The sun rose higher and higher, and the weather grew hotter and hotter.
There were places not shaded by the trees, and the ground there was heated to such a scalding temperature that bare feet would make an unpleasant sizzle.
If I have a chance, I'll make a pair of shoes, Ye Xi quietly decided.
Other than a bone spade, he didn't have anything else. The boar meat was being carried by Awl and Plate. This wasn't because they took pity on his small body and young age. Rather, they suspected that Ye Xi would slow them down if they burdened his small arms and scrawny legs with such a heavy load.
It was too hot.
The sun wanted to bake this piece of land to death.
On their journey, they saw many trees that were on their last breaths from the heat, their leaves crisp and yellow. There were even the decaying bodies of creatures that had died from dehydration, though Awl and Plate didn't even glance at them.
Ye Xi looked at Plate's back and pondered, These cavemen know not to eat rotting meat. It seems that they already know that eating rotting animals can cause sickness.
"How much farther?" Awl asked from behind him.
They were around four kilometers away from the tribe's territory. If they needed to go any farther than this, the danger level would increase to the level of hunting. This would no longer be beneficial to the tribe.
Ye Xi wiped the sweat off his forehead. After taking in the water in the boar blood, his body had gradually begun to sweat. "Soon. It should be around here. Let's just start searching the area."
Awl fell silent.
Ye Xi was inwardly rather anxious.
Ever since he had taught the pair the bundling method, he had begun to sense that their attitudes toward him had slightly shifted. In the past, they would have already started to curse and criticize him. But this smidgen of respect was nothing. If he could not find the new food, a cruel execution still awaited him.
No, he had to find it…
He refused to believe that he could not find a single one of the many edible fruits and vegetables to be found on Earth! And he recalled from Loose Grass's memories that there had been many plants similar to those on Earth in this place!
Ye Xi gritted his teeth.
After walking another several hundred meters, as they were passing through a dense collection of ferns, Ye Xi felt his heart thump.
"Wait."
The other two stopped and turned to him.
Ye Xi bent down and pulled aside a large fern, where he discovered many unremarkable heart-shaped leaves growing out of the ground.
Ye Xi's eyes brightened at the sight of these leaves, and he squatted down and began to dig with his bone spade.
Awl and Plate glanced at each other.
Was this the edible plant? But the tribesmen already knew all the edible plants in this place, either fruits plucked from trees or seeds. They had not heard of any food that could be dug out of the ground.
Was Ye Xi really trying to trick them?
The fire of anger faintly burned in their eyes.
Ye Xi knew nothing of this, and the more he dug, the happier he became. He had never before felt so grateful for spending some time in the countryside as a child. This period of time had allowed him to develop an understanding of common crops.
This plant was the common agricultural crop known as the sweet potato!
This plant was extremely filling, a life-saving food in times of famine. He was saved!
The sweet potato roots were buried rather deeply.
Once Ye Xi had dug enough, he grabbed the sweet potato leaf with both hands and pulled!
He put in so much strength that he fell onto his butt, but at the same time, he also pulled out a large bundle of plump, red sweet potato tubers.
Wonderful! It really was a sweet potato!
Ye Xi felt his heart bloom.
Plate and Awl's swelling anger was quenched, and they stared at the large tuber in shock.
How could such a large and long bundle have been pulled out of the ground?
Awl looked at the bright red skin of the sweet potato and hesitantly asked, "…Is it edible?" The brighter something was in color, the more poisonous it was. This was a principle the tribe had come to understand over a long period of time.
Ye Xi was in a good mood from digging up the sweet potato, so he laughed.
This sweet potato was enough to satisfy his hunger for an entire day. It was made of starch and incredible when it came to staving off hunger.
"Watch closely!"
Ye Xi broke one of the tubers off the bundle of roots, casually wiped it with his hand, and then opened his mouth and took a large bite, not minding the lingering dirt.
One had to realize that he had eaten nothing yesterday and only a single fruit this morning. His stomach was crazy with hunger. While sweet potatoes were normally cooked before eating, they were fine to eat raw and didn't have any poison. It was just that cooking them with heat made them sweeter and easier to digest.
He had just drunk boar blood, so eating an unpeeled, raw sweet potato wasn't a big deal.
The sweet potato greatly calmed Ye Xi's starving stomach.
