Chapter 13
In the corner of the cave, piles of newly woven backpacks of various sizes were stacked, numbering at least fifty or sixty.
Most of them had been made recently, and the tribespeople were still weaving more. When heading to the market, the tribe needed to carry more than just food; they also had to bring extra tools.
With over a hundred catties of meat on their backs, these baskets would typically wear out within a day or two. Weaving replacements on the road was too much trouble, so it was better to prepare enough sturdy ones in advance. Stacked together, these backpacks were even more durable.
Once they finished trading for salt, these backpacks wouldn’t be kept around. Some would be traded along with meat to coastal tribes, while the rest would be exchanged with tribes that didn’t know how to make backpacks, in exchange for animal hides or other resources.
Due to the recent demand for backpacks, the cave was filled with an abundance of vines and bamboo.
The idea of incorporating bamboo into the weaving process had been suggested by Bai Tu. Solely relying on vines was wasteful, and since vines were too soft, backpacks woven from them were prone to deformation.
By splitting bamboo and using it in the weaving, this issue was resolved. More importantly, bamboo grew faster than most trees. In just a few years, a bamboo grove could be cultivated, while an equivalent amount of wood might take decades to grow.
“Cai, I’m taking a few pieces of bamboo,” Bai Tu said. In the tribe, large cave resources were generally managed and distributed by Tu Cai.
Tu Cai waved his hand dismissively. “Go ahead.”
Bai Tu selected a few intact bamboo stalks, along with some that had already been split, and placed them in a backpack. He carried them to the cave where the captured animals were kept.
The bamboo had been cut during breaks by the hunting and foraging teams after returning to the tribe. With their tools being far from sharp, strength was critical. At the very least, Bai Tu himself couldn’t manage to chop down bamboo with a stone knife.
When night fell, the chickens in the cave would settle down and grow quiet. Bai Tu first went to check on the three hens that were sitting on eggs—just yesterday, the hunting team had caught another brooding hen, which he placed with the two that were already nesting.
He planned to make a coop, not only to make feeding easier but also to save space.
Although the cave was large and still seemed relatively empty, if he were to dig a small pond in it, the other animals couldn’t be allowed to roam freely. Water sources could be dangerous, even if the pond wasn’t very deep. Bai Tu didn’t want to create unnecessary hazards.
As for why he intended to raise fish in the cave, it was due to the weather.
Summers here felt like being roasted in an oven, while winters brought heavy snow that sealed off the mountains.
With no natural deep ponds in the area, digging one outdoors would likely result in sun-dried fish in summer and frozen fish in winter. No matter how he looked at it, raising fish in the cave, where temperature fluctuations were milder, was a safer option.
To make space for raising fish, the other animals needed to be organized better. The current state, with all the animals scattered on the ground, was far from ideal.
Although Bai Tu had never built a chicken coop before, he knew the basics of simple assembly. Worst case, he could secure it more firmly later.
After some hammering and knocking around inside the cave, a large chicken coop took shape. It wasn’t big enough to hold a dozen or so chickens, but it could easily house four or five. After making three chicken coops in a row, Bai Tu began dividing up the chickens.
There were more hens than roosters in the cave since the latter didn’t lay eggs and were mostly unnecessary. There were thirteen hens in total. Removing the three that were brooding, he placed the remaining hens into two coops, adding one rooster to each.
As for the three remaining roosters, Bai Tu didn’t care if they ended up fighting. He placed all of them into the last coop. Whether they were eventually eaten or traded for supplies didn’t matter to him.
The piglets were kept in a corner of the cave. Instead of building new pens, Bai Tu first sectioned off the area to serve as a temporary enclosure. After all, pigs would grow to weigh several hundred catties each.
Once they got bigger, they’d also smell bad, making the cave unsuitable for keeping them. To be more precise, Bai Tu felt that pigs simply weren’t suitable for cave-raising.
Raising pigs required frequent cleaning. From what he remembered, pig pens that weren’t regularly cleaned would become filthy.
While it was possible to bring water from the river to clean the cave floor, doing so would be too labor-intensive. The lowest cave in the tribe was still some distance from the foot of the mountain, and carrying buckets of water up and down would be exhausting.
Additionally, it wasn’t realistic to let the pigs roam during the day and herd them back at night.
While the piglets were small and could be carried up and down the mountain for now, this wouldn’t be feasible once they grew larger.
Unlike cattle, which were obedient and could be herded with a nose ring when they matured, pigs weren’t suitable for free-ranging. Bai Tu suspected that if he let his guard down for even a moment, they’d all run off.
The most suitable way to raise pigs was to keep them at the foot of the mountain. Once the rainy season passed, they could build a pigsty down there, Bai Tu thought.
Right now, though, it wasn’t possible. The rainy season would last for more than a month, and without materials like cement, no matter how well a mud structure was built, it would collapse after being soaked by rain for so many days.
After tidying up the cave, there was indeed a lot more free space. Bai Tu carried a bucket of water to the spot where he planned to dig a fish pond.
Looking at the lively, jumping fish in the water, he made some mental calculations. If they caught this many fish every day, he could make fish soup for everyone every few days, cutting back on the frequency of frying fish. The captured fish could be kept alive for the winter, when they could be used for warm, nutritious soup.
