The caveman chief, a man whose body seemed to be chiseled from iron, soon walked over.
He was more than half again Ye Xi's height, and when he arrived in front of Ye Xi, he exerted a suffocating pressure like that of a looming mountain. Even more frightening was that the chief's body was covered in drops of mottled blood, and even his fingernails were covered in blood.
Ye Xi did not know if it was the blood of a beast.
The Mud Mountain Chief examined Ye Xi and coldly said, "You said you discovered a new kind of food?"
Ye Xi calmed his mind and said, "Right, it's a plant that you can eat without getting poisoned."
The caveman tribes lacked food. Each year, members of every tribe would die from starvation.
After all, this was a primal forest in which giant insects, dinosaurs, and giant beasts coexisted. Humans fighting against these creatures for food… the mere thought made one's blood run cold.
The risk of hunting was large and the harvest was not guaranteed. Thus, fruits and wild herbs became important parts of the tribal diet.
Those edible kinds of plants were known only through the sacrifice of countless tribesmen who had fatally poisoned themselves. Each kind of discovered plant was very precious.
Thus, one could understand why the chief had come to personally question Ye Xi on the matter.
Mud Mountain Chief: "Good! If what you say is true, I can let you go. But if you're lying to me, you'll die a painful death."
The words were spoken very calmly, but Ye Xi could hear the bloodthirsty tone lurking beneath.
He took in a deep breath and firmly nodded. "My father and mother died when I was very young, so I relied on this plant to survive."
Ye Xi was lying. The original owner of this body had not found any edible plant. He had only been able to survive to this age purely because the other members of his tribe would occasionally support him.
But this was what he needed to say in order to increase his trustworthiness, as his words were too feeble to stand on their own.
"How far is that place from the tribe?"
"Not far. An ordinary person can get there and come back in a day."
Upon hearing this, the chief turned to the man with the stone axe and ordered, "Horn, take him down."
The man called Horn picked up Ye Xi and brought him down from the pillar.
Lack of food and water made Ye Xi somewhat unsteady, but many years of habit allowed him to force himself to stand straight. Speaking with his dry throat, he said, "Many thanks, honored chief."
The chief ignored him. Turning around to the men around the bonfire, he bellowed, "This slave claims to have found a new kind of food!"
Everyone fell silent and looked over.
These cavemen, particularly the muscular men around the bonfire, had the demeanor and eyes of beasts on the hunt, cold and bloodthirsty. Being stared at by so many of these frightening eyes immediately made Ye Xi's hair stand on end.
The chief yelled at the crowd, "Awl! Plate!"
The two tribesmen mentioned immediately stood up."Yes! Chief!" they said in voices as loud as bells.
"Tomorrow, the two of you will accompany this boy. If this boy is lying, roast him alive!"
All of the tribesmen stood up and howled, beating their chests as they cried, "Roast alive! Roast alive! Roast alive!"
When Ye Xi saw this, he felt a chill spread from the top of his head all the way to the soles of his feet.
…
The sun gradually set, and the world turned dim.
Once the tribesmen cleaned up the scraps of food on the ground, they began to head into the cave.
Ye Xi saw that no one was stopping him, so he walked over to the cave.
This was a large and well-concealed mountain cave, the entrance half-buried in the ground. The walls of the cave were of grayish-black stone and felt extremely firm. The soil on the ground was black and much moister than the dried-up soil outside the cave.
The entrance to the cave was small, allowing only a single person to pass at a crouch. Despite this, the inside of the cave was extremely large, with the ceiling of the cave rising higher the farther one went in. From Ye Xi's point of view, the ceiling of the cave reached the height of a two-storey building.
As he peered farther into the cave, all he could see was a deep darkness that made it impossible to tell how deep the cave was.
"Don't block the way!"
Someone impatiently pushed Ye Xi to the side and then crouched down to enter the cave.
Looking around, he saw that everyone else was heading over to the cave, so he made his way inside.
