Chapter 8
Early in the morning, Bai Qi came over excitedly, eager to see how well the trap would work, only to find Bai Tu brushing his teeth.
Twenty years of modern habits weren’t something Bai Tu could simply abandon. Moreover, while the Rabbit Clan’s teeth grew continuously, they didn’t grow as fast as a real rabbit’s. If a tooth was damaged, it could take years to fully regrow, so maintaining dental health was extremely important. On the day Bai Tu had woken up in this world, he’d immediately looked for something to use for brushing his teeth.
At first, he’d used willow twigs dipped in ash from burned plants, but now he’d upgraded his method. He used willow twigs coated with a homemade peppermint herbal paste. Adding salt would improve the effectiveness, but salt was an extremely precious resource in the tribe, so much so that even using it to clean wounds was considered a luxury. Using it for brushing teeth was out of the question.
To make his herbal toothpaste, Bai Tu ground together several anti-inflammatory and heat-clearing medicinal plants. It was entirely herbal and, while not as precise in composition as modern toothpaste, it worked well for cleaning and even had a pleasant medicinal scent.
The herbal smell caught Bai Qi’s attention. In his mind, the scent of medicine was associated with injuries. His face immediately paled. “Tu, did you hurt your mouth?!” An injury to the mouth was a big deal—it could affect eating, which was essential for survival.
“No,” Bai Tu said, holding up the willow twig. “I’m brushing my teeth. If you don’t clean your teeth, you’ll get cavities, and your teeth will rot.”
Hearing the words “rotten teeth,” Bai Qi instinctively touched his own face.
“Do you want to try?” Bai Tu asked.
Bai Qi nodded eagerly.
Bai Tu handed him a fresh willow twig and separated about a third of his homemade toothpaste to give to Bai Qi. “Brush once in the morning and once before bed. Rinse your mouth after eating.” Ideally, one should brush after every meal, but beastmen usually ate a quick midday meal while out, so conditions didn’t allow for it.
*
After the hunting team finished breakfast, they all carried the grass mats woven the day before to the trap site.
The trap was untouched, just as they had left it, meaning no animals had passed through during the night.
Bai Tu evaluated the work ahead and gave instructions: “Half of you lay down the grass mats, while the other half go drive the prey toward us.”
The lack of activity around the trap meant that the prey was likely farther away and needed to be driven toward it. Most of the other work had already been completed yesterday, so today they only needed to lay down the mats, which wouldn’t take much time.
Bai Qi volunteered enthusiastically. “I’ll drive the cattle!”
With his fast running speed, Bai Qi was the natural choice for this job. However, it was too much for one person alone, so Bai An selected ten or so other quick-footed young beastmen to assist him.
“Don’t drive the entire herd here. Try to separate six or seven from the group,” Bai Tu advised. The trap was large, but so were the wild cattle. Driving too many could damage the trap, and it would also pose a significant danger to the hunting team. A smaller group of prey would be easier to handle, and with fewer animals, their defensive behavior wouldn’t be as strong, making them easier to manage even if there was a confrontation.
Bai An nodded and reminded them, “Just drive the prey over—don’t engage with them. With fewer people in the driving group, fighting them could easily backfire.”
“We’ll be careful,” Tu Xun promised, leading Bai Qi and the others to search for prey. Everyone was eager to see how effective the trap would be.
The remaining beastmen followed Bai Tu’s instructions, carefully laying the grass mats over the branches and vines that covered the pit. Once that was done, they began digging up nearby weeds to scatter over the mats.
Meanwhile, Bai Tu sorted through the plants they dug up, picking out the edible ones before tossing the rest onto the trap as camouflage.
With so many people working together, the trap was soon disguised to look like a patch of grass. While it didn’t blend perfectly with the surroundings, a fast-moving prey animal wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
The sound of hoofbeats came from a distance. Bai An immediately led everyone to retreat to a safe position.
The noise grew louder and louder until Bai Qi appeared, sprinting ahead of a small herd of wild cattle. Behind the herd, several beastmen chased with pointed sticks, steering the animals in the right direction. Bai An waved his stick from afar, signaling the location of the trap to the drivers.
