Volume 1: Farming Chapter 32: Craftsman's Talent
On the tenth day that Xiao Yun and his companions were staying in the Tauren tribe and eating free meals, Qingyan, who had been away for many days, came back at midnight carrying a big cat on his back.
Qingyan seemed to have a hard time during the days he was away. All the fat he had gained after spending a winter hiding in the Snow Werewolf Tribe was basically lost . His cheeks were sunken, his skin was blue, and his golden eyeballs were full of bloodshot. As soon as he entered the door, he asked for water without saying anything else, and gulped down half a can of water before he caught his breath.
While he was drinking water, Xiao Yun roughly checked his body surface. The animal skin clothes that Qingyan wore at that time were rotten into strips. Now only half of the animal skin pants were left, and the fur vest and upper body clothes were gone. There were many wounds of varying sizes on his dark skin. Fortunately, his skin was thick and the wounds were not deep, but it seemed that he had lost a lot of blood, which could be seen from Qingyan's blue face.
After checking that the cat only had minor injuries and was not seriously injured, and that it still had the strength to ask for food after drinking some water, Xiao Yun felt relieved and went to look at the big cat Qingyan carried back - well... it was indeed a large cat, about one and a half meters long from head to tail, with a broad forehead, short snout, light golden eyes with black pupils, dense fur, brown-black fur with a few white and black markings, the fur on its tail and limbs was lighter than that on its back, and there were fine black circular lines on its tail... If you ignore the size difference, it does look very similar to the caracal on Earth.
...Its personality is similar to that of the caracal, it is not friendly. Although it seems to have some health problems and is weak, it lies there and stares at the snow werewolf fiercely. It is dismissive of the water and food that Hongye offers, which makes Hongye very embarrassed.
Fortunately, this silent stalemate did not last long. Qingyan swallowed a few pieces of dried meat viciously and stood up to comfort his fellow tribesmen: "It's okay, Qiu, they are all our friends, and they are the snow werewolves who took me in."
This large caracal looked at Qingyan very intelligently, and it seemed that it could no longer hold on, and its body shape suddenly changed from a large cat to a human form.
Xiao Yun's eyes slowly widened...
The relationship between the Snow Wolf Tribe and the Cat Tribe is relatively cold, and there is even hatred between individual tribes. The original owner Ayun's tribe had its grassland robbed by a large cat tribe of more than 500 people. During the years of migrating to the southwestern border of the grassland, they also suffered a lot from the cat tribes along the way. That's why Dahe had a deep memory of Qingyan, who rarely turned against the Snow Wolf people and even gave him fruits.
With such a cold and distant attitude, the Snow Wolf people naturally didn't know much about the cat tribe, and had never even seen a few small cat people. Except for the tribe leader, even Hongye had never seen what the small cat people looked like... When this caracal cat showed his true form, even Hongye came up to take a look in amazement.
"It's so miniature!" This was Xiao Yun's first thought, "Like an elf!" This was Xiao Yun's second thought.
The human form of the caracal cat tribe also has a head of fluffy, messy hair that has not been groomed for who knows how many years, and its exposed skin is so dirty that its true color cannot be seen (the minotaur who are good at farming have been in contact with water for a long time, and are relatively clean except for the strong body odor. The races that are only good at grazing and hunting are quite bad). The height is about the same as the gray dwarf, about 1.45 meters, but the body is not long horizontally like the gray dwarf, but rather slender, with a small face and big eyes. If it weren't for the cat ears on the top of the head and the claws on the five fingers, the body proportions are completely like a miniature human... uh, it's not wrong to call it an elf.
"He is so small." Hongye shouted directly, "He is seriously injured!"
That’s right, the wounds on this small caracal were even more serious than Qingyan’s, and there were large patches of dried blood on its dirty skin.
"This wound... how long has it been delayed? Niu Jiao, go to Qin's door and ask her for hot water. Uncle Ashan, help me take out the rhubarb in the rabbit skin bag. Chief, give me your collection of cloth." Xiao Yun quickly ordered the tribesmen to move, and asked Uncle Ashan to light a fire in the yard, cook the dried meat until it was soft, and then give it to the caracal cat to eat.
