Volume 3: Fellow villagers, let’s farm together~ Chapter 75 is so exciting!
The Snow Wolf Tribe allocated two rooms for the Cat Tribe to live in. Xia habitually called all the warriors to one of the rooms. Everyone else came, but two warriors ignored him and did not squeeze into the same room with the other cats. Instead, they headed towards the caracals' house.
"Xia, they..." The Golden Cat Warrior spoke a little annoyed. Xia raised his hand to stop him, turned around to pack up the things he brought, and asked people to go to another room and find a few more people to live there.
Xia knew that not all of the tribesmen who followed him trusted him. The arrangement of the snow wolf cub also detracted from his credit for "bowing his head to find shelter for the tribesmen". In addition, there were caracals in the tribe that he had expelled before, so those who were dissatisfied with him would naturally express their dissatisfaction.
Xia was packing up his things silently, with a flame burning in his eyes.
The two people who left without hesitation, the leopard warrior Fishbone and the snow leopard warrior Rosemary, were the two with the best relationship among the cat warriors.
Leopard Fishbone is tall and agile, a rare big guy among the cat clan, but he has a very gentle personality. When the tribe expelled the caracals, he was the only one who opposed it and even had a quarrel with Xia. After that, his relationship with Xia in the tribe became quite cold.
"We have room for you guys here, come over." Qiu greeted the two soldiers into the room without hesitation and pointed to the empty space opposite the kang. "Put the things you brought there, and leave a path for people to walk through. By the way, don't touch the woolen fabrics inside, they haven't been processed yet."
Yugu looked around curiously, put down a simple greeting, and jumped lightly onto the kang, crouching and touching here and there: "Is it comfortable to sleep on? What is this?"
"It's woolen fabrics, woven blankets, made of wool." Qiu sat back in his original position and showed the half-finished sleeveless pullover to the tribesmen, "This is also made of wool. It's very warm when you wear it when the weather gets cold."
Snow Leopard Warrior Rosemary stared at the iron pot on the stove after entering the house. Only after hearing this did she turn her eyes away: "Wool? Wool from long-haired sheep?"
"Yes." Qiu picked up a ball of yarn. "First, process the wool and spin it into yarn. Then use knitting needles to knit it into clothes and wear it. For a blanket, you need to use yarn that is much thicker than this. You can knit it directly with your hands. You see, he is knitting a blanket."
Qiu gently threw the ball of yarn onto the spacious kang. The yarn ball rolled slowly. The caracal, who was sitting against the wall weaving a blanket, jumped out subconsciously and hugged the rolling yarn ball with his paws.
Qiu pointed at him and laughed. The teased caracal finally reacted, glared at Qiu, threw away the ball of yarn, and sat back to continue weaving the blanket.
Fishbone, who was still touching things here and there, said with surprise: "It feels very comfortable to touch." Then he rolled forward...
It would be fine if other cats rolled around on the kang, but this guy was only a size smaller than an adult snow werewolf, and no matter how spacious the kang was, it couldn't withstand his rolling. His big feet kicked Qiu's buttocks flattened a few centimeters, making Qiu angry: "Don't roll around on the kang when you are so big!"
"Hehe..." Yugu scratched his scalp embarrassedly. Qiu had cut off all his long hair, and now only stubble was left, which felt prickly to the touch. "Qiu, when did you become so powerful? I never saw you know so much before."
"It was Ayun who taught me. It's nothing. You guys are going to learn it together anyway." Qiu smiled.
Fishbone & Rosemary: "Huh?"
"The Snow Wolf people don't need us cat warriors to patrol and hunt, so we have to do all the odd jobs in the tribe, such as taking care of cattle and sheep when their cubs are too busy, or helping in the kitchen. Of course, our main job is to process woolen fabrics. Life will be hard without sweaters and blankets in winter."
Fishbone and Rosemary looked at each other. Snow Leopard Rosemary couldn't help asking, "That's all we're doing? Won't the Snow Wolf Tribe think we're being lazy?"
"No way. Think about it. There are so many people in the tribe. We have to make all their clothes and bedding. It's very tiring." Qiu waved his hands, looking frightened. "Last year, there were almost fifty more gray dwarves. It took us more than ten days to make all their clothes and bedding. Later, they also started to smelt iron in the winter. Their clothes were always broken. It was so troublesome to mend them all."
