Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains 098
Chapter 98
The beastmen did not have the habit of taking a lunch break. They continued to work after eating some barbecue at noon. Because of this, the excavation of the foundation for the city wall was quite fast.
Chen Qi used his fingers to simply calculate the time the sun would set. After determining that the sun would set in about an hour or two, he stopped his work and walked to the busy Azhang. “Azhang, let’s finish with work early today. I’ll teach everyone how to make some dishes in a little while.”
Azhang raised his head from the dug out hole. Hearing Chen Qi’s words, he quickly agreed, “We’ll tidy up here and I’ll have them come find you.”
“Just have them go to the school building. The stoves there have been built and are ready to be used.”
Azhang nodded, and Chen Qi went back to make preparations.
The school’s cooking classroom was larger than the other two. There were five cooking stoves and several wooden tables were placed in the middle of the room to hold things. Aze and Ake had gone over to help watch the kiln work, while Ali came back to help Chen Qi.
Aside from the hydrochoerus dragon, most of the internal organs of the dragonkind were inedible. Therefore, the prey brought back by the hunting team during this period was only various kinds of meat.
Chen Qi took out all the livers that had been curing in summer till now. They had lost all moisture long ago, so Chen Qi soaked them in cold water and washed off most of the excessive salty taste by the way.
The crucian carps were caught by Aze that morning. There were two of them. Chen Qi only processed one of the fish and divided it into two large pottery dishes. Then he filled them with water and set them on the stove to make soup.
Chen Qi had just finished the preparatory work when the beastmen arrived. There were no stools in the classroom, so the beast people stood scattered around. Chen Qi used a rag to wipe his hands and said, “Tonight, we’ll have dinner together. Now I’m going to teach you how to make a few dishes that you can cook and eat often when you’re at home, and soon you may be able to see things at night.”
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
“How did you know that we can’t see at night?” Once winter started, the eyesight of the older females and those who cannot turn into their beast forms would slowly decline. Especially in the beginning of summer, when it was the most serious, they could hardly see anything when the sun went down, but they gradually get better in the middle of summer and the cycle would continue at the start of the next winter. The beastmen could only attribute this phenomenon to the loss of their ability to transform into beast forms.
Chen Qi explained the characteristics of night blindness to everyone. He did not know how serious their symptoms were, but they were obviously not born with them. After all, middle-aged females like Ahxu and the others had normal eyesight. Therefore, with some adjustments to their diet,their symptoms should be able to be mitigated.
“Do you mean that if we eat more liver and fish soup and vegetables, we can fix our inability to see at night?” Azhang asked after hearing Chen Qi’s explanation.
Chen Qi nodded, “All of you probably only eat meat during the winter. And you also don’t eat much. Unlike in summer, when you can eat some wild fruits to improve your eyesight.”
Ahxu nodded, with some awkwardness. In fact, when Ale came back shortly after winter had started and had told them that fish were edible, they didn’t take the matter to heart. They felt that they had enough food stored for the winter so they didn’t consider needing to go to the river to catch fish at all. Later, there were several incidents of the dragons collectively appearing on the plains, so the beast people hardly even left the tribe, and just stayed at home patiently, waiting for the end of winter.
Now that they had moved here, they gradually started to eat it a little. But some older females had experienced more things and naturally had seen the fates of those who secretly ate fish before. Moreover, the beast people could not swim. Once they accidentally fell into the water with no one to rescue them, they practically had to just wait until they died. Therefore, even knowing that eating fish was not dangerous, they still had some resistance in their hearts. This was also the reason why Azhang brought people into the forest to hunt in advance. Otherwise, according to his previous plan, he would not be able to consider entering the forest until the tribe was fully completed.
“There are many things to eat on the plains besides wild fruits.” Chen Qi took the spare ginger, onion and garlic from the backpack beside him and put them on the wooden table, so that everyone could see the appearance of these things clearly.
Ali had shown them these things when he’d taught them how to make simple foods before, but the beastmen were accustomed to eating meat, and wild fruits were usually only eaten by males. Now it was not winter time when food was scarce. The food brought back by the hunting team was enough for the tribe to eat, so even if these would usually add a bit of flavor, the beastmen rarely put them into their stomachs.
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 took out another bag of processed rice berry flour , which was a little yellowish in color. These were gathered by Aze and the hunting team recently. He had Ali make two meat fillings; one was from ordinary hare-dragon meat, the other was made of previously soaked marinated liver, then the two stuffings were mixed with chopped scallions. Chen Qi took a portion of rice berry flour and kneaded it into dough, then rolled it into the shape of dumpling wrappers with a rolling pin.
When it came to wrapping the dumplings, he had the other beastmen do it together. The females were all very good with their hands. Chen Qi only taught them twice and they were already able to do it. The wrapped dumplings were put in a pottery dish with heated oil and fried until they were golden. Then, water was added and they were left to cook until the juice dried up before they were taken out to be served. Each of them were given a pair of chopsticks, “Give it a taste.”
Ale was the first to come up. He had tasted Chen Qi’s cooking before, so he unceremoniously took a piece and stuffed it into his mouth. He was also scalded because he’d rushed to eat it and he inarticulately praised, “It’s delicious.”
The others hesitated for a moment, before stepping forward to try one. Chen Qi didn’t make much, just enough for each of them to have one.
