Volume 4: How big is the heart, how vast is the earth Chapter 123 Responsibility
"Mermaids are not as pretty as the ones Ayun drew. Their ears are a layer of strange flesh membrane , and their skin colors are blue, white, gray, and black. Their noses are wide and flat, which makes their faces look weird."
"Oh oh——!" the cubs exclaimed.
"Then maybe mermaid princesses look completely different from ordinary mermaids?" The golden cat cub A Jiang tilted his head in confusion, "For example, Mumu, you look completely different from Dahe. You are ugly, and Dahe is handsome."
"You stupid kid, who are you calling ugly?" Mumu pounced into the pile of cubs, hugged Ajiang and tickled his belly hard.
"Ouch, it hurts, it hurts, Mumu, you are bullying me~!"
“Hahahahahaha…”
After laughing for a long time, they calmed down. Yangmao asked curiously, "Mumu, aren't there any pretty mermaids who are as pretty as the mermaid princess?"
"Hmm..." Mumu let go of Ajiang, crossed his arms and thought for a long time, "I seem to have seen a good-looking mermaid, but his nose was also wide and flat. To be honest, elves are better looking, like Evelyn."
"Oh oh——!" the cubs exclaimed in unison, this time in agreement. The aesthetic tastes of intelligent races that were not much different in size and physique were similar.
"Mumu, what's the difference between the dwarves outside and our gray dwarves?"
"Almost. Their skin color isn't that strange, it's similar to humans."
"Mumumumu, what about humans? What do humans outside look like?"
"Humans, there are very few good-looking ones, but many of them are weird." Mumu's expression became serious. "Humans are just like what Ayun said, they are very evil and will bully people with a smile. They are completely different from our Thrall. When you see humans outside in the future, don't get too close to them. Nanfeng was almost deceived by humans!"
"Eh——" The cubs were startled.
"I won't be fooled." Nanfeng, who was squatting by the stove at the head of the kang roasting wheat cakes, turned his head and looked over with dissatisfaction, "It's not like I don't know that those humans just want to trick us snow wolves into being mounts."
"Hey, it's so excessive, how can you tolerate it?" The golden cat cub Ajiang asked in surprise.
"It's hard to do business." Mumu said with a tone of an experienced person, "Ayun said that when you open a store for business, the people who pay are the customers. If they don't do anything excessive, you can't drive them away... Of course, if there is a fight or a noise in the store, you can throw them out."
"Yes, those who are fighting must be thrown out, otherwise they will destroy the tables and chairs in the store." Nanfeng said, "Once someone chopped our table and it took Hailin a while to fix it for us."
"Humans are so scary!" The cubs were shocked again.
"In addition to humans, there are some interesting guests." Mumu said, "There is a kind of black elf, as black as Qingyan, and there is a kind of barbarian. The size of the barbarian is about the same as our snow wolf, but their ears are the same as humans, which is different from ours. Moreover, they only have four fingers, but the joints of their fingers are more than ours. It's very strange."
“Eh——”
"There are also orcs, and they are divided into many kinds. The snake orcs who like spicy food very much are the strangest. They have pointed faces, thin noses, long eyes, and can stick out a long tongue with a forked beginning. The eyesight of the snake tribe is very poor. I heard them say that they can't see static objects and have to rely on their tongues to perceive." Mumu became more and more excited as he talked. "These snake tribes are the most interesting. Chili peppers are very irritating to the tongue. After eating spicy food, they can't perceive the surrounding environment and bump into things wherever they go. But they like spicy food very much. Then every time they eat hot and sour noodles, they become blind and have to sit for a while before they can walk..."
Hongye came to look for someone. She lifted the door curtain and found a bunch of cubs surrounding Mumu. Mumu was talking eloquently. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Aren't you guys studying? Is that how you study?"
After being caught playing secretly, the cubs that had been huddled together quickly dispersed and started scratching their ears and cheeks while grabbing the bark paper with words on it.
"Hehe... I've been studying for a while, so why not relax for a while..." Mumu said embarrassedly.
"How dare you talk like that? I asked you to go to the Elf Port to do business, but when you came back you had forgotten all the words you learned. You were in a study group with the cubs and yet you dared to corrupt the study atmosphere. You are getting more and more daring, huh?" Hongye reached out and pinched Mumu's nose in annoyance, and only let go after Mumu begged for mercy.
