Chapter 15 – I Want To Live
The black panther tribe’s fixed collection site is in a small forest. Luo Zhen estimated the time in his heart. At their speed, it would take about two to three hours to reach the forest. If it was replaced with Lu Zhan running with him on his back. The speed would be faster.
The forest area is not large, and for the safety of the people in the tribe, Hei Shan will arrange warriors to patrol here every once in a while, so there are no large carnivorous beasts living in the forest, but even in this forest, it is not safe, the ferocious beasts on the Southern Foot Plain will always dangle around here from time to time.
As soon as Luo Zhen and his party arrived at the edge of the forest, a few beastman warriors turned into giant black panthers and began to guard on the nearby high ground.
“Daddy, can I go find a cuckoo bird?” Probably because there are few opportunities to leave the tribe, A-Shui has an excited look on his face. As soon as he entered the forest, he can’t wait to find what he liked.
Jiao Zhu grabbed his wrist and said, “I heard that someone recently saw traces of beast activity nearby, and your cuckoo would have run away. I will take you to find it after the collection is complete.”
“Okay.” Although a little disappointed because he couldn’t find what he wanted first, A-Shui nodded obediently.
They didn’t stay outside for a long time. If they found a beast, they would end the trip early. So when Jiao Zhu said so, A-Shui knew that there was a more than half chance that he would not be able to find a cuckoo bird.
After all, the wild fruits in the forest are cultivated naturally, and it is impossible to gather them all in the same place. Luo Zhen found that the most collected ones were the fruits that looked like green pears that he had eaten before.
The trunk of the green pear tree grows very high, but the branches are slender and long, which is very unsuitable for adults to climb. In order not to affect the growth of wild fruits in the future, the tribe also forbids the branches of the whole green fruit tree to be broken off.
Therefore, to collect those green pears, only small children with light weight can be sent up, and a group of adults stand together under the tree and then the green pears are picked by the children, and to prevent the children from falling from the tree, they help each other by catching it.
But green pear trees are not everywhere. It is possible that they will not find one after walking a large area. However, there are many red berries the size of soybeans in the forest. This kind of berry is sour and sweet. They leave those children to the care of the beastman warriors who came with them, and ordinary people like Luo Zhen and the others are mainly responsible for gathering these small berries.
Then Luo Zhen saw a group of children rushing to a tree more than ten meters high like monkeys. He looked under the tree for a while and was sure that he might not be able to reach the lowest green pear even with a wooden stick. He could only regret it. He gave up his plan to collect green pears.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“This kind of berry is still a bit astringent to eat now, but as long as it is left for a few days, it will become sweeter and sweeter.” Hei Ya explained how to eat these fruits while picking them.
Luo Zhen looked at the berries. The berry trees grew together with some vines and weeds. The bright red fruits were buried in the leaves. It would be invisible if the leaves were not looked through. There were not many fruits on a branch and after observing it, there were no more than ten grains. He reached out and touched it. The skin of the fruit was a bit rough, and it felt more like a rough patch.
He picked one and put it in his mouth. As Hei Ya said, it had a bitter taste, but it was acceptable to Luo Zhen, but it was a bit like eating raw bitter gourd.
Hei Ya gave all the berries on this berry tree to Luo Zhen, and Luo Zhen was naturally embarrassed to accept them all so half of them were given to the other party after picking them.
At this time, Luo Zhen felt how inconvenient the primitive society’s tools were as they were too crude. What they used to hold things was just a piece of animal skin, it could not hold too many, not to mention, small fruits like berries are easy to fall out of if one doesn’t pay attention.
Finding food in the forest is a very fulfilling thing. Luo Zhen discovered for the first time that there are so many fruitful trees hidden in such a small piece of grass.
Under Hei Ya’s careful guidance, he quickly learned how to find edible wild fruits in the grass. Although Luo Zhen didn’t know most of the wild fruits, there was one kind of wild fruit he had seen, hawthorns.
This kind of wild fruit can be used to make wine. Luo Zhen once saw someone give a bottle of homemade hawthorn wine to his grandfather. Unfortunately, seeing the finished product does not mean that Luo Zhen knows how to make it by himself, but since he saw something familiar, Luo Zhen was still very happy, so he picked a lot and stuffed it into the whole piece of animal skin. Then he pulled a tough vine as a rope to solidify the animal skin so that he won’t have to worry about the fruits falling out.
The beastmen still don’t know how to tie up animal skin openings with ropes, but they are very clever. Seeing Luo Zhen doing it this way, they learned a lot, and found that it is much more convenient than directly using their hands to hold the animal skins, and the efficiency of picking improved by a lot.
Quietly in the forest, apart from the sound of the wind blowing the blades of grass, even the birds and insects seem to have stopped singing because of the presence of people.
