Orc Girl's Tribal Daily Life

Chapter 16 Cloudy Day

When I woke up this morning, the sky was a bit overcast, not as bright as it had been the previous two days.

Jiang Luoluo leaned against the cave entrance and looked at the sky for a while. She didn't see many dark clouds and felt that it probably wouldn't rain, so she went back to wash up.

The promised washbasin and wash basin haven't been made yet, so I still use a wet burlap sack to wipe my face and hands, and finally use a twig dipped in water to brush my teeth.

Young Ge watched the cub's actions, smiled and didn't interfere. However, the cub wouldn't let him go and pulled him over to do the same thing.

After doing all that, the two of them started eating breakfast. The broth, which had been simmering all night, had turned into a cloudy, pale blue color mixed with berries—it looked a bit like some kind of colorful version of a culinary disaster.

However, the rich aroma of meat mixed with fruit makes this simple stewed meat seem quite extraordinary.

The tender, boiled meat was shredded into strips, exuding a subtle sweet and sour berry flavor. Young Ge, clutching his bloated stomach, couldn't understand why such a simple dish had never been prepared by any member of the tribe before.

Jiang Luoluo was unaware of what the young man Ge was thinking. While he was cleaning up the remaining meat soup—which he had finished drinking—she ran to the cave entrance and stared at the sky for a long time.

Finally, he gestured to the boy, Ge, who had finished drinking the soup, to move the wood used to make the new wooden door from the doorway into the cave.

Jiang Luoluo looked at the overcast sky outside and had a feeling that it was going to rain. She thought that it was better to keep the wood that was being dried out from getting wet.

Fortunately, Jiang Luoluo noticed that there was a certain height difference between the inside and outside of the cave, so it was unlikely that rainwater would backflow if it rained. Otherwise, she would have been worried about what would happen if she got flooded.

Young Ge diligently followed the cub's instructions, stacking several pieces of wood against the wall of the cave's stone bed.

I don't know whether to be glad or not that there wasn't much stuff in the cave, so this pile of wood, which was over two meters tall, could be easily placed inside without taking up much space.

After filling the stone pot with water and confirming that there was nothing else to do in the cave, young Ge Cai escorted Jiang Luoluo to Little Stone Mountain.

On the way, Jiang Luoluo gestured to the young man Ge, asking how she would avoid the rain if it started to rain, whether she had a raincoat or umbrella... Ah, that seems a bit difficult, then do she have a straw hat or raincoat or something similar to avoid the rain?

As a result, the young man Ge simply stopped by the roadside, broke off a large grass leaf more than half a meter long from a roadside plant that Jiang Luoluo hadn't paid much attention to, and covered Jiang Luoluo's head with it.

"If Luo doesn't want to get wet in the rain, she can just pick a leaf to cover herself."

Jiang Luoluo looked at the large grass leaf in her hand, which resembled a banana leaf. She thought to herself, "Some of the plants here are... a little too big, aren't they?"

However, it is indeed quite practical. You don't have to worry about losing it or forgetting to bring it. You can just pick it from the roadside and use it. The leaves are also very sturdy and resilient. It's just that the edges of the leaves are a bit sharp and have serrations, so they are too easy to get hurt.

But then I thought, the people in the tribe are all superhumanly strong, so they probably aren't afraid of these scratches.

No, I'm scared. Even if the recovery ability is strong, it will still hurt. Jiang Luoluo looked at the serrated edges of the leaves and felt a little scared.

It just so happens that in the morning, the children of Little Stone Hill will play first—fighting and vying for the right to the stones.

Jiang Luoluo, who is only six years old, cannot play with the group of children over ten years old—they play a game of "throwing beanbags" with huge stones weighing hundreds of kilograms, which Jiang Luoluo cannot catch yet.

You can use these leaves to make some crafts to pass the time.

Young Ge didn't ask why. He accompanied the cub to pick all the grass leaves they could see before returning to the Great Stone Mountain for training... Oh no, they had agreed to make more jam for their tribe today, so they should have gone to pick fruit.

On the small rocky hill, Jiang Luoluo was still not the first to arrive, but because she was carrying a large pile of grass leaves, she became the most eye-catching person.

"Wow, Luo, what are you going to do with all this stuff?" A little boy named Zhuang came closer. He had just come to Xiaoshishan for training this year and was the youngest child besides Jiang Luoluo. He had always been beaten up by the older children.