Here, the rice berries were for young children, so for the likes of Acheng, who had not eaten rice berries for more than 200 years, he had long forgotten how rice berries tasted. So now it was obvious that the crispy dumpling skins were still slightly novel, very different from the texture of meat, yet when chewed, there was the burst of fragrant and tender meat fillings.
Not too many scallions were added, and they couldn’t be easily distinguished when eating the dumplings and no one would deliberately tear open the wrapped dumplings to pick them out, bit by bit.
After swallowing the dumpling, feeling unsatisfied, but the cooked dumplings had long been eaten up, Ahxu stepped forward and asked, “Chen Qi, are you asking us to learn how to make this food?”
Chen Qi nodded. “You can call this kind of food dumplings. There’s still also a lot of processed rice berry flour here. Try to make it according to the method I just taught you.”
There were several large tables in the room. Because there were too many of them, Chen Qi taught them how to knead dough in batches. He also taught a few of the older females how to bake rice berries into flour.
Taking advantage of a break, Azhang walked up to Chen Qi and briefly told him about today’s construction progress. He said, “Chen Qi, I want to speed up the construction of the city wall.”
Chen Qi looked back at him. “Are you thinking of continuing to work at night?”
Azhang nodded, “The surrounding area here is too open. In case of an attack, there is basically no way to hide. After the city wall is built, it will at least be safer.”
Chen Qi had understood this reason a long time ago, but he thought it strange that Azhang would bring this up now, “Did you discover something during yesterday’s hunt?”
Crossing to Live in the Wilderness Plains (CLWP) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Azhang paused. “I originally wanted to go into the forest to confirm it in a couple days before telling you. I found traces of giant wolf-gods’ activities on the outskirts of the forest.”
“… Are you saying that the giant wolf-god that saved you and Aze did not go back to the Sanchen River?”
“I don’t know if it’s the same one.” Azhang shook his head, “I’m afraid there might be other reasons for the giant wolf-gods to stay at the forest’s periphery. In the end, over here, we are too close to the forest. Now that we can help the tribesmen solve the problem of not being able to see at night, there should be no problem to continue building the city wall at night, right?”
Chen Qi was silent for a while. “This is not a disease that can be cured with just one meal.” Moreover, guiding the beastpeople to eat other foods was not going to be an overnight thing. As long as Ka Luo had been eating with him, yet he still didn’t like eating vegetables other than potatoes and sweet potatoes.
“……”
Although there was no way to solve the problem of being unable to see things at night with only one meal, Azhang still took the younger females and continued to build the city wall at night. In just the short period of one week, the city wall was already more than half a meter high. Unfortunately, the kilns’ speed of firing bricks could not keep up with the speed of construction, which forced it to slow down again.
Outside the wall of Chen Qi’s house, a whole circle of ghost needle trees were planted along the wall. These ghost needle trees had been planted for nearly two months. Once any of them withered, Aze would dig them up and plant new ones. Once the ghost needle tree survived, it would basically not be prone to withering easily. Now the branches were covered with various ghost needle flowers, which set off the whole wall very beautifully.
The others in the tribe saw this and imitated this model to plant it along their walls as well. Those annoying mosquitoes smelled the ghost needle flowers from a distance and stayed clear away. Now, even when taking a walk in the tribe, there wasn’t a single figure of the bug.
The school now arranged two classes every day; a literacy class in the morning, and cooking class or handicraft class in the evening. Chen Qi only taught a few classes in person in the first couple of days. Later, he threw these classes to Ajing and Ali. Although Ajing was young, he taught things in an organized manner. If he was born in Chen Qi’s world, Ajing would definitely be considered a genius student tyrant.
Meanwhile, Chen Qi and Aze were working on paper making. Azhang also wanted to see how it was done, but he was responsible for both the construction of the city wall and the hunting. He didn’t have the free time to watch it, so he sent Azhu to help and didn’t come back.
The most troublesome part of paper making was pounding the pulp. Fortunately, Aze was very strong, and he was able to complete that task very quickly once it was handed over to him. However, Chen Qi had never made paper before, so he could only experiment while doing it, and naturally failed several times during the process.
Looking at the paper that was slowly dried on the stone slab, Chen Qi carefully tore it off. This piece of paper was a yellowish brown color and was only about eight inches in size. Although the surface of the paper was rough, some plant fibers that weren’t mashed up could still be seen, and it was bumpy because of their uneven handling during the last steps, Chen Qi still couldn’t hide his excitement. “Aze, Aze, look, we made it.”
Aze breathed a sigh of relief silently in his heart. Chen Qi had been working day and night on this lately. He was really afraid that his body would not be able to bear it. “En.”
“Is this paper?” Azhu leaned in curiously to look at it. He hadn’t expected that the pile of mushy things would turn out like this after drying.
“With paper, there are many more things we can do.” Chen Qi carefully put away the first finished product. Taking advantage of the current feeling, he wanted to keep making more. Now, there were no gum tree leaves and he couldn’t use fabrics to paint lavishly all the time. Chen Qi’s hands had been itching for a long time, and he can finally record a bunch of edible things on paper.
“The pulp is still too rough. Aze, try to make it finer.”
“Okay.”.
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: Almost to 3 digit chapters…
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.
Two more chapters to the 100th chapter 😍
Tysm Miiya for the hardwork~
Ugh i love tribe building