A mixed-race clan in the thorny fruit forest of the valley...
When the orcs left the cave, they carried four vine baskets on their backs. Three adult orcs and one half-grown cotton each carried one.
The vine basket on Yan Shi's back was the lightest, containing only a little freshly gathered food. His shoulders couldn't bear too much weight, so Jiang Yunlan didn't let him carry heavy loads.
The fluffy beast had so much fur that it filled two whole vine baskets. Jiang Yunlan was worried that the light fluff would float out if piled too high, so she divided the fur into three vine baskets, covered them with leaves, and weighed them down with the fluffy beast's meat.
"Rock, can you still carry it?" Jiang Yunlan looked at Rock, gesturing and pointing to the vine basket on his back, asking with concern.
He took almost all the food out of the vine basket on his back and put it into the two lemming orc cubs and the wooden barrel on her back. She hadn't forgotten the way Rock had covered his back, and wasn't sure if Rock could carry the vine basket.
Rock, having struggled to understand Lan's meaning, nodded. The items he carried were almost entirely made of fluff, making them very light; there was nothing he couldn't do.
Leopard-orcs often fight with wild beasts, and injuries are commonplace; they're used to the little pain.
The two-meter-tall furball beast was very heavy. The beastmen, who had exhausted most of their strength, no longer had the strength to drag it back to the cave. They only took a portion of the furball beast's meat with them.
Jiang Yunlan was worried that the smell of blood would attract other wild beasts, so she packed up the furball beast meat and led the beastmen back to the cave.
Unbeknownst to her, after they left, the furball's kind discovered the furball's corpse.
The six furry creatures, large and small, were furious. They all grew larger, squealing and fiercely declaring their intention to devour the creature that had killed their kind. However, their sense of smell was too weak to track down the killer, and in a fit of rage, they ate all the animals that came running towards them by the scent of blood.
While the furry beasts were venting their anger, Jiang Yunlan had already returned to the cave with the beastmen.
She went into the cave and saw that Yanlin hadn't returned yet. One of Yanlin's beastmen had also gone out that day.
This is the third day since Yanlin awoke. His illness, caused by being caught in the rain, is almost fully recovered, and his lost strength is gradually returning. However, his wounds are not healing well, which always affects his movements, making it difficult for him to catch prey.
Once again, Yan Lin watched helplessly as his prey, which he had almost caught, escaped. He gritted his teeth in anger, grunted in his throat, and limped back home.
It was getting dark, and he had to return to his cave. There wasn't enough time left to hunt new prey; he would have to go back empty-handed today.
Yan Lin's anger flared, and his mood plummeted. In the three days since he woke up, he had become so weak that he could only manage to eat half a meal.
"If we can't even kill larger herbivores, how can we fight giant beasts?" Yan Lin felt stifled.
He no longer wanted to be forced to abandon his people and run away when facing giant beasts.
Yanlin reverted to his beast form, donned his animal skin again, and climbed the gentle slope. He heard excited voices from the rocks and the orcs, and looked over, completely bewildered.
On the semi-circular platform, Jiang Yunlan and the beastmen took out the fluffy, furry beast meat from the vine baskets and laid it on the ground.
Jiang Yunlan wasn't sure if the furry beast's meat was poisonous, so she decided to use the gray little beast as a test subject. The gray little beast had been listless for so long and had become very thin from hunger; if it wasn't used for testing soon, it would starve to death.
The flesh of the fluffy beast was rather tough, and the beastmen had to break a stone knife to cut it. Worried that the gray little beast wouldn't be able to chew the meat, she specially cut it into small cubes.
The gray little beast can eat fish, so it is obviously a carnivorous animal.
The little gray beast was unaware of what was about to happen to it. It listlessly ate the diced meat stuffed into its mouth and continued to slump listlessly on the ground.
This piece of meat seems a bit tough. Let me chew it. Why is it tasteless? Let me chew it some more.
