Chapter 54: The Leaky Thatched Cottage

Outside the cave, the rain fell heavily and the wind howled fiercely, turning the world into a blur of grey, yet inside the cave, it was exceptionally warm and cozy.

A-Yu looked at Mu Tong, who had her head lowered and was intently gnawing on a chicken wing, a gentle smile hanging on the corners of his mouth. Over these past few days, his relationship with Mu Tong had long transitioned from strangers to family. Although Mu Tong did not show him the same sweet affection she had for Shen Kai, he believed that given time, Mu Tong's feelings for him would surely change.

Regardless of everything, it was a fact that he and Shen Kai now shared a single body. Since Shen Kai was intimate with Mu Tong, how could he possibly be completely unaware? He simply could not take control, and thus remained silent. Thinking of those intimate moments, A-Yu's face inevitably blushed once more.

He could not understand the conversations between Shen Kai and Mu Tong, as they spoke in their hometown dialect. However, Shen Kai and he were able to communicate through their minds.

He believed what Shen Kai had told him; after all, with two souls sharing a single vessel, lying to harm him would mean harming both of them.

Therefore, A-Yu had not spoken to outsiders about Mu Tong's special storage space. This was his wife's secret, the secret of their family. Nowadays, whenever he brought back more game than could be eaten in a single day, he simply placed it into that space. After all, prey was plentiful now, and he had plenty of strength, so he could just go out and hunt more every day.

By storing food every day, they would not go hungry when the long winter arrived.

After Mu Tong finished eating two chicken wings, A-Yu handed her the remaining two wings and a drumstick from another chicken. A-Yu knew that Mu Tong's appetite was smaller than that of the two brothers. Seeing her take the food, he then picked up the rest of the chicken meat and began to eat.

Once she finished the drumstick, Mu Tong produced several washed blue strawberries to eat. Naturally, she also took out a few for A-Yu, placing them in a stone bowl. Then, she filled a stone cup with water that had been boiled and stored beforehand, handing it all together to A-Yu.

Summer rain comes and goes quickly. Even though this was an otherworldly realm, the general pattern remained much the same. Thus, by the time the two of them had finished eating and drinking, the weather outside had cleared up.

Carrying two empty back-baskets, the two left the cave and began their journey back toward the tribe. Heading back now, supplemented by foraging along the way, meant they would reach the tribe just around nightfall. Walking and gathering along the path, by the time they arrived back at the tribe, both back-baskets were completely filled.

Mu Tong stored some of the items inside her ring and took out several newly discovered ingredients: sweet-heart fruit, dough-skin tree leaves, and various spices and seasonings.

She brought out a portion of each item so that the people in the tribe could learn to recognize them. Only once they knew what these things were and how to use them would they forage for them and put them to good use.

With a heavy basket full of goods on his back, A-Yu went first to the shaman's dwelling. After teaching the shaman and his apprentices to identify these plants and leaving behind a sample of each, A-Yu finally returned to his own thatched cottage.

From a distance, he saw Mu Tong, who had returned home earlier, and Duo-Ji hanging something on the clothesline in the courtyard. As he drew closer, he saw that they were airing out freshly washed light quilts and other items.

"Why are these being washed all of a sudden?" A-Yu asked in confusion. They had only slept with these things for a few days; how could they possibly be dirty?

"Older Brother, the roof leaked and soaked the quilts, so Sister-in-law washed them." Duo-Ji looked back at the grass-thatched roof, his face full of worry. Every year during the rainy summer season, every household was the same: it rained heavily outside and lightly inside.

Their house was considered a relatively good one, with a very thick roof that didn't leak easily. As for other people's homes, where some had built thin roofs for the sake of ease, there was no telling how badly their homes were leaking inside.

Mu Tong sighed as she looked at the thatched cottage. It seemed she would have to bring forward her plans for building a house. Otherwise, would they have to live like this the entire summer?

From what she had learned from the two brothers, summer not only brought frequent heavy rains, but the Red Water River at the mouth of the valley also flooded once a year. Every time a flood occurred, the entire river would submerge the whole tribe in water. Everyone in the tribe would relocate to nearby caves to live until the waters receded, after which they would move back.

They would clean away the silt, repair the roofs and walls, and move back in.

Mu Tong stuck out her tongue in disbelief. Could these mud-and-grass walls really withstand being soaked by floodwaters for days? I'm afraid that once the water receded, the houses would have collapsed. The so-called repairs probably amounted to rebuilding a thatched cottage from scratch.

Since this happened every year, why didn't the people of the tribe choose a better location to build their houses? Reflecting that these were still primitive tribes, Mu Tong did not press the matter further. In any case, she was determined to find a new location as soon as possible and build a house that could withstand wind and rain.

Right, she had heard that winters here were very cold, so the house also needed to have adequate insulation against the cold.

Sigh, it needed to withstand wind and rain, be warm in winter and cool in summer, and be built in a place safe from floods—where on earth could such a place be found?

After hanging out the quilts, Mu Tong entered the inner room and pondered this problem earnestly. To avoid being flooded, the house had to be built on high ground. The entire Red Water Tribe was built within this valley. The only place with slightly higher ground and a decent expanse of land was a small slope near the cliffs at the back of the tribe.

Mu Tong stepped out of the house and walked toward that small slope. Seeing Mu Tong heading out, A-Yu quickly gave a rough tidy-up to the large snake they had hunted and hurried along behind her.

Duo-Ji watched his older brother and sister-in-law leaving the courtyard, pressing his lips together in a secret smile. Even his wise, brave, and formidable older brother had turned into a wife-pleaser.

Once his older brother and sister-in-law had gone out, the diligent Duo-Ji picked up a broom and went back inside to sweep away the accumulated water on the floor.

Seeing Mu Tong heading toward the back of the tribe, A-Yu caught up in a few strides. "A-Tong, what are you going to the small slope for?"

"I want to take a look. Tell me, can the annual floods reach up there?"

While they were talking, they arrived at the small slope, which was not far away after all.

"Look, the water can reach about up to there." Upon reaching the slope, A-Yu pointed out the approximate level the annual floods usually reached.

Mu Tong looked closely. That spot was roughly a dozen meters up from the base of the slope. If a flood raised the water level by a dozen meters, wouldn't the surface of the Red Water River widen by at least double? This was a staggering figure; just how much water must there be?

Good grief, how could the thatched cottages in the tribe withstand being soaked by such a flood? They probably had to be rebuilt almost entirely after every flood season.

"Does the tribe have to rebuild the thatched cottages every single year?"

"Yes." A-Yu did not understand why Mu Tong was asking this; that the tribe's thatched cottages needed to be rebuilt every year was an undisputed fact.

"Then why don't you build the thatched cottages in a higher place, like on this small slope?" Building them on the slope would at least eliminate the worry of annual floods, and even better, prevent the need for yearly reconstruction.

"The small slope is entirely covered in massive boulders; there's no way to drive in pillars," A-Yu explained. Early on, some people in the tribe had tried building their thatched cottages here, but without a place to drive pillars for a foundation, the huts could only be set directly on the ground. When the autumn gales blew, they were simply scattered by the wind.

Mu Tong wore a wry expression. She had forgotten that this was a primitive tribe without the capability to drive piles into rocky ground. Without pilings, foundations naturally could not be laid. And wouldn't thatched cottages without foundations simply be blown apart by strong winds?

She had heard that the autumn and winter winds here were quite fierce and frequent. Winter, in particular, was not only windy but bitterly cold. Compared to rebuilding a thatched cottage once a year, building a house on this small slope might require countless rebuilds instead!