Cats also have strong self-healing abilities, and even small cats shouldn't have such dense wounds. When Xiao Yun asked, Qingyan showed a bitter look.
"Qiu alone cooperated with our plan."
"Huh?!" Xiao Yun paused as he was holding the animal hide mat for the caracal cat tribe.
"Qiu is the only manul warrior left. When I left, there were 18 members of the manul tribe, but now there are only 11 left..." Qingyan said painfully, "This winter, the snow was too heavy and too cold. The tribe gave them very little food, so Qiu had to go hunting in the snow with a few others... They were unlucky and encountered snow beasts wandering from the north. Only Qiu escaped."
Xiao Yun's face twitched. In addition to wild beasts and fierce beasts, there were also some wandering magical beasts on the grassland. These magical beasts were strong and weak. If they were weak, they would be like the manticore that was driven away by Uncle Ashan. If they were strong, there would be no limit... The caracal tribe was simply in a bad situation.
"After losing so many warriors, the tribe looked down on them even more... When the snow was the heaviest, Qiu came to the Tauren tribe to ask for some food, but this still failed to save the tribe members." Qingyan was depressed. While he was sleeping on a warm kang and drinking hot broth in the Snow Werewolf tribe, the Caracal tribe had been struggling on the line of survival.
"... Doesn't this mean that the situation of the caracals in the tribe is worse than we thought before?" Xiao Yun frowned. In a semi-closed environment, the weak who were already treated extremely harshly would often be bullied even more severely when they suddenly resisted. He had heard a lot of stories like this when he lived in the countryside as a child. In this way... his plan was a bit reckless!
"With only eleven people, the tribe cannot reproduce. When I returned, the tribe had already planned to send them to other tribes for exchange... But the caracal tribe is not prosperous, and the nearest cat tribe does not even have caracals." Qingyan showed a self-deprecating smile, "After I proposed this to Qiu, Qiu decided to do so... But his plan was to lead the remaining tribesmen to join the Tauren."
Xiao Yun's eyelids jumped, and he looked down at Qiu who was sleeping soundly: "This is not a good idea. The Tauren tribe is too close."
In ancient feudal villages, if someone in the village did something "treasonous" that was not in line with the public values, the villagers would often resort to lynching to erase the stain in the village. The tribes on the grasslands did not have the "morality" of cannibalism, and the tribesmen who were hated and excluded were generally exiled... But what about the exiled tribesmen running to the nearby tribes? In the future, when the two tribes deal with each other, will the original tribe still have to save face?
Even the silly and cute Snow Wolf Tribe wants to save face. When they come to the Tauren tribe, they will try their best to bring the most valuable trading items and wear the best leather. How can the cat tribe, who is more arrogant than the Snow Wolf Tribe, have no shame? How long has the cat tribe been arguing with itself over the tiger tribe's separation?
Qing Yan could only smile bitterly. When he was exiled, he did not seek the nearest Tauren tribe, but gritted his teeth and headed for the Snow Wolf tribe thousands of miles away: "Nearly half of Qiu's remaining tribe members are cubs. He doesn't believe that the Snow Wolf tribe can take in so many cubs, so... I can't convince him."
What Qingyan couldn't say was that the cat tribe never kept useless young slaves, and he couldn't explain this to the snow werewolf who was willing to take in even a fragile human like Thrall.
In a tribe with multiple ethnic groups living together, a small ethnic group as a minority would do things that disgust the tribal resource allocators, such as pestering for supplies and fair treatment, and stealing resources from other ethnic groups during the process. After causing the whole tribe to be angry and resentful, they would propose to leave the tribe, or use leaving the tribe as a threat to demand supplies. The grassland tribes, which are not fond of "honor killings and moral lynchings", naturally hope that such useless and annoying trash will get out as soon as possible. This is the plan discussed by Xiao Yun and Qing Yan.
But the person you threatened to go to for shelter was actually your neighbor, which was a bit reckless...
Xiao Yun sighed and looked at Qing Yan: "So, you exposed yourself?"
