I am a Primitive Man

Han Cheng had sorted out the yellow beans brought back by the trading team from the Green Sparrow tribe.

There weren’t many, just over half a jar, about five jin (roughly 2.5 kg).

If there were not too many bean dregs and the water for making tofu was good, producing a block of tofu wouldn’t be a problem.

During the tofu-making process, it was also possible to get some soy milk or tofu pudding to drink.

After swallowing a few times, Han Cheng still suppressed this impulse.

Although Shang and Mao both mentioned that there were still quite a few yellow beans in that tribe, Han Cheng didn’t want to take the risk just to be safe.

What if, when Shang and the others went again, that tribe finished off the remaining yellow beans? Wouldn’t that be a huge loss?

If the tribe wanted to plant yellow beans, wouldn’t that delay things by another year?

Moreover, the tribe still didn’t have a stone mill. Turning the beans into a slurry would be troublesome without this tool.

Even though he wanted to get his hands on the yellow beans from that tribe as soon as possible, he still didn’t agree to Shang and Mao’s request.

He didn’t let them set off immediately but ordered them to rest in the tribe for seven days before allowing them to move out again.

The yellow beans were certainly important, but the people in the tribe were even more important. In Han Cheng’s view, the lives of the Green Sparrow tribe were far more valuable than those external goods.

Another reason was that the five deer accompanying the trading team had successively entered their mating season and needed to stay in the tribe to allow Deer Lord to help them with their physiological issues.

When they set off, Han Cheng took out that small piece of granite and instructed them to go to the tribe with granite and bring back a few pieces of regular-shaped granite.

This way, the stonemason could use it to carve out some stone mills in due time.

Hard and durable granite was the best material for making stone mills.

If they were using a large millstone for grinding rice, the material wouldn’t need to be so particular.

Shang and Mao, with the trading team, set off again, pounding their chests in the assurance that they would bring back the yellow beans and granite.

“Chicken—chicken, twenty-one; duck—duck, twenty-eight; goose—goose, thirty-one.” (Dialect: "one" (yī) with a fourth tone sounds not too standard. Using "yōu" in the fourth tone produces the correct syllable, but there’s no such spelling...)

This rhyming phrase, like "cat three, dog four, pig five, goat six, cow seven, horse eight," refers to the time it takes for these animals to go from pregnancy to giving birth.

The difference is that for chickens and ducks, it’s counted by days, while for cows and sheep, the following unit is ‘months.’

Time flew by, and in just twenty days, the rooster that had been castrated had been incubating the eggs for a full twenty-one days.

So, after sending off the trading team, Han Cheng came to the chicken coop to keep watch.

As soon as he arrived, he heard a faint chirping from the chicks and immediately felt joy.

Sure enough, they had emerged as promised.

Peering closely at the edge of the coop, he didn’t see any newly hatched chicks; they were likely hiding underneath the "loving" rooster, playing hide-and-seek among the feathers. ℟а₦ȮВΕṦ

However, in front of the rooster, eggshells had been removed from the nest, and some dried blood vessels were inside the shells.

The chicks chirped for a while before falling silent; it was unclear whether they felt the warmth of paternal love or, through the old rooster, realized that someone formidable had arrived outside.

When everything around settled down, Han Cheng could hear some faint "popping" sounds, which were the chicks inside working hard to peck at the eggshells, eager to enter this world.

After watching for a while without seeing the chicks, Han Cheng felt anxious but had no thoughts of shooing the rooster out of the nest.

He knew that this was a crucial moment for incubating the chicks; if he disturbed the rooster now, the prolonged exposure to the cold could lead to the inevitable death of the chicks ready to hatch.

Each of those little lives would not undergo any further changes except for becoming fluffy eggs.

After observing for a while, Han Cheng left to busy himself elsewhere and then returned to check.

After several visits throughout the day, the old rooster remained lying there, growing ever more "benevolent," without any other changes.

The rooster was extremely patient, determined to hatch every single egg.

The newly hatched chicks wouldn’t come out if it didn't move.

Chickens, being oviparous animals, were different from mammals.

Mammal offspring could hide under their mothers and drink milk, while oviparous animals could only go hungry.

It seemed that even if oviparous animals could drink milk, these newly hatched chicks would still have to go hungry.

Fortunately, the newly hatched chicks were particularly resilient to hunger, unlike mammals, which would immediately seek milk if they couldn’t stand steadily.

After checking several times and seeing that it was getting dark, Han Cheng realized that the rooster wouldn’t "get up" that day and finally left.

That night, holding onto Bai Xue and listening to her belly for a while, Han Cheng fell asleep.

He hadn’t slept long before he started dreaming. He dreamt of two wrinkled little dolls calling him "Dad" repeatedly, and Han Cheng was surprised and delighted.

But the shock soon came. The two wrinkled dolls somehow grew a lot of fur, becoming fluffy, and their beaks became sharp, looking increasingly like oversized chicks.

“Phew~!”

Waking up from the dream, Han Cheng confirmed that it was just a dream and that his little ones wouldn’t be born for several more months, finally allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

The scene in the dream was too terrifying.

After quietly reaching out to touch Bai Xue for a bit, Han Cheng couldn’t help but succumb to drowsiness and fell asleep again.

“Daddy’s here!”

“Daddy’s back again!”

The two chick-like little creatures excitedly yelled, then flapped their wings and quickly flew toward the startled Han Cheng.

Remembering the sensation of those chick-like little ones digging into his arms for milk, pecking at sensitive spots with their sharp beaks, Han Cheng turned and ran away.

“Where’s Daddy going?”

“Where’s Daddy going?”

The two little chicks flapped their wings behind him, continuously chasing after him.

“I don’t have kids like you, and I have no milk to give you…”

Han Cheng turned around, scolding fiercely as he ran quickly, but in the end, he still couldn’t run faster than if he had wings…

“Phew~”

Opening his eyes and feeling the familiar surroundings, Han Cheng couldn’t help but breathe heavily.

Remembering the scene in his dream, he felt a chill run down his spine.

It was too brutal!

Fortunately, chicks didn’t drink milk; otherwise, the poor rooster would have been tortured to death by those little chicks!

Han Cheng couldn’t help but rub his chest.

He felt a bit reluctant to sleep, worried that if he did, he might dream of those two ferocious little creatures again.

Damn, even a dream could turn into a series—what a strange thing!

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