Chapter 33: CH 33

Chen Qi looked at the current sky. It was dark. The moon was hidden behind clouds and only the slight outlines of the nearby grass could dimly be seen. “It’s so dark now. Will it be inconvenient for you to return to the tribe later?” Chen Qi was a little worried. After all, they were so late because they were helping Aze and himself.

After tasting Chen Qi’s craftsmanship, although Ali didn’t act as eager as Ka Luo, he was also full of expectations for this pheasant that was buried under the fire. He even got a little closer to the fire to see if he could smell the pheasant. Of course, he couldn’t smell anything except the smoke from the hot charcoal. When he heard Chen Qi’s question, Ali looked up and stated with a puzzled face, “Inconvenient? Why would it be inconvenient? We have three females together.”

“I mean it’s too dark and the road may not be easy to travel on.” Chen Qi explained. After thinking about it, he suggested, “Why don’t I make you some torches?”

“Torch? What is that? Sure, let’s do it!” Ka Luo raised his hand excitedly. He was already a little accustomed to the concept that everything Chen Qi speaks about couldn’t be a bad idea.

Chen Qi went back to the house and brought out a pile of materials that had been stored before. There were about a dozen arm-length wooden sticks and a few pine logs full of resin. These logs were especially excluded from being firewood, since it was too wasteful to throw the resin-filled wood into the fire.

Chen Qi picked up a wooden stick, measured its approximate length, and tied a root string around to mark the desired length. Then, he used his dragon-horn knife to crack a cross shape into the top of the stick and broke off a bit of the pine resin to place into the gap. He asked Aze to help gather several pieces of wood that were the size of a finger. He then tightly inserted them into the gap and added resin in between each layer of wood, repeating this until the gap was filled. Next, Chen Qi wound root strings around the wood-stuffed stick. After about five or six root strings were tied, Chen Qi also poured some chicken oil over the top of the stick, and a simple torch* was completed.

*torch making example link: https://www.americanoutdoor.guide/survival-skills/fire-making/how-to-make-a-survival-tree-resin-torch/

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

Everyone curiously looked at what Chen Qi was doing. Chen Qi set the tip of the finished torch into the fire and lit it. Then, he handed it to Ka Luo, who was beside him. “Here you go.” He needed to see how long this first torch he made would be able to keep burning.

Ka Luo excitedly held the torch and examined it all over. He didn’t expect that by squeezing wood pieces into the wood stick like this, the fire would not burn out as soon as it was taken away from the fire, unlike the usual single sticks of wood.

The brightness of the torch was still acceptable. At least two or three meters around the torch could be seen clearly. Furthermore, with the females’ eyesight, they could already see things with just a little light. Now, they’d be able to be more active outdoors during the night, even on Moonless Days. Ali and Azhang looked at each other. Azhang asked, “Chen Qi, why did you add pine resin to the wooden stick?”

“The resin helps keep the torch burning for a longer time.” Chen Qi had already picked up a second wooden stick and started making a second torch. At a female’s pace, it would take at most seven or eight minutes to reach the tribe. Even if they may slow down at night, it would still only take about ten minutes. Chen Qi planned to make a torch for each of them. Even if each torch could only burn for a few minutes, if they lit them in turn, they would still manage to make it back to the tribe.

Ali picked up a stick and fiddled with it. He looked at Chen Qi, who was busy with the task at hand, and asked, “Chen Qi, can I learn to make them too?”

Chen Qi did not lift his head but replied casually, “Yes, it is very simple. Just follow what I’m doing to make it.”

Ali nodded and mimicked Chen Qi’s action of cracking a cross shape into the top end of the stick. As a result, apart from Ka Luo who had excitedly pulled Ake up to explore the nearby darkness with the lit torch, the others copied Chen Qi’s actions to make torches by the fire.

There were only a dozen sticks in total, and the few of them finished making them in a short time. At that time Ka Luo was just returning with his torch that was about to go out, his face still filled with awe. Before he reached them, he had already started shouting, “Chen Qi, this is very powerful. It’s been burning for such a long time.”

Since there was no equipment available to accurately tell the time, Chen Qi could only make rough estimates. From the moment the torch was lit till it was about to go out seemed to take between half an hour to an hour’s time. Chen Qi was satisfied with this result. With torches that could burn for such a long time, it would be more convenient to go out at night.

Chen Qi saw that it was almost time for the pheasants to be ready. He picked up a piece of firewood and used it to move away the extinguished fire. Aze hurried over to help. The others saw that Chen Qi was finally going to dig out the buried pheasants and gathered around him.

The cattail leaves wrapped over the pheasant had changed color and steam was still emitting from it. Chen Qi used the dragon-horn knife to cut off the root strings tying it up and slowly opened the cattail leaves to reveal the golden-browned pheasant within, releasing a burst of tantalizing fragrance.

Chen Qi sliced off some of the chicken and offered it to everyone on a cattail leaf. “Try it.” After that, he twisted off a piece of chicken directly with his hands and put it in his mouth. The chicken skin was crunchy and crispy, which was unlike the texture of roasted meat. Although it was only seasoned with salt, it was surprisingly delicious. It could be said that this was the best tasting dish Chen Qi had eaten since he came here, except, of course, the roasted sweet potatoes from before.

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

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“Great! It’s delicious.” Very quickly, the pieces of chicken ended up in Ka Luo’s stomach. He looked at Chen Qi eagerly and asked, “Chen Qi, are you going to cut the rest of the chickens like this?” He had the urge to tear off a large piece of chicken with his hands to eat it like eating roast meat.

