Jiang Ai grew up quickly.

Before she was even ten years old, she had become a young woman capable of supporting her tribe.

She was strong, every inch of her skin tanned a wheat color by the sun. The muscles in her arms bulged, giving her plenty of strength and energy.

She was young and strong, capable of chopping wood, hunting, and entertaining her mothers.

Every woman in the tribe who raised her was her mother.

She has many mothers and a lot of love.

When her mothers saw her, they would say, "Look, Jiang Ai's eyebrows and eyes are exactly like her mother's." The women who looked alike would burst into laughter, their gentle yet strong hands lightly stroking the top of her head.

They rarely mentioned her father—because he was unimportant.

But Jiang Ai knew who her father was.

The man, with his fair skin and the many herbs and creams he used to maintain his health, was so frail that he seemed as if a gust of wind would knock him to the ground.

He was too weak to even lift a bundle of firewood, so he could only use bone needles to mend the clothes of the women in the tribe that had been torn by wild animals.

He rarely appeared in front of Jiang Ai.

Two boys of Jiang Ai's generation, who were older than her, had already passed their coming-of-age ceremony. One of them was traded for a rabbit skin by a neighboring tribe, while the other was given a young boy in return.

The women chuckled as they watched the little boy. They had seen many men and paid no attention to the ambition that was barely concealed in the boy's eyes.

He came to the Jiang clan, and thus became a member of the Jiang clan.

Regardless of who taught him or what he was taught, he must now abide by the rules of the Jiang clan.

The older man stuffed clothes and bone needles into the boy's hands. Unwilling to do this, he threw them away and stole a stone knife, disappearing into the woods. When he returned, he had caught nothing and lost the stone knife.

The women of the Jiang tribe were already being merciful by only letting him go hungry for two days.

Jiang Ai was pushed forward by the women to teach him manners, and she stood in front of him with a cold face, watching the little boy's face flushed with hunger.

The little boy asked, "You..."

His voice was hoarse and unpleasant. Jiang Ai, impatient with him, swung her arm and slapped him across the face.

The little boy fell to the ground.

He coughed a few times. The blow Jiang Ai had given him was so hard that he couldn't catch his breath and couldn't speak.

But he still struggled to speak. Jiang Ai found it amusing, so she slapped him again, knocking him to the ground so he couldn't get up.

After slapping the thin little boy twice, she turned and left without looking at him again. She locked the door and left the boy hungry for another day.

When the little boy was delirious with hunger, she brought him a bowl of thin, watery porridge and fed him a couple of mouthfuls. Once he had recovered, Jiang Ai threw the needle and thread in front of him and made him do some work.

“If you don’t do it, then become a sacrifice for the Mother Goddess,” Jiang Ai said.

The little boy glared at her angrily. He wanted to get angry, but he was just too hungry. For the past few days, Jiang Ai had only fed him a little bit of porridge. He was at a crucial stage of growth, and porridge alone was certainly not enough.

He wants to eat meat.

He could only pick up the needle and thread in front of him, hoping to gain the favor of the women.

Women of the Jiang ethnic group do not give meat to men.

Only women who went out hunting were entitled to eat meat. They honed their hunting skills in battles with wild animals and grew stronger in the process of consuming their prey.

They would only occasionally give a little bit of meat to their brothers—those men no women wanted who would remain in the Jiang clan. After all, even though they were physically weak, they were still children born of the same mother as them.

The little boy, of course, was not so lucky.

He was merely a pawn used by the two races to maintain the diversity of their offspring.

He just needs to stay alive; no woman would look forward to seeing him grow up.

They only hoped for Jiang Ai.

Jiang Ai, who had just led a hunt, returned triumphantly with her mothers, feeling quite satisfied.

Together they caught a wild boar and her cubs. They killed the adult sow, and kept the cubs in a pen to fatten them up before killing them.

Another banquet was held that evening.

The main character is Jiang Ai.

She was the most eye-catching girl among the younger generation. She had already participated in several hunts even before her coming-of-age ceremony.

The Mother Goddess's favor towards her was blatant.

Her unkempt hair had grown long enough to be braided down to her feet. Busy hunting, she paid no attention to the changes in herself, nor did she notice her mothers talking about her coming-of-age ceremony.

Men are not considered human; only women have coming-of-age ceremonies.

After eating several pieces of wild boar meat that were roasted until glistening with oil, and then using many wild vegetable leaves to mask the gamey smell, Jiang Ai took the wine offered by the boy and drank it heartily. She ate to her heart's content and then danced to the songs sung by the chieftain.

She danced happily with her mothers and her relatives.

The women, taller and stronger than her, formed a safety net with their arms, sheltering Jiang Ai beneath them. They tossed the astonished Jiang Ai up and caught her; tossed her up again and caught her again.

They laughed happily together.

As if they were still inside the body of the Mother Goddess, they clung together intimately.

As the banquet drew to a close, the slightly tipsy women returned to their ancestral homes to sleep before the leaves turned to frost. Jiang Ai quickly tidied up the burn marks left by the campfire before being chased away by a man with a broom.

Her biological father said, "Why are you touching these filthy things!"

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