Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 054
Chapter 54
Although the new house was built according to the original beastmen construction methods, the roof was laid following Chen Qi’s method, with the exception of the roof beams. Considering that the house would need to be demolished and rebuilt after the winter, the beams for the roof were tree trunks instead of stegosaurus bones.
The construction of the new house went very smoothly. After the roof was laid, the leftover stone slabs were used for the floor. The gum fruit used in constructing the newly completed house was not yet dried, so naturally, it was impossible to live in the new house that night. All the tribespeople had already moved to the Lion-Wolf Tribe, and it was uncertain if the hyena-drake that had managed to escape would come again, so at the moment it was not safe to go back to live in the tribe. Chen Qi invited Azhang and Ali to spend the night in his house.
The two rooms in Chen Qi’s house were both too cold since there was no stove or fire keng, so he got out two animal skins and spread them on the floor of the living room. Fortunately, the living room was plenty large enough for the few of them to sleep in without feeling crowded. With everyone sleeping in the same room, Chen Qi felt like he had returned to his school days and overnight school trips.
Before going to bed, Chen Qi checked on Ajing’s wound as usual. The gut suture had been removed and the wound had scabbed over. Now, apart from retying the bandages to wrap up the wound, there was no need to apply any more herbs.
Chen Qi also noticed several small red scratch marks around the shaved-off area of Ajing’s wound and raised his eyebrows to look at Ajing.
Ajing shrank his neck and subconsciously leaned closer to the wolf cub’s nest. His eyes wandered and he dared not look back at Chen Qi. Chen Qi smiled and asked, “Does the wound itch?” When wounds scabbed over, the itchiness around the scab was the most annoying feeling. Chen Qi didn’t have to guess to know that the child must have been unable to stand the itchiness and secretly scratched at it.
Ajing nodded, and then shook his head.
Chen Qi asked, puzzled, “Are you nodding or shaking your head? Is it itchy or not?”
“It itches, but it’s fine during the day. If I don’t scratch it before going to bed at night, I won’t be able to sleep.” Ajing hid his hands behind him, and obediently replied.
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 understood. He sat down by the fire keng and asked. “Then, you can’t sleep now?” Seeing Ajing nod, Chen Qi thought for a moment, “Why don’t I tell you a story? You will fall asleep after listening to it, and you won’t feel the itchiness after you are asleep.”
“A story? The story of the beast god?” Ajing tilted his head and asked. The old female who used to live in the house next door to his, also liked to tell stories. But in the end, there were only two stories about how the beast god saved people. At first, he had been curious to hear them. But after hearing them several times, the stories were boring to him.
Chen Qi shook his head. “My story has nothing to do with the beast god.” He used to have a colleague who had a young daughter. Every night, his colleague would tell his daughter a bedtime story. His daughter always fell asleep while listening to the story and never managed to finish listening to the whole story. Thus, he thought of telling a story to coax Ajing to sleep.
Chen Qi thought for a moment, then started to tell one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales that he remembered most clearly. Chen Qi made his storytelling tone very gentle and used a soft voice, thinking this kind of rhythm would induce drowsiness when heard. When he finished the story, he looked up and found that Ajing wasn’t asleep at all. Instead, Ajing was looking at him with a pair of big sparkling eyes.
“Chen Qi, what is a mermaid?” Ka Luo, who was in ‘curious baby’ mode and lying on the edge of the keng, raised this question.
Chen Qi looked back and realized that the beastmen in the living room had all gathered around him at some point. It seemed that everyone was listening to the story just now, “It is a creature that looks like a human being but has a fish tail.”
“A human being with a fish tail?” Ka Luo tilted his head for a moment, then asked Ake, who was next to him, “Do you know what it looks like?”
Ake shook his head.
Chen Qi repeatedly tried to describe it in detail, however these few people still couldn’t figure out what the mermaid would look like. For the first time, Chen Qi strongly felt these beast people’s lack of imagination. He had no choice but to get up and go to the fire to take a cooled down piece of charcoal. Then he found a nearby wood board and drew a simple figure of a mermaid on it. Handing it to them, he said, “It probably looks like this.”
“If you draw it like this, I can understand it.” Ka Luo smiled and showed the board to the others, and then handed it to Ajing on the fire keng. Ajing accepted it carefully. This was his first time seeing this kind of drawing. Although Chen Qi’s drawing was not that refined, the characteristics of the mermaid were understandable at a glance. Ajing looked at it and couldn’t help reaching out to touch it. As a result, his hand turned black, and the drawing on the board gained a large smudge. Ajing’s upturned lips turned upside down instantly.
“What’s the matter?” Ali found that Ajing’s expression looked wrong and asked, worried. He always felt his heart ache for this child. Unfortunately, the child’s temperament was as stubborn as that of his deceased dad, who, once his mind was made up about something, had to persist with it no matter what.
Ajing, who was trying to secretly hide the smudged drawing while the others were not paying attention, was startled, and hurriedly shoved the board under the hide blanket in a panic. He shook his little head rapidly and said, “No, it’s nothing.”
Chen Qi, who had just finished drawing the mermaid, felt his hand itch to draw again. He picked out another wood board and quickly drew another one. He used to do art and design. But he had not held a paintbrush since crossing over, and almost forgot that he could draw.
“Chen Qi, your drawings are really beautiful, so why do you draw with charcoal? If you painted with dye-fruits, you could keep it all the time.” Ka Luo looked at the newly painted mermaid and said with some regret.
