Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – CH26

Chapter 26

Bao Duo, being an adult beastman, quickly adjusted his emotions despite the discomfort in his heart. 

After all, his father’s death was already in the past, and it was now up to him to ensure the future of the tribe. The Leopard Clan had already lost its elders; the remaining beastmen had to survive. Bao Duo resolved that perhaps he could accomplish this.

He didn’t give himself much time to dwell on sadness—his tribe members were still waiting for him to bring salt back. 

Last year, the tribe had stored little food and, as a result, traded for very little salt. Recently, many tribe members had been eating food without any salt, and some had already started experiencing discomfort. 

With this in mind, Bao Duo shook himself out of his low spirits and began asking about the details of planting corn, his demeanor much more focused than before.

Noticing Bao Duo’s seriousness, Bai Tu shared every tip and precaution he could recall. He also thought about how the Leopard Clan seemed to be struggling with food shortages and asked, “Do you still have any ‘divine grain’ left in your tribe?”

“There’s half a basket left,” Bao Duo replied, gritting his teeth. “The healer took half of the tribe’s divine grain last year and only gave it back to us before we traded for salt.” The grain wasn’t as tasty as meat, so the healer had little interest in keeping it for himself.

Bai Tu nodded. Half a basket would be enough. Since there were only a few of them working on this, and they also had to keep it hidden from the healer while participating in hunts, they wouldn’t be able to plant too much in their first attempt anyway.

“Tu,” Bao Duo hesitated for a long time before finally voicing a question that had been weighing on him since the winter. “Is the sudden decrease in prey really a punishment from the Beast God?”

“What?” Bai Tu frowned. “Did your tribe’s healer say that?”

Bao Duo hesitated again. Only after seeing Bai Tu’s disapproval of this idea did he continue, “Yes, the healer said it was because we didn’t offer enough food to the Beast God, and that’s why there’s not enough prey…”

“That’s f**king nonsense!” Even someone as patient as Bai Tu couldn’t help but curse. “Is it only your tribe that lacks food, or are all the tribes experiencing the same thing?”

Bao Duo shook his head. “All the tribes don’t have enough. Even the tribes that are on the best terms with the healer are struggling.”

“If more offerings could solve the problem, then why is every tribe suffering the same way? The root cause isn’t the healer, and it’s certainly not the Beast God—it’s the number of people in the tribes!”

Hearing this, all three Leopard Clan members let out a collective sigh of relief, even Bao Fei, who was usually the most timid.

Bai Tu then explained the issue he had been pondering earlier: “You have too many tribes packed into one area, and each tribe has a large population. Every time you hunt, you catch too many animals. This reduces the number of prey, which leads to fewer offspring being born. The next year, there’s even less food. But the demand from the tribes remains high, so naturally, there isn’t enough prey.”

The Leopard Clan might not have as many people as the Blood Wolf Clan, but their population still numbered seventy to eighty individuals. And this wasn’t even counting the tribes that were more closely aligned with the healer. 

That many tribes gathered in one place, with a healer exploiting them behind the scenes—it would have been strange if there was enough food to go around.

The area around the Snow Rabbit Clan’s territory, for example, was far larger, with dense vegetation and abundant wildlife. Besides the resident animals, herds of migrating animals would occasionally pass through. Yet even they had to worry about food shortages. For a tribe like the Leopard Clan, struggling with food scarcity was entirely predictable.

“You have too many tribes crammed into one place,” Bai Tu continued. “You’ll either need to start farming and raising animals yourselves, or you’ll need to find a way to move to another area. Otherwise, your population will keep shrinking year after year.”

If enough people starved to death, the animals in the area would eventually have the chance to recover, and the ecosystem would slowly return to balance. 

But that was a cruel and brutal outcome. There were only two ways to change this cycle: shift from hunting and gathering to farming and animal domestication, or relocate to a less crowded area.

Bai Tu hoped they could combine both approaches—move to a new location and start farming and raising animals. 