The others also stared at Chen Qi in unison. Although they already mastered using chopsticks, it was obvious that, compared to eating the chicken piece by piece, holding the meat directly with their hands like when they ate roast meat would be much more natural and straightforward.

The corners of Chen Qi’s mouth twitched. He waved a hand and said, “You can eat it however you like to.”

The few of them cheered and swiftly tore apart the cattail leaves wrapping the other pheasants. Only Aze was as before, slowly slicing off pieces of meat and placing them on a large cattail leaf for Chen Qi, before he started eating it himself.

Although the four pheasants were quite big, the beastmen were very fast and it was not long before they wiped out all the food. They had drunk a lot of chicken blood soup before, so no one could drink the chicken soup in the last pottery dish. Ka Luo had over-eaten and Ake helped to massage his belly. Chen Qi also ate a little too much this time, after eating, he did not want to move at all. So Aze and the other two quietly cleaned up the aftermath.

After tidying up, the four returned to the tribe with the torches. In the dark, the brightness of the torch could spread far and wide. Chen Qi could see the two conspicuous spots of light fading and shrinking as they got further and further away.

The next day, Ake and Azhang came over after hunting and it was almost noon when they arrived. Chen Qi and Aze had already checked the surrounding traps and harvested several hares and pheasants. Chen Qi felt that they were able to rely on these traps to solve their food problems. Aze would not need to go out to hunt and they could still have a surplus.

“What happened to you two?” Chen Qi looked curiously at the obvious scratches on Ake’s and Azhang’s face.

Ali coughed softly and took off his hide backpack, handing it to Chen Qi. “Today there were a lot of birds by the Chishui River, so we caught a bunch of them. Take these feathers first. In the next two days, since there will be many birds crossing the river, we’ll take this opportunity to catch more of them.”

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 opened the backpack, which was filled with colorful feathers that were still slightly wet. Chen Qi reached out his hand and touched them. He could still feel some residual heat from them. It seemed that they had just been plucked off not too long ago. Chen Qi’s face was full of black lines. The two men’s miserable condition was the result of getting scratched by birds when trying to catch them. He even thought it might have been due to certain intense night exercises. Chen Qi felt a little guilty and internally stuck out his tongue at himself.

Today’s main task was to make the planned framework for the roof. The roof was designed with a flat middle and slanted sides. This would use the slender stegosaurus bones. Yesterday, pits were already made in some spots on top of the wall for them. Now, all they needed to do was to stick the stegosaurus bones into the pits and then pour gum fruit-silt mixture into it.

The walls weren’t completely dry and Chen Qi was worried that they wouldn’t be able to support the weight of the roof. So he planned to wait until the walls were completely dry before working on the stone slates to make up the roof.

Next up, the bathroom. By the trench a little ways away from the house, Chen Qi dug a septic tank, and designated one of the rooms in the house for the bathroom. For pipes, he used bamboo. Bamboos here were thick and hard. Chen Qi broke the bamboo in half and cleanly removed any obstacles at the bamboo joints inside the bamboo. He was worried that the bamboo would rot after a while, so he also coated the bamboo, inside and out, with melted gum fruit. After the gum fruit dried up, he buried the bamboo in the trail that was dug for the pipes. He tested it out and determined that the water flowed well. Although it was a bit crude, at least this solved Chen Qi’s winter hygiene concerns.

Chen Qi also built a fire keng* in the living room. He originally planned for the fire keng to be built within the room but he was concerned that that may cause problems if there were too many things piled up in the room. After considering it over and over again, he finally settled on building the fire keng in the living room.

*火坑 Huǒkēng = fire pit. However, based on descriptions in later chapters, this is pictured to be like a heated surface, maybe with a fire pit in it, so the partial pinyin name was left in, since it did not seem to be a typical fire pit. If anyone has a better translation for this, feedback is welcomed.

Additionally, a tunnel was made to connect the fire keng to the cooking stove. Yes, Chen Qi built the cooking stove in the living room. There were only four rooms; one for Chen Qi, one for Aze and one for the bathroom. The remaining room was slated for the ever-growing piles of sundries. There was really no place for the kitchen to be in a separate room. Moreover, the living room was large enough. Although combining the kitchen into the living room made the overall design a little bit different, it was still easy to use.

Because of the limited materials, the material used for the chimney was also bamboo. Smoke from the cooking stove would pass through the tunnel for the fire keng and then be discharged out of the house through the chimney. So there was no fear that the bamboo chimney would be burnt.

After all those were done, the house was almost finished. All that was left was to wait for the walls to completely dry to lay the stone slates for the roof, pave the ground with stone slabs, as well as install the windows.

The next day was a Moonless Day. After the Moonless Day, they would leave for the Lion-Wolf Tribe’s gathering. All the cured dried meat from before were practically ready and could be stored in a pottery jar at this time. As both of them were going to be leaving for a week, Chen Qi was worried about attracting predators if too much meat was placed in the house for such a long time. He planned to have Aze suspend further hunting activities for the time being. It would be fine anyway since the traps would yield enough food for these last two days.

Aze also asked Ake to come over to check on the traps here every day and collect any prey. That would be much better than the two of them returning after a week to find a pile of dead animal carcasses. Not to mention the wastefulness, seeing so much food rotted away would be distressing.

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