It's both writing and road sign; this is the clan of Lan.
Jiang Yunlan couldn't help but laugh when she saw Feng Hong trapped in the fleece top, struggling to stick her head out of the sleeve.
She said with a laugh, "Feng Hong, squat down."
Upon hearing this, Feng Hong, who was struggling with her clothes, stopped what she was doing and obediently squatted down on the ground, complaining pitifully about the unwearable clothes, "Lan, this is... annoying."
Jiang Yunlan suppressed a laugh, reached out to help her take off her clothes, and followed her words, saying, "Hmm, these clothes are annoying."
Hearing Lan agree with her, Feng Hong, who had been unhappy, immediately cheered up.
"Feng Hong, raise your hand."
She didn't want to wear the fleece clothes anymore, but upon hearing Lan's instruction, she obediently raised her hand and let Lan put the clothes on her.
"Put both hands into the sleeves first, then pull the clothes down. See, you're dressed now." Jiang Yunlan helped Feng Hong put on her clothes and gestured for her to stand up.
Feng Hong's eyes widened as she felt the surroundings suddenly warm up. She touched her fleece-lined clothes with a look of wonder. She knew that wearing this would keep her warm, but she never expected it to feel like this.
It was incredibly soft and so warm. In comparison, stiff animal hide clothing could hardly be called clothing.
"Do you like it now?" Jiang Yunlan asked.
Feng Hong grinned foolishly and nodded vigorously. The clothes were great; she loved fleece clothes!
Mo Rong, who was watching them from the side, seemed to be deep in thought, and then helped Mian Hua, who was also trapped by clothes, to put on her clothes in a very professional manner.
With Lan's help, the two lemming orc cubs were dressed smoothly without encountering the problems that Feng Hong and the others had faced. They had no idea that getting dressed was such a difficult task.
Yan Lin watched as the rocks struggled to put on their clothes. For a moment, he didn't know whether he should be glad that he was a step too slow, at least he understood how to put on the clothes.
He confidently slipped himself into his clothes, quickly putting on the fleece outfit, only to see a tiny squirrel-like beastman cub come up to him, looking up and meeting his gaze.
"Yanlin, you're wearing your clothes inside out." Jiang Yunlan tilted her head back, pointing to his front and then to his back.
The original rock forest: ?
After understanding Yanlin: !
He admitted that this thing that Lan called "clothes" was really annoying to the orcs.
Much later, the beastmen were finally all dressed in furry clothes. They huddled around the fire, gazing at the snowy landscape outside, feeling completely at ease.
Snow was falling heavily outside, but Jiang Yunlan did not seal the cave entrance. Perhaps it was because the ice crystals were settling on the semi-circular platform, preventing the wind and snow from disturbing the cave. The snow would fall lightly under the wooden frame where the elves were, accumulating on the semi-circular platform.
This was the first warm snow season the orcs had ever experienced. There was no hunger, no cold, no death, only warm fires and their living people.
At this moment, Jiang Yunlan smiled and took out several wooden planks and a few trimmed sticks, handing them to them one by one. She pointed to the earthenware jar filled with sand and said gently, "Let's start learning the language now."
Jiang Yunlan took the washed and dried river sand out of the earthenware jar, spread it evenly on the wooden board, and wrote a character with a wooden stick in her hand.
She looked at the orc, pointed to the Chinese characters that appeared on the wooden board, then pointed to herself, and repeated it several times.
"Lan".
This is her name, and also the signpost she chose.
The beastmen obviously couldn't understand why this square thing was related to the storm. They scratched their heads and peered at the character, then scooped out half a grain of sand from the earthenware jar and tried to write it down.
You don't understand, but that's okay, just remember it. Because Lan wants them to remember.
The meaning of "writing" is something the beastmen don't yet understand. They only feel that writing is so difficult, and it's really hard to write like Lan!
The beastmen couldn't help but howl, uttering cries that were difficult to decipher.
How strange! Let's take another look. It's still so strange. The orcs frowned as they stared at their ugly handwriting.
"Maple Syrup can already write it? That's fast!" Jiang Yunlan praised Maple Syrup, who was the first to write the character "岚" (Lan).
Upon hearing the praise for the maple syrup, the orc was instantly filled with competitive spirit and began to write furiously with a wooden stick.
I should be the next orc to be praised by Lan!
Jiang Yunlan walked around the earnest-looking orcs, praising each one who had finished writing. Imitating writing wasn't difficult; the challenge was writing well. But that didn't matter; being able to write it at all was enough. Even if it wasn't very neat, she could still recognize it as their name.
Once the beastmen remembered the character "岚" (Lan), Jiang Yunlan wrote down her full name for them to see.
They liked to call her "Lan" and could never remember her full name, so she would just point to her name and repeat it to them a few times before smoothing out the sand again and teaching them how to write other things.
The pronunciation of Chinese is much more complex than that of the orcs. Orcs can easily understand the different sounds representing different objects, but they find it difficult to learn the simplified Chinese characters.
Jiang Yunlan didn't expect them to learn it immediately. Apart from the character "岚" (lan), she only taught them the characters for "sun" and "moon" today, as well as the character for "snow" fluttering outside the cave.
After teaching them to read, she patiently waited for them to learn to write, casually picking up a few pieces of tree trunk to pass the time. Qiuguo and the three old orcs were unable to walk, so she planned to make a wooden cart. With the cart, even if they couldn't walk, the orcs could pull it and take them away.
