Chapter 148: Heavenly Worm

Baifeng did not have the ability to provide a concrete deduction for these phenomena; he only felt it was very abnormal, and in the end, attributed everything to that snow disaster. However, this also meant that their harvest of prey this year would decrease sharply, and they could only pin their hopes on the output of Dahu and their farmland.

Baifeng was already somewhat disappointed about the matter of gathering other tribes; he feared that his Baifeng Tribe would have to struggle alone on this Wasteland for a long time, until other tribes settled in this area again.

However, they had never been to this area before, and now that he could not find any wild people, Baifeng had no choice but to set his sights on the output here. Now that this was already the nominal territory of the Baifeng Tribe, it was only natural for the Tribal Chief to look at the assets of his own territory, was it not?

Now that all the plants had sprouted green buds, Baifeng could also generally judge what kind of trees these were based on the leaves; if there were no leaves, it would still be very difficult to identify them.

There were a few very large elm trees, and the leaves were still extremely small now; if they were not so far away, Baifeng would really have wanted to wait for them to bear elm seeds to pluck and eat.

Just as Baifeng was thinking this, he boredly pulled down an elm branch. As a result, just from that pull, several very small black insects fell onto his hand. He shook them off casually, but then felt they were very familiar, feeling like they were something very important.

It was impossible to lower his head to look for them; they were about the size of Millet, and it was impossible to find them once they landed on the withered leaves. He turned his hands over, but there were no more on them.

Baifeng pulled the branch lower and looked more carefully; the newly grown elm leaf buds already had many small holes in many places, and one look told him they had been gnawed by some kind of insect.

Baifeng fixed his eyes and searched carefully, and sure enough, he found several more tiny black insects. Baifeng observed for a good while and felt he was eighty percent sure of what these were. There might be slight differences between wild ones and domesticated ones, and when mulberry leaves had not yet grown, they would indeed eat elm leaves.

This thing did not have much significance for the Baifeng Tribe, except that it might provide one more type of textile, and the color would be relatively bright.

So Baifeng thought for a moment and decided to take some back to raise and see. If it could succeed, it would count as a good thing. So he found a few Bamboo Tubes, shook them over the elm leaves, and after collecting perhaps a thousand of them, he picked some elm leaves and threw them inside.

There were still mulberry leaves near the tribe, so he could pick some to feed them when the time came; this did not require too much effort, and silkworm excrement could be used to feed fish, though such a small amount would not be of much use. Baifeng just wanted to try it now; if it could not succeed, then he would wait for Xuanyuan's wife, Leizu, to complete this matter.

As for Leizu of the Xiling Tribe, who was far away in a place filled with smoke and miasma and as humid as spring all year round, she was only an eleven-year-old child now. The region where she lived was humid, with much water and many mountains, which made their tribe have many insects and also many kinds of wild beasts.

In any random puddle, there might be a dragon; they only left their eyes above the water surface, waiting for prey to come over, and then would bite and drag it into the water.

Rhinoceroses were even frequent visitors that destroyed their tribe, as well as tall elephants; if an elephant and a rhinoceros fought, the ones who suffered would only be their tribe.

Therefore, even though they planted a lot of Wild Rice, most of it was ruined by various wild beasts. Fortunately, they could plant two seasons during the period when the weather alternated between cold and hot.

Most importantly, their tribe had very powerful Soldiers, especially Soldiers who could kill dragons with their bare hands; this was what allowed their Xiling Tribe to constantly grow stronger. The Soldiers of their tribe also took wearing clothes made from the skin of dragons they had killed with their own hands as a symbol of their strength.

However, although Leizu liked the Xiling Tribe, she did not like the foolish tribesmen. Whenever they had time, they only knew to go into the marshes to kill dragons. If they were lucky and killed one, they would become warriors of the tribe and be loved and respected by the tribesmen. If they failed, they would either be dragged down and leave no bones behind, or they would run back missing arms or legs, and then persist for a few days before dying.

For example, that Boyu who was missing a forearm had originally been the tribe's most powerful Soldier, but he had been careless and had his forearm bitten off by a dragon. It was only because he was lucky that he did not die, and the stump healed; now, even though he had a tall stature, he had no status to speak of in the tribe and could only pick mulberry leaves for them and keep watch over the Heavenly Worm Room.

"Heavenly Worm" was the most important treasure of their Xiling Tribe. Successive Tribal Chiefs had said that this worm was given to their tribe by the Heaven gods, so the name was called Heavenly Worm. With the silk spit by the Heavenly Worm, they did not have to wear tree bark and animal skins.

When it was hottest, wearing clothes made of Heavenly Worm Silk made one feel it was not so hot and not so humid, and when it turned cold, one could just put it on and not feel cold, so they all felt this was the greatest gift given to them by the Heaven gods.

However, the only people who could come into contact with the Heavenly Worm and raise the Heavenly Worm were her and a group of women from her father, the Xiling Clan; other people were not qualified to raise the Heavenly Worm, and even the Tribal Chief of the Xiling Clan was not qualified to enter or leave the Heavenly Worm Room at will.

It was the same for Boyu; the most he could do was stand guard at the entrance of the Heavenly Worm Room. This was only because her father felt it was too much of a pity for a Soldier like him to be discarded; if his forearm were still there, he would have been fully qualified to obtain the most beautiful woman of the tribe, or even a woman who raised the Heavenly Worm.

Leizu carried a bamboo basket filled with mulberry leaves in her hands, lifted her Heavenly Worm Silk robe, and stepped into the Heavenly Worm Room built of bamboo; the roof was woven with thick palm leaves, which could completely block the rain outside.

Although she was wearing Heavenly Worm Silk, with no sun and rain every day, this made her feel very uncomfortable.

Now the Heavenly Worm had changed from black to white after its first molting; it still had to go through several more moltings before it could spin a cocoon, become a pupa, and transform into a butterfly. What they needed to use was the cocoon it spun.

Just as she was scattering mulberry leaves inside, she felt a sense of the world spinning, and then the ground under her feet began to sway, along with a rumbling sound in the distance. Leizu knew this must be the Earth god getting angry. She had experienced it several times since she grew up, but she did not know why this time was so severe, and lasted so long; just how much anger did the Earth god have?

While she was waiting for the Earth god's anger to stop, Boyu had already kicked the door open and dragged Leizu out with his one complete arm. Leizu was very angry and wanted to scold him, but she could not stand steady; even for Boyu, the ground under his feet was swaying chaotically.

The moment they got outside, the Heavenly Worm Room collapsed. Before Leizu could even worry about the Heavenly Worm, she saw giant rocks rolling down from the mountain, and a large gap was tearing open on the ground in front of her. Everywhere there were heart-wrenching cries, as well as the sound of the great mountains collapsing.

Leizu swayed and fell to the ground, too panicked to even make a sound.