If they simply moved without changing their way of life, it wouldn’t take long before the same situation repeated itself. As long as the beastmen relied on their powerful hunting skills and tenacious survival instincts, food shortages would remain inevitable.

Of course, it was easier said than done. 

Farming alone was a challenge. Even if the healer’s actions were unjust, as long as the healer still had supporters in the tribe, Bao Duo wouldn’t be able to act freely. Moreover, there were other tribes nearby that posed a threat. For now, they could only quietly experiment and wait for the right moment to propose it openly.

As for relocating, the two main obstacles were persuading the tribe members and finding a new territory with abundant resources and no hostility toward new arrivals. 

Convincing the tribe to leave would be difficult—beastmen were reluctant to abandon the land they had lived on for decades. Finding a suitable new territory would be even harder. 

Every tribe wanted their territory to be larger and richer in resources. Moving near another tribe’s territory would almost certainly lead to conflicts as soon as they arrived.

Bai Tu sighed softly. All he could do was provide a direction—how things were carried out would be up to Bao Duo: “When you go back, try testing the waters. Ask your tribe members if anyone is willing to relocate, but phrase it subtly. Whatever happens, avoid conflict with the tribes that support the healer for now.” 

At this moment, the healer still had too many supporters, and the Leopard Clan wasn’t the only tribe in the area. Provoking a powerful adversary before they were ready was far from a wise decision.

Bao Duo nodded heavily, taking Bai Tu’s advice to heart. He planned to discuss it with the tribe members he trusted when he returned. 

If no one was willing to leave the tribe, they could secretly plant the divine grain. Once it matured, they could quietly expose the healer’s lies and inform the other tribes. 

If others still refused to act, they would take their food and move elsewhere. The most difficult part of relocating was securing enough food, but if they had enough supplies, they could slowly search for a safe place to settle. After all, no place could be more dangerous than their current home.

At that moment, Lang Qi, who had been silently listening to their conversation, suddenly spoke up. “To the south of the Blood Wolf Clan, there’s an unoccupied area without any tribes. If you can’t find anywhere else to go, you could settle there. But there’s very little prey in that region.”

The wolf territory included a vast area—so large, in fact, that it was bigger than the combined territories of several other tribes. 

However, the land had a fatal flaw: a severe scarcity of prey. For beastmen, a place with little game was almost uninhabitable. After all, they couldn’t afford to spend two days hunting a single animal and then several more days transporting it back to the tribe—it wouldn’t even be enough to sustain them for the journey.

Because of the lack of prey, the area had remained unclaimed by any tribe, and the surrounding tribes avoided it as well. Lang Qi hadn’t intended to bring this up, but Bai Tu’s words had stirred a sense of urgency in him.

Food abundance, a growing population, and a subsequent decline in resources—the situation Bai Tu described sounded exactly like the Blood Wolf Clan. T

he only difference was that the Blood Wolf Clan’s hunting range was much larger, so they hadn’t yet reached the point of widespread hunger. But just because it wasn’t happening now didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen in the future. 

Rather than waiting until food shortages forced their hand, it was better to observe how other tribes solved this issue. The Leopard Clan, clearly struggling, would make an excellent case study.

No one else knew Lang Qi’s true motives. Bao Duo, hearing that there was a place they could go, was filled with gratitude. With this option, he no longer needed to worry about having nowhere to go after leaving the tribe. Even a territory with little game was better than their current predicament.

Bao Duo stayed until late into the night. After listening to their conversation all evening, Bai Qi was still in shock. “Tu, the healer in their tribe is horrible!” 

Bai Qi had always thought healers were sacred and benevolent figures. What Bao Duo had shared completely shattered his perception. To forcibly take half the tribe’s food stores, knowing they were already struggling—how could a healer do something so heartless?

“Yes,” Bai Tu sighed. “I hope this is just an isolated case. Otherwise, I fear many beastmen are living under cruel and oppressive circumstances.”

Lang Qi, in a tone that was half self-mocking and half sarcastic, muttered, “How could it be?”