For the next sweet potato tuber, he carefully cleaned all the dirt off it, revealing the beautiful red skin. He then snapped the sweet potato in half and showed the halves to Awl and Plate.
At the split, one could see the milky-white pith of the sweet potato, translucent white juice seeping out.
After letting them look, Ye Xi continued to snack on the sweet potato.
The crisp and sweet taste of the sweet potato filled his palate.
Whether it was because he was just too hungry or because ancient sweet potatoes tasted better, Ye Xi felt that the sweetness of these sweet potatoes could be compared to cooked ones, extremely sweet, crisp, and delicious.
Awl and Plate couldn't help but drool when they saw Ye Xi's contented face.
It seemed… not bad?
Seeing Ye Xi snack on one after another, Awl couldn't help but cry out, "Give me one!" Since this kid ate this sort of thing growing up, it probably wasn't poisonous.
Ye Xi pulled a tuber off and threw it over.
Awl hastily wiped off the dirt before taking a bite.
A second later, he was conquered by its refreshingly sweet taste. Squinting, he said, "Plate, it's not bad at all. Sweet and pretty tasty."
Plate hesitated a moment, then he said to Ye Xi, "Give me one as well."
…
In the end, the three of them finished off the entirety of the bundle of sweet potato tubers.
Ye Xi licked his lips and patted his full belly.
Awl happily said, "This thing isn't bad! It's tasty, and one plant produces so many of them! Let's dig up a few more and take them back to the tribe!"
Plate nodded.
There were many of these plants with heart-shaped leaves growing under the fern, and thus, many of the plump sweet potatoes under the earth.
The three of them started digging.
Only Ye Xi had the bone spade, a tool that could be used for digging. The spear and saber were not suitable for this task, so the other two just used their hands.
Ye Xi looked at their fingernails which were packed with pitch-black dirt, and his mouth twitched. But he saw that his fingernails were no better, and his mouth twitched even more.
Using a stone knife to cut his fingernails… would that work? Ye Xi hesitated.
Together, the three of them managed to dig up all the sweet potatoes here.
The number of sweet potatoes they managed to get was surprisingly high.
But the only two beast hides they had brought with them were carrying boar meat. They had no way of carrying the sweet potatoes.
Ye Xi looked around and found a withered plant that looked like a fan palm.
The fan palm was a plant with circular leaves that split up into numerous long strands, making them seem like fans. This plant in front of him looked like a fan palm, but the leaves were much larger than the ones Ye Xi had seen, half the size of an adult man. Lack of water had made the leaves shriveled and yellow.
Ye Xi walked over, broke off a leaf, and attempted to fold it. Finding it rather flexible, he broke off all the palm leaves.
One leaf was half the size of a human, so he tied two of them together to get them to what he felt was a usable length.
Plate: "You want to use them like rattan vines?"
Ye Xi nodded. "These leaves might not be as tough as rattan vines, but they should be enough to carry the sweet potatoes."
"Okay."
The three of them tied the leaves together.
Ye Xi wound the 'rope' around the area where the sweet potato leaves connected to the tubers, tying one bundle after another. A single rope could tie together a bundle of about ten sweet potatoes.
Awl and Plate helped as well. They moved more quickly and efficiently, and all the sweet potatoes were soon tied up.
There were eight of these ropes in total, around eighty sweet potato bundles.
When Ye Xi saw all these sweet potatoes, he let out a sigh of relief.
Wonderful! He wouldn't be roasted alive.
With today's mission done, the group planned to head back.
Ye Xi's small body was far too weak. He could only carry one rope while Awl and Plate carried the rest.
Just when they were about to head back, Ye Xi suddenly stared at a corner. "Wait for me a moment."
Awl and Plate turned and saw Ye Xi excitedly putting down the sweet potatoes and grabbing his bone spade, lunging at a very ordinary plant. He was impatient to dig it up, his eyes almost glowing.
They were puzzled. He had not been so excited when digging up the sweet potatoes. What sort of treasure had he found?
Ye Xi quickly dug up some yellow knotted objects, smiling as he held them in his hand.
Awl looked at these things that had the same color as dirt and asked, "What's that? Is it edible?"
Ye Xi waved his hand. "You can't eat this."
Oh, not edible. Awl instantly lost interest.
Ye Xi, who had just been planning to explain, became a little dejected. These food-obsessed cavemen had this attitude whenever they heard that something wasn't edible, immediately tossing it aside.