Chapter 46 Changes

Ah Yu had indeed sent a bowl of duck stewed with konjac tofu to the wizard’s home. Therefore, the wizard was well aware of how delicious the dish was and grew deeply interested in how the konjac tofu was made.

Among those who came to learn that evening was Ah Ping, the wizard’s apprentice.

Nowadays, every evening, Ah Yu’s home was the liveliest place in the entire tribe. The two brothers had also become the busiest people in the tribe, patiently and thoroughly teaching everyone everything they had learned from Mu Tong during the day.

Although the people who came to learn each day made up only a small fraction of the tribe, once these individuals mastered the skills, they would return to teach others. With one person guiding another in a continuous chain, it wouldn't be long before everyone in the tribe learned. Of course, this excluded those who had no desire to learn or those truly too slow-witted to grasp the methods no matter how hard they tried.

While the two brothers were busy instructing the tribesmen, Mu Tong sat in the courtyard alongside a group of tribal women, weaving straw cushions to place on stone stools, straw mats for the living room floor, and straw sandals, straw hats, and other woven goods tailored for the two brothers.

In Mu Tong’s storage artifacts, she possessed a vast array of modern daily necessities. Had she simply produced them, she could have instantly propelled this primitive tribe from the Stone Age straight into the modern era. However, she chose not to do so.

After all, giving a person a fish is far inferior to teaching them how to fish.

No matter how many items she handed out, they would eventually run out. But if she taught them the methods, they would be able to create and invent things for themselves.

Moreover, if she brought out too many foreign objects, she could not guarantee it wouldn't draw covetous eyes. Mu Tong was currently mortal. Though she still retained a certain number of magical artifacts and wore the halo of the "Messenger of the Gods" upon her brow, magical artifacts would eventually be exhausted, and a halo would one day fade. She could not rely on talismans and divine halos to resolve every single issue.

Ju Cao sat very close to Mu Tong. As someone favored by the Divine Messenger, Ju Cao received enthusiastic attention from the women of the tribe. The green dress she wore was touched and stroked admiringly over and over again by the surrounding women. When they learned that it had been traded with the Divine Messenger in exchange for woven goods, the women turned green with envy: Oh, if only the Divine Messenger had more such beautiful clothes to trade with them!

No matter how envious the tribal women were of Ju Cao, Mu Tong had no intention of pulling out any extra garments. She had not yet figured out a way to ensure the women of the tribe had clothes to wear without exposing where she kept her hidden inventory.

Regardless, the people of the tribe were accustomed to going naked, so enduring a bit longer shouldn't pose a problem. Ahem, most importantly, as long as she didn't have to go naked herself, that was fine. Then there was Ah Yu, who would eventually transform into Shen Kai; in Mu Tong’s eyes, he had also become her private possession. Naturally, her own possession could not go naked.

As for Duo Ji, for Ah Yu's sake, he had to be a well-behaved boy as well.

Consequently, both brothers now possessed four sets of interchangeable clothes suited for the current season. Moreover, according to Ah Yu, the tribesmen actually used a kind of bubble grass when bathing. Squeezing out the juice of this bubble grass and rubbing it over the body provided a cleansing effect.

Furthermore, this bubble grass was also extremely useful for washing clothes and furs.

Hou Yi, the wizard, would also come to sit in Ah Yu’s courtyard every evening. Right now, he was sitting on a newly crafted stone stool at Ah Yu’s home, watching the tribesmen learn how to make stone flooring, stone mortars, wooden doors, and other items from the two brothers. He watched as they borrowed the brothers' sharp little knives to carve the stone slabs stroke by stroke and hollow out the mortars.

He watched the tribal women follow Mu Tong in learning how to craft straw cushions, straw blankets, straw hats, and straw sandals...

Hou Yi’s eyes curved into crescent slits: The Divine Messenger had been in the tribe for only three days, yet she had brought about such tremendous changes. First came the back-baskets, rattan chests, and rattan baskets capable of holding numerous items, followed by the discovery of foods like purple rice and konjac. The long storage life of purple rice went without saying, and its yield was abundant; with it, the tribe had immense confidence in surviving the long winter safely.

Konjac flour, a foodstuff with multiple ways of preparation, was also very convenient to store. Furthermore, there was plenty of wild konjac growing right at the entrance of the tribal valley. Once they harvested it on a large scale before winter and processed it into dried konjac slices or konjac flour for storage, they would have yet another food source for the winter.

Looking again at the aesthetically pleasing and tidy stone flooring before him, the corners of Hou Yi’s mouth curled upward as well: Ah, tomorrow, I'll have my apprentice Ah Ping carve stone flooring for our own house and lay it down! We also need to dig a few large water vats and stone basins...

Speaking of which, this apprentice of his was truly exceptional. After seeing the soy fruit, vinegar fruit, and oil fruit that Ah Yu had foraged, Ah Ping had gathered a generous amount of them the very next day. He had also collected plenty of the spicy leaves and numb-flavor leaves discovered by the Divine Messenger, processing them into spicy leaf powder and numb-leaf powder. Nowadays, thanks to these seasonings, the meals at his home had become much more delicious.

Hehe, next year their Ah Duo would be fully grown, and those two youngsters seemed to get along quite well during their daily interactions. When the time came, they could hold a partnership ceremony for them. Hou Yi glanced twice at his well-behaved apprentice, then glanced over at his daughter Ah Duo, who was lingering close to Mu Tong, causing his eyes to curve even deeper.

Late into the night, the people gathered in Ah Yu’s courtyard finally dispersed to their respective homes.

The people of the Chishui Tribe were clever and industrious. Not long after Mu Tong taught them those skills, they spread throughout the entire tribe. Now, almost every household had clean stone flooring laid down and sturdy wooden doors installed. Even the main gate at the entrance of the tribal valley had been transformed from heavy stone boulders into tall, robust wooden doors.

Every household had prepared large water vats, stone mortars, stone basins, stone bowls, stone spoons, stone tables, stone stools, back-baskets, rattan chests, baskets, and reed mats spread across their stone beds—no one slept on beds of dry grass anymore.

Even the bachelors used the game they hunted to trade with the tribe's women, elders, and long-term disabled members for these essential items. The elderly and disabled members of the tribe reaped massive rewards. Using handcrafted woven goods, they exchanged for game they could no longer hunt themselves, thus entering a life where they could eat meat.

Among these disabled tribesmen was Duo Jia, Ju Cao's father. Duo Jia's legs had been broken years ago while out hunting, and he had since relied entirely on his son for support. When his son died, he relied on his daughter-in-law, a situation that weighed heavily on a man in his prime. Regrettably, he was powerless to change his reality. Ever since he learned weaving from the Divine Messenger and mastered how to carve stone flooring and other crafts, he regained his self-confidence: even disabled, he could support himself through his own labor.

Moreover, the people of the tribe no longer walked about entirely naked. The men wore straw sandals and straw hats, with a circle of grass skirts or thin leather skirts tied around their waists. Although broader movements might still reveal glimpses of their "little birds," it was vastly superior to the utter nakedness of the past.

The women had also put on straw sandals, fashioning vest-like tops and shorts resembling modern undergarments out of thinner animal skins or grass fibers to wear on their bodies.