I am a Primitive Man
Chapter 175 – The leader of the Green Tribe who pursues flavor 2
With the shout from the leader of the Green Tribe, a sturdy-looking male primitive immediately showed joy on his face and hurriedly stepped forward to take the ceramic bowl filled with meat soup from the leader’s hand.
In the envious gazes of others, he brought the bowl to his lips and sipped.
He drank a bit too much in one go, and since the meat soup had just been scooped from the hot pot, he endured the scalding, twisting his face in discomfort but reluctant to spit it out. After enduring for a while, he couldn’t take the temperature any longer and spat it out.
Waving his hands wildly in front of his mouth and simultaneously inhaling cool air, his tongue turned bright red, clearly scalded.
Somewhat annoyed, the leader of the Green Tribe snatched the bowl from the man’s hand and handed it to another person, asking him to taste it.
This new individual hesitated upon seeing the man still sticking his tongue out. Faced with the steaming soup, he seemed a bit apprehensive. The Green Tribe leader, realizing that this person had not attended the joyful gathering earlier, snatched the large bowl back and gave it to someone who had been there.
This person dared not be negligent, so he approached with suspicion, took a sip, and found it fragrant and warm, feeling acceptable.
However…
He suddenly realized something, took another sip to taste it carefully, and looked at the leader uncertainly.
The leader of the Green Tribe, unwilling to believe this, had other individuals who had attended the joyful gathering come forward to taste. The reactions were all the same.
Looking at the tribe members, who were puzzled and somewhat disheartened, the leader of the Green Tribe felt deeply hurt.
In utter confusion, he circled the large pot of meat soup, occasionally patting it, scratching his head, which had already lost many green leaves.
It shouldn’t be like this. He had cooked with such seriousness, so why did the meat soup he made taste different from the one cooked in the ceramic bowl before? He had even switched to a larger ceramic vessel!
He carefully recalled the steps used by the nearby prosperous tribe when cooking, secretly recorded during the joyful gathering. He couldn’t find any omissions.
This made him even more distressed. He didn’t expect that even after bringing back the large pot used by that tribe, the taste was still far from matching theirs.
Unable to figure out where the problem was and looking at the hungry people around the large pot, the leader of the Green Tribe decided to first consume the meat soup and think about other matters later.
Without ladles with long handles, they had to use bowls to scoop the soup from the top first and then eat the meat, taking turns…
Got it!
The leader of the Green Tribe suddenly had an epiphany after drinking a belly full of soup.
The other tribe used fish to cook the soup, while he used animal meat this time. Since they used different ingredients, the taste was vastly different. So, if he waited and switched to using fish…
“Sizzle, sizzle.”
The leader of the Green Tribe, who had consumed a belly full of fish soup but hadn’t eaten much meat, sat on the ground with a troubled expression. He vigorously scratched his head, and green leaves fell off.
Looking at the ceramic pot, he wanted to ask how he should proceed for it to produce delicious soup.
“fsr…”
A few days ago, while on the way to the Green Sparrow Tribe, encountering rising smoke, the leader of the Green Tribe was about to turn back when the person who had advised him against it approached, saying something to him.
The leader of the Green Tribe’s confusion gradually disappeared. After thinking for a while, he led a hunting expedition, leaving behind the semi-grown children, the elderly, and those with injuries to collect a type of grass around the tribe.
The events in the Green Tribe were unknown to Han Cheng and the others from the Green Sparrow Tribe. They continued to follow their own pace, engaging in tasks specific to their tribe.
As flames rose and smoke slowly dispersed in the surroundings, there were few people observing the fire; most were diligently working on plowing the land not too far away.
Physically strong individuals used bone spades to dig the soil, while semi-grown children and slender women used wooden sticks tied with stones or directly carried a piece of wood to smash large soil chunks.
The process had its nuances. Han Cheng instructed them not to walk randomly in the fields. They were supposed to stand in one place, smash the large soil chunks before them, take a big step forward, and repeat the previous action.
This was done to minimize trampling on the newly turned soil. Freshly turned soil was moist and loose; stepping on it would compact the soil.
Although it couldn’t match the original state before plowing, it appeared much firmer than the untouched areas around it.
To minimize the trampling of the newly turned soil, when Han Cheng instructed Lame to make the tools for smashing soil chunks, he considered not only the convenience of people holding the tools but also maximized the length of the wooden handles.
This way, people could stand in one place and smash more soil chunks.
The few acres of land grown rapeseed for a season had been turned over, and large chunks of soil had been broken.
Han Cheng held a ceramic bowl in one hand, and with the other hand, he grabbed the slippery dark brown rapeseed from inside and scattered it around while walking forward.
It rained the day before, making the land most suitable for planting rapeseed.
There was a person behind him holding a wooden rake. The person was Qi Qiu (meaning balloon in Chinese) and, while walking backward, continually extended and pulled back the rake, creating fine furrows, leaving behind a pattern resembling the marks a father might leave on his daughter’s hair if he didn’t know how to comb it properly.
The soil brought up by the rake covered the rapeseed that had fallen into the soil and also concealed the footprints left by Han Cheng and Qi Qiu.
The crafting technique for the ground rake was similar to the large rake used in the wheat fields before, but there were finer and denser teeth. Additionally, the length was half that of the teeth of the large rake, and the curvature wasn’t as significant.
This design aimed to prevent the ground rake from sinking too deeply and trapping too much soil. After all, the mud was not as light as the floating rapeseed stems. If it sank too deep, it would be challenging to pull up.
In the distance, smoke rose from where the Green Sparrow Tribe was again preparing to expand their farmland.
Those fields were being prepared to cultivate a new crop, millet, obtained by the Green Sparrow Tribe.
In the previous year, they had turned the fields over, dried and frozen them, and this year, they were doing it again to plant millet, which was much better than cultivating and planting fields directly.
At this time of the year, as in previous years, the Green Sparrow Tribe would be busy harvesting fruits and storing food in various ways, preparing for the upcoming cold winter.
However, this year, they were calm because, with the presence of fish traps, rabbit snares, and salt, they had already stored enough food.
The tribe, continually changing its lifestyle since Han Cheng arrived, was now heading towards an agricultural path.