The Xia clan, who came from the forest, built brick and tile houses...
The large prey brought back by the hunting party were animals whose parts could be eaten.
Its head resembles that of a cockatiel, with a round head, pointed beak, and long crest feathers, but it also has three sharp, feather-like ears. Unlike birds, its face is not covered with down feathers, but rather with scales. Its neck is not long, and its limbs are all the same length, with its forelimbs being more slender than its hind limbs. It is a creature that can run quickly on all fours and stand upright on its two hind legs.
Jiang Yunlan looked at its long, thick tail and its body, which was covered only by its belly without scales, and wondered if it was a beast-world version of a dinosaur. But it was too different from a dinosaur, only about 40% similar, so it must be a different species.
This large, three-meter-long animal, somewhat resembling a dinosaur, was not given a name by the beastmen. After thinking for a while, Jiang Yunlan decided to call it the Land Scale Beast.
The wolf-beastmen who stayed with the Xia clan helped the Xia clan's orcs dissect the land-scaled beasts. They had lived on the plains for many snowy seasons and would occasionally hunt land-scaled beasts, so they knew better than the Xia clan's orcs how to dissect prey that was three meters long.
The wolf-beastmen brandished their sharp claws, waving them at the land-scaled beasts. Hati stood idly beside Jiang Yunlan, commenting on its taste.
"This big green-gray beast has a delicious tail and a delicious belly, but its internal organs are not tasty. Everything else is just so-so," Hati said lazily, arms crossed.
Jiang Yunlan listened attentively and nodded.
Watching the wolf-beastmen carefully butcher the land-scaled beast, she walked over, picked up a piece of tail, and a few pieces of meat from its back, handing them to Hati as payment. With the wolf-beastmen's demonstration, her people understood how to dissect this difficult-to-dissect animal from now on.
Hati didn't take the meat she offered. Instead, he looked at the fire pit in the distance and the cubs cooking water in the pot. He said, "I want to eat it cooked too!"
His clan also cooked food in pottery, but his intuition told him that the Xia clan's food was absolutely delicious. Otherwise, his people wouldn't have eaten so quickly without even looking up.
He hadn't done any work, so he wasn't entitled to lunch. His people ate so fast that he never had a chance to sneak a bite, but now he finally got his chance.
Hati, who had specifically asked his people to help the Xia clan just to get a bite to eat, turned and stared intently at the silent Jiang Yunlan. He remained silent, his face expressionless, but his entire being seemed to say, "Let me eat!"
"Alright, I'll cook it for you. But you only have a few pieces of meat, it won't be enough. After you finish eating, hurry back." Jiang Yunlan gave in and said.
She couldn't withstand the expectant gazes of Hati and the wolf-beastmen, and with a mix of amusement and helplessness, she told them to take the food to the washing area to clean it.
Below the food storage area is the item storage area, and below that is the washing area. The washing area is to the right of the hearth. The wolf-beastmen run down there to wash the meat, and then they can turn left to where the cubs are cooking.
The wolf-beastmen were overjoyed to hear that they would be eating meat cooked by the Xia clan again, and howled a few times with delight. In order to eat as soon as possible, they took over the task of carrying meat from the Xia clan orcs and got the meat to the washing area faster than Yan Duoyu and a few other orcs.
Yan Duoyu and the other orcs stared at the departing wolf orcs as they died.
These werewolf beastmen are so annoying! The task of carrying meat was clearly assigned to us by Lan!
The Xia clan orcs and Hati and other wolf orcs who had been given the task of cleaning up the meat were secretly competing with each other. They were washing meat in the cleaning area as if they were about to fight at any moment.
Jiang Yunlan couldn't help but laugh as she watched their competitive reactions.
“Let’s go over there too.” She looked up at Feng Hong and Yan Shaofeng and the other beastmen beside her.
The two wounded orcs walked very slowly, their pace dropping from a speed at which they could carry Lan while running to a speed at which Lan had to make way for them.
The beastmen always downplayed their serious injuries, exaggerating their minor ones to the point of no injury. Jiang Yunlan didn't know how to describe them. They faced too many dangers, and death was a common occurrence, to the point that they didn't care about injuries unless they were life-threatening or crippling.
Just like now, she could see that Yan Shaofeng's injuries were so severe that he should be bedridden. But he just followed quietly behind her, his face pale. He would only walk slowly like her if she pretended that she was naturally slow.
This is the education that beastmen receive from infancy: they can cry out for hunger, but they cannot cry out for pain.
Jiang Yunlan wanted to change their perception of wounds, so she could only tell them again and again that injured orcs needed to rest. Only recently did she finally manage to get them to understand a little bit what "serious injury" and "minor injury" meant.
For dinner tonight, Jiang Yunlan specially scooped extra pieces of tail and belly meat for the injured orcs. Orcs wounded for the clan deserved to eat more good food.
With so much meat from the trade with the wolf-beastmen and the meat brought back by the hunting party, Jiang Yunlan led the beastmen in a lively effort to smoke food after dinner. She only kept enough meat for tomorrow's cooking; the rest was either smoked, salted, or dried.
New drying racks have appeared in the area where animal hides are dried; these are wooden racks used for drying meat.
As the moonlight faded, the sunlight emerged. Bright light shone on the meat on the wooden rack and the hides that had undergone a second tanning.