"Where is Ashu?" After taking care of Mumu, Hongye realized that the person she was looking for was not in the house.
Mumu rubbed his nose and said aggrievedly: "Ashu went to watch the warrior team training." After a pause, he continued, "Why didn't you assign me back to the warrior team? My injuries have healed."
"That's because you and Shu are still needed to take charge of the port business. Next year, you can train someone to take over your job and join Xiaohua's team."
"Hey, now that I'm in the warrior team, I'm not allowed to go to the port?" Mumu asked nervously.
"Of course, you want to have it both ways?"
"Uh... is it not possible?" Mumu looked conflicted.
Hongye was amused: "Of course not, I'm out!"
"Eh~ I don't want it spicy~" Mumu fell back and rolled on the kang, causing the cubs to look down on him.
Hongye didn't bother to pay attention to her and just walked out the door.
The temperature outside is about minus thirty degrees Celsius, which is very cold. There is heavy snow falling from the sky. In such weather, no work is arranged except daily work. After all, our Ayun is not a devil... However, the training of the warriors is not affected by the weather and is still carried out as usual in the open area east of the tribe.
Hongye walked out of the east side of the tribe in the wind and snow. When he looked up, he saw a familiar figure standing in the snow.
On the roughly leveled training ground, Xiaohua was beating her partner Atian, Yu was chasing Ayan and several other young warriors with a spear, making them cry out. All the elite warriors were actively training their friends, and the atmosphere was so heated that even the wind and snow could not stop it.
Ashu, who was standing on the sidelines, looked at them enviously, not noticing the layer of snow on his head and shoulders.
Hongye stood quietly with Ashu for a while. She could understand Ashu's feelings... She had temporarily left the warrior team because Ayun entrusted him with an important task, but Ashu had no choice - his physical condition was not as good as before after his internal organs were injured, and his strength and reaction were affected. It was impossible for him to become a warrior.
The snow was getting heavier, slowly covering the calves of the two people standing side by side. Even the silhouettes of the soldiers training in the field could not be seen clearly. Hongye sighed, put his arm around Ashu's shoulders, and patted him twice: "Ashu, let's go back."
Ashu retracted his gaze, his eyelids drooping: "... Yeah."
He was still very unwilling and wanted Hongye to hold him tightly before he turned around. Dragged back by Hongye's brute force, Ashu's tense body suddenly relaxed and he silently raised the back of his hand to rub his eyes.
Hongye resisted the urge to look at his face, staring straight ahead: "You've been back from the port for so long, and Ayun didn't arrange any work for you because he wanted you to relax for a while. In the past six months, you and Mumu have earned a lot of hard-earned money for the tribe at the Elf Port. But you, Shu, are very reliable. With Ayun's personality, he would feel uncomfortable if he didn't send useful people to work, so he couldn't help but let me come to find you..."
Ah Shu couldn't help but chuckled : "Hongye, is this how you think of Ah Yun in private?"
"What I said was relatively nice. Qingyan said something even more extreme." Hongye also laughed, "Anyway, Ayun can't eat or sleep well every day when he thinks that you are idle. He thinks this is a waste of manpower... So Ayun said that he hopes you can go to the cafeteria to help Niu Jiao before the beginning of next spring and prepare more delicious meat for the soldiers so that everyone will have more strength for training."
Ashu's body stiffened.
Hongye still didn't look at him, and continued to walk forward with her arm around his shoulders: "Ayun said, Ashu, you really want to protect our tribe yourself. Even if you can't go to the battlefield yourself, you must be willing to contribute to protecting the warriors of the tribe. So we let you personally participate in the work of fattening up the warriors. In the future, when the warriors are trained and go to the battlefield, you will also have a share of the credit for protecting the tribe."
Ah Shu was emotional and whimpered softly, but he quickly suppressed his tears and laughed: "Okay."
Hongye pretended not to hear the voice of the real control, and said lightly: "Ayun said so, but in fact he just wants to exploit your labor. The work in the cafeteria is not easy now. So many soldiers train every day, and their appetite is huge. We have to change the meat for them to eat, one day mutton, one day pork, and one day rabbit meat in rotation, so that they don't get tired of it and can't eat anymore, and then they don't have the energy to train..."
