Yuan Zhan threw that person to the A’wu clan’s place.
Yan Mo’s feet that was about to head out retreated. This boy was still clear-headed, he didn’t let lust control his head. He took the woman back, but it’s fine as long as he didn’t take her here.
He didn’t know where that woman was from, maybe she was like him, transmigrated from another world, or a big tribe in this world that has certain level of technology and civilisation already. No matter which it was, if he could, he didn’t want to come in contact with them for the time being.
Leaving her at the A’wu clan is good too, he can observe what that person does in response to A’wu clan.
“When you saw her, what condition was she in?” Yan Mo sat back where he sat before, and didn’t care if the coat he had on would get dirty touching the ground.
“Fainted, collapsed beside the big lake. I thought it was some sort of beast when I saw her with that fur on, then I got closer and found that it was a woman.”
“What else does she have on her beside this fur coat?”
Yuan Zhan didn’t even need to think, “Clothes like the linen clothes you talked about, she got a big palm-sized transparent stone on her neck and a red stone hanging between her eyebrows. Those little red stones were also on her ears. Those stones looked pretty good. I was going to take them for you, but when I touched the transparent stone on her, some sort of power came out from her and shot my hand away. When I try getting close again, I can’t touch her anymore, like there’s something preventing me.”
Yan Mo’s brows knitted. “Like some kind of ability?”
Yuan Zhan nodded, dangerous glint showed in his eyes. “I wanted to give that woman to Meng to be his slave, but that woman had awakened god’s ability. That fur’s tanning is better than ours, and those stones and linen clothes… must have come from a big tribe, or maybe even the three cities. She’s just going to be threat if let alive. I wanted to kill her but can’t get close, so I can only bring her back.”
Things that can’t be controlled or understood are either elevated as god or killed off, really follows the natural instincts of primitive mankind.
“Did she have shoes on her feet, like those I drew for you before?” Yan Mo found Yuan Zhan had omitted this.
A weird expression appeared on Yuan Zhan’s face. “She doesn’t need shoes.”
“En?”
“Her feet are very big. The toes are far apart, and the skin is thick. The colour is bluish, looked like some beast’s claws.”
Hearing these descriptions, Yan Mo subconsciously thought of apeman’s foot. “Is it hairy?”
Yuan Zhan tried hard to remember, “Didn’t look closely, if there are, not a lot.”
Yan Mo patted his own head, what did he think, ah!
Though he was very curious about the woman, Yan Mo had too much to do and didn’t plan to see her for the time being.
Yan Mo wasn’t worried that woman would run away, cruel savage Yuan Zhan couldn’t touch that woman, so he took her to A’wu clan and directly made a deep pit, threw her in there and made A’wu people watch her.
Yan Mo silently lit up a candle for that woman. If that woman had just honestly let Yuan Zhan take down her stuff and bring them back to him, maybe Yuan Zhan would’ve just thought she was just a normal woman from a big tribe and thrown her to Er Meng to be his slave. But it just so happens that the woman has a defence mechanism when unconscious, making Yuan Zhan rise her status from a slave to an enemy he needs to watch out for.
Yuan Zhan couldn’t let down his worry about the woman and went to A’wu clan again the next day. Er Meng heard that a woman was brought back and also followed him.
That evening, Yan Mo heard that that woman had woken up, and the words she spoke were their language.
The woman was very good at judging her situation, she didn’t cry or shout when she woke up. She found that the A’wu people who stretched out their necks and looked at her in a circle from above the pit didn’t understand her, and kept waiting until Yuan Zhan and Meng arrived.
“She said that she came from a tribe called Dorphi. She and some of her people escaped because their tribe fought with a strong tribe, but a strong wind that rotates came while they were running. She and her people were scattered by the strong wind, and it’s that rotating wind that brought her here.” Yuan Zhan told his Priest-daren when he returned.
“Then what does she want to do now?” Yan Mo asked.
