Building a Civilization and Raising Cubs in the Beast World – CH97

Chapter 97

There was no way they would run out of food—the tribe’s supplies were more abundant than ever.

Even without considering the livestock in the two tribes’ ranches, just the meat stored in the caves was enough to last everyone until mid-winter. On top of that, they still had corn, wheat, and other grains.

The sweet potatoes purchased from the marketplace had been set aside by Bai Tu for spring planting. As for wheat, since they had acquired a large quantity, only a portion was reserved as spring wheat seeds, while the rest was available for consumption.

The second batch of corn had been harvested before the first freeze. Any further delay would have caused it to freeze and spoil. 

The plants in this region were surprisingly resilient, and while this batch wasn’t as fully matured as the first round, the kernels had formed well enough. 

Bai Tu had most of it frozen for storage, leaving a portion for roasting—recently, they had been roasting about a hundred ears per meal.

Of course, roasted corn didn’t have the same taste as roasted meat, but after years of eating mostly meat, everyone had come to enjoy an occasional change in flavor.

Besides corn and wheat, the tribe had also stockpiled a variety of fruits, most of which had been preserved as dried fruit.

Initially, Bai Tu had planned to sell dried fruit at the marketplace, but this year, they had an abundance of fresh fruit—especially melons, which weren’t suitable for long-term storage. Fruits like apples, mangoes, strawberries, and loquats had all been harvested in surplus.

When they tried to sell fresh fruit at the marketplace, they realized that even the travel rations beastmen carried on the journey were worth more than fresh fruit. However, dried fruit had a longer shelf life, took up less space, and was easier to transport.

Unexpectedly, beastmen loved dried fruit.

As the weather grew colder, people became less interested in fresh fruit—since the air was already freezing, eating something cold wasn’t exactly appealing. Dried fruit, however, was different, especially the ones soaked in honey, which tasted even better than fresh fruit.

Since dried fruit was so popular, and their food supplies were more than sufficient to trade for salt, animal hides, and other essential materials, they had decided not to bring dried fruit to the marketplace this time. Instead, they set a fixed exchange rate so that anyone in the tribe could trade for it whenever they wanted.

Dried fruit was extremely durable—in the cold, dry environment of the mountain caves, it could last at least a year.

And at the rate people were eating it? It wouldn’t even last until the end of winter.

Fortunately, spring fruits would start ripening soon, so there would be a fresh supply by then.

Compared to previous years, the quality of life had skyrocketed—not just for the Snow Rabbit Tribe, but also for the Wolf Tribe, which had stored more food than ever before.

This was a cause for celebration—with an abundance of food, even Lang Qi’s condition no longer seemed as worrisome.

During winter, traveling was far more difficult than in other seasons, and no beastman tribe would launch an attack unless they were on the brink of starvation.

As long as they had enough food, the tribe was safe.

And even if someone did try to invade? They could fight back.

With so many warriors, their combat strength was already high. Not to mention, when food was plentiful, even the young wolves were eager to sharpen their claws.

In this environment, even though there was more work to do this winter than in previous years, everyone was in good spirits.

In the past, beastmen avoided unnecessary movement during winter because food was scarce, and conserving energy was a survival strategy.

But now? Everyone was well-fed, and no one complained about having more work to do.

*

After finishing the sickle blueprint, Bai Tu handed it over to Bai Hui, along with some instructions.

“The blade needs to be thin and sharp enough,” he explained. “The production difficulty is about the same as iron knives.”

After training for so long, Bai Hui was now proficient in forging all kinds of iron tools. After listening to Bai Tu’s explanation, he quickly understood the design and asked a few technical questions before promising to deliver a finished prototype within two days.

By now, everyone was familiar with this process—whenever Bai Tu designed something new, Bai Hui wouldn’t immediately begin mass production.

Instead, he would forge one or two prototypes first and bring them to Bai Tu for evaluation.

Only after confirming that the final product met expectations would they proceed with mass production—this way, they avoided wasting materials on flawed designs.

Bai Tu completely trusted Bai Hui in this regard.

Once everything was settled, he leisurely made his way to the dining hall, Lang Qi following closely behind.