At first, Ah Shu thought Hongye was just trying to comfort him, but when he went to the cafeteria to report to Niu Jiao, he realized that what Hongye said about Ah Yun was not in vain...
"Kill two hundred rabbits a day?!" Holding a knife in one hand and lifting a five or six-pound prairie gray rabbit in the other, Ashu thought he had heard it wrong.
"It's not one day, it's one meal. Four hundred rabbits have to be killed in one day." Niu Jiao wiped the sweat off his face. The rabbit fur on his wrists stained his face. His grinning expression was so funny. "There are hundreds of thousands of rabbits waiting to be killed in the rabbit shed. If we don't eat them quickly, the next batch of rabbits will have nowhere to live."
"Why are there so many rabbits?!" Ashu was so shocked that he dropped his knife.
"It's because Qingyan was careless. He said he wanted to use up the alfalfa, so he kept a large number of breeding rabbits. We didn't allow them to be eaten when we first started raising them, but they laid litters after litters. The rabbit shed had to be expanded again and again, and now we don't have enough time to eat them." Niujiao killed and skinned the rabbits skillfully. As he spoke, he peeled off the complete rabbit skin and threw it into the box next to him. "Ayun also said that rabbits reproduce the fastest. Now it seems that their reproduction rate is really scary. We originally only raised a few thousand rabbits, but after three rounds of rabbits, the number has increased to this level."
Ashu: “…”
"Let's kill them quickly. We'll have to prepare lunch soon and let them eat more rabbit meat." Niu Jiao said.
Ashu started to work immediately. Both of them used to be soldiers, and even though they are no longer soldiers, they have not lost their skills. They killed the rabbit and skinned it in one go.
It is definitely impossible to slowly remove the bones of such a large portion of rabbit meat, and there is no time to smash all the bones. The cleaned rabbit meat can be cut into pieces and braised in a large pot. Stir-frying with a spatula is a strenuous job. Niu Jiao did not let Ashu do it, but only asked Ashu to help cut sauerkraut and pickled radish.
The canteen team of more than 20 people was busy, and they finally prepared food for 1,700 people before lunch time. The canteen did not provide food delivery, and the people living in each room had to get it themselves. When the cooks sat down to take a breath, Ah Shu suddenly remembered something.
"Come to think of it, the mutton and pork we ate a few days ago seemed to taste wrong... Could it be that there was rabbit meat in it?" Ashu looked at Niu Jiao with a twitch of his mouth.
"Ah." Niu Jiao threw fried beans into his mouth and said without hiding anything, "Ayun asked us to do this. On the days when it's our turn to eat mutton and pork, we add rabbit meat to the big pot to make up the number. We consume at least two hundred rabbits every day."
Ashu: “…”
"Anyway, the meat looks the same after it's cooked, and it doesn't matter if it's spicy. There's no difference in taste after it's fried in lard." Niu Jiao said carelessly, "There are more than ten thousand female rabbits giving birth, and another batch of pups will be born soon. Qingyan also plans to build a rabbit shed after the snow melts, so it would be good for everyone to get used to eating rabbit meat sooner."
Ashu: “…”
"Ah Shu, you've been selling vermicelli for half a year, and the food you make is getting better and better." Niu Jiao looked at me with bright eyes, "Can you make some of your specialty for us later?"
Ashu: “…”
Ashu held his forehead with his hand. Whether it was Ayun or Niu Jiao, this familiar feeling in the tribe was really... leaving no time for sadness.
Meat dishes cooked with plenty of oil, salt and spices are served with vegetables and starchy staple foods. An adult snow werewolf can eat about one kilogram in one meal, while cats and gray dwarves can eat at most half a kilogram. The portions of humans like Thrall and goblins should be reduced further. After all, meat is delicious but also easy to get greasy. Once it gets greasy, you can't fill your stomach... You can eat too much vegetables and starchy foods, but it is really difficult to eat too much meat. This is the reason why they say that meat tastes bad when you are full.
Of course, the tribe is not yet at the point of having a surplus of food, especially the newcomers, who eat their bowls and plates clean after every meal, leaving not a trace of grease.
