Chapter 8 The commotion caused by the falling tree was quite significant...
The sound of the tree falling was quite loud. The eldest cub, who was nearby, immediately returned with the second, third, and fourth cubs. Seeing the tree fallen and its dense canopy obscuring their view, the eldest cub anxiously shouted:
"sister!"
The second son also called out, "Sister!"
Cang Li responded, "Here, you all stand there, I'll handle it right away."
After saying that, Cang Li touched the big tree and put it into her backpack. She didn't put it into the collection and identification device. She planned to break the tree down and then put the branches into the collector to change the collection point.
The cubs' eyes suddenly cleared, and they spotted Cang Li standing next to the tree stump. They immediately ran over, and the little cub that Cang Li had placed about ten meters away also crawled over on all fours.
Cang Li was in a good mood after cutting down the tree. He sat on the tree stump to check the things his cubs had brought back and taught them to speak.
The kids brought back the same mushrooms as yesterday, except for a few more varieties. Cang Li picked out the non-poisonous ones and put them away, while the poisonous ones were put into the collector. The collector was no longer needed, so he pointed to the mushrooms and told the kids not to pick these kinds of mushrooms next time.
After teaching them, he sent a few more kids to continue working and finding food, and to keep an eye on the traps.
After the cubs left, Cang Li pinched the little one's cheek, picked up a branch and started weaving a basket. Every day when she went up the mountain to find food, she had to weave two small baskets for the two cubs to carry, and then weave a big basket for herself to carry. When she didn't have enough branches, Cang Li went and cut another bunch. When she came back, the two cubs excitedly dragged back a half-grown wild boar.
Cang Li: !
Cang Li stared in surprise at the prey that Da Zai and Er Zai had bound tightly with vines. Its jet-black fur and long snout made it unmistakably a wild boar, though it appeared to be an immature one.
That's true. If it were an adult wild boar, that trap wouldn't be able to catch it at all, and these little ones would probably be dead too.
Cang Li snapped out of his daze and became alert. Wild boars are generally social animals, living in family units. There would be at least two adult wild boars nearby. Cang Li quickly packed up his tools, threw the wild boars into his backpack, told Da Zai and Er Zai to carry the small baskets, and headed down the mountain.
She was no match for the wild boar, so to avoid any retaliation, it was best to go down the mountain first.
The children, not understanding what was going on, followed Cang Li down the mountain in a hurry.
Cang Li breathed a sigh of relief after returning to the cave. After putting the things down, he let the children rest. The fire in the cave had already burned out, and the rabbit meat was ready. Cang Li divided the meat as usual and began to enjoy lunch. Actually, it was a bit late to call it lunch, because the sun outside had moved much further west, and it was probably already past 2 p.m.
After dinner, Da Zai finished washing up, and Cang Li continued weaving the basket at the door. Once the basket was finished, he let the big tree out.
The tree was about eleven or twelve meters long, with lush branches and leaves. Cang Li used an axe to clear away all the branches and peel off the bark. After doing this, Cang Li put the branches into the collector and was pleasantly surprised to find that each branch counted as one point. Branches over three meters long could be exchanged for ten collection points, while those under three meters long could be exchanged for six points.
After losing ten branches, Cang Li gained 80 gathering points and had a pile of dried branches that could be used as firewood.
Cang Li nodded in satisfaction. It was completely dark outside. Inside the cave, Da Zai followed Cang Li's example and started a fire, adding water to the pot and bringing it to a boil.
Seeing that Cang Li had finished her work, Da Zai pulled Cang Li to the pot and said, "Water! Wash!"
Cang Li praised the eldest child: "Not bad! A capable and clean child! I'll get you a wooden tub for bathing later!"
The four cubs raised their hands high: "Wooden basin!"
The third child chimed in, "Wooden basin!"
Cang Li thought these two kids were like a cult, and couldn't stop laughing. He raised his hand and shouted, "Wooden tub! Freedom to bathe!"
Now even the eldest and second sons started shouting, filling the cave with cheerful voices.
The next day, Cang Li took the wood to the river to soak it. She remembered that newly cut trees should be soaked in water for two or three months before being taken out and air-dried. Only in this way can the wood last a long time. It is best to apply a layer of oil to waterproof the wood when making things such as wooden buckets.
However, that's not possible right now. Cang Li plans to soak it for a month or so, and then cut down other trees to extend the processing time.
The large log was thrown into the water. To prevent it from being washed away by the current, Cang Li used vines to secure it and then picked up several large stones to weigh it down to the bottom of the water.
Then take out the rabbit skin that has been soaking for two or three days.
The rabbit skin was very clean after being rinsed for two or three days. All the bits of meat and fat were gone. She didn't know if the fish had eaten it or if it had been rinsed away. Anyway, Cang Li was very satisfied. She put the rabbit skin aside to dry. She also made a simple fishing net out of vines, intending to see if she could catch any fish.
Cang Li found a high spot, cast the fishing net down, and then handed the end of the rope to Da Zai, saying, "Take this."
The eldest child immediately squatted down seriously, gripping the vine tightly in his hand.
Cang Li didn't plan to go up the mountain today, fearing that the wild boar family would come for revenge.
Seeing the third cub following the eldest cub to look at the fishing nets, the second cub leading the fourth cub to pull weeds, and the fifth cub crawling all over the ground, Cang Li felt that there was great hope for the future.
Cang Li shook her head, walked a few steps downstream, and released the poor little wild boar that was tied up. She originally wanted to raise it domestically. For the long term, it would definitely be worthwhile to raise a wild boar into a domestic pig. But this pig was a good deed. Cang Li didn't know how to castrate pigs. Pigs that haven't been castrated grow up with a foul smell and don't taste good.