Therefore, he pays the most attention to Jiang Luoluo.

"Luo can't speak, are you stupid?" Another little girl, about eleven or twelve years old, patted Zhuang's head happily. "Help Luo carry it."

Xi took most of the grass leaves from Jiang Luoluo's hand and helped place them in the corner where Jiang Luoluo had been yesterday. It wasn't that she was ostracizing Jiang Luoluo, but rather that this spot was safer and less likely to be hit by flying stones.

Zhuang took the other half of the grass leaf from Jiang Luoluo's hand and looked curiously at Jiang Luoluo, who now had a free hand and could "answer" them.

Jiang Luoluo, who thought she could escape danger by not being able to speak: ...

Ok.

Jiang Luoluo pointed to the sky, then to a pile of grass leaves and began to gesture. She had never learned sign language, and even if she had, the people here wouldn't be able to understand her.

So Jiang Luoluo uses the most basic imagery to express herself, focusing on a stream of consciousness. Whether you can understand it or not depends entirely on luck—but surprisingly, most of what Jiang Luoluo wants to express can be understood very well.

Young Ge was like this, as were the little boy Zhuang and the little girl happy; it was completely easy to understand.

Perhaps it's because the people in the tribe are relatively simple-minded and don't have many complicated thoughts, that they are able to see through the essence of what Jiang Luoluo is trying to express.

"It's going to rain, so Luo, you want to use these leaves to make something to keep out the rain, right? How do you do it?" Zhuang stared at Jiang Luoluo with great curiosity.

Yesterday afternoon, they all knew that Luo was a genius with a talent for making stone tools—no one was jealous of this, because most children didn't like the tedious task of grinding stones.

Upon hearing that someone was skilled at making stone tools, all they could think of was, "I must hunt more prey in the future so she can make stone tools for me; I don't want to make them myself!"

Although it's very rewarding to make your own stone tool, the process before that is really grueling.

Jiang Luoluo gestured again.

Unfortunately, perhaps because the meaning was too complicated this time, Zhuang and happy both looked completely clueless and couldn't understand Jiang Luoluo's meaning at all.

Jiang Luoluo, who was demonstrating a simple weaving method, scratched her head. Is this so hard to understand?

As the number of children on Little Stone Mountain increased, Zhuang and Xi joined in again, and a chaotic battle ensued for the right to the stones.

The order of the children's ranking is not fixed because of the outcome of a fight on a certain day, but changes constantly as each child's situation changes every day.

The more capable a child is, the more challenges they have to face to prove they deserve the position, otherwise they will be dragged down by the other children.

This is not because the people in the tribe are magnanimous, but because in this era where hunting is the main means of survival, if you cannot get used to fighting and cannot make yourself stronger, then you cannot guarantee enough food and you cannot survive.

After looking at them for a while and finding that they were not much different from yesterday, Jiang Luoluo continued to select the leaves she liked.

She was going to make a raincoat. Although it seemed that making an umbrella would be easier and simpler, in reality, the process of making an umbrella was quite complicated and required high-quality materials.

A few leaves? She certainly couldn't make that.

As for the simple method of making it by adding a wooden stick at the bottom, it's only good for looking at... it will fall apart in the wind.

Making a raincoat is the most practical method. Just like chainmail, you can make it by overlapping and fixing different shaped leaves.

It is only because the leaves here are strong and tough enough, with a material similar to a few millimeters of PVC plastic sheet, that Jiang Luoluo used them to make a raincoat.

If the leaves were like those on Earth, where Jiang Luoluo lives, they would rot at the slightest touch; she would be crazy to use them to make a raincoat.

Several types of grass have leaves that resemble large banana leaves. One of them is the Rain-Closing Grass, which folds its two large leaves together when it rains to protect the most important part, the seed.

Like calamus, this plant has long, thin leaves and is called knife-cut grass. Its long, thin leaves are extremely sharp, making it very easy to get cut when passing by. When there are no stone knives, people often use knife-cut grass instead. The downside is that it is not durable and is basically disposable.

There is also a last type of leaf covered in downy hairs, with a soft texture like touching the fur of some kind of animal, called rabbit hair grass. It is often used as a temporary means of keeping warm when the temperature suddenly drops in the wild and you feel cold.

The downside is that once it dries, the fuzz on it becomes as hard as needles and very prickly. It also has a limited lifespan; it can only be used before it dries completely.