Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 056

by Miiya · March 26, 2022

Chapter 56

In this paperless world, it was necessary to use local materials in order to learn to write. Chen Qi had the few females make several wood boards and simply scraped off the superficial thorns on the surface of the wood, then gave each of them two pieces.

There was only the one ink brush Chen Qi arbitrarily made in the morning, so Chen Qi picked out some slender pieces of charcoal and asked the few of them to use the charcoal to write on the wood boards. The charcoal pieces Chen Qi chose were all relatively sturdy, that although they had been burnt black, they would not easily disintegrate. The only drawback was probably that the whole hand would turn black.

It was Chen Qi’s first time teaching people how to write, not to mention teaching people who had never come into contact with words before. He first briefly explained the idea of strokes to them, then taught them one-on-one of the composition of the strokes of the words they wanted to learn, writing down the sequence on the wood boards so that they could imitate the writing.

The boards were not big. After they were filled, they needed to be wiped clean with the water-soaked animal skins and then set by the fire to dry before they could be used again. Chen Qi found that Ake’s first written word was the character for ‘Ka’, while Ka Luo’s first written word was the character for ‘Ke’. When teaching them, Chen Qi felt that he had eaten a mouthful of dog food.

“Chen Qi.” Afraid that the charcoal would stain the fire pit, Ajing also sat by the fire. Chen Qi had made cushions out of several thick hides for him to lie on, but the little fellow said that his injury had been healed for a long time and sat with his back straight, firmly away from the cushions.

Hearing Ajing call for him, Chen Qi leaned over and asked, concerned, “What’s the matter? Is there something you don’t understand?” Ajing’s wood board was already littered with numerous crookedly written ‘Jing’ characters. Chen Qi patted the other’s little head and praised, “Ajing, you’re really amazing. You’ve already finished writing. Do you want to keep the first words you wrote? I’ll bring you a new board.”

Ajing nodded vigorously. Chen Qi gave him a new replacement board. Ajing seemed to hesitate for a moment, and the little wolf cub nestled by his feet moved. “Can you teach me how to write the ‘wolf’ character?”

“Wolf?”

Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

“En.” Ajing picked up the little wolf cub. “Aze said it didn’t have a name yet and he let me give it a name. Since it is the cub of the giant wolf god and is so small, I’ll call it Little Wolf.”

Little Wolf. Although the name was rather straightforward, it wasn’t bad. Chen Qi repeatedly showed Ajing how to write the ‘wolf’ character. Only after seeing Ajing stumblingly practicing writing the character did he pat the other’s little head with satisfaction before standing up to look at the situation of the others.

Aze was earnestly focused on writing and did not notice Chen Qi coming over. By the time he noticed, it was too late to put away his wood board. Chen Qi was stunned when he saw the character written on Aze’s board. Aze did not write his own name, but wrote the ‘Qi’ character. Chen Qi had not taught him the stroke order for the character ‘Qi’, so he actually wrote it from right to left. Though it was called writing, it actually looked more like drawing.

The discovered Aze’s ears were red. Chen Qi smiled and walked behind him. He bent over and grasped Aze’s hand that was holding the charcoal.”You wrote the strokes in the wrong order. You should write it like this.” Chen Qi held his hand and slowly wrote the strokes, one by one. After that, he smiled and asked, “Do you understand it now?”

Aze raised his head and just saw Chen Qi’s smiling face. Perhaps it was too close, Aze felt a bit lost from Chen Qi’s smile and shook his head in a daze.

“Then I’ll show you again. Watch carefully.” Chen Qi grabbed his hand again and used it to write again. Only when the board was full of the ‘Qi’ character did Aze, with a heated face, nodded to indicate that he could write it now.

The beastmen, having learned to write for the first time, were excited and did not rest until the middle of the night. They not only learned to write their own names, but also learned to write the names of others. The next morning, Chen Qi was worried that they would forget, so he asked them to write them again before they started today’s busy work.

