Volume 1: Farming Chapter 5 The Sharp Nanny
Xiao Yun was awakened by the smoke. In a daze, he smelled a very indescribable odor... This smell was as if the stench of a drawer of underwear that had been worn for at least half a year and fermented for another half a year collided violently with the kitchen garbage that had not been thrown away for more than three months, producing an intoxicating chemical reaction. The two rushed into his nose hand in hand, and in just a moment, Xiao Yun's nose was almost rotten - the sensor nerves in his head were also almost rotten. The overly pungent odor was poisonous, and the toxicity was so strong that it almost crushed his brains.
The strong desire to survive prompted Xiao Yun to jump up suddenly, covering his nose and running wildly in the direction where he could see a faint light. With a dull tearing sound, Xiao Yun felt as if he had broken through a thick, rough, greasy leather. When he breathed in relatively fresh air and finally came back to life, he heard a continuous "boom and clang" sound behind him. Looking back... Damn, the garbage dump collapsed, uh, the slanted tent collapsed completely...
"…Is this a dangerous building?!"
Xiao Yun was shocked. Who was so wicked as to put him in such a dangerous house? If he hadn't run fast, who would have been crushed to death or suffocated?
Feeling a little scared and a little angry, Xiao Yun turned his eyes around - well, he had wronged his cheap uncle, there were a row of slanted tents in a circle on the flat ground that was half the size of a residential community, and none of them looked shaky.
"It's even more terrible than the slums in Brazil..." After a casual glance, Xiao Yun's mouth began to twitch. The current situation of this tribe seemed to be even more dilapidated than what he saw in the original owner's memory. The number of tents was at least reduced by one third, and the wool felt tarpaulins of each family were even more tattered. Most importantly, there were not many pottery, wooden utensils and dried cheese drying outside in the tribe that could represent the wealth of the grassland people.
The collapsed tent alarmed the people who stayed behind, and a man quickly walked out of a square-top tent built with wooden frames more than ten meters away. When the man saw Xiao Yun, he was surprised at first: "You woke up, Ayun, Ashan asked me to watch you..." Seeing the collapsed tent, the surprise turned into shock, "Why did your house collapse?!"
Ayun was the name of the original owner, and Ashan was the name of the original owner's uncle. Xiao Yun was stunned for a moment before he understood what the man meant and recognized him: he was another parasite in the tribe besides the original owner Ayun, the human wanderer who drifted from the southern inland sea.
In fact, this human wanderer is also a middle-aged male, and is considered the main labor force in the human area. But on the grassland... his survival ability is worse than that of a young snow wolf. He will die if he is targeted by a wild beast. So when the snow wolves are grazing and hunting, he usually stays with his original owner to look after the house.
Well... even so, the original owner was very distant from this human being and didn't even remember his name. Xiao Yun suspected that the original owner might have autism, depression or something... Anyway, the original owner never talked to this human being, so he simply looked at him silently to avoid being exposed by speaking - he had thought about it carefully during his return to the tribe. The snow werewolves were careless and had some brains, so he could fool people with his resurrection by borrowing a corpse. He just had to keep an eye on this human who was mixed up with the snow werewolves.
The human wanderer with unshaven beard, messy hair and clothes tied all over his body looked very similar to Brother Sharp. This guy was really used to Ayun's indifference to him. He trotted over to Ayun's ruined home and didn't treat himself as an outsider at all. He said, "Maybe it was too rough when it was built. Fortunately, you were not hurt. Where have you been, Ayun? The people in the tribe are very worried about you. Although Ashan is very happy that you hunted a big-horned deer by yourself, I can see that Ashan doesn't want you to go out alone... Ah, that's great. The pottery jar is just missing a horn, not broken."
The Snow Wolf Tribe was willing to keep Brother Sharp. In addition to the Snow Wolf Tribe's generosity, Brother Sharp naturally had his advantages. He deftly found Ayun's belongings from the collapsed tent - an open broken pottery jar, two large bundles of various animal skins, and a small jar of green salt - and after sorting these important items aside, Brother Sharp greeted Xiao Yun intimately: "I'm helping you deal with the horned deer you hunted. Come to my tent first, I'll get you some food."
Xiao Yun looked up at Brother Sharp's tent not far away. Among the sloping-roof tents, his square-roof tent with a wooden frame was the most conspicuous. At least it didn't look that dangerous. Then he looked down at Brother Sharp, who looked very bohemian... at least he didn't smell as bad as his uncle Ashan whom he had met. Thinking that humans probably didn't have the immunity of the snow werewolves to live in a garbage dump, Xiao Yun nodded.
Sharp Brother seemed quite happy. Xiao Yun figured that this was probably the first time that Ayun, who always stayed with him, was willing to pay attention to him... The original owner's autistic child was really unique.