"Uh..." Rosemary and Fishbone still didn't feel it was real. They had already eaten two meals today. They were provided with such good food and a house to live in, but they were only asked to do such light work... Don't the snow werewolves have any objections?
"Don't think too much. Didn't Ah Yun say at the meeting tonight that the cat tribe should be divided into two working teams? You'll know everything after working on it tomorrow." Qiu stood up and picked up the half-processed woolen fabrics and piled them in the innermost part. "Go to sleep first. I'll give you my pillows. They're filled with wheat bran and reed fluff. They're much more comfortable than animal skins."
"Ball, ball~" The adult caracal that was weaving the blanket had finished tidying up, but did not lie down to sleep. Instead, it rubbed against Qiu and licked Qiu's face with its tongue.
"Oh, you really can't stand not having a midnight snack for a day." Qiu pushed the tribesman's head away with disgust, "Okay, okay, I'll make it for you."
The six adult manuls cheered in unison...
"What's for midnight snack?" Snow Leopard Rosemary began to swallow her saliva, her eyes drifting towards the stove again.
"Snacks before bed." Qiu sighed, got off the bed and put on his shoes. "After Ayun started telling us stories, these guys insisted on eating something before going to bed."
Fishbone rolled around on the kang holding Qiu's pillow, causing the caracals to beat him hard. "Story?"
"You can hear it tomorrow night, don't worry." Qiu didn't explain, walked to the big stove, squatted down and added a few pieces of coal, "If you want to have a midnight snack, get up and help. Am I supposed to do it alone?"
"Okay, okay!" Two adult caracals jumped down quickly, some washing vegetables and some mixing noodles.
Snow Leopard Rosemary then discovered that the bag in front of the stove and the wooden cabinet behind the bag were filled with food and utensils. She was immediately shocked: "You have food here? Why is there no food in the room over there?"
"Didn't the kitchen staff deliver it? That may be because you were too busy today and didn't notice it. It should be replenished tomorrow. In the rooms with stoves, food is distributed according to the number of people. Make your own breakfast and go to the kitchen for more after you finish eating." Qiu said.
Rosemary felt something was wrong when she heard it: "...Wait, does that mean we can eat whatever food the Snow Wolf tribe has?"
"As long as we can eat it and don't waste it, it's fine." Qiu said with some pride.
Fishbone sat up and exchanged glances with Rosemary. The four of them looked silently at the wooden cabinet full of food... It seems that Qiu is living quite well in the Snow Wolf Tribe. The Cat Tribe is considered wealthy, but they don't distribute food so casually like this.
In other words, apart from the Tauren, they have never heard of any tribe on the grassland that has enough food every day... being half-starved is the norm.
For every newcomer to the Snow Wolf Tribe, the harsh and unpleasant sound of the gong every morning is like a spiritual baptism. When the gong sounds, Fishbone jumps up from the kang, grabs his friend Rosemary, who just opened her eyes, jumps off the kang, grabs the short spear that was placed at her feet before going to bed, grabs Rosemary's neck with his left hand, and rushes out the door with the quality of a warrior...
It was just dawn, and there were five cat warriors like Yugu who suddenly rushed out of the door. Xia also ran out of the house and was standing at the intersection looking around.
Amid the sound of gongs and drums, a voice came closer from afar: "Get up - have breakfast - get to work -"
"..." Yugu stood there with his mouth half open, as if he had lost connection... After a long while, the muscles on his face moved and he swallowed. He remembered whose voice it was, as he had just heard it yesterday.
Qiu rubbed his eyes and poked his head out of the door: "Ha... yawn, Fishbone, don't stand there, come and help carry the water. Don't make a fuss, it's Ayun ringing the wake-up call, you will get used to it in the future... Let Rosemary go, he's rolling his eyes..."
…Only then did Yugu realize that his friend had almost strangled himself.
Under Qiu's instructions, they brushed their teeth with a boar-bristle brush, rinsed their mouths with salt water, washed their faces and hands with warm water boiled in the big stove, and then ate a meal of soup cooked in a big pot. That was all they had to do after getting up. Next, the thirty-six cats divided into two groups and followed Qiu and another adult caracal to start working.
