A Strange Indentation (Bonus Chapter) The Xia Clan from the Forest...

"Don't worry, Ah Bai. Your leg injury is healing very well, you'll definitely be back to normal." Gray Creek's tone was light, and she had a relaxed smile on her face.

Ah Bai responded quietly, without saying a word more or looking at the captain.

His greatest strengths were running and jumping, yet the part of his body most severely injured by wild beasts was his leg. He was able to be carried back to the clan on cotton, but his two teammates died in the jaws of wild beasts, their bodies never recovered.

If it had been Feng Hong instead of me who went out with the collection team, could they have been saved?

I'm just too weak; I'm only fast at running.

Hui Xiaoxi offered a few more words of comfort, but seeing Ah Bai even more silent and quiet than before she left, she couldn't help but reveal the worry in her eyes. Frustrated, she ruffled her hair a few times, sighed inwardly, mustered her spirits, said a few more words, and hurriedly left the ward, finding a random spot outside to sit down.

She unconsciously plucked a blade of grass, put it to her mouth, and chewed on it. She looked up at the sky, unusually without a smile on her face.

Lan said that they only needed to rest on their first day back. Sitting here is a kind of rest, isn't it?

"What are you thinking about?"

"Those wild beasts we encountered a few days ago." Gray Creek subconsciously answered the question so close to her ear, then suddenly realized that the voice belonged to Lan, and stiffly forced a smile.

Jiang Yunlan sat down beside her, looking up at the road ahead where orcs occasionally appeared. "What have you been through during this time?"

She didn't speak immediately, but hesitated for a moment, then removed the grass from her mouth and said calmly, "During the search for new forests, we encountered a pack of wild beasts. Ah Bai, who went to investigate, was seriously injured, and we were already being watched at that time."

"After escaping the wild beasts' attack range, we lost our way and couldn't find the trail markers we had built earlier. At this point, we encountered the winged beastmen who were heading to the grasslands. The winged beastmen had also encountered wild beasts on their way here. They needed protection, and we needed guides, so we teamed up and hurried back together."

However, we encountered another pack of beasts, the same beasts that had previously hunted us. Two of our people died, as did the winged beastmen.

“I never expected things to turn out this way,” Gray Creek said apologetically, pressing her trembling hands. “I’m sorry, Lan. I couldn’t bring them back.”

Jiang Yunlan gently patted her head and said in a soft voice, "You've done very well, don't apologize."

A heavy sigh escaped her lips, and Gray Creek responded sullenly, burying her head in her bent knees.

The noisy wind blew all day, and the winged beastmen who stayed with the Xia clan moved into the brick houses they had never seen before, their eyes full of curiosity. Seeing the Xia clan beastmen who had brought them leave, the expressionless winged beastmen suddenly showed some subtle expressions.

They fiddled with the tables and chairs, touched the walls and the wide bed, talking about what they had seen and heard at the Xia clan that day, and before they knew it, it was midnight.

The winged beastmen awoke the next day, yawning and with half-closed eyes, listlessly heading to Qiuguo, who would assign various tasks. Like the other working beastmen in the Xia clan, they only received three meals a day if they completed their work. However, because Lan had invited them to stay, their workload was less than that of the other working beastmen.

"Sew it like this?" Green Perch Crow sewed several stitches on the animal hide and handed it to Yan Shaofeng, who was teaching him how to sew.

The winged beastmen's clothes only required cutting and then gluing them together with a special animal slime. They had never seen needles and thread before, but seeing that the Xia clan used needles and thread to make clothes, they became interested and volunteered to sew animal garments for them.

"That's good, it would be better to sew it this way." Yan Shaofeng subconsciously imitated Lan's tone, praising her first before pointing out the mistake and slowly correcting it.

After returning the items, Yan Shaofeng turned to check on the other winged beastmen. The winged beastmen's names all ended with the words "feathered crow," and he had heard them call their kin many times without the "feathered crow" part. He gradually learned to use only the first two characters of their names.

“Qingzhi…you,” he looked at the crooked lines of Qingzhi Yuya, hesitated for a long time before finally saying, “I’ll take you to the breeding area.”

He had heard them say that their clan kept liquid spiders that could spit out a special kind of slime, and perhaps the Green-twig Crow was more suited to keeping animals.

Green-twig Crow: ?

He was puzzled and looked hesitantly at Captain Green Crow. Seeing Green Crow nod, he obediently followed Yan Shaofeng.

Some of the eggs brought back from the woods have hatched in the past few days, and most of them have survived. They are tiny, and their downy feathers haven't even fully grown in yet. Yan Dahe is in charge of this nest of little chicks, and he has to feed them every two or three hours, so he has had to move them into the feeding area.

Currently, she and a sheep-beastman are in charge of the breeding area, with other beastmen helping out from time to time, so they can manage. However, having experienced firsthand how difficult it is to raise cubs, Yan Dahe knows very well that the breeding area needs to find new working beastmen to take good care of the cubs that will be born later.

"Lan, how about choosing these two as new zookeepers?" Yan Dahe said two names, looking at Jiang Yunlan with a questioning look in his eyes.

Hearing her question, Jiang Yunlan recalled the two orcs' behavior that day and nodded affirmatively. Those two were from the same clan as Mian Gaoya; they were the orcs from Mian Gaoya's clan who had come to work for him.

It seems that Mian Gaoya has brought all the argali beastmen with them; the number of argali beastmen working for the Xia clan today is two to three times that of the past.

"It's almost noon. After lunch, I'll have the unselected orcs go to Grey Honey to get new missions," Jiang Yunlan said, looking at the strange depressions in the ground of the breeding area with a worried expression.