When Bai Qi reached the trap, he quickly veered to the side, running along the edge before darting to the group’s hiding spot.
The lead wild cow couldn’t stop in time and tumbled headfirst into the pit. The cows behind it skidded to a halt, looking bewildered.
The dense trees and the vines tied up the day before obstructed their vision. Unable to see their pursuers and now missing a member of their group, the herd grew anxious. They paced uneasily in place, occasionally letting out distressed cries as they listened to the panicked bellows of their trapped companion.
A large wild bull approached the trap, drawn by the cries of the trapped animal. It circled the edge of the pit, clearly agitated. However, the walls of the three-meter-deep pit were too steep, with no footholds to climb in or out. Even the powerful bull could only pace helplessly around the trap. Amid the commotion, a calf wandered too close to the edge while searching for its mother and tumbled into the pit.
Bai Qi stood up, intending to drive away the wild bull outside the trap, but Bai Tu held him back. “Wait a bit longer,” he said. Based on years of watching wildlife documentaries, Bai Tu knew that the remaining bulls wouldn’t linger around for too long.
Sure enough, after the other beastmen had quietly returned to their hiding places, the remaining wild bulls eventually gave up waiting and wandered off to rejoin the larger herd.
The hidden beastmen breathed a collective sigh of relief and cautiously approached the trap. They peeled back the grass mats covering it to assess their catch.
“Two bulls!” Bai Qi exclaimed in shock. Catching one bull in half a month was already considered a great success, but now they had caught two in one go. Even though one of them was just a calf, the two together would still provide enough meat to feed the tribe for several days.
The larger bull was an adult male, restless and furious inside the trap, charging and ramming into the walls. One of its horns was smeared with blood, indicating it had likely been in a fight recently. In stark contrast, the calf was a miniature version of the adult, trembling in the corner and calling out anxiously for its companions. Occasionally, it had to dodge the larger bull’s reckless movements.
As the hunters prepared to deal with the trapped animals, Bai Tu quickly spoke up. “Leave the calf alive. Let’s take it back and raise it.” A calf had very little meat compared to the adult, and the larger bull would be more than enough to feed the tribe.
Following Bai Tu’s suggestion, Bai An led the group to use their sticks to separate the calf from the adult bull.
When it came to processing prey, the hunting team was far more experienced than Bai Tu. They quickly gathered large rocks and used them to kill the adult bull. Meanwhile, the others kept the calf restrained with sticks to ensure it didn’t escape.
Bai Tu handed a thick braided vine to Bai Qi. “Use this to tie up the calf.” Even a small calf weighed over a hundred pounds, and when it struggled, it still had considerable strength. Only a thick vine would be sturdy enough to hold it.
The three-meter-deep trap wasn’t an obstacle for the beastmen. While a few stayed above to keep watch, most of them jumped into the pit. Bai Qi and two other beastmen approached the calf cautiously. Before it could put up much of a fight, they managed to grab and securely tie it up.
The beastmen outside the trap used vines to pull the struggling calf out. Bai Tu, in the meantime, gathered some fresh wild grass and held it in his hand, offering it to the calf. With his other hand, he gently stroked the calf’s head and ears.
“Moo~” The calf, which had been thrashing and crying nonstop, gradually calmed down and began to eat the grass.
The hunters still in the trap covered the wounds on the adult bull with soil to mask the scent of blood, which could attract predators. They then started digging near the bull and wrapped vines around its body. Once they had created a sloped path, everyone worked together to haul the massive bull out of the trap.
The nearly one-ton bull was heavy, but none of the beastmen complained of exhaustion. After all, this was a catch that would provide meat for several days!
With the bull successfully dragged out, Bai Tu didn’t rush to leave. Instead, he pointed to the newly dug slope. “Level this area out and lay down the grass mats again.” That way, if any careless prey wandered by on its own, they wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of luring it like they had today.
The others quickly caught on and split into groups—some dug, while others laid down the mats. Once the trap had been fully restored to its original camouflaged state, the group finally gathered their spoils and began the journey back to the tribe, their hearts filled with satisfaction.