In the afternoon, apart from a few beastmen who had slept in and come down for a late meal, the place was almost empty. Bai Tu’s timing was unfortunate—there was no food left from lunch.

“What do you want to eat? I’ll make it for you,” Tu Mu said. 

He usually paid attention to the meal schedule for others, but if Bai Tu was hungry, he would get up and cook for him even in the middle of the night.

“I’ll take a look at what’s available,” Bai Tu replied. 

He couldn’t think of anything in particular that he wanted to eat. After all, the tribe had a limited variety of food, and no matter how skilled the cooks were, eating the same dishes over and over again got tiring.

In the back kitchen, the cooks were preparing ingredients for dinner. Bai Tu originally wanted to go in and take a look, but the moment he opened the door, the strong scent of raw meat and blood rushed at him. He instinctively frowned.

He wasn’t sure if it was because his physical condition had improved recently, but his sense of smell seemed sharper than before. He had never liked the smell of blood, and now, it was even worse—it didn’t just make him uncomfortable, it made him slightly nauseous.

Pausing at the doorway, Bai Tu decided not to go in. 

He closed the door, walked outside, and took a few deep breaths. 

It wasn’t until the lingering scent dissipated from his nose that he started to feel better. As he turned around, he noticed a half-filled basket of wheat nearby. Suddenly, he had a craving for jianbing guozi (savory Chinese pancakes with crispy fried dough inside). It was a common street food in the modern world, but ever since coming here, he hadn’t had the chance to eat it.

Some cravings just couldn’t be ignored—the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it. Pointing at the half basket of wheat, Bai Tu said to Lang Qi, “Grind some flour.”

Making jianbing guozi with whole wheat grains wouldn’t work. The first step was to grind the wheat into flour. Before, their wheat supply had been too limited—every whole grain was reserved for planting, and only the excess was used for food, so they never had the chance to make flour.

But this time, they had exchanged for dozens of baskets of wheat at the market. A small portion was enough for seeds, and the rest was stored in the kitchen.

Tu Mu was skilled at cooking meat and had learned to prepare some vegetables as well. 

Bai Tu had previously introduced a few ways to cook corn, and with his own experimentation, Tu Mu had managed to come up with more variations. But when it came to wheat, he was at a bit of a loss.

Currently, there were only two ways they ate wheat: one was boiling it into porridge, just like corn kernels, and the other was grinding it once and then cooking it into a gruel-like dish that didn’t need chewing.

They had considered roasting it like corn, but while under-ripe corn tasted great when roasted, fully matured and dried wheat grains just burned too easily, and the taste wasn’t pleasant.

Without a good way to cook it, and with the growing population putting more strain on the kitchen, the remaining wheat had simply been left in storage.

Grinding flour was no small task. Bai Tu didn’t want to trouble Tu Mu, who was already busy enough, so he had Lang Qi do it instead.

Lang Qi had no objections to whatever task he was given—so long as Bai Tu was nearby, he would do anything without complaint. If Bai Tu was watching, even mining coal wouldn’t be a problem for him.

The kitchen already had a stone mill, originally used for grinding cornmeal. 

They had ground wheat before, but to turn wheat into proper flour, a single pass through the mill wasn’t enough. It had to be repeatedly ground until the flour was fully separated from the husk, and then sifted to remove all the wheat bran.

The sifted wheat bran could be kept as animal feed, so nothing would go to waste. 

Bai Tu mixed the wheat flour with water to make a batter. Since he didn’t have a specialized griddle for jianbing guozi, he used a flat-bottomed pan instead.

Batter, eggs, chopped scallions… aside from the lack of fried dough sticks, he had everything he needed. In the end, he stuffed some roasted meat inside, and Bai Tu was quite satisfied with the result.

With an egg cooked onto one side, the pancake had two distinct textures—one side was crispy and fragrant, while the other was soft and savory. If he had some fried dough sticks to add, it would have been even better.

Since everything was handmade, the taste couldn’t quite compare to the ones sold at street stalls. But in this environment, achieving 80% authenticity was already good enough for Bai Tu.

There was still plenty of flour left, and enough batter to make a few more. Bai Tu decided to cook all of it. 