“She said that as long as we can release her, she’s willing to be wed to the tribe’s chief, and will teach us some of their tribe’s god inheritance so we can live better lives.” Yuan Zhan finished recounting and immediately asked, “What is wed?”
“It means that she wants to be your wife, it’s like Dahe and Hetu. But a wedding ceremony is still needed to give her this identity.” This was a smart woman, Yan Mo thinks. And she is confident of herself.
“She wants to be my wife?” Yuan Zhan sneered. “I don’t like her feet, let Er Meng have her.”
So you throw what you don’t like at Er Meng? Yan Mo wasn’t even in the mood to disdain him, he patted his knee and seriously said, “Can’t give her to Er Meng, also can’t give her to A’wu clan leader.”
“You want her?” Yuan Zhan’s heart suddenly felt uncomfortable. “That woman’s feet are really ugly, the hair on her legs are even longer than yours, there’s weird smell on her body, she’s also taller than you and her butt’s bigger than yours. Your thing is so small too, definitely can’t satisfy her.”
Yan Mo’s lips twitched, “I didn’t say I wanted her!” And how is my thing small? I’m just fourteen, still in the middle of growing okay?
“Oh, okay then, if there’s better one later I’ll send her to you.” Yuan Zhan’s mood turned light at once hearing the boy had no intention to take that woman, he even generously promised something without thinking much.
“You don’t want her, I don’t want her, then why can’t we give her to Er Meng?” It’s just a woman. He already made sure that aside from the self defence ability that can’t be seen, that woman didn’t have other offensive ability.
“You want a female priest to be around Er Meng or the A’wu clan leader?”
Yuan Zhan underestimated women and hadn’t even thought of this, but with Yan Mo’s reminder, he realised the problem. His face changed in an instant and he stood up. “I’ll go kill her.”
“Wait!” Though it’s important to guard against any possibility, the guide was watching, they definitely couldn’t kill so openly.
“That woman can still be used alive. First see what other things she can do, I don’t have to tell you the how to squeeze those things out of her, right?”
Then, Yan Mo temporarily threw that woman to the back of his mind. He didn’t control what methods Yuan Zhan used to torture her and squeeze all her remaining value out, either.
It was only the next day that Yuan Zhan told him he had gotten her out of the A’wu clan’s place, but he didn’t say where he put her now or how she was treated.
Everyone were busy with their own matters. A’wu people made a spindle following Yan Mo’s drawing. After many days of hard work, they figured out what to do and succeeded in spinning flaxen threads that could be called sturdy and evenly distributed.
A’wu people rejoiced for this. The next day, the old shaman immediately took people to the left corner of the eye lake with the flaxen thread and spindle in both hands, asking for an audience with Yan Mo.
Yan Mo gave recognition to their hard work and awarded them with a bag of nearly three jin coarse pink salt (1.5 kg). Though this coarse salt had only gone through a simple refinement and was far from the refined salt in modern days, the flavour was already similar to the crude salt granules for pickling vegetables and roasting meat, the umami flavour was even stronger.
A’wu people was wild with joy, they went back happily, carrying the coarse salt in both hands, and continued to study how to make the flaxen thread into hemp rope and later into cloths.
Yan Mo didn’t know how to spin cloths, he could only pretend to be ‘divine’ and that it was all a test, weaved weeds into a flat surface in front of the A’wu people and gave the incomplete grass mat to them saying that the principle of spinning cloths was similar to that.
A’wu people carefully carried the grass mat and coarse salt as if they have gotten a precious treasure, and went back.
Because of the frigid weather, many of them who followed Meng to train and hunt got frostbites.
So Yan Mo started to fiddle with frostbite ointment.
He didn’t have many medicinal materials on his hands, but fortunately he knew many prescriptions, one of which only needed hen’s fat and beeswax and was perfect for this occasion.
They didn’t have domesticated hens, so he told Er Meng to catch enough female pheasants for him, while the beeswax came from the man-eater bees.
