Chapter 61 – Raising Livestock
Ttranslator: xiin
Editors: apricot & juurensha
Barley was a type of cereal. It could mature and be harvested every three months. It didn’t have a high yield and wasn’t suitable for making bread, but it was very nutritious and made for a great staple food.
Highland barley was a type of barley that was planted in high plateaus. One of the staple foods of the Tibetans was ‘zanba’, which was made out of highland barley that had been washed, dried, then fried, ground into barley powder, and finally, mixed into butter tea.
Earth eggs were a good staple food, but they had one drawback, which was that they weren’t easy to preserve. In contrast, barley was different. It could be stored for a long time after it was dried, and keeping it for a year wasn’t a problem at all.
And although it couldn’t be used to make bread, it could be used to make flatbread or zanba…
Before the apocalypse, Zhou Ji had traveled to Tibet and tried authentic zanba made with butter tea. It had been delicious when paired with yak meat.
Unfortunately, there was no point even thinking about butter tea in this place.
All the mammals in this world were beastmen, which meant if they wanted milk, they would have to drink human milk…
“This thing isn’t tasty?” Xiong Ye felt a little downcast. He had felt that this thing was pretty good, which was why he had wanted to give it to Zhou Ji. If it was no good…
“Other than earth eggs, no other plants are tasty.” Bao Cheng said. He hadn’t known that Xiong Ye wanted to take this thing to gift it to others before, so he hadn’t said much about it…
“It’s actually very delicious.” Zhou Ji spoke very calmly, “The plant that the Beast God wanted me to find was actually this.”
He had made up a reason for why he needed to come out this time and had originally planned to say that the pumpkin had been the plant he was looking for. Unexpectedly, after a series of twists and turns, he had actually managed to obtain barley!
“The food that the Beast God told you to find is this small?” Xiong Qi was surprised. These things were so small. Even if they were delicious, how were they supposed to pick them up?
“You’ll understand when it’s planted.” Zhou Ji said. Barley didn’t have a large yield, but it could be grown everywhere and planted in large areas. It was also very efficient for filling the stomach; it was a good thing!
Zhou Ji was too lazy to explain much more, so he kept his face expressionless. Xiong Qi felt a little quiver in his heart when he saw him like this, “Great Beast God, I’m not questioning you. Please forgive me.”
Although the Little Brook Tribe didn’t have a priest to teach them the proper way to worship the Beast God, they still believed in the Beast God––not every tribe had a priest, but they all interacted with other tribes and knew about the Beast God’s existence.
When the people of the Little Brook Tribe saw this interaction, they were full of shock, “Beast God?”
“Zhou Ji is the messenger of the Beast God.” Xiong Ye explained. He had always been keeping an eye on any changes in Zhou Ji.
The previous priest might have been a gift from the Beast God to their tribe, but Zhou Ji was a gift from the Beast God to him.
The people of the Little Brook Tribe were all filled with reverence.
Zhou Ji suddenly felt that he really resembled a trickster.
He had started off using similar words in order to fool the priest and make his own life a little better, but now… He had already climbed onto the back of a tiger and it was difficult to get off.
In order to make it easier for him to do things in the future, for the sake of making life more comfortable in the future, he might even have to perform a few more miracles.
After all, there was now a Giant Tiger Tribe nearby, and there were many things he needed to do.
To sum it up, he was the core of the team.
Since the people of the Big Bear Tribe treated him that way, the Little Brook Tribe also followed suit. They were all very careful whenever they saw him and seemed to always want to talk to him about the Beast God.
Zhou Ji: “……”
The group continued on their way and soon arrived in the Big Bear Tribe’s territory.
The people of the Little Brook Tribe could faintly sense that something was wrong––they had constantly met a lot of dinosaurs along the way, but those dinosaurs hadn’t dared to make a move on them because they had so many people with them. Now, however…why couldn’t they see any dinosaurs?
Xiong Ye also felt rather helpless when he saw this situation.
He had always led people out to hunt during their journey, but now that they were back in their own territory… It was really difficult for them to catch any prey!
Fortunately, they had caught extra when they had gone out hunting before, so they didn’t have to worry about going hungry now.
“Why are there no dinosaurs around your tribe?” Bao Cheng was shocked.
Zhou Ji was also quite helpless. A tribe that had no dinosaurs within their territory was akin to a tiger living on a bare mountain or a pride of lions living in a grassland devoid of prey. Not only was it strange, it was also inconceivable.
“Our tribe doesn’t depend on hunting to survive.” Zhou Ji said.
“How do you survive if you don’t go hunting?” Bao Cheng was puzzled.
“We planted a large stretch of earth eggs.” Zhou Ji said.
“How many?”
“Enough to feed everyone in the tribe.” Zhou Ji said. In fact, compared to hunting, farming was really a much more cost-effective method of keeping people fed. If they wanted to feed more people, it was still better to rely on agriculture.
Bao Cheng was full of envy after he heard Zhou Ji’s words, “You guys can actually eat your fill without going hunting!”
Bao Cheng hadn’t wanted to join the Big Bear Tribe when they had first been rescued.
However, his ideas had changed radically along the way here.
Many people in his tribe had been injured and left to starve for many days after they had been attacked by the Giant Tiger Tribe… It was also because of this that they had lost over a dozen people during the ambush against the Giant Tiger Tribe.