Qingyan didn't really care about his injuries. He nodded and said, "I can't watch Qiu get killed... I swear to the tribe that I will take Qiu and the other caracals away and never appear in their sight again." He reached out and gently wiped away the cold sweat on Qiu's face. "Qiu's condition is not good. I was afraid that he would not survive, so I rushed back overnight. The other caracals are still on the way."
Xiao Yun nodded: "Okay, when Niu Jiao comes back, I'll ask him to bring some food, and you lead Niu Jiao to meet them."
Qingyan showed a look of gratitude. The caracals that had been driven out really needed food now.
Xiao Yun thought for a moment and said, "Take all the caracals here, and then we'll go back. Your appearance is likely to anger the cat tribe again. If the people who exiled you hold a grudge... we'd better not take the risk."
Qingyan struggled and felt guilty: "Ayun, I..."
Xiao Yun raised his hand to stop him: "Okay, we are from the same tribe, no need to say too much. Anyway, our tribe is far away from the cat tribe, so we are not afraid of them coming to our door."
Qingyan was so moved that he didn't know what to say, he just nodded vigorously - even if he was a cat from the cat clan and caracal clan, he was still a cat, but what did it matter, the snow werewolf didn't care about it.
On the afternoon of the eleventh day, Niu Jiao, who was helping the caracals, brought back a group of large cats of all sizes...
On the twelfth day, the large group of snow wolves, who had eaten a lot of food from the Tauren, finally set out. The team of snow wolves, which originally had only seven people, now had eleven more cats and nineteen more gray dwarves. It was a great harvest in every way.
With so many more people and supplies, the large tribe of Snow Werewolves did not move as fast on the way back as they did when they came. On the way, they turned to the hiding place of the Gray Dwarves to pick up the twenty or so Gray Dwarves who stayed behind. The team suddenly expanded to more than sixty people, and the speed of advancement slowed down a little.
It was a month after leaving the Tauren tribe when Xiao Yun finally saw the mud brick buildings next to each other on the plain.
The person guarding the sheepfold discovered this huge group. When he got closer and saw the snow wolves in the group, he was immediately overjoyed and rushed over happily.
"Stop! Don't come closer!" Xiao Yun immediately stretched out his hand, "Just stand there and don't move!"
The two tribesmen, with joy still on their faces, looked at each other and stood still.
"Everyone, rest here." Xiao Yun called out to the back, then turned to look at the two tribesmen, "Who's here? Call everyone, bring all the pottery jars and pots with water over here, and bring firewood over here to start a fire. Oh, and bring Thrall's leatherworking knife as well. Pay attention, no one can get close to us, and no one can go beyond where you are standing now."
Not to mention the two tribesmen who were confused, even the tribe leader who was riding on A Yue's back with Xiao Yun was confused: "Why is this happening, A Yun?"
Xiao Yun turned back to look at the clan leader with a stern face, picked up his half-long hair and raised it: "Clan leader, did you see this?"
"I saw it, your hair." The patriarch was puzzled.
"——Lice! Lice from the gray dwarves and caracals! Can't you see these little things crawling around in my hair!" Xiao Yun shouted hoarsely, "Everyone, shave your heads! Those who can transform, transform and repeatedly wrap themselves in mud and scrub! Get rid of the lice before you can come into contact with others to prevent multiple infections!"
More than forty gray dwarves, eleven caracals, a black panther, and five snow werewolves all looked at him in confusion.
So in the next few days, Xiao Yun forced all the dusty people to stay outside the tribe to wash and have their heads shaved...
Gray dwarves can't transform, so on the first day, they finished shaving their heads. Well, you can't shave a bald head with just a skinning knife, you can only cut as much hair as possible... The head is okay, even female gray dwarves don't care about appearance that much; shaving body hair is more of a headache, adult gray dwarves (over 30 years old) have very dense chest hair, and Xiao Yun's skills are not very good, so he has to add more wounds from time to time. When taking a shower, someone always touches the wound and screams in pain.
After completing a series of procedures such as shaving, removing lice, bathing and changing clothes, Xiao Yun did not arrange the gray dwarves to live directly in the tribe. Instead, he set up two rows of tents for them to live in outside the tribe - there were just two large shared mud brick houses, and it was not a problem to arrange anyone to live there, so it would be better for no one to live there.