So Cang Li decided to eat the pig while it was still small and not yet smelly, so as not to waste it.
Cang Li took out the axe and washed it clean. She then took out a soup bowl to collect the pig's blood. Although she couldn't use the pig's blood to make delicious food for the time being, the backpack that came with her collector could keep it fresh and there was no problem storing it.
Based on humanitarian principles, Cang Li first knocked the wild boar unconscious, then cut its carotid artery with an axe and placed a bowl to collect the blood. In reality, she was alone and afraid that she wouldn't be able to hold the wild boar down, so knocking it unconscious was the easiest way.
There was too much pig's blood, and the soup bowl wasn't big enough, so Cang Li had no choice but to regretfully put the blood into the river.
This time, Cang Li brought the pot with her. She set it up by the river to boil water and scald the pig hair. Cang Li also noticed that the river water was much clearer than when she first came here, probably because it had settled. It looked very clean and looked like it could be drunk after boiling.
Cang Li picked out two handfuls of pig bristles from the scraped-off bristles, washed them clean, and put them away. She wanted to make a toothbrush out of them, and threw the rest into the river.
The task of gutting the pig was a bit strenuous, but fortunately the axe produced by the collector was sharp enough. Cang Li only kept the pig's liver; she didn't want the rest of the organs, such as the heart, lungs, intestines, and stomach. She didn't have any of the main ingredients and couldn't make any delicious offal, so she decided not to make things difficult for herself.
It wasn't a waste; Cang Li threw it into the fishing net to fish.
Cang Li shaved off the meat from the pig's head, threw the rest into the river to be washed away, discarded the pig's tail, cut off and discarded the four hooves, and then butchered the pork.
Cang Li wasn't a professional butcher, so she could only roughly divide the meat into ribs, pork belly, fat, and lard. The pig roamed the mountains, so there wasn't much fat, but rendering lard would yield a lot, enough for her to eat for a while.
The remaining four pig legs were also cut into small pieces. Now that it's hot, and she's already at the riverbank, she'll definitely process everything before going back, otherwise the cave will smell bad.
After disassembling the pork, Cang Li took out a stack of large leaves from his backpack, put the ten or so pounds of ribs chopped into small pieces into a pile, wrapped them up, and threw them into his backpack. He also chopped the beautiful pork belly into thumb-sized pieces, about ten pounds in total, and threw them into his backpack as well. Cang Li didn't wrap the remaining seven or eight pounds of pure fat and seven or eight pounds of lard, planning to render them into lard by the river later and take them back with him.
Then there's the spine and lean meat, which together weigh about 40 to 50 pounds. Cang Li chopped them all into small pieces and also minced about 10 pounds of meat. With this meat, Cang Li doesn't have to worry about not having meat to eat for the time being, and his living conditions have improved again!
Cang Li washed all the fatty pork and lard, cut it into small pieces, and threw it all into the big pot. He also planned to have his meal by the river today.
The fat in the pot slowly rendered into lard. Cang Li took a straight wooden stick about the length of her arm and stirred it in the pot. This was the straightest branch she had cut from a big tree, which she used as a spatula for the time being.
After finishing, Cang Li put the lid on and cleared the surrounding weeds within a three- or four-meter radius to prevent fire, before checking on how the fish catch was going for Da Zai.
Walking over, I saw the second, third, fourth, and fifth cubs all around the eldest cub, all intently staring at the water. Every now and then, the eldest cub would suddenly stand up and start pulling on the rope in his hand, and the second cub would immediately help. The fishing net was pulled up, with two silvery-white fish hanging on it. They looked like bighead carp, but not quite. The whole fish was longer than the eldest cub's height.
Cang Li immediately rushed over to help. After getting the two fish off the ground, Cang Li noticed that there were three or four other fish of similar size in the grass behind him.
The eldest son was so excited that he was about to throw the net down again, but Cang Li stopped him and pointed to the big hole in the net that the fish had torn, saying, "It's broken, it's unusable. These fish are enough, we'll come back in a few days."
As she spoke, she threw away the net. Da Zai looked at Cang Li in confusion. Cang Li patted Da Zai's head, put the fish into her backpack, and threw one to the collector, successfully obtaining ten collection points. Cang Li decided that she would come back to fish tomorrow, as fishing would yield more collection points than she could get from going up the mountain!
The lard in the pot had been rendered out, and it smelled delicious. Cang Li stirred it to prevent it from sticking, and then took out the empty earthenware jar from her backpack. She wanted to use the earthenware jar to hold the oil, as the soup bowl was too small. Only an earthenware jar could hold this whole pot of oil. Anyway, she could exchange for 88 earthenware jars of water at the collector shop, so she had plenty of earthenware jars.
Half an hour later, the pork cracklings in the pot could no longer be fried into oil. Cang Li used chopsticks to scoop out all the pork cracklings and put them on clean leaves. After the remaining oil cooled down a bit, he used a ladle to scoop it all into a clay pot, filling it more than halfway. Cang Li planned to put the pork lard into his backpack after it solidified.
There was still some oil in the pot. Cang Li picked out a large fish, scaled and cleaned it, and then put it directly into the pot to fry until golden brown on both sides. He then poured in water, covered the pot, and made fish soup.
While the fish was cooking, the kids were already drooling and squatting by the side, waiting for their meal.
Cang Li then opened the collector's shop. She had just heard a "ding" sound, which meant she had unlocked the third page.
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