Chapter 27: Be My Real Partner?
“Lu Zhan and I are all right.” The wind hit Luo Zhen’s face with cold rain, making him unable to open their eyes. He needed to half-squint to see the man standing in front of him.
He remembered that this person was called Hei Huo. On the first day when Luo Zhen came to the Black Panther tribe, he saw the other party fighting another beastman warrior for a fertility fruit.
Hei Huo looked into the tent and saw that Lu Zhan was curled up and lying on the slate bed. He couldn’t help but frown and he even had some dissatisfaction shown on his face. As a half-beastman, he didn’t help in patrolling the tribe at this time. Not to mention, wasn’t it a shame that his body was weaker than his partner’s who is an ordinary person?
Won’t such a person be a drag for the tribe? Another thing is that since he couldn’t take care of his partner then it was better to have no partner from the beginning.
“Has his injury not healed yet?”
Luo Zhen shook his head, “It was almost healed before, but after it rained in the past two days, he said that the wound started to hurt again and he could only continue lying in bed to recuperate.”
“Okay.” He also heard that wounds hurt more when it rained, so he had some understanding of this from previous wounded warriors.
“Recently, the rain in the tribe isn’t flowing out, and the water on the other side of the Heihe River is constantly rising. You must be ready to evacuate at any time.”
“Evacuate where?”
Thinking that Luo Zhen was a foreigner who had just arrived in the tribe, Hei Huo wiped the rain off his face, moved away from the door of the tent a little bit, pointed to the back of the tent, and said, “You should go straight ahead here where there is a relatively high land after a half-day journey. The fierce beasts in that area have not yet migrated back so we can escape from the rain there.”
Luo Zhen stood in the rain and tried to look in the direction pointed out by the other party. The rain was a bit heavy and the surrounding view was heavily blocked by a curtain of rain. No matter how wide his eyes were, he couldn’t see where the high platform of land was.
“Someone will inform you when you need to evacuate.” Hei Huo paused and thoughtfully suggested, “Your tent is too far away from the tribe. After this rain is over, you should go back to the tribe center and rebuild a tent there.”
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.
A half-beastman who was injured in bed had little self-protection ability, and an ordinary person who could not be transformed into a beast had even less, it was fortunate that they dared to live so far away from other people’s tents but had yet to be attacked.
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“Well, thank you, we will consider it.”
Hei Huo nodded, turned, and turned into a giant black panther. With a flick of his tail, he rushed into the rain and soon disappeared.
After only chatting at the door for a while, the animal skins on his body were soaked by the rain, and Luo Zhen shivered. After returning to the tent, he first changed into a dry animal skin and put the wet animal on the brazier next to the fire to dry it.
Seeing Hei Huo leave, Lu Zhan got up from the bed, picked up the animal skins and the newly fixed animal skins next to him, and continued to make holes in the edges of the animal skins.
Luo Zhen glanced at the other side indifferently and sighed. This person was like a modern actor when in front of his fellow tribesmen.
A few pieces of animal skins on the top of the tent were blown off last night, and Luo Zhen planned to sew all those animal skins together to make it stronger. Lu Zhan had seen Luo Zhen demonstrate and found that these animal skins sewn together with animal skin strips took a lot of effort to tear off, so he took the initiative to take the job.
“Have you ever evacuated because of rain before?” The vegetable field just planted at the door has been almost destroyed by wind and rain and the dead branches and leaves have been blown over to their area the past two days. Luo Zhen had no choice but to feel distressed, those wild rapeseeds were too small to be recycled. If he wanted to replant after the rain stops, he’d need to find new wild rapeseeds.
Lu Zhan turned his head and thought for a while, “We have had to do it two times, but the rain did not last long. After only three or four days, the rain stopped and the water subsided.”
Luo Zhen looked at the ground of the tent. If they hadn’t laid some stones on the ground in advance, the tent would be very wet now, and even the fire could only use a stone pot as a brazier.
“Before the rain stops, the hunting team should come over every day.”
Lu Zhan handed the animal skin with some holes to Luo Zhen. Luo Zhen took it and used the animal skin rope to tightly connect the two animal skins. “I haven’t seen Luka coming over these two days.” Although Luka gave them some of his prey because he was apologizing for Lu Zhan’s injury, Luo Zhen himself was a little bit sorry for taking the prey without paying any price.
“It’s better for him not to come, you’d better contact him less.” Lu Zhan glanced at Luo Zhen meaningfully.
Luo Zhen raised his head questioningly, “What do you mean?”
Lu Zhan grinned, showing a neat row of white teeth, “My injury is just an excuse for him to keep him. If he continues to hunt for us in the future, you can accept it all, you don’t have to be polite with him.”
Luo Zhen took a deep look at the man in front of him. Sometimes he felt that Lu Zhan was smart at perceiving people’s hearts, and sometimes he felt that he was thinking too much. It seemed that everyone wanted to harm him. What was the term again? Persecutory delusion? Anyway, it is not as simple as the primitive people in Luo Zhen’s imagination.
