Chapter 136

Chapter 136

Watching Hui Hui fly in from the distance, then circle and land steadily on the little black lion's head.

Seeing Snowball on the little black lion's back, Hui Hui chirped incessantly, his head constantly nuzzling against the little snow fox's neck.

Hearing Hui Hui's calls, Ice Hill also arrived. Seeing Hui Hui nuzzling the little snow fox endlessly, Ice Hill, who was very eager to see the letter sent by Grandpa Hui Qiong, really wanted to grab Hui Hui by the neck and lift him up.

But considering how hard Hui Hui had worked to deliver the letter, Ice Hill restrained himself.

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, Ice Hill turned and ran off.

"Hahaha, alright, Hui Hui, that tickles." Seeing Hui Hui return, the little snow fox was also very happy. His two little paws held Hui Hui. Although he was also anxious to see what Grandpa had written in their letter, he endured it and didn't push away the enthusiastic Hui Hui.

When Ice Hill returned with several fish in hand, he placed the fish on a nearby rock. Then, skillfully picking up Hui Hui, he untied the small bamboo tube from his foot, and set Hui Hui down on the rock: "Alright, alright, your favorite fish is right here. Go ahead and eat."

"Chirp chirp—!" Hui Hui let out two plaintive cries, but upon seeing his beloved fish, he couldn't resist the temptation and buried his head to start eating the fish.

Ice Hill untied the string wrapped around the small bamboo tube, pulled out the bamboo stopper, and a thin, folded piece of paper fell out.

They had agreed with Grandpa that if rain was likely when Hui Hui departed, Hui Qiong would write the letter on beast hide. If the weather was clear and fine, he could use lighter, thinner paper.

When Hui Qiong left, the little snow fox had stuffed him with a quill pen, charcoal sticks, clean thin beast hides, walnut ink, a miniature brush, and even a small ink stick the length of a little finger. All this was so Grandpa would have plenty of materials to use and absolutely must write to them.

With the cubs preparing so thoroughly, Hui Qiong naturally couldn't find any excuse to forget about writing letters.

"Open it quickly, let me see what Grandpa wrote!" The little snow fox's hind legs stood on the little black lion's head, his front paws gripping Ice Hill's arm as he leaned his head over. This posture finally allowed the little snow fox to clearly see the contents of the letter Ice Hill held.

The little black lion also unconsciously stood on tiptoe, wanting to see what Grandpa Hui Qiong's letter looked like.

On the paper, first, there was a drawing of an apple. What was originally drawn behind it was unclear, as several lines had been scratched over it, obscuring the original content.

Next, there was a concave arc with a few black dots inside, but it was covered by a large "X". And at the very end, Hui Qiong had drawn two small figures holding hands.

That was the entire content of the letter, basically all coded signals they had agreed upon with Grandpa.

An apple represented safety. An apple with a bite taken out meant encountering a little danger. An apple mostly eaten meant the danger was somewhat significant, and so on. The concave arc represented pots, bowls, ladles, and basins. If the black dots were scattered at the bottom, it represented salt. If drawn at the top, it represented rice or food. If a wavy line was drawn in the middle, it represented drinkable water. A large "X" meant not found.

This was a letter only the beastmen of the Mountain Water Tribe could understand. It allowed beastmen who had difficulty learning or were older to have a communication method that everyone could comprehend.

"Grandpa says he's currently doing fine, but hasn't found salt yet... What do the two little figures drawn at the end mean?" Ice Hill interpreted the letter sent by Grandpa Hui Qiong, but he was a bit stumped by this last part.

They had only agreed upon some relatively important information that needed to be conveyed, not covering everything. How did it look like these last two little figures were something Grandpa drew on his own?

"Then these two little figures just holding hands, does that mean friends?" the little snow fox guessed. Since Grandpa usually kept to himself, they hadn't considered that Grandpa might convey information about traveling with a friend.

Ice Hill: "Could it be a very old, very close friend of Grandpa's?" Otherwise, he probably wouldn't be walking together with Grandpa, right? But this could only be answered by Grandpa himself in the future.

"Let's go, we should go back and write a reply to Grandpa first." As Ice Hill spoke, he glanced at Hui Hui, noticing he had just finished one fish, and decided to leave him be, letting Hui Hui enjoy his meal slowly there.

