Ch93.2 – Giant Salamander
The giant salamander was something that also existed on Earth. It had a long history there and had been around for so long that it was called a living fossil. Zhou Ji remembered it because someone had come to the area near his home to eat one and had ended up being arrested…
The giant salamander was a protected species!
He had learned more about the giant salamander at the time, and was naturally able to recognize it now.
Zhou Ji discovered the giant salamander, but Xiong Ye didn’t notice anything and was already ready to return after a fruitless search.
He and Zhou Ji walked very slowly and didn’t try to hide themselves, so any prey they encountered had fled long ago. Only occasionally would some clever little frogs jump out of the grass next to them.
However, those things weren’t even enough for him to fill the gaps in his teeth…
While Xiong Ye was worrying, Zhou Ji suddenly stopped and pointed to the river, “There seems to be something in the river.”
“Fish?” Xiong Ye looked over, but he saw nothing.
“No, there’s a big fellow at the bottom of the river… I saw it move.” Zhou Ji said.
Xiong Ye hadn’t noticed anything before, but now that he heard Zhou Ji’s words and looked more carefully, he discovered that there was a black fellow that he hadn’t noticed before hidden amongst the stones at the bottom of the river.
He didn’t know what it was, but he could try and catch it…
“I’m going to make a stick.” Xiong Ye went a little distance away after he spoke, making himself a long wooden stick from a tree nearby before returning back to the riverside.
The big fellow was still motionless… Xiong Ye stood by the river for a moment before stabbing down with the wooden stick.
Xiong Ye had a lot of experience with catching fish. This stab landed accurately on the big fellow, going directly through his back.
After that, the big fellow struggled, but how could Xiong Ye let prey that had already come into his hands run away? … He pushed the stick all the way to the bottom of the river and pressed down hard on it until the big fellow stopped moving before retrieving his prey from the bottom of the river.
Xiong Ye had never seen this kind of round headed, long tailed, black creature that looked like a lizard but was very smooth all over. “I don’t know what this is or whether or not it can be eaten.”
“It should be edible.” Zhou Ji smiled as he looked at Xiong Ye, “Xiong Ye, you’re really amazing.”
Xiong Ye most liked to be praised. At this time, he smiled happily, then quickly dealt with the prey in his hands, pulling out the viscera and stripping off its skin.
This prey was about two meters long and provided around thirty to forty kilograms of meat. It was enough for him and Zhou Ji to have a full, hearty meal!
Xiong Ye was in a great mood and didn’t even notice that he had pulled open some of his wounds. Zhou Ji pasted some herbs onto his wounds again, “Be a little more careful when you move.”
“I will!” Xiong Ye said. He hoisted up the giant salamander, “Let’s go back.”
Zhou Ji nodded.
After the two of them returned home, Zhou Ji set aside half of the salamander, and made pickled vegetables and salamander with the remaining half.
He didn’t waste the viscera of the salamander, either. After Xiong Ye washed them clean, he chopped them up and fried them together with chili peppers and a type of bean-like vegetable–the giant salamander didn’t have any strange flavors, and he didn’t have anything against eating its internal organs.
Zhou Ji had shoved some earth eggs into the stove as he cooked, using his spiritual powers to keep an eye on them so that they were perfectly cooked when he took them out.
Roasted earth eggs with giant salamander and pickled vegetables, as well as chili pepper fried intestines; Xiong Ye and Zhou Ji ate until their bellies were round.
After eating enough, they went to the valley together and learned that Ma Xiao had already left.
Xiong Qi laughed and said, “Our tribe is very worn down, and we don’t have much to eat. We also kept cursing them on… They couldn’t bear it any longer!”
Xiong Bai followed closely with, “It wasn’t that they couldn’t bear it. Perhaps they wanted to go back and find people to come and deal with us sooner!”
Even Hu Yue who didn’t like to speak, added, “I’m waiting for them. We must make sure that they won’t be able to leave after they come!”