Luo Zhen shook his head and threw off the thoughts that had just flashed away. No matter whether Lu Zhan thinks too much, he can only trust the other party now. At least this actor who likes to be weak in front of the tribe is the best in this tribe. Familiar people are also the ones who can best protect themselves in times of danger.
The hunting team member who came to inspect the next day was replaced by someone familiar to Luo Zhen, Jiao Zhu. Lu Zhan didn’t hide much in front of Jiao Zhu. Although he was still sickly sitting on the slate bed wrapped in thick animal skins, he looked good in spirit.
Jiao Zhu didn’t stay too long, but he brought news that made Luo Zhen a little bit surprised. Luka was going to marry Da Wu’s daughter.
“The daughter of Da Wu? Is it A-Xue?” Luo Zhen only knew the girl A-Xue and his first thought was her. It was just that A-Xue’s personality was a bit careless, and she was at the age in the Black Panther tribe where girls are already mothers, how can she and Luka be partners with each other?
Jiao Zhu drank the bone soup in the wooden bowl in one breath, and his body, which had been a little chilled by the rain, instantly warmed up. He had already noticed that the utensils Luo Zhen used for bone soup were no longer those that were a bit dry and ugly. The husk was gone, and he was curious about this extremely smooth polished wooden bowl. Only after hearing this statement did he withdraw his attention, “Da Wu’s daughter is not just A-Xue.”
“It’s A-Chun.” Lu Zhan interjected, “She was born in spring, and she was born on the day when the flowers bloomed. Da Wu said that A-Chun was favored by the beast gods. How could he agree to let A-Chun and a warrior become partners?” Even the strongest warrior in the tribe at the time wanted to be with A-Chun but was rejected by Da Wu.
Jiao Zhu shook his head. He didn’t know the specifics. His tent was in the same area as Lu Zhan’s meaning it was far away from the tribe. Even if he was a member of the tribe’s hunting team, he would get news a little slower than others. Hei Lei who now lives with Luka casually told him about Luka’s marriage with A-Chun.
Recalling what Lu Zhan said yesterday, Luo Zhen looked back at each other, just to see Lu Zhan’s eyes flash with a gloomy and unclear thought as if thinking if this matter would be of any impact to them.
“This rain has been going on for too long. I guess there is no sign of stopping for a while. Some people have already begun to evacuate. The leader has also begun to arrange for people to investigate the situation on the road from the tribe to the evacuation area. Be prepared.”
This was the second time that the hunting team had informed that they might evacuate. Luo Zhen nodded and served another bowl of bone soup to Jiao Zhu. After drinking, Jiao Zhu hurriedly left.
Since they were evacuating, Luo Zhen could promptly guess that either the Heihe river was flooding, or the rainwater couldn’t be drained out and had been accumulating in the tribe. The result is the same, this place will be flooded.
He looked around in the tent. Except for some dried meat and wild fruits, most of the free space was stacked with dry wood. The two cuckoo birds are probably used to the two humans Luo Zhen and Lu Zhan so they have been comfortably sleeping in the bird nests that Luo Zhen built for them with animal skins. Except when eating, they usually didn’t bother to open their eyes when they heard the movements of the two people talking.
Next to the slate bed are piles of newly made wooden bowls, plates, and other utensils, as well as some leftover animal skin ropes and bone knives and needles made a few days ago.
If they had to evacuate, Luo Zhen was reluctant to throw all these things away.
“What are you doing? The tent has been reinforced.” Lu Zhan asked in confusion when he saw Luo Zhen take out animal skins to make something.
“I’m going to make a backpack. When we evacuate, we can just put things inside and carry them on our backs. It’s much more convenient than holding them with animal skins. At least it won’t happen spill because of carelessness.”
“Backpack? Packing things on our backs.” Lu Zhan crawled to Luo Zhen and looked at the movements made by Luo Zhen’s hands. Luo Zhen used charcoal to paint on the animal skins, and it took a long time before he was satisfied enough with the plan, he used bone needles to make holes in the skins.
Lu Zhan remained silent, only watching quietly, and occasionally rubbing his hands together. He didn’t understand what Luo Zhen meant by making this animal skin into a backpack until a rudimentary animal skin backpack first appeared.
He carried the animal skin backpack on his body and tried to feel it. He also threw a few stones in. It didn’t spill out at all. He didn’t need to hold it with his hands which was a bit troublesome. Even if he encountered a beast attack, his hands would be free to deal with it.
Lu Zhan tapped Luo Zhen’s temple with his hand, and said with a smile, “How come you have so many thoughts? Can you be my real partner?”
Luo Zhen glanced at him and replied angrily, “If you treat me as a brother, you can learn these things as well.”
Lu Zhan was stunned and immediately laughed a few times before reaching out and rubbing the messy black hair on Luo Zhen’s head.
Hehe, watch your words Lu Zhan!
I thought it’s a real proposal 🤭