bookcurios Chapter 16 A great harvest
Chapter 16 A great harvest
After hearing Lin Baiyan's explanation, everyone understood the purpose of this thing.
Several old orcs took the lead in making wicker baskets. "Everyone has their own things to do. We old guys can't go out to gather resources. We just stay in the cave all day taking care of the cubs. We're even embarrassed to eat!"
An old orc with very obvious wrinkles on her face said that her name was Xi Yang, a female male orc. Her eyes were blinded by a bear during a hunt, leaving her half-crippled. She was also old, so she was naturally abandoned.
If she hadn't met her current team, she would have died in the fissures of the south long ago.
Where else could one sit peacefully in a cave watching cubs frolic?
The other old orcs also spoke up. Seeing how eager they all seemed to want to contribute to the tribe, Lin Baiyan pondered for a moment.
"There's no rush. We can do it at night. It's still daytime now, so I'll go out and see if there's anything we can eat."
The other orcs thought this made sense; they could use the nighttime to weave the baskets.
With the basket-weaving materials in hand, Lin Baiyan put aside one matter and thought of their current severe food shortage; what they were eating was barely enough to keep them from starving.
Wanting to eat your fill is practically a pipe dream.
Seeing that it was still early, the young man thought he should go back into the mountains to see if there was anything else to eat, regardless of whether it tasted good or not, filling his stomach was the most important thing right now.
After putting everything down, a few of the sub-beastmen stayed in the cave to peel bamboo shoots before returning to the forest to collect bamboo shoots once more.
A few orcs were left behind to continue digging for bamboo shoots, and they began a new round of searching.
Lin Baiyan followed Tu Lin.
He was very careful throughout the journey, trying his best to observe whether there were any plants similar to those he had seen on Earth. Because he was unsure whether touching these things would cause poisoning, Lin Baiyan did not dare to try them lightly.
I just followed behind the collection team, looking around.
At this moment, Tu Lin found a kind of yellow berry in the forest. He picked a bunch, examined it carefully in his palm for a moment, and then picked out a small one and put it in his mouth.
He chewed the fruit gently, swallowed it, and then beckoned the orcs from the gathering team to come over.
Rabbit Forest pointed to the yellow fruit he had just swallowed and said to the sub-beastmen, "This is a yellow-skinned fruit. I encountered this kind of fruit when I was gathering before. This one is edible."
As Tu Lin spoke, he stuffed the fruit in his hand into the hands of the sub-beastmen, urging them to observe it carefully.
Lin Baiyan looked curiously at the fruit, which was about the size of a ping-pong ball, in his palm, and its function automatically came to mind: yellow-skinned fruit, extremely sour, non-toxic and edible.
He then looked at the yellow-skinned fruit on the low tree.
The curious orc cub picked one and stuffed it into its mouth. The next second, its face contorted in a grimace, unable to spit out or swallow the yellow fruit.
Finally, out of respect for the food, the half-grown cub gritted its teeth and swallowed the fruit, then spit out several mouthfuls of saliva while pouting.
Cat Feather, with a mournful little face, looked at the adult sub-beastmen around her: "This is so sour, it doesn't taste good???"
Tu Lin looked at his scrunched-up little face with amusement, while several adult sub-beastmen laughed heartily beside him.
Taking advantage of Lin Baiyan's open mouth as he laughed, Lu Xiao plucked a fruit and threw it into the young man's mouth.
The young man felt something in his mouth and subconsciously chewed it. The next second, a sour and astringent taste filled his entire mouth, and Lin Baiyan's fair face contorted in pain.
"Hahahahahahaha," Lu Xiao teased Lin Baiyan and was now laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight.
"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey!" The young man instinctively wanted to spit it out.
But since the cubs had just swallowed the food, he couldn't waste it, so he could only follow suit and swallow it down with a frown.
Then, feigning a fierce look, she glared at Lu Xiao and dashed towards him, saying, "Oh, you dare to tease me!"