*
The Next Morning
Early the next morning, when Bai Tu arrived at the riverbank, several children were already there, digging for worms everywhere.
Summer—especially after months of dry heat—made digging for worms a bit challenging. Fortunately, children had an abundance of time. Digging here with a shovel, poking around there, they actually managed to unearth a decent number of worms.
Bai Tu wasn’t sure when they’d arrived, but judging by the number of worms they had, it was enough for the day.
Despite catching plenty of fish, the fish didn’t actually consume that many worms. Most of the fish ended up trapped in the baskets by chance, unable to escape.
A high fish density in the water had this advantage—it didn’t pose a risk of overfishing. In fact, Bai Tu had brought back two more fish baskets for this very reason. If they didn’t catch the fish now, they’d all escape.
Since the children didn’t yet know how to properly empty the fish baskets, Bai Tu showed them how to do it carefully without damaging the baskets or hurting the fish.
“Ah!” Bai Tu exclaimed with a hint of surprise. There was a pleasant surprise waiting for him—inside the largest fish basket was a pregnant fish with a swollen belly.
“Fish like this need to be kept separately!” Bai Tu told the children. “This fish is about to lay eggs. When the time comes, the eggs will hatch into baby fish.”
Children always had an endless stream of questions, and Bai Tu’s rabbit origins didn’t make them any less curious. In fact, when he explained things that were unfamiliar to them, their thirst for knowledge only grew.
“Is it like hens hatching chicks?”
“How do fish hatch their eggs? Do they sit on them?”
“Should we make a nest for the fish? Like a chicken coop?”
Bai Tu patiently answered their questions and then demonstrated through actions that fish didn’t need nests, but they did need a pond.
Raising fish was important, but even more pressing was the task of making dried meat. Bai Tu didn’t want to bother the already-overworked hunting and gathering teams, nor did he plan to trouble Tu Cai and the other beastfolk responsible for logistics.
Children’s nails were fragile, and even though they had a natural talent for digging, Bai Tu didn’t want to risk letting them dig the pond. Instead, he decided to handle it himself.
He’d never dug a pond before, but he had seen the hunting team dig traps. Not wanting others to realize he wasn’t familiar with his beast form, Bai Tu didn’t call for help. When Bai Dong and a few others took the cattle and piglets out to graze and gather grass, Bai Tu quietly went to the cave.
The first step was to transform into his beast form. He had already asked the children about this—it was a matter of concentrating and focusing on the transformation.
It wasn’t hard. Following their instructions, Bai Tu focused intently on the thought of his beast form.
The very moment he imagined transforming, his vision went dark. At the same time, he felt a weight pressing down on him, heavy and almost unbearable.
His field of vision was pitch black, and a sinking feeling of foreboding rose in his heart. Could he have failed to transform properly?
According to Tu You, every child in the tribe over the age of three could transform without fail. Confident in his own ability, Bai Tu had never even bothered to ask what happened if someone failed.
Could he really be worse than a three-year-old child? Bai Tu couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.
Still, he quickly calmed himself. After all, he had experienced plenty already—he’d even survived transmigrating into this world. What could possibly be worse than that?
First, while the weight on him was considerable, there were no other unusual sensations. It was something he could bear, at least for now.
Second, this was the cave for raising animals. The children were all outside, busy tending to the pigs and cattle, and wouldn’t return until noon. That meant no one would see him like this, which was good—at least he wouldn’t lose face.
Finally, while people had mentioned that children under three might fail to transform, they didn’t seem particularly concerned when they talked about it. This suggested that failing to transform wasn’t inherently dangerous.
Understanding this, Bai Tu felt a wave of relief. Just then, he felt the heavy object on top of him shift slightly.
Startled, he tentatively moved his arms and legs, reaching up to touch his face.
Furry.
Huh?
Bai Tu, who had been somewhat worried, slowly began to relax. He had likely succeeded in transforming.
As for the heavy object on top of him… Bai Tu suddenly recalled the scene the first time he’d taught the tribe how to dig traps.
The hunters had all transformed into their beast forms on the spot, leaving their animal hides scattered everywhere. At the time, the tribe chief Bai An, as if anticipating the situation, had collected the discarded hides and piled them to the side.
If his transformation hadn’t failed, then the heavy object on top of him must be… animal hide?
Still, why did everyone else’s hides end up at their feet after transforming, but his ended up covering his head, making him think something had gone wrong?
Having figured it out, Bai Tu patted the object covering him. Sure enough, it felt like animal hide. The unknown was always the most terrifying. Once he understood what it was, his fear instantly vanished without a trace.
Why hadn’t he noticed before how large this hide was? It took a lot of effort for Bai Tu to wiggle out from under it.
But when his vision cleared, Bai Tu froze, realizing a new problem—one even more serious than before.
When Bai An had found him, the animal hide he’d been wearing was so tattered it could barely serve as a rag.
Recently, the tribe had given him a new one, sewn by Tu Cai and the others using large bone needles to punch holes and strips of hide to tie it together. The benefit of this design was that it was easy to make. The downside? It hung loosely and was constantly on the verge of falling off.
After receiving it, Bai Tu had modified the hide, adding a few wooden buttons to secure one end.
The buttons were about the size of fingernails.
However, now, his furry paw was smaller than the buttons.
So… just how small had his transformed body become?
Thanks for the chapter 🙂