After entering Brother Xili's tent, Xiao Yun understood how this guy could thrive in the Snow Wolf Tribe by combining the memories of the original owner and the situation in the tent. The Snow Wolf Tribe's leather-making technology was almost non-existent. In most cases, they burned the fur of the prey and ate the skin and meat together. Only the cowhide and sheepskin that were specially saved to trade with the caravan could be preserved. As for this human guy, he was probably a leatherworker. After he came, the fur production of the Snow Wolf Tribe doubled...
"This is the deer hide you hunted. The pattern is very beautiful." Brother Xili entered the tent and sat down. He immediately showed Xiao Yun the deer hide he had just peeled. "The back is very complete. After processing, this kind of deer hide can be made into at least several pairs of deerskin boots and deerskin gloves, which can be sold at a good price... Just this piece of skin can be exchanged for at least a small bag of green salt!"
There were no stools in the tent, so Xiao Yun could only follow his example and sit cross-legged on the fur on the ground. Fortunately, after returning to the tribe, his uncle or someone else gave him a pair of fur shorts, otherwise it would have been difficult to sit there with his naked butt... Looking at this buddy's expression that seemed to be begging for praise, Xiao Yun thought about how he should react and nodded to express his happiness.
Brother Xili really liked this. He happily put the deerskin on top of the pile of furs waiting to be processed in the corner, added firewood, and set up a clay pot to make food for Xiao Yun...
"Fortunately, the original owner's autistic child is taciturn, so people can accept my silence." Xiao Yun felt relieved and thought that this wave was stable, so he thought about how to make this person understand that he was almost smoking with thirst, so he stared at the wooden barrel filled with water in the tent.
Brother Xili deftly put firewood into the burning charcoal pile...
Xiao Yun: “…”
Well, this guy doesn't seem to be the type who thinks too much all day long. Xiao Yun simply walked to the bucket, opened the lid, picked up the bucket and drank it violently... He actually wanted to be reserved and not be too conspicuous, but the problem was that he didn't care about anything else the moment he saw the water.
Sitting back down with a burp, Sharp Brother was indeed busy with his own business as if nothing had happened… And rightly so, since we were living together with the Snow Werewolves, he must have seen all kinds of eating styles.
Feeling annoyed, Xiao Yun silently observed this guy's cooking skills, and then he saw... this guy set up a basin-sized clay pot, added water, and threw a deer leg with the mud on the hoof not completely removed into it...
Xiao Yun: "..."Hold it, hold it! Don't show your weakness!
Brother Sharp dragged out a leather bag from the pile of furs, pulled it directly to the fire, and grabbed handfuls of black beans from the bag and sprinkled them into the clay pot.
The moment Xiao Yun saw the bag of black beans, a strange yet familiar memory appeared in his mind. This was the rare time when the original owner could be of use. Every spring, the Snow Wolf people would also sow seeds. At this time, the original owner would go to all the fields of the tribe with other people to sow seeds... That's right, it was sowing seeds, not farming. The Snow Wolf people had no talent for planting. Their sowing behavior was to scatter black bean seeds on a large area of flat land that had been roughly burned, and then harvest them after a few months...
Xiao Yun couldn't help but lower his head and slapped his forehead - what a natural slash-and-burn farming, I had only seen it in history books before, but now I have the chance to experience it myself... Bullshit! The thousands of Chinese who can grow vegetable gardens on their balconies are about to burst their piss!!
"Ayun, are you hungry?" Brother Xili glanced at Xiao Yun, then pulled out a leather bag from behind his pile of furs, grabbed a grayish-white block from it and handed it to him, "Eat a piece of cheese first, it will be ready when it's cooked."
Xiao Yun looked at the cheese that Brother Xili grabbed with horror. He knew what the cheese of the Snow Wolf Tribe was. It was made by boiling goat's milk and cow's milk until it was very thick, then drying it in the shade to make it a solid substance. If there was sugar, they would add some to it. If there was no sugar, they would add green salt. This kind of cheese could be stored for a very long time and was considered a kind of dry food... The problem was that it could be stored for a very long time - Xiao Yun saw some kind of worms wriggling in the holes in the cheese that Brother Xili grabbed...
"Ugh... Ugh!"
That’s great, my stomach is empty and there’s nothing to vomit... No, the stomach acid coming up makes me even more disgusted!
"Ah, I forgot you don't eat cheese, Ayun." Sharp Brother quickly took his hand back.
"..." Xiao Yun shed tears silently. Fortunately, his character was not broken...