"The other group went to help the Snow Wolf cubs. Our group's job is to process the wool that has been piled up and not processed."
Qiu led more than 20 cats to the warehouse area. After moving away the door blocked by stones, the cats' faces were covered with dirty, gray, yellow and black curly hair that filled the warehouse with a small amount of garbage... No one knew if there was any chemical reaction caused by all the things piled together, but the cats, who were obviously used to the smell of sheep, coughed continuously because of the smell.
"Well... a small part of the wool here was cut off when the sheep were slaughtered, and most of it was cut from live sheep in the spring, using large scissors specially made by the gray dwarves." Qiu covered his nose and sighed, "Shearing wool is really not easy. There are not many of us, and we have been squatting in the sheepfold for more than a month... When Ayun called us to help sow in the fields, it was like a holiday. Well, let's not talk about this. Everyone, move these wools to the pool in the southeast of the square. There are stoves, canals and drainage ditches there. Boil warm water to clean these wools."
The new cats held their necks high, their mouths half open, and didn't even say anything about fish bones and rosemary. The work the snow wolf asked them to do was too easy - how much wool is there in this? !
"Come on, everyone. Let's destroy this warehouse quickly. There is still another one!" Qiu waved his arms to cheer everyone up.
"..." Fishbone, who was assigned to Qiu's team, began to tremble.
Xiao Yun had been accumulating . He had been accumulating wool for two years. The sheep he kept in the pen, the sheep brought by the grassroots tribe, and the lambs born by the ewes, not counting the new ones brought by the cat tribe, totaled more than 4,000 heads. Even if they were only sheared once in the spring when the weather turned warmer, it was standard practice to have accumulated more than 100,000 kilograms of wool...
Xiao Yun was not so devilish as to let the cats hand-wash the wool in two warehouses. While burning glassware and making Glauber's salt, he also made chlorine water. This thing is better for washing wool than acetic acid. It can soften the wool scales and reduce the shrinkage performance of wool. He also made a human-powered drum wool washing machine. Well, it is actually an enlarged version of a blender. The power principle is similar to that of a push mill. Human power turns the handle of the peripheral device. The kinetic energy drives the drum inside the barrel-shaped porcelain cylinder to rotate through the reduction pulley. The raw wool rises to a high point with the rotation of the drum and falls down. The purpose of cleaning the raw wool is achieved through the mechanical action of constantly falling, hitting and squeezing the raw wool, and the chemical action of chlorine water and soapy water solution.
Of course, such a rough wool washing machine can only be used to wash the long hair which is cheap and abundant, and the down hair still needs to be washed by hand. Fortunately, the amount of down hair is small, and there are many cats, so it only takes about 200 kilograms of down hair to be washed for each cat.
Well... for the caracals, this workload is just a routine operation in the tribe. But it's different for the new cats. They are so exhausted from washing that they doubt their lives...
The two paws had been soaked in the water for a whole day. At dinner time, the new cats all had empty eyes and looked exhausted... Fortunately, the food provided by the Snow Wolf Clan was really delicious, which comforted their wounded hearts a little.
Add a little chili powder, and mix the shredded radish and tender bean sprouts with salt, vinegar and soy sauce, then put them into the pancake fried with oil. Then put in a few strips of pork and pour a spoonful of broth. After taking a bite, Fishbone suddenly feels that his life has regained color.
Following Qiu's example, he finished three pancakes and drank a bowl of soup. Yugu touched his stomach and turned to look at his friends: "We spent the whole day washing wool with Qiu. What about you? What did your team do?"
Snow Leopard Rosemary paused while biting the pancake, her eyes were blank, and her voice was trembling: "…We drove the sheep here after shearing them all day."
Fishbone: “…”
"Eat quickly. After that we'll go to the square to reserve seats. We'll have class soon, and after class Ayun will tell a story." Qiu, who was eating in the same room, urged Rosemary when he saw how slowly she was eating.
"Huh..." Rosemary sighed, her face turning pale, "Hurry up, hurry up, today is the day I hear this word the most in my life..."
