Chapter 239: The Departing Rain

The rain stopped, and the tribespeople of the Jiuli emerged one after another. However, many could no longer walk out of their small earthen caves. They were hungry and cold, shivering as they stood in the sun, hoping to dry their already soaked leather garments.

Yet, they also saw a corner of the tribe where the terrain had been altered, which filled them with immense panic. They were not fools; they knew that heavy water could collapse a mountain. With the rain falling for so long, the soil had been soaked until it was soft and loose, and the mountain had slid away just like mud. Moreover, the tribespeople who lived there should now be buried beneath the mountain. It was impossible to rescue them; most were likely crushed into pulp.

They dragged their exhausted bodies toward that direction. After all, with such a major event having occurred, they could not simply ignore it. When they arrived there with difficulty through the mud, they saw Chiyou kneeling on the ground.

They saw that Chiyou was soaked through, with water constantly dripping from his head and face, but they did not see the Tribal Chief. With such a major event having occurred, the Tribal Chief would certainly have come out to inspect it at the first opportunity, but now the Tribal Chief was nowhere to be seen. That could only mean one thing. However, no one spoke; they just felt a sense of sorrow. After all, with such a powerful Tribal Chief dead, what would their future lives be like? Furthermore, this disaster had caused the tribe to suffer heavy losses.

The Great Shaman, wearing Ox Horns on his head, lived on the mountaintop. Because he was able to eat, his physical strength remained quite abundant. He slid down the cliff, walked to Chiyou's side, patted his shoulder, and pulled him up. Then, he turned and shouted loudly to all the tribespeople watching from above: "From this moment on, the Tribal Chief of the Jiuli is Chiyou!"

There was no grand celebration ceremony; only after the Great Shaman performed a solemn sacrifice was the transfer of power completed. The subordinates of Chiyou's father who were still alive became Chiyou's most powerful support. These people had no intention of seizing Chiyou's power; in their view, Chiyou would certainly become a Soldier as powerful as his father, and this time would not be too far off.

Facts proved this to be true. After a brief period of sorrow, Chiyou began to lead the tribespeople to rebuild the tribe. He displayed great courage; he did not become incompetent due to the doting of a powerful father, but instead became even more outstanding.

He took out all the tribe's food and distributed it equally among all the tribespeople, allowing those who were still alive to eat several full meals. Not a single person starved to death due to a lack of food.

But what puzzled Chiyou was that over a hundred tribespeople had eaten Grass Seeds that had turned yellow or red after being soaked by the rain, then claimed they felt nauseous, followed by vomiting and diarrhea, and died shortly thereafter.

Chiyou did not understand why this was, but instinctively believed it was related to the discolored Grass Seeds. Thus, he caught living rabbits and fed them such Grass Seeds. The rabbits developed basically the same symptoms and died after a short while. Consequently, even if it meant letting the tribespeople go hungry, Chiyou dared not let them eat such food, so he threw it all away.

Their tribe truly could not afford any more losses. Originally a large tribe of tens of thousands, thousands had died because of one heavy rain; it was truly too tragic.

At this time, it would still rain toward evening, but although the rainfall was heavy, it lasted for a very short time, like a gust of wind, and stopped immediately.

After divination, the Great Shaman said that this disaster had ended. Chiyou naturally believed this without a doubt, so he no longer concerned himself with the rain and began to fully restore production.

The Soldiers went out to hunt as they should, and the rest of the tribespeople began to rebuild their homes. They bypassed the place where the landslide occurred, because standing there gave them a feeling that their tribespeople were beneath their feet, which made them very uneasy.

Having learned from this lesson, Chiyou no longer allowed the tribespeople to dig caves in the mountains to live in, but instead required them to build houses for themselves using branches and various Grass, much like a bird's nest.

The tribespeople naturally had no objections, because they also felt that living in earthen caves was indeed unsafe. Thus, the forest around the Jiuli was soon thinned out significantly, but the large trees escaped disaster because their tools were too ineffective to cut them down.

The dense bamboo forest around them now became their main source of food. Because of the massive precipitation, the bamboo shoots in the bamboo forest grew crazily. A person could go out and dig casually for a day and bring back enough bamboo shoots to feed many people for several days, and the taste of the bamboo shoots was not bad either.

Chiyou felt that relying solely on hunting and gathering would certainly make it difficult for the tribe to become prosperous again. Moreover, by continuing the practices of their ancestors, the tribe would at most remain this size and would find it hard to progress further. Chiyou wanted to find more food sources, but he had no clue.

Just as the Great Shaman said, the rainstorm disaster for the Chiyou Tribe had ended. The warm, moist air current carrying abundant water vapor moved all the way toward the northwest. The Xuanyuan Clan, which had not seen rain for a long time, also welcomed a large amount of precipitation. Fortunately, it did not become a disaster; in their view, the rain had just arrived a little late this year.

The people of the Baifeng tribe were working in high-intensity, continuous shifts because the rain had not yet reached them. Baifeng's lips, like the ground on the Wasteland, had begun to crack. Of course, it was not that Baifeng had no water to drink, but simply that he was anxious and stressed.

Their wheat had dried out. Sickles, Small Knives, Dajian—any tool that could be used was being put to work. Now they were not worried about heavy rain soaking their crops, but rather the countless birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and Jumping Mouse that had come to join this feast.

They did not dare to delay for even a moment, continuing to cut wheat ears even at night. Harvesting only the wheat ears was much faster, and there was less waste. If they harvested the stalks as well, the wheat grains would all shake off onto the ground. In such a large wheat field, they would lose several hundred catties of wheat.

After the wheat ears were cut, they were all loaded into bags and sent to the Threshing Ground, where the tribespeople began to beat them continuously with flails. After a batch of wheat was threshed, the wheat ears were pulled to the side, the wheat was collected first to be cleaned of debris later, and then the Threshing Ground would be covered with another thick layer of wheat ears to continue threshing, without a moment of rest.

Baifeng did not dare to let them stop. At night, he lit large Torches on the side for illumination, and with the moon, the lighting was passable.

The harvesting work was all done by Slaves; it required no technical skill. But flails were not something one could use just like that; one had to practice a bit.

The Slaves of the Baifeng tribe each held a Weapon, but not a single one of them had the thought of rebelling with the weapons in their hands. They seemed to have invisibly forgotten their status as Slaves, as if this boundless grain had been planted for them.