Chapter 20: CH 20

Chen Qi was silent for a moment, slightly discomfited, avoiding Aze’s eyes. He took out two small thistles from the pottery dish where they’d been placed earlier and sat down opposite Aze. “Let me see the wound.”

Aze hesitated a little. His right hand awkwardly stroked his left arm, which was wrapped with animal skins. But besides that, he did not move to unwrap the wound.

“I just want to see how serious your wound is. Have you treated it?” Chen Qi patiently explained.

Aze hesitated for a moment and slowly took off the hide wrapped around his arm. When removing it, he accidentally touched the wound, causing him to unconsciously frown. When the hide came off, along with it was a large piece of reddish brown colored mud.

Chen Qi looked intently, his pupil shrinking and his voice unconsciously rising several notches. “This is how you treat wounds?” He knew that in such a place where medicine was lacking, wait, no, where there was no medicine. In such a place, it would be even stranger yet if they were able to  take care of injuries well.

Several scratches were visible, and they were deep enough to reveal the bone. It was unclear whether the soil that had been applied on the wound was originally reddish brown in color or if it was red because of the blood from the wound. It was removed from the wound in large chunks with the hide and looked horrible. To be honest, yes, Chen Qi had lived to his current age, but apart from seeing all kinds of bloody scenes on screen, this was his first time looking at such a serious injury at such close range. But now this injured man was sitting in front of him so indifferently, as if he was not the injured party.

Chen Qi did not know whether all the beastmen would just directly smear mud on the wound like this, but it certainly seemed like the mud didn’t have that great of an effect. He didn’t know how much bacteria was hidden in the mud, and whether this arm would just need to be discarded.

Chen Qi got up in silence and took a clean pottery dish to get a little bit of warm water. Earlier, since there was nothing better to do while he waited for Aze to return, he had heated half a pottery dish full of water for later use. Unexpectedly, it would be used to clean up the wound.

He had already used half of the cloth that he’d gotten from Ali for miscellaneous reasons. Now the remaining half was cut into two strips to serve as bandages. He also took out a small piece of cloth to use as a towel and, with hot water, he cleaned the mud from the wound. As soon as the towel touched Aze’s arm, he heard Aze draw a gasp and before quickly controlling his expression. From time to time, Aze stole glances at Chen Qi, who looked very serious as he continued his task.

It may have been that Aze’s wound had been covered with mud, or that the beastman had strong self-healing ability, but although the wound looked horrible, there was no massive bleeding. Chen Qi gently blew on the wound while cleaning it, occasionally looking up and asking Aze, “Does it hurt?” before continuing after Aze shook his head.

After cleaning off the mud, the thistles were mashed with a stone, and the secreted liquid was applied lightly onto the wound, and then wrapped with the cloth strips. Chen Qi had not had many opportunities to practice bandaging, so the binding effect wasn’t that great. The binding was at least quite firm, so even if Aze moved his arm carelessly, he would not loosen it easily.

The wounds on the neck were only a few superficial scratches, and there was no bleeding. Chen Qi only knew that thistles had the hemostasis effect. He was not clear whether or not it also had the effect of removing blood stasis*, but regardless, he went ahead and smeared some thistle juice on Aze’s neck, feeling the other man wince when his fingers made contact with skin.

*祛瘀 qū yū Per google search, Blood stasis is defined by the impedance or cessation of blood flow and is regarded as the cause or product of many chronic diseases.

After the treatment, Chen Qi cleaned up the things and told him, “Don’t casually touch the wound today and don’t go hunting tomorrow.”

Aze moved his lips and jaw a few times, wanting to say that the wound was not that serious and that he had received more serious injuries before where he was still lively and active enough to go hunting. Chen Qi interrupted, “Tomorrow, accompany me to pick more golden lilies. They were where I encountered the vultures this morning.” After getting along with him for a few days, Chen Qi pretty much understood how Aze was. As long as he asked, the other party would not refuse.  Having his own eyes watching him could also prevent the other from moving at will and tearing the wound.

As expected, Aze did not refuse Chen Qi’s request and nodded slightly, “Okay.”

Chen Qi remembered that he still did not know whether the golden lilies that grew on the tree would have any problems. He took the few dried flowers and showed them to Aze.

Aze observed them carefully and gave them a sniff. “These flowers are not poisonous and should be fine to eat.”

Chen Qi breathed a sigh of relief. His lips curled into a happy smile at the addition of another kind of food.

Suddenly remembering something, Aze pulled out a black irregular stone from under the fur of the small gazelle beside him and handed it to Chen Qi, “Whetstone.”

Chen Qi took it. Aside from the shape, the texture of the stone was very similar to those seen in stores. “Thank you. Are you hungry? I’ll cook.”

Chen Qi walked to the side of the small gazelle. The gazelle had long been processed by Aze. The head and internal organs had probably been thrown into the Chishui River long ago, but Aze had left the heart and kidneys behind.

Chen Qi smiled. He cut the heart and kidneys in half, put them in hot water and blanched them to remove the blood scum. Then he made a dish of dandelions stir-fried with sheep* heart and kidneys. The warthog leg left over from noon was also cut in half to be fried up, while the remaining half was cut into strips by Chen Qi, smeared with salt and placed on a temporary shelf set up by the fire to make simple smoked meat. In fact, using the heat of the fire to evaporate the moisture in the meat strips would allow the meat to be preserved for a longer time.