"You worked hard, eat more." Ice Hill walked over and patted Hui Hui's head, then picked up the little snow fox and returned to the workshop cave to prepare a reply letter for Grandpa Hui Qiong.

Ice Hill would "hold the pen," with the little snow fox dictating.

Ice Hill started by drawing a large apple, representing that the tribe was safe and sound.

According to their agreement, they should have drawn two little figures with a "one stroke left-falling, one stroke right-falling" added above their heads forming a roof, representing family. But Ice Hill insisted on drawing four fox heads, each with its own distinctive features, representing every member of their family, and only then drawing the roof above them.

Next, Ice Hill drew a heart, and inside that heart, he drew another heart. This represented "miss" or "longing." After "miss," Ice Hill drew a fox head with a notch at the temple. This complete sentence expressed: The arctic fox family all miss Hui Qiong very much.

Although the little snow fox really wanted to complain about Ice Hill, thinking that with the time spent drawing those fox heads, the letter could have been finished long ago, he decided to let it go. He shouldn't stifle his brother's creative drive.

What everyone's "handwriting" looked like, Hui Qiong already had a good idea from their learning period. So when he saw this reply letter, he would know at a glance it was written by Ice Hill.

"What should we write next?" Ice Hill buried his head, having already forgotten the little snow fox beside him, lost in his own creative process, unable to extricate himself.

The little snow fox shook his head helplessly. Anyway, as long as they knew Grandpa was safe and had conveyed their own safety to Grandpa, that was already the greatest purpose of their correspondence.

As for whether Grandpa could understand Ice Hill's subsequent creative additions, that would depend entirely on Grandpa's own powers of deduction. He couldn't control that. Later, when he could also take human form, he could write a letter to Grandpa all by himself!

"Snowball, come here for a moment."

"Hmm?" Hearing Grandpa Mushi's call, the little snow fox jumped onto the little black lion's head beside him, having him carry him to find Grandpa Mushi.

Before the little snow fox dozed off, he had been following Grandpa, making adjustments to their enclosed winnowing fan.

The construction of the enclosed winnowing fan had consumed a great deal of the Elder Grandpas' energy.

This fan was entirely wooden. The framework was already completed. All the mortise and tenon joints were coated with putty made from a mixture of tung oil and lime.

This putty, once dried, had a texture that was both hard and somewhat flexible, effectively filling tiny internal gaps, thereby extending its service life.

The difficulty lay inside the winnowing fan. First, learning from the experience of the waterwheel fan, the Elder Grandpas no longer made the fan blades in simple flat boards but gave them a certain curved surface. This way, when turning the hand crank, greater wind force could be generated.

This point alone took the beastmen a long time to craft and polish.

Next was the design of the internal air duct. The size of the air inlet, the angle of the air outlet, the positions for grain and impurities to fall, etc., all needed to be determined through multiple tests.

Seeing the little snow fox arrive, Elder Mushi, with a delighted expression, said to the beastman operating it: "Get ready." With that, Elder Mushi began turning the winnowing fan's crank.

The "feed hopper" at the top of the fan was already filled with threshed rice. Hearing the Elder's order, the beastman holding the "hopper valve handle" turned it, and the rice grains in the feed hopper began to fall.

The wind generated by Mushi turning the crank served the same purpose as winnowing in the threshing ground. Soon, cleaned rice grains, free of impurities, fell from the grain outlet!

"Ah, Grandpa, you succeeded!" The little snow fox had thought Grandpa had some problem to continue discussing with him, but it turned out they had finally finished debugging it successfully!

"That's wonderful!" The little snow fox also knew the beastmen had spent a lot of time and effort on this. Now that it was finally completed, he was very happy for everyone!

Gradually, applause broke out around them. Beastmen from other groups also knew how difficult the progress of this group had been. Now that it was finally done, within the workshop cave, applause spread from group to group, becoming a warm round of clapping.

Even Elder Mushi, usually accustomed to such work, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Tools requiring constant debugging were the most time-consuming. Sometimes, with bad luck, the entire group of beastmen could be left feeling utterly helpless and on the verge of tears.