Azhang and Aze continued to hunt, while Ali grabbed a couple cocoons to continue weaving. He planned to make comfortable fabric clothing for everyone, so everyone could dress like Chen Qi, with the cloth clothing underneath and the fur clothing outside. Not only would it be warmer but it would be much more comfortable than wearing the fur clothing directly.

The antelope-dragon that was brought back yesterday had been processed and Chen Qi stewed an antelope-dragon bone soup today. Having observed Ajing was fine after sitting and writing for half a day yesterday, Chen Qi didn’t force him to lie in bed to recuperate. Who knew what the little wolf cub was up to, but it didn’t sleep for a long time these last couple of days and it even started to scurry around the house in high spirits since early in the morning.

Chen Qi used antelope-dragon’s fur to make a few more brushes. Ake went to the bamboo forest and cut down two bamboos, then chopped them all up. He and Ka Luo made them into bamboo strips. There were too many bamboo strips, so Chen Qi had them build a wooden frame and set it outside, placing all the bamboo strips on it to dry, and only put a small portion of them next to the fire to bake.

Today, the sun was comfortably warm to their skin. It was inconvenient to practice writing using charcoal. Not only did it cause their hands to be black and dirty, but even if they washed them with water, they were unable to get them completely clean. Chen Qi sent Ake to the Chishui River to dig a large bag of river sand. Chen Qi planned to make some sand trays for them to use for writing practice.

Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

There was a lot of mud mixed in with the river sand. Chen Qi melted a large dish of snow and used it to wash the sand outside the house first, before pouring the clean sand into a pottery dish and setting it by the fire to evaporate the water. Chen Qi made several quill pens. While the sand was hot, he inserted the quill into the hot sand and used the heat to harden the tip, which made it much more convenient to use.

Chen Qi made a few A4-sized wooden boxes and glued them together with melted gum fruit. While waiting for the gum fruit to dry, he planned to gather some gum tree leaves. The gum fruits grew on the trees for many years, fearing fire but not the cold. The gum tree leaves would turn yellow in the winter, but they would not fall. They would start to grow new leaves once summer comes. Previously, when Ka Luo and party were building their new houses, they had picked gum fruits, which was when Chen Qi had noticed the yellow gum tree leaves that had a rough surface but did not wilt and shrink like other leaves. It was a perfect replacement for paper for writing.

Ajing’s wound had just healed. Chen Qi was reluctant to let him go out, so he had Ali stay at home with him while he went to pick gum tree leaves with Ake and Ka Luo.

Even though the weather was warmer, the snow showed no signs of melting. Simply walking in the knee-high snow was a physical activity.

“If you need gum tree leaves, I can just pick them on my own.” Looking at these two male turtles, Ake could not help but suggest. At the pace they were going, he could’ve run back and forth several times and more if he was alone.

Chen Qi shook his head.”The gum fruit trees are not far from here and there is no danger nearby. I haven’t been out since winter started. This time, I just want to come out and walk a bit.”

“That’s right. There’s nothing urgent to do now anyways. Let’s just walk slowly.” Ka Luo answered.

Ake had no choice but to follow behind the two men and walked slowly in the direction of the gum trees.

They had left the house after an early lunch, but it was almost evening by the time they were done picking and returned home. As soon as he entered the door, Ka Luo collapsed onto the fur blanket by the fire and exclaimed, “I didn’t expect walking in the snow to be so tiring. I don’t want to move anymore.”

Chen Qi was slightly better than him. He first checked on the quill pens, took them out of the cold sand, and was planning to pour the sand into the wooden boxes on the side. The wooden boxes were not big, so he didn’t need to wait until the gum fruit was completely dry before using it.

“You’re all back? Did you see Ajing?” Ali hurriedly came in from outside and asked as soon as he saw them.

“No, what’s wrong?” Chen Qi set down the sand he was carrying and asked, puzzled.

“I was too involved in weaving and didn’t pay attention to him. I was just planning to start preparing dinner when I noticed that Ajing was missing.” Ali explained ruefully, “I’ve looked all around the vicinity, but I can’t find him. I don’t know where he went, and even the little wolf cub is missing.”

Chen Qi patted Ali on the shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t worry. Beyond the wall, the ground is all covered in snow, and it hasn’t snowed recently. If Ajing left, he would’ve left traces.”