Some of the people from the Little Brook Tribe who had originally been injured had fought with their lives on the line when they went up against the Giant Tiger Tribe. They naturally couldn’t be saved.
Over forty of them were still alive after that battle, but Bao Cheng had believed that five of them probably wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a few days.
This judgement had been made based on his prior experience.
However, those people hadn’t died after they met Zhou Ji!
Zhou Ji had fed them a black medicine and told them to treat their wounds, and then the people who were supposed to die all managed to live on!
Not only that, they were able to see the strength of the Big Bear Tribe.
Even without talking about anything else, the food that Zhou Ji occasionally made were all things that they had never seen or heard of before!
Zhou Ji also recognized many plants and knew about many edible things…
To the people of the Little Brook Tribe, Zhou Ji really knew too many things!
If Zhou Ji knew so much, the Big Bear Tribe should be very powerful, right?
By now, Bao Cheng was already decided to join the Big Bear Tribe!
Living in a safe place without large dinosaurs and being able to fill his stomach without having to hunt sounded like a heavenly paradise to him.
Bao Cheng was incredibly envious.
Xiong Ye and the others: “……” Their life was nothing like what Zhou Ji had just described…
They were nearly back at the tribe, so Zhou Ji didn’t ride on Xiong Ye’s back and walked on his own instead.
Everyone was walking very quickly, but Xiong Ye and Zhou Ji walked slowly and soon fell behind.
“Zhou Ji, why would you say that to the people of the Little Brook Tribe?” Xiong Ye asked.
“I want them to stay.” Zhou Ji replied.
“Why?”
“Our tribe lacks workers.” Zhou Ji explained, “And we’re also short on fighting power.”
The Giant Tiger Tribe would obviously be coming with bad intentions. He couldn’t attack them himself, so he could only try to make the Big Bear Tribe stronger.
Additionally, regardless of whether it was growing earth eggs or barley, both would require manpower.
“Zhou Ji, you’re different from what I expected!” Xiong Ye couldn’t help but speak up. At the start, he had thought that Zhou Ji was a little pitiful weakling who could only rely on him, but later on, he slowly realized that something was not quite right.
This time, when Zhou Ji had gone out with them to trade for salt, he felt even more that… Zhou Ji was completely different from what he had expected.
“Oh. And?” Zhou Ji asked Xiong Ye.
“I think that you’re still very cute like this.” Xiong Ye said. It turned out that Zhou Ji also knew how to deceive and trick others… He really felt that Zhou Ji was very cute.
“You are too.” Zhou Ji was very serious.
Too many things had happened recently, and they had also gone out for a trip. It had been a long time since he’d stroked the bear…
He definitely had to stroke him properly after they returned to the tribe.
Zhou Ji was thinking about this when he heard Xiong Bai’s voice, “The salt team is back!”
He had never known that Xiong Bai’s voice could actually be so loud…
Xiong Bai had come out to catch baby dinosaurs. She accidentally stumbled across the people of the salt team and immediately shouted out the news.
The people of the Little Brook Tribe were very shocked when they heard this call, fearing that it would attract all sorts of dinosaurs over. However, that didn’t happen, and some of the people from the Big Bear Tribe who had also come out to catch dinosaurs were called over instead.
Some of the herbivore dinosaurs wouldn’t raise their own children, but most dinosaurs, especially carnivorous dinosaurs, would raise their own young.
However, unlike mammals, dinosaurs were basically already developed by the time they were born, so they didn’t need to be taken care of for too long. This was particularly true for herbivore dinosaurs.
Baby dinosaurs could even survive on their own without their mothers present.
Spring was breeding season. Many of the dinosaurs who had run off had already laid eggs, so many baby dinosaurs had hatched within the Big Bear Tribe’s territory. Although quite a bit of time had already passed, and they were able to catch fewer and fewer of them, they were still able to find a few that had escaped the net.
When Xiong Bai came over, she was carrying a baby Centrosaurus.
The people of the Little Brook Tribe were shocked once again when they saw this scene.
Centrosauruses were very attentive to their babies, and they were a type of dinosaur that grew to be about six meters long with sharp horns on their heads… Now that the people of the Big Bear Tribe had caught a baby Centrosaurus, the mother dinosaur would definitely come looking for them.
They couldn’t help but be scared.
But they then saw Xiong Bai and the others’ unconcerned appearances…
It seemed that the Big Bear Tribe wasn’t afraid of the Centrosaurus? Perhaps they deliberately grabbed the baby dinosaur just so that they could attract that mother dinosaur!
Bao Cheng tried to praise Xiong Bai, “This little dinosaur is really fat. It looks very tasty, you’re very impressive!” The people of the Big Bear Tribe always complimented each other; he had already learned this point.
Xiong Bai: “It’s so thin, yet you’re saying it’s fat? I plan to bring it back, raise it properly, and fatten it up!”
Bao Cheng: “Raise?” Raising dinosaurs? He hadn’t heard wrong, right?
Xiong Bai no longer paid him any attention as she turned to Zhou Ji, “Zhou Ji, we already have more than a hundred dinosaurs!”
Bao Cheng: The Big Bear Tribe were actually raising over a hundred dinosaurs?!
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