The snow wolves had been trained by Xiao Yun for a whole winter, so they had no objection to shaving and transformation and brushing. The problem with the caracals was more troublesome. They didn't mind shaving their hair into bumpy stubble, because there was no place on the grassland for them to eat. As for brushing, most cats didn't like to get their bodies wet...
After coaxing and pressing the cats to wash them clean, I boiled water in a big pot to cook the animal skins worn by the gray dwarves and caracals - these two races don't pay much attention to hygiene, what if they bring some germs and infect the tribesmen?
In the newly built tent camp outside the tribe, the caracal warrior Qiu, who had washed off the old mud and revealed his yellowish-white skin to the light of day, and his ten tribesmen sat shivering by the campfire. Occasionally, someone reached out to touch his prickly stubble head, and glanced with resentful eyes at Xiao Yun who was sitting in the same circle with him.
Xiao Yun ignored the little grudges of these proud cats. They cooperated well during the shaving. Once they were brushed, they even remembered the hatred of the shaving. It turned out that cats all have bad tempers.
"Ahem, well, everyone, pay attention. You've heard what the gray dwarves and I discussed before. They're not in a hurry to build their own village now. They want to find a mineral vein first, and then build a village near the mineral vein after finding it." Xiao Yun said seriously, "As for you, there are few of you, so it's not appropriate to ask you to build houses somewhere else, so I suggest you choose to live closer to the snow werewolves. Your safety is guaranteed, and it's also convenient to eat nearby. What do you think?"
Qiu's wounds have almost healed. The temperature on the grasslands of this world is not high, and the outdoor temperature is only a few degrees. However, caracals are very cold-resistant. Even though Qiu is still injured, he is not wrapped up as tightly . He just wears a straight coat made by Qingyan. Well, Qingyan's coat fits him well, and it looks like a dress on him...
Qiu was stunned for a moment: "Ayun, my name is Qiu, not Qiuqiu."
"...Don't worry about these details, tell me your plan first." Xiao Yun said. He couldn't pronounce the single-word name. This was only popular in the cheesy romance dramas 20 years ago.
There are only seven adults left in this group of caracals, and Qiu is the only warrior. If Xiao Yun wants to make a decision, he must ask Qiu for his opinion. But... Qiu has the instinct to protect his people, but he has no experience in this area. Hearing this, he scratched his head for a long time and didn't know what to say: "This, I don't know."
"Then you can live here." Xiao Yun raised his hand and pointed at the tents around him. "The gray dwarves will dismantle their tents in the next two days to look for minerals. With the space vacated, we can build a large room here. Oh, the kind of house that Qingyan took you to see earlier. Is this room enough for you to live in for the time being?"
The caracal has always lived in a cave in the cat tribe that was dug halfway into the ground and covered with a shed. After shaving his head and washing his face, Qingyan took Qiu to see the warm kang room where he had slept for the whole winter. Qiu fell in love with it at first sight - the caracal's resistance to cold does not mean that it likes to abuse itself, and there is no cat that doesn't like radiators - he nodded immediately .
Xiao Yun moved his butt closer to Qiu, picked up his palm and looked at it, and said in a pretentious manner: "But... with your hands and your body size, you probably can't build this kind of house by yourself."
Qiu lowered his head and saw that the palm of Xiao Yun, the snow werewolf cub, was actually bigger than that of a caracal warrior like himself. He became worried... What could he do? The caracal was just this size, and he was also desperate!
Xiao Yun squeezed his palm and fingers, then let go, and said seriously: "How about this, I'll find a few snow wolves who don't go to farm to build the house, and you can help take over the work they are responsible for, and everyone can exchange jobs, so that both of us can be satisfied. How do you think?"
"Okay." Qiu answered immediately, and then asked, "What kind of work do you want to do? Can we do it?"
No tribe on the grassland would keep idle people. As long as the cubs of any tribe can run and jump, they must work in the tribe. This greatly reduces Xiao Yun's psychological burden of using child labor... Well, although there are not many, the snow wolf cubs are still ordered around by him.