“That’s right!” Ali smacked himself on the forehead. “I was so muddleheaded just now. Let’s go and check now.”

The four of them split up to cover two routes. Chen Qi and Ali went towards the front, while Ake and Ka Luo headed towards the back. Due to the recent house construction as well as the usual hunting parties walking through the front entrance, there were many pits and bumps in the snow and there was no way to identify which footprints belonged to whom.

The two men followed these traces for a lengthy distance before finally finding some smaller footprints. If they followed the trail of smaller footprints, they would find that they were headed in the direction of the tribe.

“That child couldn’t still be wanting to return to the tribe, could he?”

Chen Qi felt an oncoming headache and shook his head. He’d repeatedly explained to the other that there was no one in the tribe anymore and that it was unsafe now. He didn’t expect that this bear child* would sneak off while they were away. “Let’s go back and get Ake to go have a look over at the tribe.”

*熊孩子xióng hái zi. Literally bear child. Figuratively, brat. little devil.

Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.

Ali nodded. It would have been fine if he went on his own, but it would be too risky to take Chen Qi in the direction of the tribe. Just as he was turning back, from the corner of his eye, he saw a small black spot moving here from a distance. Ali tugged on Chen Qi’s sleeve and said, “Chen Qi, quick, see if that is Ajing over there.”

Chen Qi looked in the direction Ali was pointing to and saw a small figure moving slowly towards them that was wearing a fiery red fur coat that Chen Qi specifically asked Ali to make. It was particularly conspicuous amidst the field of white snow. Who else could it be but Ajing?

Ajing’s pace was very slow. Ali caught up to him in two to three steps and started scolding, “You, this kid! Don’t you know that it is very dangerous in the tribe now? Why did you run off without saying anything to anyone?”

Ajing was carrying a hide backpack that was as tall as him, and the hide backpack seemed to be full of stuff. Hearing Ali’s voice, the little wolf cub in his arms made a few discontented sounding noises.

Ajing stroked the fur on the little wolf cub’s head to get it to quiet down before he looked up and said to Ali, “I saw that you were busy so I didn’t disturb you.”

Chen Qi caught up to them just then. He had run, with an unstable center of gravity, in the snow. He’d even fallen and his clothes were still covered with snow that he hadn’t yet shaken off. He saw the backpack behind Ajing and said, “You went back to the tribe to pack up.”

Ajing nodded. He set the little wolf pup on the ground, took off the backpack from his back and handed it to Chen Qi. “This is the food I collected for the winter. I’ll give it to you.” After a momentary pause, he added, “There are also some milk fruits in it. Those are for Little Wolf.”

The little wolf cub by his feet let out a cry, as if responding to what Ajing said.

Ali originally wanted to reprimand Ajing a bit more, but when he heard Ajing’s words, he swallowed his scolding back.

Chen Qi crouched down and patted Ajing’s little head.”Even if you wanted to go to the tribe to get something, you can’t just leave without saying anything. We would be very worried.”

Ajing looked at Chen Qi, and then at Ali. “Did both of you come out looking for me because you were worried about me?”

Chen Qi nodded. “Ali searched all over the vicinity for you. You don’t know how worried he was.”

Ajing brought the little wolf cub back into his arms. Perhaps because he used too much force, the little wolf pup was a little uncomfortable and wriggled it’s little body. Ajing raised his head and looked right at Ali. “I’m sorry. I won’t leave without saying anything again.”

Ali’s lips and jaw moved a few times, before he finally sighed and raised his hand to pinch the kid’s little face. “Look at you. You must be freezing after being out for so long. Let’s go back home.”

“I can transform into the beast form. I won’t freeze.”

Ali choked at that response. He wordlessly picked up the hide backpack on the ground and turned away. Chen Qi originally wanted to carry Ajing, but Ajing, naturally, was unwilling. In the end, he could only hold Ajing’s little hand, and the three of them headed for home.

A long trail of footprints was left on the white snow.

Words from the Translation Crew

Miiya: Bear child indeed.

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.