When he saw Meng, he had the slight suspicion that Meng might’ve done it with that woman. The two times that he saw him, the guy had a satisfied and languid look that comes after doing those things. But neither Meng or Yuan Zhan mentioned the woman to him, so he didn’t ask.
Beeswax is commonly known as the things worker bees secreted to build their nests, and normally used to store honey, man-eater bees were the same.
Using the scale of 2.3 hen’s fat : 1 beeswax, first heat the fat in the stone pot until it melted, remove the sediments, then add in the beeswax. Move the stone pot away from heat after the beeswax melted. Take out the mixed melted beeswax and fat from the pot and put them on leaves or other bandage like material. Wait for it to cool, then it can be stuck to the affected parts of the body or directly smeared on the body. Change the dressing once a day, the effect will be clear after three to five uses.
After finishing this frostbite ointment, Yan Mo went to look for Yuan Zhan.
“Testing medicine on you.” That’s how he put it.
Yuan Zhan looked at the small bone jar with ointment in it, really wants to lick.
Yan Mo swatted his hand away. He tiptoed and smeared some of the ointment on his ears and face that got serious frostbite.
Yuan Zhan was dazed, he wanted to grabbed the boy’s hand, but got rudely swatted away again. “Don’t make trouble!”
Yuan Zhan scratched his head that only had little stubby hairs, and slightly crouched down to make it easier for the boy to apply it.
“Immediately wash it off if it feels weird.” Yan Mo wasn’t sure if the ointment would have the desired effect either, because he had substituted the ingredients for similar items.
Yuan Zhan looked at the boy without saying anything.
Yan Mo didn’t pay attention to his gaze, after applying he just went off.
Fortunately, after two days of use, Yuan Zhan felt that the ointment was effective. Seeing that there was really an effect to the medicine, he took the ointment and went to Er Meng and his group.
Priest-daren came himself to deliver medicine to them, and also told them simple ways to prevent frostbites, everyone in A’wu felt excited and thankful.
Yan Mo saw that there were two people who got frostbites either from training or hunting, and treated them while he’s here. After that, Yan Mo left them a small bone jar of the ointment.
A’wu people looked at Priest-daren who had walked far away, without noticing it, they had put their right hands on their chests and watched him leave like that.
Yuan Zhan, who felt that the little slave had soften a bit towards him, looked for Yan Mo to sleep together at night, but Yan Mo ignored him. Every night he enjoyed Jiu Feng specially coming to pick him up and the bird’s nest.
Speaking of Jiu Feng, Yan Mo found something weird.
Jiu Feng had taken big number of broken stones and twigs alike and put them at the entrance of the cliff’s nest. He started to block the entrance from the left wall, from the looks of it, he seemed to want to cover the entrance.
Due to this, Yan Mo discovered that Jiu Feng had also built his nest using that colloidal mud. Jiu Feng was very smart, he’d stir the mud with a thick branch and put the branch beside the mud pool to dry. Every time he wanted to use it, he would spout out wind blades to break small pieces of it then blew the mud powder until it reaches the twigs and stones before spitting on it.
It looked very strenuous, but Jiu Feng had used such a strenuous method to build himself a nest. Right now, does he want to build himself a door?
Yan Mo wanted to ask what Jiu Feng was doing, but Jiu Feng didn’t answer clearly this time. He only showed anxious feelings, as if he was hurrying to do something.
Yan Mo could only give up on this question for now, he could only wait until time tells him the answer.
Ten days, twenty days… Time passed day by day. Since the second heavy snow, god often scattered snowstorm, making the piles of snow thicker. It’s getting harder and harder for people to walk outside.
Meng had actually figured out how to make a wooden board to slide through the snow by himself. Although that flat board was far far far far behind a snow sledge, but when people walk out of their house with that big board tied to their feet and two wood sticks to support them, walking around really became much easier.
