Chapter 124 Weapon Crafting (3)
Aside from the tree branch darts that Ha Gang gave them, the members of the Black Goose Tribe's defense force didn't have a single decent weapon! Ha Gang decided to paint a mask for each of them, but then he thought about how the members of the Black Deer Tribe's defense force all had the same hairstyle, and then he looked at the Black Goose Tribe members, whose hairstyles were all different. So he decided to start from the top and make everyone's hairstyle the same: "You want Ha Gang's face shape? Ha Gang's face is so big, and your face is so small. Do you think his face can cover your face?" Xu Que said as he painted a mask for the child next to him with a piece of charred wood that had been burned.
"Can't I have a smaller version?"
"Okay! I'll make you a mini version right now!" Xu Que said, then took the carbonized wooden stick and casually drew a few lines on the child's face before handing the stick to the child next to him.
At this moment, a large pot of food was being cooked in the Black Deer tribe's cauldron.
Hou, Hua, and the tribe's deputy chief put in almost everything in the tribe that could be cooked.
Even wild vegetables and weeds picked from the fields and valleys were put into the pot to cook.
Even the fruit that Xu Que redeemed from the system's exchange shop was cooked into the pot!
Hou used a long-handled spoon that Xu Que had made in his spare time to keep stirring and scooping things up in the pot.
"How is it? I've put all the fruits from our Black Deer tribe into a pot and cooked them! I wonder what they'll taste like when they're done cooking! I don't know if they'll be good or not! It's my first time doing this, so I don't know what they'll taste like! If they're good, we'll cook them like this from now on!" Hou said to Hua and the deputy leader of the Black Deer tribe.
Hua looked curiously at the pot, and together with the deputy chief of the Black Deer tribe, they took the lid from the side of the pot: "Put the lid on! It will cook faster if you put the lid on! If you keep stirring with this long-handled spoon, how long will it take to cook? All the heat will escape!"
Upon hearing Hua's reminder, Hou took a spoon from the boiling iron pot, then turned around and took the lid from Hua's hand, placing it over the pot.
The weather was unbearably hot. The animal skin clothing worn by the primitive people of the Black Deer tribe looked like a burning basin to every member of the tribe, making them all sweat profusely.
A group of children from the Black Deer tribe chased and played past Hou. Each of them had bumps of varying sizes and sizes on their bodies, heads, arms, or legs! These bumps were clearly from mosquito or cowfly bites! The swollen bumps had red tips like peaches.
"Just how big are the mosquitoes in this tribe?!" Xu Que looked at the red swellings and wounds on the children's bodies with disbelief.
A group of burly, savage adults walked past Xu Que. Xu Que looked up and was shocked by what he saw! Every single one of them had red, swollen bumps the size of pigeon eggs on their arms, necks, and cheeks!
Xu Que looked again, somewhat incredulously, at the necks, arms, and hands of the other girls from the Black Deer tribe, checking if they had the same symptoms as the men in front of them.
Sure enough, the red bumps on their bodies were exactly the same as those on the bodies and necks of the children and the men in front of them.
Xu Que was puzzled. He nudged Hou, who was chatting with Hua next to him, and waited for Hou to turn his head towards him before saying, "Let me check if you have any big red bumps on your body and neck like those cavemen who just passed by us!"
"I don't have any! Didn't you give me a big bottle of mosquito repellent a while ago? After I was bitten by mosquitoes here once, I've been spraying it on myself every day! Every night, the mosquitoes don't bite me at all! I don't have any bites on my body, arms, or neck!" Hou said, stretching out his arms and neck for Xu Que to see.
Xu Que suddenly realized, "Now I finally understand! So those big red welts on their arms and necks were mosquito bites! I want to know just how big the mosquitoes here are?"
When Hou and Hua heard Xu Que ask this, they were surprised: "Shouldn't mosquitoes all be the same size everywhere? Look, they're this big!"
Xu Que frowned: "It's so big? Isn't this supposed to be a dragonfly?" Upon closer inspection, Xu Que realized it wasn't a dragonfly at all; it was a mosquito.
"The mosquitoes here are huge! I bet three or five of them could suck my blood dry! It's terrifying! I've never seen mosquitoes this big before! They're practically as big as dragonflies!" Xu Que shouted, still shaken.
A group of children who had previously run past Xu Que were now chasing and playing as they ran past him again.
Xu Que randomly grabbed a child, pulled him over, and asked, "Do these big mosquito bites on your bodies hurt now?"
"It doesn't hurt! It feels a little itchy, but it doesn't hurt!" A child with several red bumps on his neck, arms, and legs said to Xu Que.
"My goodness! You guys are amazing!"
"Among all the mosquito bites on my friends in our tribe, the ones that are familiar to me are still small! Look at theirs, they're as big as small eggs!" The little boy who was talking to Xu Que pointed to his friend next to him and said to Xu Que.
Seeing this, Xu Que opened the system exchange shop again and exchanged several bottles of floral water, which he then distributed to every child in the Black Deer tribe who had been bitten by mosquitoes.
Hou taught the children how to use mosquito repellent!
To prevent mosquitoes the size of dragonflies from bothering the Black Deer tribe members at night and causing them to be sleepy the next day due to lack of rest, Xu Que decided to make a special mosquito repellent.
He remembered that when he was a child, his grandfather, who lived in the countryside, would cut a plant called Artemisia capillaris from the apple orchard with a sickle. While the roots and stems of Artemisia capillaris were still tender and soft, he would twist them together like he was twisting rope, and then put them in the sun to dry until they were completely dry enough to be lit.
Grandpa Xu calls the things that can be lit to repel mosquitoes "mosquito-repellent ropes"! At dusk, he cuts a section from bundles of these ropes and hangs them near doorways or windows where mosquitoes are likely to pass, then lights them, letting them emit thick smoke! When mosquitoes smell this smoke, they avoid it! This relatively old-fashioned method of mosquito repellent is economical, pollution-free, and very effective! It also doesn't cause much harm to the human body! It truly offers multiple benefits!
Not far from the Black Deer tribe, in the overgrown weeds, there were almost all the Artemisia capillaris that Xu Que's grandfather used to make mosquito-repellent ropes when he was a child. If they could just cut them down and twist them into rope-like mosquito-repellent ropes, the members of the Black Deer tribe would probably not have so many mosquito bites!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com