Chapter 223
Today, Bai Tu realized there were many things he had never paid attention to before.
For example, just now—Lang Qi was definitely doing it on purpose.
Thinking back, similar situations had happened before, but he simply hadn’t noticed at the time.
Watching Lang Qi eat the greens with a cold expression, Bai Tu couldn’t help but remember Lang Qi’s cub form.
It wasn’t just Lang Qi—both little wolf cubs also disliked eating greens. Among all the food, they would always want to shut their mouths tight the moment they saw vegetables, only reluctantly eating them when they saw Bai Tu getting upset.
Now that Bai Tu thought about it, he often noticed Lang Qi looking relieved whenever he was feeding the cubs lately—as if he was secretly glad that it was them eating the greens and not him.
Lang Qi struggled to finish the greens and looked up, only to see Bai Tu deep in thought. Following his gaze, he noticed the vegetables on the table. Since Bai Tu and Hei Xiao liked greens, about a third of the dishes were vegetables, while the rest were meat. The two brothers had similar appetites, meaning that at least half of the greens would be eaten between them—leaving the rest to be finished by Lang Qi and Hei Yan.
Without drawing attention to himself, Lang Qi subtly pulled the less bitter greens toward himself. However, just as he moved the dish, Bai Tu stopped him.
“Just eat a little,” Bai Tu said.
Beastmen generally disliked greens and preferred meat, but they still needed vitamins. In summer, they could get those from fruit, but in winter, when fruit was scarce, they had to eat more vegetables. However, since Lang Qi and the cubs didn’t like the taste, Bai Tu didn’t want to make him eat too much at once—otherwise, how would he get him to eat them in the future?
Lang Qi didn’t realize that Bai Tu had long-term plans for making him eat greens. Hearing that he didn’t have to eat more, he subtly sighed in relief.
Hei Yan, seeing his reaction, immediately mocked him. “Are you really that scared of a little bit of vegetables—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Bai Tu suddenly turned to him and asked Hei Xiao, “Brother, don’t eagle tribes also dislike eating greens?”
Hearing this, Hei Xiao unceremoniously dumped the rest of the vegetables into Hei Yan’s bowl. “Hurry up and eat. These are all yours.”
Hei Yan: “???”
Lang Qi glanced at Hei Yan, who had brought disaster upon himself by gloating, and quickly swept up the remaining meat dishes before anything else could happen.
That night, Hei Yan was still confused. How did this happen? Lang Qi was the one who didn’t want to eat greens—so how did he end up eating all of them?
—
Lang Qi and the cubs disliking greens wasn’t unusual in the tribe. Most beastmen weren’t fond of them.
Bai Tu started thinking about growing more vegetables that Lang Qi and the cubs might actually accept after the snow season ended. He also considered whether he could cultivate the current greens to improve their taste.
With winter ending and spring arriving, the weather was warming up, and Bai Tu suddenly had a lot more tasks to handle than in winter. Growing vegetables was just one of them—an even bigger concern was improving their living conditions.
The first thing he built after successfully making bricks was a proper stove. The stove they had used during the winter had been made of packed earth and stones, but since the stones were irregularly shaped, it wasn’t well-sealed. As a result, cooking always produced a lot of smoke. With uniform bricks, things were much better.
Of course, this wasn’t the only improvement being made in the tribe. Everything they had planned throughout the winter now needed to be put into action in spring.
Another major task was livestock farming. Hunting was too unpredictable, while raising animals was a much more stable option. The tribe had already started raising a few cattle and many deer-like creatures over the winter, so there weren’t too many obstacles. The real challenge, however, was capturing young animals to raise.
Adult wild animals were too large, consumed a lot of food, and didn’t grow as efficiently—it just wasn’t worth it. So, they had to focus on capturing young animals before they fully matured. Not only that, but they had to capture a lot of them.
Since the rabbit tribe had a small population and limited hunting grounds, catching young animals was a difficult task. However, with two allied tribes helping them, the situation was completely different.
After the winter season ended, the Wolf Clan learned that their leader had become the mate of a member of the Rabbit Clan. Fearing that Lang Qi would remain in the Snow Rabbit Tribe, they immediately captured and sent over some young prey animals upon hearing that the Snow Rabbit Tribe needed them.
The Eagle Clan, which was supposed to leave after the snow season, saw that the Wolf Clan was sending young prey animals to the Snow Rabbit Tribe for their leader. They felt that their own leader couldn’t be outdone. Instead of returning to their tribe, they decided to stay and help capture prey as well. With the help of two clans, Bai Tu initially thought that capturing young prey animals would be the most time-consuming task in the breeding process. However, by the time other preparations weren’t even complete, dozens of young animals had already been captured.