The most important thing was that they had made a really big wooden board for transporting items over the snow. Yuan Zhan and thirty strong A’wu men pulled this board, with materials like the mud stones and red salt on it, and headed to the future location of the tribe before it got to late winter.
Yan Mo didn’t plan to follow the first group who’d be opening up the land at the beginning. He was going to wait to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor.
But at the last moment, something happened that forced him to change his original plan.
Jiu Feng who had been busy with closing his cave turned mad, he started to attack Er Meng and A’wu people walking to the woods. He even scared the kids living in the stone house with several wind blades.
Yan Mo was worried, he hugged Jiu Feng and soothed him at night.
One human and one bird communicated for a long time, before Yan Mo deduced from his anxious and restless words that Jiu Feng was going to sleep for a long time.
“You also need to hibernate?” Yan Mo stroked Jiu Feng’s head.
“Gruruu, guruu, get big, has to sleep.” Jiu Feng pushed his head at Yan Mo.
“You mean, you can still get bigger?” Yan Mo was astonished. This current size is already so big, how big are you planning to be?
“Small, fly not far. Get big, can fly far, sea, mother bird.”
Yan Mo grasped a crucial word within Jiu Feng’s train of thought, “Sea? Are you talking about the sea? You know the ocean?”
“Chieek? Sea, bigger can go, see mother bird.”
Yan Mo guessed that Jiu Feng might have never seen the ocean. What he knew might only be what his mother bird had told him, or this behaviour of wanting to go to the ocean was a natural instinct written in his gene, like how some species of fish would swim back to the ocean after they grow up.
“Then how long will you sleep? Why are you growing up all of a sudden?”
Jiu Feng impatiently ground his claws, the nest was made messy by him. “Sleep, blood, sweet water, ate it, want to sleep.”
Sweet water? Yan Mo then remembered the golden royal jelly that man-eater bees had. The man-eater bees on the tree didn’t lack food and drink, there’s plenty to eat, so not only did they secrete enough royal jelly to rear up a queen bee, they had a lot leftover. The man-eater bees then led him over to present the royal jelly to him.
The colony told him that they like eating meat more and the royal jelly is actually only used to feed young bees and the queen bee.
After confirming that the colony really didn’t need that many royal jelly, Yan Mo took some of them. Aside from eating it himself, he had also fed a lot of it to Jiu Feng.
As for blood, that should be his blood.
His blood as well as that nutritious royal jelly, did it become a catalyst for Jiu Feng? Or was it that Jiu Feng was at the end of his growth phase and was already about to grow?
“You’re suddenly sleeping and growing, will it be dangerous for you?” Yan Mo was sincerely worried for Jiu Feng. His feelings for Jiu Feng had become like he had a mischievous but capable little kid.
Coos sounded from Jiu Feng’s throat, “Will not. Need to sleep!”
“Sleep for how long?”
Jiu Feng couldn’t describe it, just repeated that he needed to sleep, and said that he wanted to expel all two-legged creatures near the nest.
Yan Mo glanced at the “door” that had sealed off more than half of the cave entrance. Through their talk, he learnt that Jiu Feng will seal up the entrance and stay inside the cave, in this period he will not eat or drink and he will sleep immediately after he finished blocking the entrance.
He didn’t even want Yan Mo to stay. For that, Yan Mo heaved a sigh of relief, he was worried that Jiu Feng would insist he stay and accompany him.
“Grruuru, guuru, sleep, get big, all leave!”
“Okay, I will take everyone away, definitely won’t let them disturb you. Don’t rush to drive me away today, get out again tomorrow. I will get you some more royal jelly and fruits, take them back to your nest, remember to eat them all after sealing up the door. Only after your stomach is full, can you have better sleep, am I right?”
Although Jiu Feng was feeling restless, he could still feel the good intentions coming from Yan Mo. He lowered his head and pushed it against his little two-legs, repeatedly murmured that he would look for him after he gets bigger, and that he would take Yan Mo with him to the sea and look for mother bird.
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