I chew, I chew, I chew...
...
The small gray beast, which had been sprawled on the ground, suddenly stood up, spat out the meat in its mouth, and spat several times. Its emotions had finally begun to fluctuate violently since it was captured.
It can die, but never eat this kind of food!
The gray little beast glanced sideways at the squirrel-beastman cub that was feeding it "stones," and with great pride turned its back to the cub, refusing the extremely unpalatable food with its actions.
Jiang Yunlan stared blankly at its actions, then at the ball of fur and meat it had vomited up, and said with considerable surprise, "Is it that hard to eat?"
Even the gray little beast, who was so reluctant to move because the food was so bad, stood up.
She was at a loss. Her gaze swept over the large bird and settled on the three birds that were still alive after eating the flat-headed red mushroom. She took a fish from the food storage area, removed two fillets, chopped them into minced meat, and tossed a small portion on the ground for the birds to eat.
Three birds, who had been hungry for most of the day, nibbled at the minced fish.
Soon, Jiang Yunlan tossed over the chopped-up furball beast meat. The three birds couldn't distinguish the furball beast meat mixed with fish paste, and ate it as well.
"Can it still be eaten if it's small enough?" she wondered thoughtfully, then got up to deal with the fluff.
She watched as her grandfather spun wool sweaters for her, and vaguely remembered some of the wool processing steps. The wool had to be cleaned of impurities, degreased with wood ash, dried, brushed, and twisted into strips before it could be spun into thread.
The fur of the fluffy beast is probably the same. Jiang Yunlan thought to herself, her brows furrowing slightly, stumped by the idea of making the spinning machine.
She had seen spinning wheels before and knew what a hand-cranked spinning wheel looked like. A hand-cranked spinning wheel consists of four parts: a frame, a spindle, a rope wheel, and a handle; it can be made as long as there is wood. However, she had never made one herself and did not know exactly how to make a hand-cranked spinning wheel.
Jiang Yunlan tried hard to recall her memories related to the spinning wheel, and her actions of picking out fluff became casual.
“…Let’s use a spindle to spin the thread.” She said, relaxing her furrowed brow.
She didn't know how to make a spinning wheel, but she knew how to make a spindle. The weather had already turned cold, and there wasn't enough time left for her to figure out how to make a spinning wheel.
Hearing her words, 022 looked down at the fur of the furball beast covering the stone surface and asked, "You want to use a spindle to twist and spin thread by hand?"
The planet it last observed was Earth, and China was the civilization it chose to observe. It knew everything Jiang Yunlan was familiar with and everything she was unfamiliar with.
“Yes, a spindle is very easy to make. All you need is a long stick and a disc to make a spindle for twisting thread.” She chatted with 022 while picking out impurities from the fluff, her movements unhurried and deliberate.
The orcs in charge of processing the fluff were her, Rock, Black Soil, and Ink Fluff, along with Rock Forest, who had suddenly joined the group. As for Maple Red and the others, they were making stone spears. The orcs had lost two stone spears in their fight with the fluffy beasts, and if they didn't make new ones quickly, they would be out of weapons.
"Fortunately, the spindle twisting method is not difficult to learn, and even the beastmen can learn it."
Jiang Yunlan smiled and said in a light tone, "Maple Syrup and Maple Red are not good at handicrafts, but Autumn Fruit is very good at them. She is a craftswoman here. Once she learns to spin thread, I will teach her how to weave clothes. In the future, she will teach the beastmen how to make clothes."
022 understood, gently landed in front of her, and nodded its head in response.
The processing of the fur was completed at night. The fur from the pompom animals, now free of impurities, was placed in vine baskets to await washing and degreasing.
Jiang Yunlan sat by the fire, using a stone knife to make a wooden spindle disc. Every now and then, she would stop her work to correct Qiu Guo's mistakes in weaving straw sandals.