Tender shoots sprouted from the fast-growing forest beside the woods, and the Xia clan's farmland was covered with a light green. The Xia clan orcs, who had brought water early in the morning, watered the young shoots in the fields, scooping water, pouring water, and occasionally pulling out weeds from the ground, their movements extremely skilled.
When the wolf-beastmen who came to work arrived at the gate, they had already finished irrigating the farmland in the early morning. They came to the gate and led the wolf-beastmen to the residential area to build houses.
The hunting party orcs returned to the clan to rest for a day and a half before taking over from the gathering party orcs who had gone out that day and throwing themselves into the clan's construction.
Feng Hong was injured and did not participate in this gathering mission. She had many wounds, the most serious being on her right arm. Like Yan Shaofeng, who was also seriously injured, she would not need to participate in any labor in the near future.
She was a restless person and couldn't stay quietly in the shelter like Yan Shaofeng, so she chose to patrol the clan's habitat while injured.
Maple Syrup, who was standing guard at the door, saw Maple Red slowly walking over and silently handed her her cane. She was a little lame, but she could already walk without the cane. However, the cane in her hand was made for her by Lan, and she couldn't bear to throw it away.
Seeing the cane her older sister handed her, Feng Hong had a question mark pop into her head: "Sister, why did you give me this?"
"Your leg is injured. Use this to support yourself; it will make walking easier," Maple Sugar said gently, watching Maple Red walk away happily with her crutches on patrol.
She, who used to always anger the chieftain of the deer-beastmen and say she didn't like being a warrior, is now a warrior who protects the clan.
The patrolling clan of orcs passed by the sanctuary and happened to hear Lan's joyful voice.
"022, our method worked! Mushrooms have already grown in the potting soil!" Jiang Yunlan squatted in the dimly lit shelter, smiling happily.
Floating in mid-air, 022 compared the juvenile fungi with the adult fungi in the clan and said with certainty, "Yes. Lan, we succeeded."
Inside the shelter, whose two entrances were covered, a single oil lamp burned. The wick, twisted from fluff, flickered with light, illuminating the petri dishes on the wooden shelves. Tiny spores, huddled together, were enveloped in a soft orange glow, looking like freshly baked loaves of bread, incredibly tempting and delicious.
Jiang Yunlan remembers their taste and looks forward to them growing up so she can throw them into soup or stir-fry them in a pot.
Thinking of this, she felt a little regretful. She and the orcs had not yet found chili peppers, so the clan could only make sweet and sour food, missing out on many delicious dishes.
"Next, we need to raise these mushrooms until they're fully grown, and then choose an orc to grow them," Jiang Yunlan said, picking up the floating 022 and leading it out of the mushroom sanctuary.
She had only taken two steps when she saw an orc running towards her from a distance.
"Lan! We've finished building the house!" Yan Hua waved excitedly at her and ran to her in a few steps.
Jiang Yunlan was taken aback and blurted out, "It's already been built." She remembered that 022 had just taught the beastmen how to lay bricks and tiles not long ago.
"Yes, yes. Lan, I'll carry you over to see!" Iwaka smiled brightly and stretched out her hands, looking like she was about to dart over at any moment.
Jiang Yunlan put 022 on her head, raised her hand to him, and was quickly led to the newly built brick house.
A wooden door stood before her. She saw that the wooden doors and windows of the brick house were already installed. She hadn't told the beastmen how to make the doors and windows before; 022 must have taught them along the way when they were teaching how to build the brick house.
This is the first house of the Xia clan.
Jiang Yunlan smiled unconsciously. A village would soon appear here. She turned to look at the beastmen behind her; they were smiling just like her.
The Xia clan's beastmen and wolf-beastmen were very excited. This was the house they had built—a spacious house that could shelter them from the wind and rain while letting them bask in the sun!
"Thank you for your hard work these past few days. Let's come and see the houses that everyone has built," Jiang Yunlan said, pushing open the wooden door and walking inside.
The empty house contained nothing but the warm sun and the joyful beastmen.
The orcs came and went one by one. Some orcs felt an inexplicable shock, a love for building houses sprouting in their hearts, though they were not yet aware of their own affection. Most orcs, after the initial novelty wore off, their joy flowed like water across the ground, and they no longer cared about the houses in front of them, turning to do the next task.
Hati was one of the majority of orcs who were not affected by the impact. In order to be able to eat the lunch that the Xia clan cooked for the working orcs, he decisively gave up the happiness of lying in the clan and chose to become a working orc.
The wolf-beastmen who initially didn't want to work are now reluctant to exchange work opportunities with their tribesmen.
The reason is simple: the food of the Xia clan is just too delicious.
Seeing how the wolf-beastmen were lured by the food, Jiang Yunlan felt more at ease about her plan to recruit beastmen as laborers.
When Yan Duoyu returned, she brought back a clan's location. She had it all planned out. She would soon take the barter goods and cooked food to visit that clan and recruit new orc workers.
She will treat the beastmen who come to work well. They are all potential members of her race.
Forty-two orcs in a village is too few; there should be at least a three-digit number. Jiang Yunlan smiled and led 022 to prepare a gift for their visit, secretly plotting how to recruit them.
Let's start by digging out the orcs who often go hungry in their clans.
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Author's note: I hate that my drawing skills are bad, otherwise I could show you the original creations I've been thinking of (heartbrokenly pounding the ground).
*
The little angel "Carrot" threw out speed-boosting agent x98, making the orcs build houses even faster.
The little angel "Xiao Tai" added 1 nutrient solution, making the mushrooms in the soil grow even more luxuriantly.
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