Luo Zhen wiped the sweat on his forehead. The weather was too hot to wear clothes made of animal skins. The skin that was not covered by the clothes had long been marked with red marks by the weeds. Luo Zhen’s skin is whiter than the average person, and it is more obvious, which looked a bit horrible at first glance.
“Luo Zhen, are you going to find a cuckoo bird with me?” There was no accident in today’s collection. Everyone has picked enough things that the tribe needs. As soon as A-Shui finishes, he can have time to find what he wants. The cuckoo’s eggs, the first time they climbed down the tree, he dragged Jiao Zhu over to find his father and Luo Zhen.
“Cuckoo bird?” Luo Zhen put the wrapped animal skins on his feet, and looked up at the big and small ones that came by. Hei Ya had already greeted him and took the big bag in Jiao Zhu’s arms first. These were the things that were picked up by them.
“Well, the bird eggs I gave you in the morning are cuckoo eggs.” After climbing up and down the tree for a long time, A-Shui’s small face was red all over, but his eyes were very bright. .
Luo Zhen’s eyes lit up. In this place of very few food sources, bird eggs are a good thing. He naturally wants to have more, and now there is a seriously injured Lu Zhan in the family who needs a little nutrition.
The place where the cuckoo birds live is a bit away from the place where they picked. Hei Ya and Jiao Zhu are holding a stick on the left and right and slapping the surrounding vegetation to prevent snakes from escaping from it suddenly. Two beastman warriors are standing on a high rock not far away and looking here, there is no need to worry about danger.
The cuckoo bird does not live on a tree, but builds a nest in the grass near a water source. As soon as Luo Zhen and the others arrived, they saw a fist-sized gray-brown feather that looked a bit like a quail-like bird. It screamed a few times, fluttered its wings, and rushed into the grass beside it.
However, the cuckoo did not escape after rushing into the grass. Instead, it buried its head under its wings, most of its body was blocked by the weeds, and only half of its feathers was exposed.
Luo Zhen: “…”
“Ah, we were found by the cuckoo bird.” A-Shui muttered a little frustratedly. The cuckoo bird has little courage. If it sees beastmen around, they will abandon their habitat and find another place. When he went looking for a nest, A-Shui had found several cuckoo nests before, but now all those cuckoo birds have flown away, and there is only one pair left nearby.
“Is this the cuckoo bird?” Luo Zhen looked at the shivering little thing hiding in the grass, thinking in his heart that if this kind of bird could really lay eggs, it seemed good to catch it and raise it.
“Yeah.” A-Shui nodded, and took Luo Zhen’s hand to move forward, “Their bird’s nest is in front, let’s go take all the bird eggs inside.”
Luo Zhen didn’t move, and pointed at the cuckoo bird with his finger, “Aren’t you catching this bird?”
“Cuckoo birds are not tasty. They have a lot of hair and no meat.” A-Shui looked disgusted. It is not winter, and those with warriors in the family do not lack food. Only those who can’t find food would catch cuckoos to eat, and there is not much meat on the cuckoos, almost all of them are bones. Even if one eats a few, they may not be able to fill their stomachs. If one wants to eat cuckoos, they might as well venture to the forest to catch other foods.
“Do you want a cuckoo bird?” Hei Ya on one side looked at Luo Zhen’s expression and guessed.
Luo Zhen nodded quickly, but still asked, “Can I catch it?”
“Of course.”
Hei Ya just finished talking but Jiao Zhu has already stepped forward and grabbed the cuckoo bird. The cuckoo felt threatened, flapping its wings and yelling while trying to peck at Jiao Zhu’s hand. Seeing this, he wanted to break the cuckoo’s neck directly.
“Don’t kill it, I want it to live.” Luo Zhen hurriedly stopped, Jiao Zhu stopped when he heard these words.
“What do you want it to live for? This kind of bird is too noisy.” Jiao Zhu was puzzled. Although cuckoo birds are timid, their voices are not small at all, and they can even achieve the effect of magic sound penetrating their ears. With little effort, a few people felt even a little headache when hearing such a bird.
Luo Zhen took the cuckoo over and tied the two claws of the cuckoo firmly with vines, but this did not stop the cuckoo from making a sound. He could only look at the three people in front of him embarrassedly, “Say, if I use animal skins to cover its mouth, will it be suffocated?”
Jiao Zhu: “…”
Hei Ya: “…”
A-Shui looked at the cuckoo bird’s tied paws, and asked strangely, “Why don’t you tie its mouth?”
Luo Zhen: “…”
Keeping it real A-Shui 😂
I think there was a typo around,
Hei Ya took great care of Lu Zhan, who had not yet formed a bond with Lu Zhan.
I think Hei Ya meant Luo Zhen? Luo Zhen hasn’t formed a bond with Lu Zhan yet.
🤣 kid knows best