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
“We didn’t find any dye-fruits. It’s winter now. I don’t know if there are any left.” The last few times Aze had gone to the forest, Chen Qi hadn’t asked him to specifically look for dye-fruits, and maybe the place Aze went to was not the suitable habitat for the dye-fruits, so he hadn’t found any dye-fruits. When Chen Qi needed to record something, he could just directly take a piece of charcoal and a piece of slate or wood board, so he did not find it inconvenient.
“I still have a few dye-fruits from when I made pottery before, but they are black. Do you want them?” Asked Ali. These dye-fruits had not been used because the color was not ideal. But it was not easy to find dye-fruits in the winter, so they had not been thrown away.
This was Chen Qi’s first time seeing a dye-fruit. The dye-fruit looked a bit like the milk fruit. It also had a hard shell but it also had some round black spots on it. The spots were used to distinguish the dye-fruit’s color. If the dye-fruit had red liquid inside, the round spots on the surface would be red.
Chen Qi found it rather novel. He took out a clean bamboo tube and opened up a dye-fruit. The dye-fruit liquid was a bit thick and was very dark, a bit like ink. Chen Qi poured out a little bit of it and added some water to dilute it a little. After thinking for a moment, he took out the bird feathers that had dried a long time ago. He picked out a relatively hard quill, cut the tip of it into the shape of a pen head with the dragon-horn knife, then dipped it into the diluted dye-fruit liquid, and quickly used it to draw on a new wood board.
The quill pen had not been treated, and the effect of liquid discharge was not very good. Though the painting was a bit intermittent, Chen Qi was very satisfied. Before long, a new mermaid drawing was finished. Chen Qi handed the wood board with the mermaid picture to Ali. “Ali, can I have these dye-fruits?”
Ali was momentarily stunned, but then he accepted the board and smiled, “If you want it, it’s yours. Black dye-fruits are of no use to me.”
“Then, I won’t be polite.” Chen Qi put the intact dye-fruits away. With these dye-fruits, he’d have plenty of ink. When he has some time, he’ll have to make a better quill pen or try to make a writing brush so that there will be tools for writing. Chen Qi smiled and started to run through all the possible ways to use these dye-fruits in his head.
Aze saw Chen Qi’s joy at the dye-fruits, and felt a little annoyed that he had not found some earlier. He leaned in close to Chen Qi and said, “Since you like the dye-fruits, shall I look for some more of them these next few days?”
Chen Qi waved his hand. “No need. These dye-fruits will be enough for me to use for a long time.”
Aze nodded, but in his heart he still decided to look for some dye-fruits if he went out in the next few days.
The dye-fruit dried quickly and did not fade if it was touched. Rather than saying it was like ink, it was actually more like paint. Ali handed the newly obtained mermaid picture to Ajing and whispered into his ear, “Can you hang on to this picture for me? I’m afraid I’ll break it.”
Ajing looked at him questioningly and then at the beautiful picture of the mermaid, he felt a little moved. “Then I’ll keep it here with me for now. Remember to ask me for it when you want it.”
Ali saw how Ajing’s little eyes lit up as he took the board and he couldn’t help rubbing the other’s little head. He actually wanted to just give the painting directly to him, but if he did, Ajing would just return it. So he could only use a different excuse.
Chen Qi couldn’t help but start to think about what he could use to write on now that he had these dye-fruits. The first thing he thought of was the bamboo slips*. There was still some bamboo that they’d brought back before. Chen Qi cut the bamboo into suitable lengths and brought them back to the room. After all, it was nighttime and he was worried that he would affect the others’ sleep, so he found a corner to split the bamboo into finger-wide strips.
*Bamboo writing slips in ancient times (joined together to form whole scrolls)
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 Chen Qi was busy, Aze naturally wanted to help. After a day of house construction work, Chen Qi wanted to send Aze to rest early. Seeing Aze insist on helping, Chen Qi had no choice but to give the split bamboo pieces for him to refine them. The others saw that Chen Qi was making something new and didn’t feel sleepy anymore, so they all went over, wanting to help him.
With several of them working on them, the few bamboo pieces were soon processed into smaller bamboo strips. Chen Qi set the bamboo strips by the fire, intending to let the heat roast them overnight and start the binding work tomorrow morning.
Since the bamboo strips were done Chen Qi sent everyone off to bed.
The next day, the weather was fine. The temperature felt a little higher since it had not been snowing lately and was not as uncomfortably cold as it was a few days ago. Ali had already prepared breakfast earlier. He had been studiously observing Chen Qi’s cooking for the last few days, so now the dishes he prepared tasted even better than those prepared by Chen Qi.
For breakfast, he made meat porridge and potato cakes. Ali’s potato cakes were made with the addition of rice berries. The rice berries were gelatinous, so the potato cakes didn’t fall apart in one clip like Chen Qi’s did and they could be picked up directly by hand. Chen Qi ate the cakes and drank the porridge. He couldn’t help but, once again, lament silently at Ali’s heaven-defying practical ability.
After breakfast, Azhang had to go back to the tribe to move over his remaining things. The hydrochoerus dragons he’d hunted had already been handed over to the head of the Lion-Wolf Tribe and to some to the people who’d stayed in the Lion-Wolf Tribe. So there were only some animal skins and daily necessities left.
With Ali staying at home, Aze and Ake went to help him, while Chen Qi began to bind the bamboo strips they’d made yesterday into bamboo slips.
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: I get so hungry during this story sometimes…. It’s not like its a food novel, but still 😀
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.