Leopard Fish Bone wrapped a piece of rabbit meat with wheat cake dough, put in a handful of pickled cabbage and radish, and fed it to the mouth of the cat with disabled hands. The cat with missing hands happily swallowed the meat wrapped in the dough in one gulp, chewed it quickly, and his eyes curved into crescents.
"Eat slowly. Do you want some soup?"
The disabled cat snow leopard nodded quickly.
Fishbone picked up the bowl of soup and fed him carefully. Seeing that he began to burp, he asked, "Are you full? Do you want to eat more?"
The disabled snow leopard burped several times before stopping and firmly said, "I want to eat."
Fishbone had been hungry before, so he understood and patiently fed him the remaining food.
There were a total of twenty-one disabled cats and gray dwarves who trekked all the way and arrived at the tribe alive. They were arranged to live in one house so that they could take care of each other, but they still needed healthy people to help. For example, this snow leopard who was missing both hands could work by using his feet to pedal a loom, but he really couldn't eat by himself. After discussion, the cats spontaneously signed up and arranged a "volunteer" team, selecting two people every day to help at meal times.
There are not many people like this disabled snow leopard who are unable to take care of themselves. The cheetah next to him with half of his hand broken can hold the bowl by himself and eat with relish.
"Huh...burp, it's delicious." The cheetah put down the bowl, rubbed his stomach and burped. Seeing the snow leopard sitting near him with a greasy face, he habitually came over and licked it with his tongue.
Fishbone: "Well... it's okay to lick it in private, but if Ayun is around, don't let him see it."
“???” The cheetah stopped moving and looked over in horror. The snow leopard also froze instantly.
Ten days was enough for them to know how powerful the snow wolf cub Ayun was in the tribe... Several hundred people were arranged clearly and there was no room for idle people; plus, they had been abandoned by the tiger tribe due to their injuries and left to die in the wild, which left them with a huge psychological trauma. When they heard that their behavior would disgust Ayun, they were immediately frightened.
Fishbone also noticed that he didn't explain clearly, and hurriedly explained: "Ayun doesn't like us cats licking each other. If he sees it, he will say something. But it's just a remark. Ayun won't get angry because of such a small matter, and the Snow Wolf Tribe won't drive people away casually... Qingyan came here alone and was seriously injured, but they didn't despise Qingyan. You see, Qingyan now has a very high status in the tribe."
"What are you talking about me?" Qingyan heard his name as soon as he entered the door. He turned around to close the door and asked curiously.
"Let's talk about what happened when we first got here. Are you looking for me?" Yugu jumped off the kang and started to clean up the dishes.
Qingyan smiled and nodded to the disabled people, greeted another fellow who came here to help the disabled, and stepped forward to help: "Well, I came to see you, I have something to tell you and Rosemary."
"Okay, I'll pack this up and go to your room."
Qingyan patted his shoulder, stood up and saw a large patch of grease on the face of the disabled snow leopard sitting on the kang. He naturally bent down and licked the grease off.
Yugu didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "I just told you not to lick me... Aren't you afraid of what Ayun will say about you?"
Qingyan said nonchalantly: "Whatever he says, we still have to do the same job anyway."
Fishbone: “…”
After finishing the work at hand, Yugu returned to his room and called Rosemary, and rushed to the dormitory 1-2 where Qingyan lived. Ayun was busy, Niujiao stayed in the cafeteria, and everyone else had their own things to do. There were not many people in dormitory 1-2 during meal time every day. Qingyan sat at the head of the kang to sort out a pile of bark paper. When he saw the two of them come in, he invited them to sit up.
"You two should hand over the tasks at hand to others. If there are no problems, you can follow me starting tomorrow and learn how I lead this team." Qingyan didn't waste any words and went straight to the point.
Fishbone and Rosemary have been his friends since childhood. Fishbone is steady and Rosemary is careful. Although the latter is lazy, Qingyan is worried that Fishbone cannot lead so many people by himself, so he still includes him in the group.
Fishbone was stunned. Rosemary blinked and said, "Did Ayun assign you another task?"