Only now did Bai Tu truly appreciate the physical strength of beastmen. Watching over a dozen of them carry the massive wild bull, he calculated that each person was hauling over a hundred pounds, yet they handled it effortlessly, even switching between two groups to take turns carrying it.
Bai Tu held the calf by a vine leash. It must have been separated from its mother shortly after birth, as it was much thinner and weaker than an average calf. But now, walking obediently by Bai Tu’s side, it was incredibly docile.
“Tu, can we really raise a cow?” Bai Qi asked, his eyes sparkling as he stared at the calf. The tribe usually only managed to raise small animals like chickens, field mice, and rabbits. Slightly larger animals, like sheep, were rarely caught alive. As for wild cattle, they had practically never managed to catch one alive.
Wild cattle were highly aggressive and dangerous. Even when surrounded, they could fight back and injure their attackers. The hunters typically targeted old bulls or isolated calves, avoiding healthy adult bulls altogether. Today’s capture of a strong adult bull was a first for the tribe. While the calf was much smaller, it was still nearly as heavy as an average person. What’s more, it was alive—meaning it could fetch even more salt than a dead cow!
Tribes that had salt often preferred living animals because they were fresh. For tribes farther away, transporting hunted prey often resulted in spoilage by the time it arrived, but living animals eliminated that risk. This meant more salt could be bartered for a live animal.
“We’ll raise it,” Bai Tu confirmed. “If we catch more calves in the future, we can raise them too.”
What Bai Tu didn’t say was that he was particularly interested in raising female cows. Female cows were generally more docile, unlike bulls, which were far stronger and much harder to tame. Raising a bull would be significantly more challenging, so it wasn’t a priority.
Another advantage of raising female cows was the potential to milk them. Bai Tu thought of the white, fluffy rabbit cubs in the tribe—some of them looked a bit underfed. The ones who spent more time playing outside were slightly healthier, but none of them were truly plump.
When they returned to the tribe, the sun was still high in the sky. The sound of the hunting team’s return stirred unease among those who had stayed behind.
The last two times the hunting team had returned early, it had been bad news. This time, seeing them come back so soon again, everyone worried: Had someone been injured again?
But when they finally saw today’s catch—
“The hunting team caught wild cattle!”
Someone shouted loudly, and soon there was a stampede of footsteps. Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed down the mountain to see for themselves.
“It really is wild cattle! Look at the size of that one—I’ve never seen such a massive bull!”
“What’s that Bai Tu is holding?”
“It’s a calf! There’s a smaller one too!”
“A live cow! We can trade it for salt next time!”
The tribe members who had stayed behind were utterly shocked. They had never seen anything like this. To be honest, even if it rained tomorrow, these two cattle would provide enough food to last the tribe half a month! For the Rabbit Clan, who struggled with hunting, simply surviving the rainy and snowy seasons was considered a victory.
Bai An explained the situation to the excited tribespeople. “Tu taught us how to make traps. These two cattle were caught using the trap.”
“Does that mean we’ll always use traps to hunt from now on?”
“Will we catch two cattle every day?”
Bai An remained calm and shook his head. “This time we were lucky to come across a herd of cattle. Next time, we’ll still have to find prey first.”
Bai Tu nodded in agreement. This was the main limitation of trap hunting: traps were stationary. That’s why they had chosen a location close to where the prey frequented. But prey constantly moved. Just because they passed by the trap today didn’t mean they would tomorrow. If the prey was too far away, luring them would become much more difficult, as they wouldn’t necessarily follow the intended path.
Even so, the tribe remained overjoyed. For a hunting team of fewer than thirty people to catch two wild cattle in a single day was an unprecedented achievement.
The children of the tribe, who were not yet old enough to hunt, gathered around the calf. According to tradition, the calf would be their responsibility to feed and care for.
“Moo~” The newly captured calf was uncomfortable with the crowd. It shuffled nervously, restricted by its bindings, and let out pitiful cries.
Bai Tu stepped in to calm the overly enthusiastic children, leading the calf to the cave where the tribe kept their live animals.
“Moo~” The calf nuzzled against Bai Tu, seeking comfort.
Thanks for the chapter 🙂