The depression in front of us was discovered by Yan Dahe yesterday. There are several similar depressions, which are not noticeable without careful observation. If Xiao Hui hadn't escaped and been chased the day before yesterday, accidentally stepping into one of the depressions and falling, no beastman would have noticed that several strange depressions had appeared in the breeding area.

Jiang Yunlan had her people dig in the depressions, but after digging for a long time, they found nothing but dirt. The texture of the material dug up from the depressions was similar to that of other places, making it difficult to pinpoint the animal that had dug them out and where it was hiding.

"It doesn't feel like the marks left by ordinary animals," Jiang Yunlan said, picking up a stick and scratching at the dent.

This time, the traces were also covered up.

No depressions were found elsewhere in the habitat. Did that mysterious creature sneak into the feeding area because there were animals there? But no animals were missing or gone missing, and no eggs were missing. It wasn't there to steal food, so what was it doing there?

Jiang Yunlan was puzzled, extremely puzzled. She had a vague feeling that the mysterious creature that frequently visited the breeding area meant no harm to the Xia clan, but she still wanted to know what it was that had come to visit the Xia clan.

"Maybe I should sleep in the breeding area tonight too." She had been waiting here for half a day, hoping to see the mysterious creature that had come to visit.

Yan Shaofeng arrived with Qingzhi Yuya and happened to hear what she said.

"Lan?" Yan Shaofeng exclaimed in surprise, speaking very quickly, "Then I'll talk to the captain and the others and ask them to come over tonight as well."

He was worried about leaving Yan Dahe in the feeding area at night and had already decided to come and keep watch there. But if Lan also stayed, he should have called Captain Yan Duoyu and the others over as well, since he, as an orc, couldn't protect both Lan and Yan Dahe at the same time.

“We should call them over. It’s wide enough here; I might not be able to hold onto it if I’m the only one,” Jiang Yunlan agreed, putting down the wooden stick and clapping her hands.

She turned and looked up at Yan Shaofeng, her fluffy tail curving into a question mark. "Why did you bring the Green Branch Crow here?"

Yan Shaofeng knelt down in front of her and explained his purpose from the beginning, as well as the fact that the winged beastmen had experience in raising animals. The winged beastmen had mentioned the liquid spider while learning to sew, something Lan was unaware of.

“You’ve raised animals before? That’s great! We’re short-handed to feed them. The animals your clan raises seem a bit different from ours, but don’t worry, you have experience and it won’t be hard for you to learn.” Jiang Yunlan said with a smile to the Green-Branched Crow, telling him to learn how to feed the baby birds from Yan Dahe.

Seeing that it was time to feed the birds again, Yan Dahe simply called him over to go together, explaining how to prepare food for the baby birds as they walked.

The sounds that were so close to her ears gradually faded away. Jiang Yunlan stared at the departing orc's back for a while, then turned to Yan Shaofeng in surprise and asked, "You two haven't made up yet?"

He had already arrived, but Yan Dahe neither greeted him nor even looked at him.

Thinking of the reason why Iwata was angry, he avoided Lan's gaze and said vaguely, "...She's angry."

Jiang Yunlan, who had already figured it out, felt helpless. Seeing his tense, trembling ears, as if he were feeling guilty, Jiang Yunlan's eyelids twitched, realizing that what had happened between the two of them was definitely not simple.

"you……"

"I will find another time to explain to her again."

Jiang Yunlan's and Yan Shaofeng's voices collided.

Hearing him say that, Jiang Yunlan felt relieved and gave up on asking questions. If they could solve the problem themselves, then let them solve it themselves.

The clouds surged forward, pushing the day into dusk.

After finishing their dinner, the beastmen squatted in various corners of the feeding area, waiting for nightfall. They were prepared to spend the entire night there. Jiang Yunlan, however, did not stay in a fixed area like the others, but instead walked around with Yan Duoyu.

Two orcs, one large and one small, approached the nest of the large blue bird and suddenly saw the Green-Branched Crow, who was not on night watch, and another feathered orc approaching the bird.

These past few days, the large bird that has been incubating the eggs has been inexplicably restless and very resistant to other creatures approaching it. Apart from Jiang Yunlan, 022, and Yan Dahe who feeds it, if anyone else gets close to it, it will stretch out its head and bite them hard.

Sure enough, as soon as the green-feathered jay approached the large bird, the bird bristled and began making threatening noises. Seeing the bird's reaction, he silently retreated and did not approach again.

He stepped back to a safe distance, straightened up, and turned his head to see Jiang Yunlan and her two orcs not far away.

Seeing that he was not injured, Jiang Yunlan breathed a sigh of relief and asked him in confusion why he suddenly wanted to get close to Xiao Qiu, and then explained Xiao Qiu's reaction.

“I passed by it during the day…” Green Branch Crow hesitated for a moment before speaking, “and felt a very familiar aura.”

"Do you know any of Xiao Chirp's kind?" Jiang Yunlan asked. She had caught Xiao Chirp with a trap in the forest back then, and she had never seen any of Xiao Chirp's kind since.

The Green-Branched Crow shook its head and explained calmly, "It's the egg underneath it. It's very familiar. The scent has changed, so I can't recognize it."

She understood; she realized that the winged beastman in front of her was curious about what the egg was, which was why he had come here specifically.

Knowing he couldn't recognize her, Qingzhi Yuya stopped lingering and left with another winged beastman to find his people, leaving Jiang Yunlan and the other beastman completely bewildered.

She was even more curious about what would hatch from the black egg. What would be inside?

With anticipation in her heart, Jiang Yunlan watched as the sky darkened, turning as black as the egg.

She is waiting for someone who may or may not appear.