The wooden cart she wanted to make was a four-wheeled wooden cart, with a wooden board around its sides to prevent Qiu Guo and the others, along with their food and other items, from rolling off the cart while it was moving.
However, it was clear that Jiang Yunlan had no experience in making wooden carts, so progress was not smooth, and she struggled to even make a small version of the wooden wheels.
Fortunately, she still has a whole snow season to learn how to make wooden carts.
Time passed gradually, and night fell. The snowfall that had started since the snow season began gradually lessened, and seemed to be stopping soon.
Yan Shi rubbed his aching shoulder and stopped writing. He learned the four characters Lan had taught him today a little slower than Feng Tang and the others, but he had still mastered them all. He remembered clearly how to write each character and what they corresponded to.
He will never forget the name "Lan," especially the character "岚" (Lan).
Because of Lan's presence, he and Yanlin survived the fruit season and didn't go hungry during the snow season.
Having already eaten dinner, Rock sat on the ground, looked up through the cave at the snowy night, and suddenly thought of the Leopard Beastman Clan, his original clan.
"Yanlin, I wish our kinsmen were here too," he said dejectedly.
He and Yanlin followed the footprints left by the wind beast into the forest, where they had seen marks left by their own kind. They followed the marks, trying to find their people, but lost all traces of the marks when they saw the corpse of one of their own.
The path to reclaim the clan has vanished.
Their people seemed to have been attacked and fled in panic, without leaving any trail markers.
Rock wasn't even sure if Yan Duoyu and the others were still alive. He hadn't seen Yan Duoyu's body, and he could still convince himself that some of his kind were still alive. However, he and Yan Lin searched from the hot season to the fruit season without finding any trace of the leopard beastmen.
The forest was so vast that he increasingly suspected his kin had long since perished somewhere he couldn't see.
“Yanlin, I miss them,” Yanshi said.
Yan Lin remained silent for a long while before speaking, unusually without his usual sharp tongue, "...It would be nice if they were here too."
It's good to have a clan with Lan around. I really want Yan Duoyu and the cubs to experience it too. Yan Lin silently closed his somewhat dim golden eyes.
I hope Lan can find them.
If it were Arashi, she would definitely find them, wouldn't she? Iwabayashi thought to himself, but he couldn't bring himself to tell Arashi this.
Staying in the area the giant beast had passed through to search for any remaining orcs was too dangerous. He couldn't possibly send a cub to do something so obviously fatal, especially since that cub was Lan. Even if someone was to go looking, it should be Lan himself.
Yanlin lay asleep on the haystack, his brows slightly furrowed, clearly not sleeping soundly.
A new day dawns, and the warm winter sun shines on the forest. The snow has stopped.
In a corner of the forest, a golden-haired orc with golden eyes moved aside the obstruction blocking the entrance to a cave and stepped out.
Her eyes, as bright as the rising sun, could not conceal her weariness and sorrow, and her once radiant golden hair was now covered in a jumble of colors.
Aside from the initial period after joining the hunting team, Yan Duoyu had never appeared so disheveled. But she no longer had the energy to take care of herself; she had more important things to attend to.
"Rockflower, the cubs are now in your care. Whether we come back or not, do everything in your power to keep them alive." After saying this, Yan Duoyu led the hunting party of beastmen into the cold forest without looking back.
The snowy season is not a suitable time for hunting, but food is scarce in the tribe. If she wants to lead the remaining tribespeople to survive the snowy season, she must go out to find food when the snow stops. Even if she can only bring back plant roots, she must bring back food.
Yan Duoyu transformed into his beast form and ran forward at full speed, followed by five golden leopards.
Her tribe was supposed to have sixty-eight members. But now, she only has sixteen: six adult orcs, four semi-adult orcs, and six cubs.
Among the orcs who went out with her were two semi-adults. They shouldn't have joined the hunting party as warriors at such a young age, but she had no choice but to do so to protect more of her people.
The cubs must be cared for by adult orcs. She cannot bring all the adult orcs with her.
Yan Duoyu led his people on a swift run, and before they had gone far from the cubs, they spotted other orcs in their field of vision.
It's a rock squirrel beastman.
Like them, they were orcs who fled the rocky region because of the wind beasts. They were also... orcs who had lost many of their people.
Leopard-man and squirrel-man meet during the hot season and were once allies who hunted animals and drove away wild beasts together.
But at this moment, Yan Duoyu, who saw the squirrel beastman, raised his golden eyes, stopped and stared at the squirrel beastman in front of him warily.
Across from her, the squirrel-beastman chieftain, who had noticed them, raised his hand to stop his people behind him, and watched Yan Duoyu warily from a distance, refusing to come any closer.
It's snow season now, a snow season where food is almost impossible to find.
Even if the orcs they faced were leopard orcs/squirrel orcs, they were still orc clans that needed to be guarded against. They lived in the same place, their settlements were very close, and they were already grateful for each other's past help by not stealing each other's food.
Want them to share the food they can find in the next few days? Impossible.
Yan Duoyu and the squirrel-beastman chieftain exchanged a glance, tacitly choosing to proceed in different directions. They did not want to fight each other, but they would not back down if necessary.
Everything was for the survival of the clan.
-----------------------
The author's note: "Ducky Fun" features two wind-avoidance magic spells, causing the temperature inside the cave to rise.
"vv" sprinkles 1 guide agent, +1 food found by the leopard orc.
"Huai" sprinkles 1 guide agent, and the squirrel beastman finds 1 more food.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