He ate three in one go, Lang Qi had one, and he set aside one each for Bai An, Bai Chen, Tu Bing, Lang Ze, and the others. Meanwhile, Tu Mu ate two in a row and, without hesitation, decided that making jianbing guozi should become a regular thing.

Rubbing his hands together, Tu Mu turned to Bai Tu and said, “Tu, the kitchen is short on staff.”

Originally, the number of workers in the kitchen had been sufficient. Even if someone came looking for food in the afternoon or late at night, they could still spare a hand to cook something. 

But with so many new arrivals from the Vulture Tribe, even though only a third of them had stayed behind in the settlement, the workload had increased significantly.

Now, as soon as they finished cleaning up after lunch, they had to start preparing dinner, leaving almost no downtime in between. 

At first, Tu Mu thought he could manage, but after a few days, he realized it was too much—they definitely needed more help.

He could have reported the issue to anyone in charge, but talking to Bai Tu was the fastest way to get things done. If he brought it up today, by tomorrow, the problem would be solved.

Bai Tu also realized that he had overlooked the kitchen when assigning tasks. At the time, he had spent a lot of effort organizing related jobs, but many areas within the settlement still needed adjustments.

Recently, his free time had been spent dealing with these logistical issues. 

Positions related to food and ironworking had to be filled by members of their own tribe for security reasons. Bai Tu nodded and said, “I’ll go through the roster and assign a few more people to you.”

To make job assignments and future adjustments more efficient, he had categorized the beastmen based on their skills. If the kitchen needed more workers, he would first look for those with some cooking experience—this way, they could get up to speed more quickly.

The reason Bai Tu’s efficiency was higher wasn’t that others weren’t doing their job well, but because Bai An and the others would always consult him before finalizing personnel changes. If Bai Tu handled it directly, that extra step wasn’t necessary.

Hearing Bai Tu’s response, Tu Mu knew the matter was settled. Glancing at the pile of wheat beside him and thinking about the delicious jianbing guozi he had just eaten, he said excitedly, “I’ll grind all of this into flour!”

Tu Mu had no idea how Bai Tu came up with so many ways to prepare food, but it was clear that today’s jianbing guozi was far superior to the wheat porridge they had been eating before.

Having so much wheat just sitting there was a waste of space. 

He decided to turn all of it into pancakes. Let’s see who would dare say he only knew how to make porridge! 

Beastmen weren’t particularly fond of bland food. First, they had corn porridge, and now they had wheat porridge—which, aside from the size of the grains, tasted almost identical. 

People had complained about it more than once, and Tu Mu had finally gotten so fed up that he removed wheat porridge from the menu altogether.

Bai Tu had no objections to his decision—after all, the kitchen was Tu Mu’s domain. However, he did offer a word of caution: “Don’t turn all of it into jianbing guozi at once.”

There was a lot of wheat, but if they used it all for pancakes, it wouldn’t last long. Plus, eating the same thing too often would get tiresome. Flour could be used for many other dishes.

For instance, with enough flour, they could start making steamed buns, dumplings, and stuffed buns.

Recalling the freshly steamed, fragrant white buns, the hot and juicy meat buns, and the variety of flavorful dumplings… Bai Tu suddenly felt like he could eat more.

He looked at the jianbing guozi he had just finished and was slightly alarmed. 

Even though the tribe’s flat-bottomed pans were smaller than the specialized griddles used by street vendors, meaning the pancakes were a bit smaller, eating three was still quite a lot. Especially since they were made with extra-large eggs. 

Normally, a meal like this would have kept him full for an entire day—but now, he still had room for more.

Just as he was debating whether or not to eat anything else, the aroma of freshly braised meat drifted over. Grinding the flour and making the pancakes had taken up most of the afternoon, and dinner was nearly ready.

His appetite had been growing over the past few days. With just a glance, Lang Qi could tell what Bai Tu was thinking. Without waiting for Bai Tu to say a word, he went over and grabbed a portion of food for him.

Seeing the steaming hot braised meat in front of him, Bai Tu abandoned his hesitation. After eating so much today, a little more wouldn’t hurt.