Fishbone: “…”
After dinner, after clearing away the dishes and washing them, Qiu led a room full of people to the square to "reserve seats". It was not until this moment that the new cats saw how strange the races living in the Snow Wolf tribe were - a human greeted Qiu and sat among the caracals, a green dragon with long curly hair had a group of goblins on his left and snow wolf cubs on his right, and the gray dwarves sat together with the adult snow werewolves.
Fishbone was shocked by the racial diversity of this tribe when he heard Qiu talking to the human: "Why is Balk here? Didn't he not attend class with us?"
The human turned his head and glanced in the direction of the green dragon, not taking it seriously: "Maybe Ayun didn't arrange anything else for him."
Just after saying a few words, the green dragon suddenly stood up, walked over, picked up a caracal cub, and sat back down...
"Qiu, this...?" Yugu's heart skipped a beat and he quickly reached out to grab Qiu's shoulders.
"It's okay, they all like our cubs." Qiu waved his hand.
Fishbone: “???”
At this moment... the cub named Ayun appeared. Many people waved to greet him, but he still walked straight towards the caracals...
"How was your work today? Are you guys adapting?" Ayun sat down cross-legged and greeted the new cats with a smile.
"It's okay. It's just that only two wool washing machines are not enough." Qiu Hui said.
"Okay, then let's talk to Baru later and have them build two more. We just happened to have two extra straight-cylinder tanks last time." Xiao Yun naturally reached out and picked up a caracal cub and put it on his lap, then took out some dried fruit for the cub to eat - everyone used to love wild fruits, but now everyone has become picky about them and dislikes the sourness of wild fruits, so the wild fruits collected this year were either made into jam or dried.
"You still have some dried fruits?" Qiu said casually.
"There are still some." Xiao Yun took out a small bag woven from tree bark fibers, grabbed a few and handed them to Qiu.
"I've finished what I was given." Qiu took it with a smile.
"Qiuqiu, I have some roasted ants. Do you want to eat some?" A snow werewolf sitting in the front row turned around and handed over a hollowed-out wooden barrel as thick as his arm.
"Okay, come on, let's share..."
"Who has dried tofu? I'll trade it with you for fried beans..."
The new cats looked at the people around them in confusion, either exchanging all kinds of strange snacks they had never seen before, or feeding the caracals...
"..." The leopard warrior Fishbone looked silently at his friend, and his friend Rosemary was also looking at him with a confused look on her face.
Manul... is it so popular?!
Xia, who was sitting in his family's room, was also shocked. He looked at the green dragon holding the caracal cub, and then at Ayun, who had great power in the Snow Wolf tribe. His expression changed again and again, as if he was thinking about something.
Almost everyone had arrived at the square, so Lan Guo stood up and stood in front of everyone, facing them, and said, "There are a lot of new people here, today we will start the math lesson from the beginning. Those who don't have a good foundation please listen carefully, and those who don't need to review from the beginning please speak softly so as not to disturb others... Now, let's start learning numbers..."
Xia stared at the lame snow werewolf in astonishment for a long time, then turned stiffly to look at Ayun, the snow werewolf who was holding a caracal cub and whispering to Qiu. He thought that the Snow Wolf Clan had summoned all members so formally because this person had something to say to everyone, so why did the lame one go up?
Lang Guo has taught the same course more than a dozen times and is now very familiar with it. He knows how to add some examples that are easy to remember during the teaching process to attract the attention of the tribesmen, such as using the example of distributing delicious snacks when doing addition and subtraction.
The new cats were amazed by the variety of snacks in the Snow Wolf Tribe, and their mouths watered. When Lan Guo explained the snack distribution model to the cats, even the cat warriors sitting next to Xia began to cheer - those who completed their work normally could share the snacks in the tribe, and everyone would share them equally, and everyone would get the same amount. Those who made special contributions to the tribe could get special distributions, such as sweet water mixed with jam would be given priority to teacher Lan Guo...
This learning mode of using things around us and things that everyone cares about as examples is easy to remember. After an hour and a half of listening without communication, Xia, who had been a little absent-minded and only eavesdropped on Xiao Yun and Qiu's small talk, understood how to write vertical addition and subtraction within 100...