Hu Yue had wanted to have a child this spring, so she had been looking for the right man the whole time, but to no avail.
It wasn’t until recently that she had gotten together with someone from the Giant Pig Tribe. However, she still hadn’t been able to get pregnant yet.
“Did they discover anything?” Zhou Ji asked the priest.
“No. Someone was always keeping an eye on them.” The priest said. He then went on to explain what had happened this morning.
After Ma Xiao woke up this morning, he continued to inquire into what was going on in their tribe and how they had hunted the Barosaurus–they had placed the Barosaurus bones inside the valley as trophies.
They had told Ma Xiao then that a group of dinosaurs had run toward their tribe not long ago. Amongst them had been some terrifying carnivorous dinosaurs, but for some unfathomable reason, those carnivorous dinosaurs didn’t pay any attention to their surroundings as they ran and even fell into a pond. After that, the two Barosaurus had also fallen in and crushed the carnivorous dinosaurs to death!
That was already strange enough, but one of the Barosaurus even turned sick and later died of an illness…
At that time, Xiong He spoke up very naturally and said that he had gone over to bite the Barosaurus a few times after it was ill. He added that their tribe would be able to make it through the winter due to these recent unexpected harvests.
Xiong He and the priest showed how weak they were to Ma Xiao, and told Ma Xiao that they had saved up a lot of meat… Zhou Ji knew that the people of the Giant Tiger Tribe would definitely come to attack them.
This would be a tough fight for the Big Bear Tribe, but fighting was also a good thing for them as it would allow them to grow stronger.
Just… It was better to use their brains for a battle like this rather than relying on brute force alone.
Zhou Ji was too lazy to teach other people how to use their brains, so he led Xiong Ye back to where they lived and started to just teach Xiong Ye.
He had taught Xiong Ye some tactics before, so this time he taught Xiong Ye how to train soldiers.
Zhou Ji didn’t actually understand how to train people. Any understanding he had about training were all from books, films, and TV dramas. As for military training and things like that, there wasn’t much he could tell Xiong Ye, but he stressed one point–he had to make sure his people would listen to him.
Sometimes, when there were a few people in the team who didn’t listen, it was very possible that they would drag down the whole team.
Xiong Ye nodded very seriously and asked Zhou Ji to write it all down on bamboo slips.
Zhou Ji did so, and finally understood why texts from ancient times were so concise.
Inscribing words on bamboo slips was really too troublesome. It was impossible to be verbose when carving!
Speaking of which… When the first Qin Emperor began to make memorials, if they were so verbose, a few carriages wouldn’t be enough to carry it all–they would need several hundreds of them.
Zhou Ji could only criticize himself for not learning how to write well.
After inscribing two words, Zhou Ji stopped and said, “I’m going to make food. I’ll do this later.” He might as well wait until Xiong Ye wasn’t around and carve in the words with his spiritual powers.
With that thought in mind, Zhou Ji turned around and entered the kitchen.
As for the remaining half of the giant salamander… They would just make stewed salamander!
This so-called stewed salamander was actually made in a way similar to pickled vegetables and salamander. Only, the pickled vegetables inside the soup were changed to other vegetables–he didn’t have many ingredients on hands and couldn’t do anything too fancy.
Even so, he had already become the best cook in the Big Bear Tribe and was looked up to by countless people.
Zhou Ji felt quite helpless regarding this.
While Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye were eating together, Ma Xiao and his people had already reunited with Mao Huo. His expression was cold as he said, “How exactly did you investigate last time? The information you obtained is completely different from the real situation!”
“Someone else went to the Big Bear Tribe to investigate last time. It wasn’t me personally.” Mao Huo felt a little embarrassed.
“You don’t know a single thing about the Big Bear Tribe.” Ma Xiao recounted what he had seen and heard.
“No wonder the Big Bear Tribe hasn’t moved against us despite losing so much at our hands. It was because all along they had no way to resist!” Mao Huo grew angry towards that weasel that had ‘lied’ to him before.
