Chapter 28: CH 28

The stone slabs were very big and really thick. Chen Qi observed that the largest one was practically one meter high, Chen Qi naturally couldn’t move it alone. Ka Luo was a little stronger than him, so with both persons’ efforts, they managed to pull out some of the stone slabs from the ruins and rearrange them neatly in one area.

All of the stone slabs Chen Qi chose were the relatively complete ones, and because they were too heavy, the two of them did not make fast progress. They worked for almost the whole afternoon and only got about ten of them. Then, they could only wait to trouble the females to move these stone slabs back to Aze’s house.

Chen Qi originally wanted to try to make a wooden cart, so he seriously considered the feasibility of this plan. Disregarding the distance between the two places, the uncultivated lands were full of overgrown weeds that would not make for smooth passage on wooden wheels. It would undoubtedly be faster to use the manpower of the strong females to quickly travel back and forth. As a result, Chen Qi rejected his own plan shortly after thinking of it.

As evening approached, Chen Qi used a simple brush made out of hay to brush off the rubble from the surface of the stone slabs, as well as the dry sand on the edges. Suddenly, a long wolf howl came from nearby. Chen Qi’s movements paused unnaturally, and he thought with horror, There wouldn’t be wolves nearby, would there?

Ka Luo also stopped and walked over to him, “Chen Qi, let’s go home quickly.”

“Are there wolves coming?” Chen Qi asked anxiously. Wolves were social animals. Many of the females in the tribe had left to go to the forest today. If a pack of wolves rushed into the tribe at this time, the consequences could be imagined.

“There are no wolves. That was a signal from the tribe’s guards. It’s a reminder that there may be danger.” Ka Luo explained, pulling Chen Qi along by the arm and walking towards the center of the tribe.

“Why is a wolf’s howl used as the signal? What if it attracted real wolves over?”

“En, I’m not very clear about the specifics either. Ake once told me that the sound of the wolves’ howling travels far, and the whole tribe can hear it when it’s used outside the tribe. Also the wolves’ howl drives away many timid predators.”

Chen Qi understood. When they returned to Ka Luo’s house, they gathered the dried meat that had been left to bask in the sun for the whole day and worked together to move them back into the room. A little while later, Ali came over. Seeing that the two were all right, he let out a sigh of relief. “Ka Luo, after putting away the meat, take Chen Qi to the ancestral house in front of Rock Mountain. I’ll head over first.” Ali said before leaving hurriedly.

Ka Luo sped up his actions, and Chen Qi also couldn’t help but put on a serious expression. They placed all the meat into pottery dishes, moved them back into the room and covered them with a layer of animal skins. After all that, Ka Luo closed the door curtain and placed a stone on it to fix it in place. Then he took out a few ghost needle flowers and crushed them. He sprinkled the sap along the door as a deterrent before leading Chen Qi to the rock mountain.

Rock Mountain was reddish-brown in color overall, and looked a bit like shale*. The ancestral house was built right next to Rock Mountain. It looked about 2.5 meters tall and was the tallest house in the tribe, although the space inside it was narrower than that of other houses. From a distance, it looked more like a towering pillar.

*Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that is formed when silt and clay are compressed. It is composed of many thin layers, and it readily splits into thin pieces where these layers meet—making it a relatively brittle stone. Shale rocks are those that are made of clay-sized particles and have a laminated appearance. They are a type of sedimentary rock. Shale is the abundant rock found on Earth. They are usually found in areas where gentle waters have deposited sediments that become compacted together

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

The function of the ancestral house was not to offer shelter from disasters. What really offered the shelter was the rock mountain at the back. In the rock mountain, there was a cave that was probably only about 30 square meters large, but it was enough to accommodate the people in the tribe who were unable to protect themselves.

Chen Qi followed Ka Luo into the ancestral house. There were about a dozen people inside. Most of them were elderly people with disabilities or graying hair. There were also three or four children who looked like they were roughly about ten years old. As soon as Chen Qi came in, all eyes turned towards him. Chen Qi naturally greeted them with a friendly smile. The two men walked over to Ali, who was checking whether the entrance to the rock mountain was blocked by rocks.

The ancestral house had two doorways that led to the rock mountain in the back. The doorway that was further back was a meter above ground level, which could block most enemies that could not climb the wall or had poor jumping ability. The size of the doorway only allowed one adult to pass through, leading straight to the cave in the rock mountain..

“Uncle Ali, did the guards say something was coming?” Ka Luo asked Ali, who returned from the cave inspection.

“Someone has been sent to ask. There should be information coming in a little while.”

As the two of them were talking, a young female came in through the door. Chen Qi recognized him as the tribe guard from that morning. His name was Ale .

As soon as Ale came in, he was surrounded by the crowd. Ali walked over and asked slightly anxiously, “What is the situation like? It’s your turn to guard today. Did you see what was coming?”

Ale’s slightly immature face wore a heavy expression. “I saw messenger eagles fly by not far away.”

“Messenger eagles?”

“Impossible. How could messenger eagles be around at this time? Winter hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Could you have mistakenly seen it?”

“Does this mean the hyena-drakes are coming too?

“……”

At the mention of hyena-drakes, everyone fell into silence. After all, it had not been that long ago that the tribe had suffered from the last hyena-drake invasion. It was also because of those attacks that there were only a few people left in the tribe.