Now that Yanlin had stopped to rest, he finally remembered the question he'd forgotten to ask. He glanced at the busy squirrel-beastman cubs, turned to the rocks, and after a long pause, finally asked, "You killed a furry beast?"
Seeing that he hesitated for a while before asking this question, Rock scratched his head blankly, his tail forming a question mark, and said, "Yeah."
"...Only one was killed?" His tone became heavy.
Rock didn't understand why he was frowning, and asked blankly, "Yeah, what's wrong?"
"Have you forgotten how vengeful the fluffy beasts are? How come you only killed one..." Yan Lin suddenly stopped halfway through his sentence, exhaled sharply, "That's right, if we had encountered a whole group of you, you would have been dead long ago."
rock:"?"
“If you don’t want to die, don’t go back to the places you visited today.” Yan Lin finished speaking and then lay down to rest silently.
Yan Shi suddenly realized that Yan Lin was concerned about them, and said with emotion, "We will be careful."
Just as Rock had said, the orcs in the gathering team were very careful when they went out the next day, deliberately avoiding the place where the fluffy beast had died. Maple Red took another route to the hedgehog orc territory and arrived at the hedgehog orc territory smoothly.
Jiang Yunlan didn't know what Feng Hong, who was leading the way, was looking for, but she could deduce one thing from the familiar and easily recognizable terrain features: Feng Hong was leading them in circles in the same area.
Passing by the familiar tree once again, Jiang Yunlan patted Ah Bai on the shoulder, stepped down to the ground, and grabbed the restless Feng Hong.
"Feng Hong, what are you looking for? Food?" she asked. She remembered what Feng Hong had told her yesterday, and she also remembered that she had promised Feng Hong that she would find food.
Feng Hong lowered her head in frustration, squatted down, and looked at Lan with a pitiful expression, saying, "Find... food."
"Are you looking for food like this?" Jiang Yunlan took out a smooth-looking berry and showed it to Feng Hong, but she shook her head.
She pointed to the tip of the stone spear, then to the berry, and said in Orcish, "It's a thorny berry."
“A thorny fruit? I understand.” Jiang Yunlan said knowingly. She didn’t let Ah Bai pick her up, but walked on the muddy ground, stepping on the fallen leaves, touching each of the surrounding plants one by one.
With so little information, she had no choice but to observe every plant she saw. The thorny fruit might be short or it might be tall.
Jiang Yunlan had ruthlessly destroyed all the surrounding plants, even the climbing vines that clearly couldn't bear fruit. She pushed aside a waterfall plant clinging to the rock face and unexpectedly stumbled into a forest hidden in the valley.
The ground beneath the yellowing trees was covered with thorny fruit. The autumn sun shone on them, and they sat there quietly, like a feast for the animals, yet almost none of them were eaten by the small creatures.
Jiang Yunlan walked through the valley crevice and approached them. She randomly selected a thorny fruit, used a stone knife to flatten the thorns, and opened it to take a look.
"A beast world version of... a chestnut?" She looked at the familiar-looking food and asked in confusion.
The inner shell of a chestnut, once the green outer husk is removed, is brown, and the flesh is orange-yellow. Most chestnuts contain two to three fruits. But the spiky fruit in her hand was a single, round, white fruit, which seemed... somewhat different from a chestnut.
"It's a prickly fruit!" Maple Red swept away her previous dejection and was overjoyed. She said proudly, "I knew Lan would be able to find it."
A note from the author:
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At this moment, having forgotten to tell the forgetful hedgehog beastman chieftain who was hiding in the valley, Maple Red Thorny Fruit scratched his head, feeling as if he had forgotten something.
*
The little angel "Corgi Chasing Cats" used 5 bottles of nutrient solution on Rock. Rock's back pain disappeared, and he strode back to the clan with his furry back on his back.
The little angel "Nan Shige" used 25 lucky potions to help Jiang Yunlan discover things, and Lan discovered the thorny fruit forest in the valley.
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