"Of course you can do it. It's very simple. You just need to process wool, weave rattan, weave wool, etc." Xiao Yun said with a smile, "After you finish eating, I will take you to have a look and you will know. If you want to get started, you will probably need to learn a little. Once you are proficient, it will be easy to do."
Qiu nodded again like a chick pecking at rice... The caracal cubs were used to weaving vines, and although they had never woven wool, it would not be more laborious than weaving vines.
Xiao Yun smiled and smiled. He had more confidence in the caracals than Qiu. On the way back, he had already tested the finger flexibility of these caracals in the name of teaching them to weave rattan straw sandals. The cats disliked the caracals for not being strong enough, but he really liked the caracals' small hands. They were slender and flexible, and the claws on their fingertips could be freely extended and retracted, so he didn't have to worry about damaging things when sticking them to his fingers. He was simply the perfect candidate for a craftsman!
He brought soup made from mutton bones, a ceramic pot with meat, bean sprouts and enoki mushrooms, and distributed ceramic bowls to let the caracals feel the snow wolf's skill points in food and the breadth of pottery. He fed the seven big and four small caracals with the portions of three snow wolves, and then Xiao Yun led them to the mobile house for "practice training" - really wait until the house construction starts before letting them work? That would be a waste.
The indoor area of the mobile home with floor heating is much warmer than the outside. It is not damp and is quite dry. The young caracal cubs narrow their eyes and roll on the ground as soon as they come in, not minding the acorns on the ground. When they sit down and watch the snow wolf spinning, their buttocks touching the warm ground, even the adult caracals are a little eager to move...
The hand-cranked spinning machine was very small and was just right for the caracals to use. After watching it for a while, they were taught how to use it. Even Qiu, a warrior, learned faster than the female snow wolf and became proficient in it in just a few minutes - what a racial gap! It was really unacceptable.
Six hand-cranked spinning machines were used by the caracals, adults and children, to "play" with. In less than two hours, they spun a quantity of wool and grass that would normally take half a day to spin...
Xiao Yun was excited inside, but appeared calm as an old dog. He coaxed a few caracal cubs, which were as small as kindergarten students, to his side and taught them how to knit with wooden knitting needles.
The caracal, which was too young, couldn't hold the needle, but the two older ones used their nimble little hands to hold the needle and, under Xiao Yun's guidance, quickly knitted out a border...
"Huh, huh, huh?" The caracal cub, unable to hold the needle, showed a cute expression of surprise and envy.
"This... this is the kind of soft cloth that Qingyan wears?" The adult caracals came over in surprise. "This... is much faster than weaving!"
The adult caracal looked at Xiao Yun eagerly.
Xiao Yun quickly took out more knitting needles.
The adult caracal knitted a piece of wool and happily showed it to other members of the tribe: "So this is how Qingyan's soft clothes are knitted, it's amazing!"
"Teach me, teach me!"
In the warm and spring-like activity room, caracals of all sizes are playing with spinning and knitting sweaters. From time to time, some of them roll on the ground skillfully, stretch themselves, and then sit up and continue to work; as pairs of nimble little hands fly, thick wool is wound on the spindles, and the prototypes of sweaters are knitted under the knitting needles...
Xiao Yun looked at them with a motherly smile; Qing Yan came, and Qing Yan also looked at them with a motherly smile; Qing Cao and Da He came, two more mothers; Yang Mao came jumping and skipping, an aunt...
"How cute!" In the half year of carefree life, the innocent Yangmao developed an aesthetic sense... an appreciation of cuteness. He ran in with a giggle and hugged the youngest caracal cub, rolling around, and took out the fried beans and the meager amount of meat floss that he had saved to feed it...
Qingyan looked at Xiao Yun with deep affection, and Xiao Yun raised his hand to stop him: "Don't say anything, you are free, you don't have to knit sweaters anymore."
Qingyan immediately rushed into the mobile home and rolled around.
Qingcao and Daha looked at Xiao Yun with deep affection.
"They help us spin and weave, and we build houses for them." Xiao Yun said.
The grass and the river also rushed in...
"Hey, hey! Don't crush the cubs!" Xiao Yun shouted.