After the evening class, Xiao Yun let go of the caracal cub and walked to the front. Under everyone's expectant gaze, he began to tell the story of the magical version of Cinderella. Ahem, as always, this was not some popular fairy tale about a beauty from the lower class who made a comeback, but a case of a property inheritance dispute between the children of a small noble's ex-wife and current wife in the complex family society of humans. With the support of the old butler, Cinderella used her beauty to seduce the powerful prince, and with the support of the prince's power, she settled accounts with her original family who deprived her of her property inheritance rights...
With the help of stories, Xiao Yun bluntly reveals the essence of the internal struggles in human society. For example, Cinderella, who only has beauty, is just the eldest daughter of a small noble family and is not worthy of the prince's wife. She has ruined her family and has no hope of improving her class. For example, how did the prince use Cinderella's hatred for her family to legally seize their manor farm - as a prince, how could he be easily fascinated by a beautiful woman? If Cinderella could be so beautiful, how could she have lived like that in the past 18 years? The hustle and bustle is all driven by interests!
Using specific cases to explain the law and the ways of the world and social rules is an educational method that has been proven feasible countless times by humans on Earth. The silly and cute snow wolves felt bitter and resentful after hearing it, not to mention the ambitious leopard Xia. The more Xiao Yun explained the money and power transactions and unspoken rules in the story in a simple and easy-to-understand way, the more his jaw dropped, the horror on his face was obvious, and his worldview was shattered again and again.
Xiao Yun, who was standing in front of the crowd, naturally saw Xia's loss of composure. He laughed in his heart, but on the surface he still explained the rules of the "power game" hidden in the story to everyone in detail - only those who don't know much about politics will ignorantly think that they are smarter than the country's leaders, and those who really understand politics are cautious and careful when they are grassroots officials. Don't you have ambitions? Then I will reveal the tip of the iceberg of the power field and let you see how much weight you really have.
——The tricks you used were just to bully others in your own tribe with force. To say that you are scheming is an insult to the word scheming.
After taking this strong medicine, Xia couldn't sleep all night... In the story, the stepmother deprived the eldest daughter of her inheritance rights, the eldest daughter jumped out of the family framework and struggled with external forces, the prince of power's inclination, position and ultimate intention in the war of inheritance rights. The power struggle hidden behind the seemingly simple story shattered the life outlook that Xia, who thought he was the smartest, had built up over more than 30 years - he found that his scheming and tactics were not as good as that of the final loser in the story, the human Cinderella:
In order to escape from the family framework and seek help from outside forces, Cinderella had been hiding her purpose well before the old housekeeper had a chance to take action. And what about him? Before hearing this story, did he understand this?
Xia tossed and turned, replaying the past scenes of the tribe gradually losing trust in him after he became the tribe leader. Xia was very desperate to find that what Qingyan said about him was not wrong. He was indeed stupid enough to think that no one was smarter than him...
The next day, the cats, who had undergone training the day before, had much better acceptance. At least they accepted the facts and no longer doubted what they were doing while they were busy. The adaptability of living things is extremely strong. After all, no matter what kind of creature it is, the evolutionary path is to adapt to the living environment.
During the "storytelling session" that night, Xiao Yun discovered that the new cat warriors were no longer forced to sit together, and Xia no longer squeezed together with the warriors, but sat among the ordinary cats.
"Your learning ability is quite good ." Xiao Yun touched his chin. An ambitious person who puts his ambition on the surface is not a qualified ambitious person. This leopard at least deserves one star for admitting his mistakes and correcting them.
Meeting Xia's gaze, Xiao Yun discovered that the leopard's eyes were still full of meaning. He laughed in his heart, young people are indeed full of drive, and the fire in their hearts is not so easily extinguished.
This is a good thing, but it is better to put out the fire once, so that it will be more valuable when it lights up again - people who have never been truly desperate will not know how precious it is to be able to stand up. Xiao Yun, who has been bullied by his elder sister since he was a child and has been beaten up countless times by old hands after entering the workplace, has a special experience in this regard.
After Lan Guo finished her class, Xiao Yun walked to the front of the crowd and looked at Xia who was looking at him. He smiled and said, "Tonight, the story I'm going to tell is called 'Snow White'——"
The mystery of the old king’s sudden death late at night!
The ambition to become king!
Princess Revenge!
Very exciting!