Grab Lu Xiao and start tickling him!
The adult sub-beastmen watched the show with great interest.
Tu Lin picked a few bunches of yellow-skinned fruit and placed them in the cub's arms, saying earnestly, "They are indeed very sour, but food that can fill your stomach is very precious."
Upon hearing his words, Maoyu carefully wrapped up all the yellow-skinned fruits and patted them affectionately.
Uncle Tulin is right! Every food item should be valued so that we won't go hungry in winter!
Catfeather forgot in the blink of an eye that the yellow-skinned fruit was terribly sour, and happily picked fruit with the sub-beastmen.
After playing around for a while, Lin Baiyan also started picking fruit.
The young man looked thoughtfully at the fruit tree. This stuff is so sour, it can be used as vinegar when we get back. It'll definitely be a good thing for removing fishy smells!
He was so fed up with the fishy and tasteless meat soup from last night!
After picking all the wampee fruits that were within reach from the tree, Tu Lin looked at the fruits in everyone's hands and thought that was enough. "Let's stop here for now. If we pick too many, we won't be able to finish them all."
On the way back to the cave, Tu Lin took a different route and would occasionally squat down to teach Lin Baiyan and the others to identify edible wild vegetables. "This is a meat vegetable. Its leaves and stems are very thick, and it tastes smooth and tender."
So the meat and vegetables in that area were completely devoured by the beastmen. Perhaps because this road had not yet been traversed by the beastmen, Rabbit Forest was pleasantly surprised to find that there were many edible wild vegetables here.
Lin Baiyan looked at the wild vegetables that Tu Lin was pointing to and felt that they looked familiar. He squatted down and picked them up with his hands. It was purslane!
Sure enough, the description of this plant came to mind: Purslane is cold in nature and slippery in texture. It is non-toxic and edible, and can clear heat and detoxify, and stop bleeding.
Lin Baiyan remembered this kind of thing. It was everywhere in the countryside. His grandmother would often pick a handful of tender purslane, blanch it in water, wash away the slime, add minced garlic, season it with salt, and drizzle it with a little sesame oil. It was delicious!
"Let's collect more to take back; this plant can also stop bleeding," Lin Baiyan said thoughtfully.
Tu Lin was even more surprised, "Really? This can stop bleeding?" Instantly, Tu Lin's gaze towards Ma Chi Mi changed.
Everyone rushed forward and picked all the purslane from that patch.
While everyone was picking purslane, Lin Baiyan saw a leaf that looked somewhat familiar. He looked closer and the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed. He carefully reached out to touch it.
Before I could even touch the plant's leaves, my hand grasped it.
Lin Baiyan looked in the direction of the hand that was holding his, and saw that it was Tu Lin.
He said with a serious expression, "Bai Yan, you can't eat these leaves, they're poisonous."
"Several orcs vomited and had diarrhea after eating these things, and some even died from fever."
Tu Lin still looked shaken when she recalled the scene.
Lin Baiyan listened thoughtfully to Tu Lin's description. That's why only things that are ingested can cause poisoning. He figured that touching it would be fine and would also help him figure out what it was.
The young man shook his head at Tu Lin, "It's alright, Uncle Tu Lin. I feel like this plant looks familiar. I'll just pick it up and take a look."
As soon as the young man finished speaking, he reached out and touched the plant. At that moment, the words that appeared in his mind excited him: Potato, also known as Irish potato, the fruit is non-toxic and edible, but the branches and leaves are poisonous.
He said, "Why do these things look so familiar?"
These look exactly like the potato leaves that grew in his family's field when he was a child!
Lin Baiyan was ecstatic. Potatoes! Potatoes!
High-quality carbohydrates, the kind that make you feel full!
Moreover, potatoes are easy to grow, have extremely high yields per acre, and are relatively easy to store.
If they can grow potatoes, they will solve most of their food problem!