“Ale, are you sure you’re not mistaken?” Ka Luo asked to confirm again, full of disbelief.

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“No mistake.” Ale shook his head and took out a white feather from his pocket, which was wrapped in wisps of light mist. “In order to confirm whether they were messenger eagles, I went out to check and found this feather on the way.”

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

“Why did you bring a messenger eagle’s feather into the tribe?” Ali scolded. “You should know that the messenger eagle’s feather is used to transmit information. If the eagle’s companions look for the feather and discover the tribe, this could attract hyena-drakes, and that is no laughing matter.

Ale awkwardly fidgeted with embarrassment. “I was afraid no one would believe me, so I brought it back to show everyone. I’ll throw it away from the tribe now.” Before Ali could reply, a gust of wind swooshed through as Ale rushed out and turned the corner with a few leaps and bounds, then disappeared.

Ali soothed everyone’s emotions briefly before apologetically telling Chen Qi, “I’m going to go check the situation nearby. You and Ka Luo stay here. Azhang and the others should be about to return as well. Don’t worry.”

Chen Qi nodded, “I’m fine, go ahead and do what you need to.”

“Uncle Ali, don’t worry. I will take good care of Chen Qi.” Ka Luo straightened his back and promised.

Ali smiled and patted him on the head, then turned and left.

Azhang and Ake only got back after the sun had completely set. As soon as Ake came in and saw an intact Ka Luo sitting in the corner, he was finally able to let down the worries in his heart but he still couldn’t help walking over to hug the person tightly in his arms, throwing in a couple pecks across the other’s face.

“I’m fine.” Ka Luo patted Ake on the back lightly, comforting him.

“En.”

That evening, all the people in the tribe spent the night in the ancestral house. It was just then that Chen Qi found out that the current total population of the whole tribe was not more than 30. Among them, the number of young and strong people, including Ali, was only ten, and there was only one young male, Ka Luo.

Worried that the hyena-drakes could be nearby, Azhang arranged for the females to take turns to patrol around the tribe at night. Chen Qi, the combat scum, plus the default identity of a male, naturally was not included for patrol duty. After yesterday’s hard day of work on the house, plus today’s efforts on pulling the stone slabs from the ruins, Chen Qi’s body was entirely exhausted. After eating the simple roast meat given to him, he spread out the animal skins Ake brought over from home onto the ground. He originally wanted to bring up some energy to pay attention to the development of things, but he didn’t expect to fall asleep shortly after sitting down.

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

When he woke up the next day, he found that most of the people in the room had already left. Only Ake and Ka Luo leaned in to each other as they conversed in whispers. Most of the time, it was Ka Luo doing the talking, while Ake just listened attentively and occasionally gave slight grunts in reply. Noticing Chen Qi got up, Ka Luo moved over to him and asked anxiously, “You’re up. Are you feeling unwell?” It had to be said that last night, Chen Qi had just sat down before directly falling asleep, and the sound of him flopping to the ground startled everyone. He even fell deeply asleep and didn’t wake up the whole night, Ka Luo couldn’t fathom how Chen Qi did it.

Fortunately, there was an older female who checked and found that Chen Qi had really just fallen asleep, so Ka Luo was relieved.

“En.” Perhaps because the hide he’d slept on last night was too thin, Chen Qi woke up feeling that every bone in his body was sore and uncomfortable. Then he seemed to think of something and blushed, slightly embarrassed, “Sorry, I didn’t expect to fall asleep that quickly.” And even directly sleeping until day break. Chen Qi silently spurned himself. Fortunately, he didn’t know what he had done last night, otherwise he would have wanted to dig a hole and jump into it.

“It’s fine. You’re just too tired.”

“Were there hyena-drakes?”

“No traces have been found. It is estimated the messenger eagles were just passing by yesterday.” Ake handed Chen Qi a bamboo tube filled with broth and cattail leaf with roast meat. “Have something to eat first. It’s almost noon. You should be hungry.”

“Almost noon?” Chen Qi choked and accepted the food stiffly. Unexpectedly, he’d slept for so long.

The broth in the bamboo tube smelled like mutton, and the roasted meat was still warm. It tasted quite ordinary. Perhaps it used his method of refining salt, but neither the broth nor the roast meat had that unique bitter taste of the salt stone.

“Ake doesn’t need to go hunting today. Let’s sort out all the stone slabs you need for your house, and when my brother comes back, we can move them over.”

Chen Qi looked over at Ake. “Is it because of hyena-drakes?”

Ake nodded. “Today, the hunting team will stay in the tribe to observe the situation. Uncle Azhang has taken some men to a place some distance away from the tribe to scout ahead and they will resume hunting after making sure that there are no problems.”

Chen Qi finished his food in a few bites then stood up. “Then I’ll be troubling you today. Let’s go.”

Today, Ali was going to burn the unfinished pottery they’d made yesterday, so it would just be the three of them for the job of pulling the stone slabs from the ruins. With Ake joining in, the job was undoubtedly much easier. A stone slab that would have required the joint efforts of Ka Luo and Chen Qi was easily moved by Ake alone. In the end, the separation of duties became as such: Ka Luo and Chen Qi would brush and clean the stone slabs, while Ake was responsible for moving and arranging all the stone slabs at the designated area.

By evening time, the three had gathered three large piles of stone slabs, which would be enough to build the outer walls of the house to be two layers thick.

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