After the cheese, Brother Sharp worked even harder to add firewood to cook the deer leg… Xiao Yun didn't really want to complain about the annoying operation of stuffing the whole deer leg in like that and only cooking half of it. After all, iron tools were scarce on the grassland, and the snow werewolves had to rely on their own claws to cut meat and chop wood, and they didn't have artifacts like kitchen knives. Brother Sharp, who was responsible for leathermaking for the tribe, only had a skinning knife that was half a palm wide and was bought for him by the tribe at a huge cost.
But when Sharp Brother took out the jar of green salt and added salt into the clay pot with an expression of cherishing it, Xiao Yun once again felt what it felt like to have his balls burst - the salt used by the Snow Werewolves was exchanged for cattle and sheep from human caravans. A sturdy four-year-old curved-horned ox (from the original owner's memory, Xiao Yun thought it was some kind of variant of yak) could be exchanged for a fist-sized bag of green salt. There was also such a jar in the collapsed house that Xiao Yun and his uncle shared.
Then, the price of this green salt is so high that it is outrageous to Chinese people. It is totally different from the salt that Chinese people understand... This thing is actually blue-black, and at first glance, it is no different from black mud slag...
Watching Brother Xili finish adding salt, cover the salt jar again and put it back carefully, Xiao Yun had only one thought going back and forth in his mind: Hell, purgatory on earth, the evil primitive society, the evil time travel - what the hell did he do to be exiled? Can he be given a chance to reflect on himself and go back to modern times to continue being his office dog? !
"Okay, it's cooked." Brother Xili moved the fork on the deer hoof outside the pot to observe it, then lifted the deer leg by the hoof, shook off the soup on it, and handed it to Xiao Yun with a smile, "Eat it, Ayun."
"..." Xiao Yun stared at the steaming deer leg that was at least half raw, and his heart was filled with curses again - okay, okay, he would not complain about this sharp nanny boy, it was all the fault of the Snow Wolf Man's bold way of eating!
"Wait." Xiao Yun raised his hand firmly. He could no longer maintain this autistic attitude. " Where are the wild vegetables I brought back? Um, where are the packages of plants that were originally tied to the deer's legs?"
"Did you bring that back specially, Ayun?" Sharp Brother asked doubtfully.
"Yes!" Xiao Yun nodded repeatedly.
"Ashan asked me to help throw it away, and I haven't had the chance yet... It's just outside the tent. I'll get it for you." Brother Sharp stuffed the deer leg into Xiao Yun's hand, stood up and walked out.
Xiao Yun felt annoyed when holding this thing, who the hell cares about how well done the boiled meat is... He looked around, okay, this sharp guy's tent was relatively clean but it was impossible to find a chopping board, so he had to make do with what he had and found a thicker piece of firewood to pad the deer leg, then showed his fingernails and reprocessed the half-cooked deer leg meat and cut it into pieces - the claws of the snow wolf in human form were only about one centimeter long, so he couldn't cut too thick meat, but he could do it with half-cooked meat.
Not long after, Brother Xili came back with three bundles of wild vegetables that Xiao Yun had specially wrapped with long grass stalks. He was surprised to see that the upper half of the deer leg that Xiao Yun had put aside was gone. Although the Snow Wolf people eat quickly, they have never seen such a fast eating. When he got closer, he found that the meat on the deer leg had been cut into pieces and put back into the pottery pot to cook. This human who had lived in the Snow Wolf tribe for several years was particularly confused...
Xiao Yun did not explain to him. He first put aside the plantain that could be used as a medicinal herb and also for seeds. Then he untied the bundles of dandelions and blackberries, picked out the weeds and dead leaves mixed in, pinched off the old parts of the dandelions, and then brought the leftover water to wash away the mud and sand, and added handfuls of dry water to the pot.
"This, Ayun?" Brother Sharp was shocked. From the look of him, he wanted to hold Xiao Yun who was throwing grass into his flesh, but he hesitated and didn't dare. It's true that he is a middle-aged man in the human society. Ayun, who is recognized as the weakest in the Snow Wolf Tribe, is more than enough to beat him with one hand.
"Add some more salt." Xiao Yun estimated the amount of vegetables and meat and urged.
Sharp Brother looked at him silently and resentfully for a long time, then went to get the salt shaker silently.
The venison had already been cooked for a while, so it wasn't long before it was cooked after being cut into pieces and re-cooked. Xiao Yun found a branch of suitable thickness from the firewood pile, cut it in two and used it as chopsticks. After poking the meat to confirm the doneness, he couldn't wait... to pick up a piece of cooked gray grass and dandelion with chopsticks, blew on it twice, and stuffed it into his mouth deliciously.
"?!" Sharp Brother looked at the two wooden sticks in Xiao Yun's hands in shock, then looked at Xiao Yun who was eating grass with an expression , his jaw almost dropped to the ground.