That guy had always been timid. The things he had told him after he had run back were probably all nonsense!
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go back sooner.” Ma Xiao said, “Let’s get ready and take down the Big Bear Tribe. After that, as long as we have our hands on the priest, we’ll be able to make the people of the Big Bear Tribe work for us.”
The Giant Tiger Tribe had encountered tribes with priests before.
The priests of those tribes were just as useless as the one from the Big Bear Tribe, but they were beloved by the people of their tribes just like how the priest of the Big Bear Tribe was loved by the people of their tribe. Basically, as long as the priest was in their hands, those people would be willing to sell their lives to them in order to ensure that they wouldn’t harm their priest.
The people of the Giant Tiger Tribe had come in a hurry and left in a hurry.
The people of the Big Bear Tribe immediately went to wash up, then ate a hearty meal–now that Zhu Zhan and his subordinates had joined the tribe, they really didn’t lack meat at all.
Not only that, the dinosaurs they had raised had already grown up.
When Zhou Ji first proposed the idea of raising dinosaurs, the people of the tribe had brought back a lot of baby dinosaurs. However, many of them had gotten sick and died, and only about seventy or so had survived. These dinosaurs were differentiated according to their species and locked behind different fences.
They ate a lot of plants every day, and there were a few dinosaurs in the group that were a little too big and might break down the fence if they grew any further.
Those larger dinosaurs weren’t suitable for raising up. To Zhou Ji, the dinosaurs that would reach about 250 kilograms or under when they reached adulthood were most suitable for domestication, so… Zhou Ji decided to select a dinosaur to eat every other day.
That way, they could also ensure that the tribe was well fed and strong when the people of the Giant Tiger Tribe came to attack.
Zhou Ji’s decision was very beneficial to Xiong Ye, because he recently had a very, very big appetite.
After becoming a medium level Beast Warrior, beastmen’s animal forms would become much larger, and they would require much more food in order to replenish their energy.
Xiong Ye now ate three meals a day and it didn’t take him much effort to finish off all of Zhou Ji’s remaining earth eggs and barley.
Even the pumpkins hadn’t been forgotten.
Zhou Ji could only scatter some barley seeds in his yard.
Barley was relatively cold resistant. If he planted them now, they could still germinate and grow despite the oncoming winter. Not to mention that he had his plant abilities on hand…
With such a well-fed lifestyle, it only took five days time for Xiong Ye’s injuries to completely heal.
He set his eyes on Zhu Zhan and jumped around, eager to try again.
Zhu Zhan: “……” This freak! It hadn’t been long since he reached adulthood, but he was already a medium level Beast Warrior. If it was like that, he might even become a Beast King!
If he had been born and raised in a large tribe, others would treat him like a treasure. However, living in a small tribe like this…
Zhu Zhan expressionlessly looked away as he thought about this.
Zhu Zhan could deal with Xiong Ye when he was a low level Beast Warrior, but now that Xiong Ye was a medium level Beast Warrior… He suspected that if he went up against Xiong Ye, he might end up beaten up by Xiong Ye just like his own men had been after their strength was exhausted.
He definitely couldn’t fight against him!
Xiong Ye didn’t realize that Zhu Zhan had made up his mind not to fight him.
He didn’t really plan on challenging Zhu Zhan to a fight right now.
He was currently very interested in the tribal chief of the Giant Tiger Tribe. After all, according to the information they had gotten, the tribal chief of the Giant Tiger Tribe should be a medium level Beast Warrior.
Zhu Zhan had spoken a lot about affairs outside. Xiong Ye knew that medium level Beast Warrior weren’t considered very valuable on the Beastman Continent, but they were still considered very rare and very powerful in the wild forest.
He wanted to find Hu Tian and try out his own skills, and try out the tactics that Zhou Ji had taught him!
Xiong Ye, who had previously been worried about the Giant Tiger Tribe’s attack, had now adjusted his attitude and was eagerly waiting for the Giant Tiger Tribe to come!