*瞪羚 Dèng líng Gazelle, is of the antelope family. Antelope = 羚羊 Língyáng. 羊 Yáng = Sheep. Thus sheep heart = gazelle heart.

The bone soup had been simmering with the warthog bones since noon. So now he only needed to add a little bit of salt and it was ready for drinking. For the remaining gazelle, Chen Qi sliced off two lamb* legs and set them to roast over the fire. At the moment, there was no seasoning to remove the gameyness, so roasted ones would taste better than other methods.

*same as above reason

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Chen Qi had not yet figured out exactly how much the beast people ate. Sometimes Aze could eat half an adult male warthog alone, and sometimes a little hare or several fruits was enough for a meal. Therefore, when cooking, Chen Qi always felt entangled about the quantity, worrying that if he cooked too much, Aze would force himself to eat it all, and if he cooked too little, Aze would be hungry.

The meal consisted of either roast meat or stir-fried meat, neither of which took much time to prepare. At noon, Aze had only tasted the pork heart and kidney, but he unexpectedly ate half of the sheep heart and kidney on his own. Chen Qi was very happy that the beastmen could accept the internal organs of animals into their diet. In this way, there would be no need to waste them in the future. Maybe he could try to keep the head too, since there would be a lot of meat in the head. Chen Qi thought as he stuffed a piece of wart-pork into his mouth.

After dinner, there was not enough water to wash the used dishes so Chen Qi piled them in the corner and planned to deal with them tomorrow. After briefly washing up, Chen Qi didn’t agree that Aze should continue to sleep on the ground tonight. To want the owner of the place, who was injured, no less, to sleep on the ground, you had to be joking. It was already embarrassing enough that he had occupied the bed for several nights. Aze couldn’t persuade him to change his mind. So as a compromise, he laid several additional layers of animal skins for Chen Qi where he usually slept by the fire. The corner of Chen Qi’s mouth twitched. In this kind of early-autumn-like weather, while he still needed to cover himself with a few layers of animal skins to sleep by the fire at night, he was not worried about the likelihood of becoming too hot in the middle of the night.

However, Chen Qi did not directly refuse. He just moved the hide mattress a little further away from the fire. Needless to say, it was quite comfortable to lie on. Chen Qi slept soundly.

The next morning, it was still dark out and Chen Qi wondered if he’d woken up too early, but he saw Aze already sitting by the fire cooking broth, and today it was gazelle soup.

“Morning.” Chen Qi rubbed his eyes and got up. He rolled up the animal skins and returned them to the pile of furs by the bed. When the door curtain was lifted, the two plates with fire that he’d set out by the door had long been extinguished, leaving only a layer of gray and black charcoal.

The sky was still pitch black. Nothing could be seen, no sound could be heard, and the silence was terrible. Just as Chen Qi was about to turn around and go back into the house, the sun rose from a corner of the horizon. In an instant, the darkness quickly evacuated as if driven away by something. There was almost no transition from night to day. Chen Qi was shocked by this phenomenon.

“Chen Qi, the broth is ready.” Aze shouted from inside.

After a pause, Chen Qi decided he should get used to the strange events in this world.

Just after the two had finished eating, a voice was heard coming from outside. Before Chen Qi got up and went out to check, Ka Luo had already run in, shouting as he ran, “Chen Qi, I’ve brought the bones. See if they’re the kind you want.” Then he pulled Chen Qi up and went outside.

Standing outside, besides Ake, was also Ali, who was carrying a large animal hide bundle on his back, while white bones were piled up by Ake’s feet. The bones had about half a person’s girth and were about three to four meters tall.

Chen Qi greeted Ake and Ali, then squatted down in front of the stegosaurus bones, reached out his hand and knocked on one, making a dull sound. “Are these bones really hard, unaffected by rain, and fire resistant?”

“Of course.” Ka Luo replied, “These are the bones from a stegosaurus. These were the same bones that Ake brought back from hunting with the females of the tribe when he came of age. It has been many years now but it hasn’t changed at all.”

“Then we will use them to build the house.” Chen Qi clapped his hands.

“Can these be used to build a house?”

“Yes.” Chen Qi smiled mysteriously, “You will know when it is completed.”

“Humph, trying to be mysterious.” Ka Luo snorted and turned to Aze, who’d followed him out. “Brother, go hunting with Ake today.”

Before Aze could reply, Chen Qi said aloud and refused, “Aze won’t go hunting today.”

“Why not?” Ka Luo looked at Chen Qi doubtfully. Where would his brother get his food if he didn’t hunt?

“I was injured yesterday, so I won’t go hunting today. If you want to eat lunch here, let Ake bring food over. We only have a gazelle.” Aze glanced at Ake and explained simply.

Ka Luo choked. This really was his brother, alright. Then he asked anxiously, “Where is the injury? Is it serious?” His eyes looked Aze over, up and down, but he couldn’t see where he was injured.

“It’s not serious. It’s just a scratch on the arm. It’ll be fine in two days.”

“Just a little scratch to the bone.” Chen Qi murmured. Males did not have as good of hearing as females, so Ka Luo did not hear him, but Ake and Ali both heard Chen Qi’s muttering. The two shared a look, breathing a secret sigh of relief. It seemed that this male was not indifferent towards Aze.

Miiya: 2 of 2 for the week. Welcome new editor Jakie! Thank you for subbing in!

Jakie: Hello everyone, I’m the new editor Jakie. Nice to meet you all!

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