Orc Girl's Tribal Daily Life

Chapter 30: The Trading Conference Concludes Successfully

Mao comes from a single-parent family. His mother died in a hunting accident when he was very young, and his father raised him alone.

Because he had to fully support his family, Mao's father would participate in every hunting trip unless he was injured, and he was away from home most of the year.

Mao is more used to living alone; at least he's not like the children in Fish Cave who can't even get enough to eat.

However, this also made Mao more withdrawn than other children in the tribe, and he rarely participated in the activities of other children.

Aside from fighting.

Although Mao was a bit withdrawn, he wasn't rebellious. When he heard He call him, he obediently came over and stood in front of Jiang Luoluo and the other two children like a door god.

Mao's gaze swept around, and the once noisy group of children quickly managed to form a fairly orderly line.

Jiang Luoluo didn't rush to exchange those items. Instead, she pulled the little girl happy and carefully gestured for a long time, explaining many things in advance.

Because after exchanging jam in the morning, many children wanted to exchange jam, and a lot of jam was consumed. Jiang Luoluo could no longer just take out a little jam and exchange it like in the morning. She needed to first set a standard.

For example, how much jam can be exchanged for a plant, how much jam can be exchanged for a stone, and how should different plants and stones be distinguished and exchanged for different amounts of jam?

Such clear and understandable rules are more likely to be accepted by the children, so that no one will feel that they have exchanged too little and start a fight with the other children.

Although it's normal for children in the tribe to fight, Jiang Luoluo didn't want to be the one to start a fight.

Brown returned to Little Stone Mountain carrying several jars of jam. Although Brown only had one arm, he still knew how to use things like straw rope and hemp rope.

Jiang Luoluo was sitting in the middle, with a jam jar and a large wooden ladle for serving soup in front of her.

On the left is a little girl named happy, with various plants neatly arranged in front of her. On the right is a little boy named Zhuang, with many colorful pebbles placed in an open space marked off with straw rope.

Mao stood in front of Jiang Luoluo, and all the children lined up and walked past him. Those who had plants in their hands gave them to the little girl Xi, and those who had stones in their hands gave them to the little boy Zhuang. Xi and Zhuang could count how many spoonfuls of fruit paste they could exchange for each plant.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Luoluo, who was in the very center, would scoop out several spoonfuls of fruit paste and hand them to the other person.

Some children went home and got wooden bowls, while others picked grass leaves nearby and made their own grass baskets to hold things.

All the children were satisfied with Jiang Luoluo's arrangement because they felt it was fairer.

The little girl, happy, who is an adult in the family and works on a herb-gathering team, can easily distinguish the value of different plants and is recognized by all the children. The little boy, Zhuang, who is an adult in the family and works on a mining team, can also easily identify different stones and their uses.

With a unified standard in place, it became a simple assembly line operation. In no time at all, the jam for dozens of children was exchanged.

Although many children didn't come to exchange jam, they all got to taste it—some shared it with friends, and some fought with their rivals for it.

Several children who tasted the jam came over to ask Jiang Luoluo if they could get a different one tomorrow.

Jiang Luoluo readily agreed.

It would be strange if she refused. Of all the plants they just exchanged, the fire flower was nothing compared to what she seemed to have seen: she even thought she saw a scallion.

I'm not entirely sure, I'll take a closer look when I get back.

There was still quite a bit of jam left; Jiang Luoluo had actually saved it on purpose.

"Wow! Are all of these for me?" the little boy exclaimed in surprise. "But I only took one stone..."

The little girl immediately tugged at the little boy's shoulder, "Keep your voice down!"

Are you shouting so loudly to attract others to steal it? You can't beat them, so just hide quietly and keep it to yourself!

Jiang Luoluo watched as the two of them acted like thieves, secretly hiding the jam. She shook her head with a smile and handed the last jam to Mao, who had been standing next to her for a long time.

"For me?" Mao looked at the cub that was only waist-high to him, a hint of doubt on his face, before coldly shaking his head. "I have nothing to give you in exchange."

The cub, however, pulled his arm down, stuffed a full bowl of jam from a slightly damaged wooden bowl into his hand, and gave him a bright smile.

The little girl happily spoke up from behind, "Luo is thanking you, so please accept it. You don't need to exchange it for something else."

If Mao hadn't been supervising, things definitely wouldn't have gone so smoothly. Just the children's fighting would have given Jiang Luolu a headache, and it was all thanks to Mao keeping them in check.

Therefore, Jiang Luoluo genuinely wanted to thank the young man in front of her.

Seeing the cub's bright smile, Mao hesitated for a moment, but still reached out and took the bowl of jam.

"Thank you," Mao said softly.

……

The two black bear cubs were forced to cry out, which attracted the attention of two male black bears who were fighting, and the strong scent of the female black bear's blood followed.

The two male black bears hesitated and stopped, then approached the direction from which the scent and sound were coming.

The two black bear cubs were not placed next to the trap, but rather in a more distant location.

Although black bears are not as intelligent as humans, they are not lacking in wisdom. They will not easily approach two black bear cubs when they are unsure of the situation.

Therefore, it can be considered that the trap was set in the middle of the road near the cubs.

As the two male black bears cautiously approached the two bear cubs, they fell into a trap, their bodies entangled in tough vines.

The unexpected incident caused the two male black bears to instinctively attack each other, each believing it was the other's fault.

The more they move, the tighter the vines on their bodies become, causing them to struggle more and more violently.

Seeing that it was about time, Chief Jing gave an order, and the tribesmen who were lying in ambush all jumped out from their hiding places at the same time, throwing the large stones and sharpened logs they had prepared in advance into the pit.

Ten men who had brought the mother black bear's carcass back to the base had not yet rejoined the team, and with only twenty men available, hunting two male black bears at the same time was very dangerous.

Although black bears are not particularly powerful or dangerous beasts, and even the chieftain Jing could take them down by himself, "hunting without taking damage" is a completely different matter.

The tribespeople aren't afraid of getting hurt, but they've only gone a short distance into the Taz Forest, and to get injured here would affect their subsequent hunting activities—wouldn't that be a huge loss?

Therefore, in order to ensure the condition of his people, Chief Jing did not mind using some troublesome methods, such as using stones and sharpened wood, to further weaken the prey.

After that, unsurprisingly, they caught two more prey.

Male black bears are larger than female black bears, which means they can provide more food for the tribe and feed more people.

Just then, after dealing with the two male black bears, the ten tribesmen who had returned to the stronghold to transport the prey rejoined the group and reported the situation to their leader, Jing.

Besides the team led by Chief Jing, the other two teams also caught prey, but none of the prey had as much meat as the mother black bear.

A team caught a nest of snake balls—when snakes are in heat and mating, dozens or even hundreds of them will curl up into a ball, looking just like a sphere.

One team caught two fighting swans, presumably vying for mating rights with a female swan. Unfortunately, the female swan escaped, and they only caught two male swans – they had fought amongst themselves and knocked themselves to the ground, otherwise they would have been much harder to catch.

The swan bird is enormous, with a wingspan of seven or eight meters. Two of them together are much larger than a female black bear, but unfortunately, they are birds and have the least amount of flesh on their bodies.

After the fur is plucked, the total flesh on the bird is only about half that of a mother black bear. If it weren't for the fact that it's practically free prey, no one in the tribe would usually focus on birds.

Oh wait, there's one exception: the flightless bird. The giant pheasant is the tribe's favorite bird. It's as fat as a ball, all meat, and tastes especially good.

Unfortunately, they are rarely seen and very difficult to catch. They cannot fly and are quite fast runners, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye. Only on rare occasions do members of the tribe manage to hunt them.