In Loose Grass's memories, nights were very dangerous. All tribes went out at sunrise and went to rest at sunset. The moment the sun went past the mountains, everyone needed to enter the cave. After dusk, the doors were shut and not to be opened again until sunrise.
Inside the cave, everyone returned to their own sleeping areas.
Only Ye Xi was left standing where he was, not knowing where he should go.
Seeing that no one was going to tell him anything, Ye Xi decided to grab someone and ask. "Hey, can you tell me where I'm supposed to sleep tonight?"
This man coldly glanced at Ye Xi and said, "Just sleep here."
He left before Ye Xi could say anything.
Here?
This place was only two steps away from the cave entrance.
Kekekekeke!
Hoohoo Hoohoo!
The shrill cries of insects came from outside.
The sky was about to go completely dark.
Taking advantage of the dim light coming in from outside, Ye Xi saw that the others in the cave were laying out dried grass or beast skins on the ground. Only after they did this did they lie down and place another layer of beast skin over their bodies.
But no one was giving him any beast skin or dried grass.
Rumble…
Five muscular cavemen with red totems on their chests put their strength together and pushed a large stone over the cave entrance, sealing it shut.
Once the rock was in place, the cave was plunged into darkness, with the only light being the extremely weak light peeking through the cracks in the stone.
Ye Xi saw everyone else going back to their places, so all he could do was lie down on the dirt.
He didn't have even a scrap of cloth or beast skin to cover his body, only a grass skirt around his waist. His skin was in direct contact with the dirt, an extremely uncomfortable sensation.
Ye Xi closed his eyes.
He constantly told himself that he needed to head into the dangerous prehistoric forest tomorrow, that he needed to get a good rest during the night and needed to fall asleep as quickly as possible.
But the hunger in his stomach was a burning flame while the thirst in his throat was like a slicing blade.
Sleep, sleep and there will be no hunger or thirst… Ye Xi comforted himself.
At this moment, he felt an itch where his arm touched the dirt.
He reached out and grabbed a struggling little insect that seemed about the size of a cockroach.
Ye Xi was worried that the insect's blood was poisonous, so rather than crushing it, he threw it aside.
He took in a deep breath and tried to sleep again.
The difference in temperature between day and night was very stark. When lying motionless, he surprisingly felt rather cold. There was probably an air passage for the cave, and a cold wind was blowing at his back and adding to his chill.
In the darkness, he opened his eyes and stared at the sliver of light outside, curling into a ball to conserve heat.
Suddenly, someone threw a beast skin on his body.
Ye Xi fiercely opened his eyes and sat up, feeling the beast skin on his body as he looked around.
The cave was too dark to see who had thrown it.
"Thank you?" Ye Xi cautiously said.
A cold voice came from nearby: "Just afraid that you would die."
And then the tribe would miss out on a new kind of food?
Ye Xi understood and said no more. His body was already extremely weak, and if he had to endure a cold night, he might just get sick and die. Thus, he didn't try to do anything stupid like be polite or humble. He spread out the beast skin over his body and laid back down to sleep.
The beast skin wasn't large, only enough to cover his stomach.
Ye Xi placed his arms on the beast skin to minimize his contact with the earth.
The beast skin felt incredibly coarse to touch and had not been very well tanned. The skin was stiff and had a fishy smell. There were also knots and welts across the skin, which he speculated to be bits of meat that had not been properly cleaned.
In a modern society, Ye Xi wouldn't have even touched it, but for the current him, it was extremely precious.
With some warmth on his belly, Ye Xi felt drowsiness gradually overwhelming him. His eyes closed, his mind grew fuzzy, and finally, he fell asleep.
The night deepened.
Crssh… crsssh… Soft sounds came from beyond the rock.
The light coming from between the cracks was no more.
Dense black-red feelers reached in through the cracks, wriggling like tadpoles as if they were searching for something.
Some unknown creature's foot had completely covered the crack. One did not dare to speculate just how large this creature was.
Ye Xi, sound asleep, had no idea that this sort of frightening creature was so close to him, separated by only a boulder.