Bai Tu was shocked by the speed of the Wolf Clan and Eagle Clan. After learning the reason for their quick success, he was at a loss for words.
In order not to waste everyone’s efforts, Bai Tu expanded the original breeding building and asked Bai An for more people to help prepare food for the animals, especially focusing on the young cubs in the tribe. Growing vegetables and breeding now became top priorities, and there was much more work to do in the tribe than before.
As the leader of the Wolf Clan, even if Lang Qi didn’t want to leave, he still had to return to his tribe after the snow season ended.
However, Lang Qi solved this issue on the third day after the snow season ended. He told the other wolves to wait around the territory, and he would return to the Snow Rabbit Tribe after finishing capturing prey. The remaining wolves would return to their own tribe.
The Wolf Clan was helpless about their leader taking a mate from another tribe, but they couldn’t bring themselves to oppose him. After all, what if the leader decided to go to another tribe anyway?
Hei Yan envied Lang Qi for being able to stay in the Snow Rabbit Tribe. However, there was nothing he could do about it. Their tribe was too far away, and even if the Eagle Clan agreed, Hei Xiao would never consent.
The travel time was too long. While Hei Yan envied Lang Qi, he also kept pushing Hei Xiao, trying to stay longer in the tribe.
But his nagging had no effect. Hei Xiao was far more decisive than Hei Yan, and without hesitation, he refused his request.
Hei Xiao only gave him two choices: either stay in the Snow Rabbit Tribe for both the snow and rainy seasons or never come back.
Hei Xiao kept his word. The only option was the first one, which meant staying for about one-third of the year, combining the snow and rainy seasons. Hei Yan agreed on the surface, but in reality, he was already thinking of an excuse for the next time he could visit.
Two or three months without seeing his mate? That was absolutely impossible.
While thinking of a plan, Hei Yan hadn’t yet found a suitable reason.
Not long after, before the Eagle Clan had even left, Hei Yan noticed something: Bai Tu was very interested in some new items.
It all started when some members of the Wolf Clan came to see Lang Qi and brought with them something none of them had seen before. Bai Tu immediately began to inquire where they had gotten it and if there were any more available.
According to Bai Tu, the item was called sunflower seeds, which could be eaten and used to make oil.
The others didn’t understand exactly what Bai Tu meant by “making oil,” but they had seen Bai Tu use oil before. They couldn’t remember any other characteristics of the sunflower seeds, but they did recall that they could make delicious food.
However, the final answer was somewhat disappointing. It turned out the seeds weren’t gathered locally; they were from a trade at the market last year. They hadn’t been eaten at the time, and most of them had bugs in them by now. Nonetheless, the beastmen weren’t picky about this. They simply picked out the good ones and ate them, discarding the bad ones. They weren’t able to learn where the sunflower seeds came from, leaving Bai Tu disappointed.
Not wanting to see Bai Tu upset, Hei Xiao told Hei Yan that if they had time, they could fly out and check for sunflower seeds—just in case they could find more. He also said that if they encountered anything unfamiliar, they could bring it back, as Bai Tu would like it.
Hei Yan immediately caught on to something important: Bai Tu liked to find things that weren’t common in the area, and Hei Xiao was always willing to fulfill his brother’s wishes. If Bai Tu was happy, it meant Hei Xiao would be happy too, and Hei Xiao would be pleased just to see him come over—he wouldn’t mind if it was during the non-rainy seasons. This could be a perfect opportunity to visit Hei Xiao!
Realizing this, Hei Yan felt energized. The items around each tribe were different, and he could find things that were rare in the Snow Rabbit Tribe and Blood Wolf Tribe areas. He could use items from the Black Hawk Tribe to bring to the Snow Rabbit Tribe and also bring back things he could collect on the way. Whenever he wanted to see Hei Xiao, he could just go—picking up some stones, wood, or flowers on the way to bring as gifts!
So, in the following period, everyone saw Hei Yan return with various stones and food that were uncommon in the area. They didn’t have much use, but at least they were rare. Even the most slow-witted beastmen could see that Hei Yan was trying to find ways to increase his chances of meeting Hei Xiao by using these items as an excuse.
Helpless, Hei Xiao was just about to tell Hei Yan not to use the opportunity of delivering items as an excuse to visit frequently, when Bai Tu suddenly discovered something useful.
Iron ore!