Bai Tu thought of the healer whose leg Lang Qi had broken. He paused for a moment. For someone to anger Lang Qi to the point of physical retaliation, it was unlikely to have been just a simple case of bullying.

Lang Qi noticed Bai Tu’s gaze and asked directly, “Do you want to hear the story?”

Bai Tu hesitated briefly but ultimately nodded. Bai Qi had told him many things about the wolves, but there was very little about their healer—especially the events that had led to his expulsion from the clan.

Lang Qi’s expression darkened as he began. “That year, my father and I were ambushed by a group of wolves who had betrayed the clan. My father was killed, and I was severely injured. The healer who was staying with our tribe told my elder brother that he would save me—on one condition: he demanded two ten-year-old girls in exchange.”

Bai Tu froze.

Lang Qi’s voice was calm, but it carried a chilling undertone. “The healers of the Wujiu line believe that the blood of children grants them the power of the Beast God. Wu Jiulun, in particular, preferred young girls. He didn’t just take their blood; he would also…” Lang Qi paused, unable to say the rest.

But Bai Tu understood. He had initially thought the healer’s demands were for creating medicine or some form of cruel experimentation, but he hadn’t expected that.

“I overheard the conversation,” Lang Qi continued. “I woke up and attacked him. Later, he escaped in the chaos.”

Lang Qi’s words were concise, but Bai Tu could already picture what had transpired. Lang Qi, already severely injured, had mustered the strength to break the healer’s leg before collapsing into unconsciousness once more.

In the aftermath, the wolf clan would have been thrown into turmoil—losing their wolf king, having the prince gravely injured, the healer revealing his true nature, and the attacking wolf traitors adding to the chaos. The sheer scale of the disorder was easy to imagine.

No wonder the wolf clan harbored such deep resentment toward healers. It even made sense now why Hu Bu had tried to use that hatred to incite the wolves to attack him.

Bai Tu knelt by the three circles he had drawn on the ground earlier and added a new one next to them. A question continued to gnaw at him: What exactly was the identity of the original owner of this body, or what had he done to make Hu Bu so determined to kill him? Yes, kill him. 

Bai Tu had already picked up on this—starting from the wound on his head when Tu Bing found him, to Lang Ze’s cryptic words that day. Everything pointed to Hu Bu harboring extreme malice toward him, wishing to see him dead.

Unfortunately, after waking up in this body, Bai Tu had no memory of its previous experiences. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t figure it out. 

Some people’s thought processes were simply incomprehensible—take the healers of Wu Jiu’s lineage that Lang Qi had mentioned, for example. 

Whether or not the Beast God actually existed was debatable, but what possible connection could the so-called power of the Beast God have with the blood of children? A bunch of lunatics—every single one of them deserved to die.

However, Bai Tu hadn’t expected that healers could even be divided into factions. He frowned and asked, “Is it only Wu Jiu’s lineage that does this?”

Lang Qi replied, “Most of the healers in this region are either Wu Jiu’s disciples or the disciples of his disciples. When other healers come here, they’re usually driven away by them. Very few are allowed to stay.”

Bai Tu’s expression grew thoughtful. Bai Qi had once mentioned that Hu Bu, after leaving the Red Fox Tribe, had spent several years learning medicine from a healer. It was likely that the healer Hu Bu had apprenticed under was part of Wu Jiu’s lineage.

In a sudden flash of realization, Bai Tu remembered something.

Noticing Bai Tu’s sudden stillness, Lang Qi asked with concern, “Are you scared?” Was he frightened by everything that had just been said? Lang Qi regretted bringing it up, worried he might have frightened him too much.

“No,” Bai Tu shook his head. He wasn’t so timid as to be frightened by something like this. What had just come to mind, however, was so shocking that it had stunned him for a moment.

Taking a few deep breaths to steady himself, Bai Tu asked, “How do the healers collect blood? What’s the method?”

Lang Qi’s expression darkened. “They cut open the cubs’ arms with a knife.”

Bai Tu took a step forward, his palms turning upward to reveal his hands under the firelight. There, faint and nearly invisible, were several small scars.