The little snow fox, standing on the little black lion's head, comfortingly patted Grandpa's arm. The little black lion, imitating the little snow fox, also raised a paw to pat Grandpa's leg in consolation.

"Alright, alright, I'm fine." Having two cubs comfort him made Mushi's old face blush slightly, feeling a bit embarrassed.

However, not long after the applause died down, the little snow fox heard someone calling his name again.

"Snowball, come over to my side for a moment." This time it was Grandpa Bai Xiang calling.

Grandpa Bai Xiang had recently been researching an "oil press." He had originally been competing with Grandpa Mushi to see who could finish their respective tool first.

But unfortunately, this time, Grandpa Mushi finished first.

Bai Xiang really didn't want to see Mushi's smug face, so he simply took the little snow fox away with him. He refused to believe their group couldn't make it!

As the tribe continued to grow larger and the number of beastmen increased, it was already foreseeable that ordinary beast fat wouldn't be able to meet the Mountain Water Tribe's daily needs. Thus, the "oil press" was put on the agenda.

The little arctic fox sighed inwardly—the two elders were running him ragged, leaving him no time to slack off.

But faced with beastmen who were so eager to learn, Snowball still tried his best to share everything he knew. He couldn't help much with the hands-on work, so he made sure the theoretical knowledge was thorough.

"Little Ball! I've finished writing my letter. Do you have anything else to add?" Bing Qiu's voice called from a distance.

"Nothing—" the little arctic fox replied. The part where Bing Qiu freely expressed himself would already give Grandpa enough of a headache to decipher, so he wouldn't add fuel to the fire.

While the little arctic fox was running himself ragged in the workshop cave, the Mountain Water Tribe got their iron-smelting operation back on track.

After Shao Shao brought Puffbird and the others over to deliver cotton jackets last time, Feng Yan told Shao Shao that they planned to restart iron smelting at the Pink Bear Tribe. He asked Shao Shao to inform Chief Ling Yu to send a team to escort them there.

The Mountain Water Tribe's plan was to cease their stay at the Pink Bear Tribe once the cold season arrived and return when the blooming season came again.

Therefore, they needed to make the most of the time before the cold season arrived to continue iron smelting at the Pink Bear Tribe.

Due to the tight schedule, they decided to send more people this time. Apart from having the Puffbird Beastmen help transport the smelted iron back to the tribe, the other beastmen would remain there without relief until the cold season arrived.

The beastmen had no complaints, as they had rested for a long time after the recent natural disaster. Beastmen like An Tu and Zhe Yang were all looking forward to returning to the Pink Bear Tribe to make more useful iron tools for the tribe.

Moreover, this time they had taken on board a lot of useful advice and were confident they could create better tools.

As the leader, Feng Yan would lead a team of beastmen to the Pink Bear Tribe this time.

Bing Qiu, bold as ever, even expressed a desire to follow his father there, but of course, he was mercilessly rejected.

Feng Yan looked down at Bing Qiu and said flatly, "How long would it take for you alone to chop down a tree with an axe?"

That shut Bing Qiu up.

Life at the Pink Bear Tribe was very tough, not a place for enjoyment. Bringing an extra cub would mean taking up a spot meant for an adult beastman and diverting attention to care for the cub. For a tribe racing against time to bring back more iron tools before the cold season, this wasn't a worthwhile choice.

Bing Qiu could only silently watch his father's retreating figure, then lower his head to look at his own hands.

These were hands about to enter adolescence, far from as strong and powerful as an adult beastman's. He wanted to grow up quickly and become as strong as his fathers.

For a while after that, Bing Qiu suddenly became quiet. The little arctic fox thought his brother was sulking and tried every possible way to get Bing Qiu to talk.

Whenever this happened, Bing Qiu would look at the little arctic fox with a helpless expression.

Finally, he spoke the truth: "I... stopped being angry a long time ago..." He just hadn't been in the mood to talk much recently; he wasn't so childish as to still be angry with his father.

When the little arctic fox heard Bing Qiu's voice, he was completely stunned—why had it become so hoarse? Then it immediately hit him:

Hahaha, I know! It's because his voice is changing!

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Author's Note: Thank you all for the nutrient solution [heart].