Chapter 36: Heading to the Gathering

Baifeng was still uneasy about the stored meat; even now, the Mid-Autumn Festival had not yet arrived, and the temperature remained very high. Even with a thick layer of salt rubbed on, there was no guarantee it wouldn't spoil.

The people who cooked every day had basically become fixed. Ever since they had eaten food prepared by Baifeng using the simplest ingredients and seasonings, the tribespeople were no longer willing to eat the crudely prepared food from before.

Now, Baifeng had already found wild seasonings like Wild Onion, Sichuan Peppercorn, Cinnamon, and Star Anise; he could even see Thyme with purple flowers blooming everywhere. Sprinkling a little when pan-frying meat gave it a completely different flavor.

Limited by ingredients and equipment, many of the delicacies Baifeng wanted to make could only remain ideas. However, just the few tricks Baifeng had demonstrated had given birth to professional cooks within this tribe. For the same ingredients, if one wanted to eat something that tasted better, they needed to help others cover their shift for a while before those people were willing to cook for them.

Once resources were sufficiently abundant in the future and private ownership emerged, perhaps they would directly use food to hire cooks to prepare meals for them.

Speaking of which, at the meat storage, although Baifeng didn't see any signs of mold or spoilage, the smell always felt wrong. Perhaps it was a psychological illusion caused by excessive worry.

Recalling the Meat Floss his family back in his previous life used to stir-fry to make meat last longer, Baifeng felt this was also a more reliable method.

To cut meat, one needed a kitchen knife. For Baifeng, a Chinese Kitchen Knife was not a difficult task; his blacksmithing skills could now be considered to have achieved a small measure of success. The six Chinese Kitchen Knives, after being sharpened on sandstone, were bright and gleaming, looking quite imposing.

The tribespeople all thought these were newly forged weapons, and each of them showed off their muscles and martial prowess in front of Baifeng, wanting to obtain the right to use these weapons. But Baifeng told them these knives were for cutting meat and cooking, not weapons for killing enemies, which shocked them so much their jaws nearly dropped.

Stir-frying Meat Floss was also a major project. After hearing this decision from Baifeng, the tribespeople were even more shocked than when they heard the knives were for cooking. They had already cured it with such a thick layer of salt; wasn't that enough?

Baifeng could only say it was for the sake of safety. He had never seen so much meat, nor did he know how long so much meat could be preserved with salt, but this concerned the lives of all four hundred people in the tribe, so he dared not be the least bit careless.

Over a dozen large pottery pots were used to stir-fry at once. An Iron Pot would be best, but Baifeng's skills were not yet at the level to make a pot; he didn't know how to hammer a lump of iron into a smooth pot of uniform thickness.

Cut the meat into small pieces or slices, use high heat to render the oil out of the meat, stir-fry constantly, and keep adding salt until the fat in the fatty meat was also rendered out. Finally, pour it into a vat to wait for it to cool; it would become Meat Floss wrapped in white grease. When you wanted to eat it, you just scooped a bit out and melted it.

There was too much meat to finish stir-frying in one day. Baifeng only felt relieved after visiting the newborns and mothers and finding not a single problem, as they were all healthy. At the same time, he found the potter to continue working on his mindset; in any case, he was not to enter his home for this month, and they would talk after a month.

It was seven days until the Mid-Autumn Festival. In these few days, Baifeng had to forge more Ironware to prepare for the upcoming gathering. For one, he would take a portion to the gathering to trade for things; furthermore, it was a three-day journey from the tribe to that gathering place. If they didn't have good weapons on them, they might be snatched away by wolves before even reaching the gathering place.

Four days passed in a flash. Baifeng went full throttle, equipping all sixty-plus people going to the gathering with Iron Spearheads, and also providing three Iron Daggers.

In the morning, Baifeng set off with over sixty people, simple Cowhide Tents, and the Pottery, Ironware, and Salted Fish used for trading.

Xiong was the guide; he had gone to the gatherings before and knew where they were. He carried a bow on his back; the bow was basically occupied by him now. Most of the arrows in the Arrow Quiver were Stone Arrowheads, which had enough lethality anyway. The Shaman was left behind to watch the house.

The gathering place had no specific name or location, but as long as one followed the Dahe downstream, one could always find it. This Dahe was the mother river of this land, nurturing countless large and small tribes on both banks.

The Baifeng Tribe was originally by the Dahe as well, but the mother river got angry and washed them away, so they moved far from the Dahe and drifted into the Wasteland. Therefore, they first had to get to the banks of the Dahe to travel downstream. Even if the Dahe changed its course, it didn't matter; if it changed course, they would just hold the gathering next to the new riverbed.

The Beef they brought was the Dry Rations for the journey. If they caught some prey along the way, the Beef could be saved to trade for things at the gathering.

When setting up camp at night, Baifeng used the simple Tent he had designed. Although it was still drafty everywhere, it could at least block the rain if it rained.

A Yurt was the best tent in Baifeng's heart, but unfortunately, Baifeng knew that thing was very complex, and he didn't know how it was propped up.

The first two nights were peaceful and uneventful. When they set up camp on the third night, Baifeng saw firelight on the opposite side of the wide Dahe and could vaguely hear the sound of people talking. Although he couldn't see the people, it was the first human tribe Baifeng had encountered besides his own original tribe and the cannibal tribe.

Baifeng estimated they were also going to the gathering, but not knowing whether they were friendly, he dared not be the least bit careless and was even more careful when taking turns keeping watch.

Because the Dahe had changed its course, the time it took for Baifeng and his group to find the gathering place was a day later than expected. It wasn't until the fourth day that they saw that bustling place.

The reason the gathering point was chosen there was likely because there was a large Shazhou in the middle of the originally wide Dahe, separating the river water into two sides, which effectively made the Dahe narrower there.

It was likely that the large tribes that arrived first had felled giant trees and laid them across the Shazhou to make a fairly wide Dugout Canoe Bridge. The same was done on both sides of the Dahe, allowing people on both banks to communicate with each other.

There were the most people on the Shazhou. Baifeng felt it was even livelier than the large markets in the countryside of his later life. He hadn't expected that while it was so lonely and devoid of people in the Wasteland, there were actually many human tribes around.

Baifeng's expression was like a country bumpkin entering the city, full of curiosity, but in reality, he couldn't take a fancy to any of the things laid out in the stalls, especially the things from those individual wandering savages; Baifeng wouldn't even pick them up if they were thrown on the ground.

Baifeng also had no interest in the things from small tribes; they were nothing more than some Pottery, stone tools, or some better-looking stones, which the Baifeng Tribe had already phased out.

It was those tribes that traded women for things that caught Baifeng's eye. At this time, using people to trade for things was too normal, and those women couldn't get enough to eat in their own tribes; if they were traded away by a wealthy tribe, their lives might be better, so there was no such thing as coercion at all.

It was just that the aesthetic at this time was very strange, or perhaps Baifeng's aesthetic was a bit deformed in this era. The men of the tribe couldn't move when they saw women with bucket waists, millstone buttocks, and handsome features, hoping the Tribal Chief could trade for some to take back.

And when they saw women who were skin and bones from not having enough to eat, with thin waists and thin legs, they didn't even want to look. Baifeng was also very panicked; in this era, was it possible for him to find a woman who met his aesthetic? Did he have to be celibate until he died of old age or forcibly change his own aesthetic?