited mobility, and for the few young children who had been unwilling to leave.
“Uncle Azhang.” From a distance, Aze called out as soon as he saw the other’s figure.
Females had very sensitive hearing. Although there was still a distance between them, Azhang stopped what he was doing and raised his head when he heard the call. He saw that it was Aze, who was still showing a slightly silly looking smile.
Uncle? Chen Qi looked at the beastmen in front of him. No matter how he looked at it, he only looked about 30 or so years old. He had short dark brown hair and his facial lines were very rigid, but when he smiled, it gave off an easy-going kind of feeling. His arms were very muscular and he was a little taller than Aze. When he got closer, it felt like the person in front of him was a wall.
Azhang tossed aside the branch he was holding and pointed with his chin at Chen Qi beside him. “Is this the male you brought back?”
“Yes, his name is Chen Qi.” Aze nodded helplessly. It seemed Ka Luo had already come by earlier to help him offer greetings. Otherwise Azhang would not have known that this was the person he’d brought back just by looking.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Before Chen Qi could say a word of greeting to the other, Azhang clapped his hands and turned to go into the house. “Come in.”
The two men followed him in. Azhang’s house was smaller than Aze’s, but there was much more inside. This house also had a lot of pottery, though the count was probably double that of Aze’s.
Azhang walked over to a white jar by the bed, reached his hand in and pulled out a round, white stone. Then he walked to Chen Qi’s side, grabbed his hand, and with his right index finger suddenly extending out a long fingernail, scratched it lightly across Chen Qi’s palm.
Chen Qi grit his teeth at the sudden pain and asked angrily, “What are you doing?”
Azhang didn’t wait for Chen Qi to retract his hand. He took the white stone and rubbed it over Chen Qi’s new wound. The stone emitted a little glow that was nearly imperceptible to the naked eye, and the blood stain on it changed rapidly, eventually morphing into the silhouette of a dragon. Azhang stared at the silhouette formed by the blood for a moment and asked in a puzzled tone, “Are you from the Snake clan?”
Naturally, Chen Qi had also seen the changes on the white stone. Before he could be surprised at what happened, he heard Azhang’s question and answered, “That’s a dragon.” You’re the snake. I’m a descendant of the dragon! Okay, sure. In fact, Chen Qi also didn’t understand why the stone would show the silhouette of a dragon after it was stained with his own blood.
But the dragon was not considered a good thing here.
Azhang didn’t say anything and just put the stone into a red pottery jar by the bed. He waved to the two of them and said, “You can leave now.”
Aze’s heart was in pain as he took out a strip of hide that he had prepared much earlier and wrapped Chen Qi’s injured palm. He explained, “This is a stone that records information. It can record the scent of the origins of your blood. Even if you go missing, I can find you by following the scent from the stone.” After explaining, he handed another piece of hide to Azhang. Aze had left the house carrying a dozen animal skins, Chen Qi almost thought he was going to move. “Thanks, Uncle Azhang. Chen Qi and I will take our leave.”
Azhang didn’t hold back. He took the hide and gave Aze a good knock on the head. He scolded, “How many times have I told you not to call me ‘uncle’? I am only 55 years old and still youthful. Call me ‘older brother’.”
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Chen Qi rolled his eyes. 55 years old and still asking others to call him older brother. Shameless. Don’t think that having a young face means you’re not old. All right, Chen Qi just slapped himself in the face with his own complaint and it hurt. Anyway when it came to the topic of age, it seemed that beastmen generally had a life span of more than 200 years. Chen Qi silently envied them and wondered if he would also live that long.
The two of them left Azhang’s house and went next door to Ali’s place. Aze wanted Ali to make some fur clothing for Chen Qi. Chen Qi’s thin clothes would not be able to withstand the severe winter here.
As it was inconvenient for him to move around much considering his injured foot, for many years, Ali had mostly just stayed inside the house. His skin tone was paler than that of the average female. He also looked kind and gave off a very gentle feeling. He heard from Aze that Ali was nearly 80 years old, but he looked to only be about thirty-five or thirty-six years old. Because of the harsh environment, beastmen would need to be at least 150 years old before they were considered as being of “old” age. Getting old too early was not conducive to the survival of this race.
When the two men went in, Ali was weaving. Yes, that’s right, he was weaving. However, his weaving method was not quite the same as the ones Chen Qi knew of. There were several basketball-sized spools of woolen yarn in front of him. The threading was a bit rough, but they looked very light and soft. He used a few stones to hold down the woven side of the wool cloth, and then constantly adjusted the positions of the various spools alternately. From time to time, he would stop to check if the woven section was too loose, and if it was he would manually compress it tightly before continuing. The area of cloth thus woven was not large and the speed was very slow.
Chen Qi leaned over in surprise and looked curiously at the small piece of cloth that had been woven. Then he looked at several of the spools of yarn and reached out to touch them. They were soft and felt a bit like wool, but they were thinner than wool. No wonder Aze was not surprised to see the clothes he was wearing. It turned out that there was already cloth here.
“Do you like this cloth?” Ali’s voice was as gentle as his appearance.
Chen Qi took a few slightly awkward steps back, recognizing his inadvertently impolite behavior, then nodded and asked hopefully, “Can you weave some clothes for me? I can pay you.”
Ali didn’t answer him, but he smiled and looked towards the tall beastman who was setting down the hide next to him. “Is this the male you brought back?”
Aze nodded. “His name is Chen Qi.”
“That’s a good name.” Ali looked back at Chen Qi. “I’m weaving this for Ake’s unborn child. Do you want the cloth now because you’re already planning to have children?”
“Children?” Chen Qi looked at Aze, expression full of questions.
Aze explained, “Here, only beastmen babies wear cloth clothing.”
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: 2 of 3 for the week.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: Avalie
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.
🤣🤣🤣Only baby beastman wear clothes. Then Chen Qi, who’s in 30, is one.
Haha I wonder if they have the concept of shotgun marriage and if they thought they were gonna have a kid so soon.
🤣🤣🤣😂