Qingyan looked at Rosemary and felt the same emotion as Xiao Yun did when he looked at Daha... This guy is very good at doing detailed work and is very smart, but his laziness is a headache.
"Yes, Ayun wants to move the gray dwarf industrial zone to the hills. Hongye wants to go there to preside over the construction of the new zone, and I'm going to help Hongye." Qingyan nodded, "Ayun and I have the idea of letting you take over my work, lead my team, be responsible for the breeding in the livestock area, and help the work team."
Yugu's expression was solemn. He was a little tempted, but he was also very worried that he couldn't do it... He was not like Xia who only considered whether he had power. He knew very well how heavy the burden on Qingyan's shoulders was. He looked after all the cattle and sheep, the very important pig farm, and the rabbit breeding work that was constantly increasing. It was quite a headache to be responsible for one of them, not to mention doing everything. In addition, Qingyan often had to arrange people to help the work team and complete the chores that the work team couldn't take care of. In Yugu's opinion, he was simply a monster.
Well...if Qingyan's organizational ability wasn't so strong, Xiao Yun would have separated the pig farm and rabbit farm long ago...
Rosemary's expression was also very serious, but her thinking was completely different from Fishbone's. After "deeply thinking" for three seconds, she said in a serious voice, "I think Fishbone can handle this matter. There's no need for me to hold Fishbone back. Don't count me in. I'll just help Fishbone and run errands. That's good enough."
Fishbone looked at him in astonishment.
Qingyan looked at him expressionlessly.
At this moment, Qingyan understood very well that Mao Ayun couldn't help yelling every time he talked to Dahe...
Resisting the urge to slap Rosemary's stupid face, Qing Yan said patiently: "Don't always avoid things that you find troublesome, Rosemary. I know very well that my team is not easy to lead. The reason I can barely maintain it now is that there were few people in the team when I first led it. The current number of people has increased little by little, giving me a few years to learn. Now Yugu has to face such a large team and so many things alone, he can't handle it alone..."
"Is that so?" Rosemary still had a serious look on her face. "In that case, Qingyan, you should concentrate more on teaching Yu Gu. You won't be able to teach well if I'm the only one here."
Veins popped out on Qingyan's forehead, and he uttered through his teeth: "How can this be possible? What's the difference between studying alone and studying with two people? There are more than 20 people in a study group."
Rosemary pretended to think about it, then made an idea and put her right fist into her left palm: "Oh, by the way, our team has a lot of responsibilities. How about this, why don't you find a few more people to learn with Fishbone? Those who can't learn can do what they should do, and those who can learn can help Fishbone. Of course, I will help Fishbone too, after all, we are good friends - meow!!"
Qingyan couldn't stand it any longer, and slapped Rosemary Bear on the face, knocking him down. He then rode on top of him, grabbed Rosemary's head and slapped him hard: "I told you not to run away, don't you understand?!"
"I don't want to do such a troublesome thing~!" Rosemary screamed while resisting.
"Say it again! Say it again!"
"I won't do it anyway! I won't do it!"
"..." The corner of Yugu's mouth twitched. He silently bent down to move the bark paper away to make room for them to tear it.
About five minutes later.
Qingyan's mouth was broken, there was a claw mark on his left cheek, and his collar was torn, but he was in a good mood. He spread out a stack of bark paper according to the numbers on the corners and introduced them one by one: "From left to right, this is the work our team is responsible for. The first one is the work steps in the animal husbandry area. From top to bottom, it is the key work points to pay attention to every day; check the forage for the day, allocate the amount of feeding three times in the morning, noon and evening, the number of people arranged in each pen is... the feeding time given is... the time to check the hygiene in the pen... milking... things to pay attention to every week... lamb separation... how to find pregnant ewes early and move them to the delivery room for targeted management..."
Yugu was a quick learner, and Hongye had praised him for it. He had also personally participated in the work of the animal husbandry area. But after listening to Qingyan listing the key points one by one, he began to feel dizzy and dizzy within a few minutes...
Rosemary, with a bruised face and nose, pouted her lips, as if she was about to cry, and sat there with a wronged look on her face, listening attentively...
In fact, comparing Rosemary with Dahawa is unfair to a certain extent. People like Dahawa cannot be whipped away, but Rosemary can be whipped away.
