CH 42

Qin Fei felt that the description of the bamboo forest that everyone said as too big was too exaggerated, Mocha, in particular, said that he could not see the edge of it. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes in his heart, if there was such a large bamboo forest, how could he not have found it by now? 

Sa Lei saw what he was thinking about and explained as he walked along, “The bamboo forest is actually very close to the tribe’s camp, just to the side of the tribe, which is hidden by a few huge rocks. There’s nothing to use or eat in there and hardly anyone from the tribe goes there, so it’s only natural that you don’t know about it.” Then he reached out and pointed a short distance away, “See those big rocks? There it is.”

Following Sa Lei’s finger, Qin Fei easily saw the big rock that Sa Lei was talking about, he couldn’t help but twitch the corners of his mouth. It was a mountain of rocks, the size of a giant whale, staggering down a high cliff, blocking most of the road. The bamboo forest that the tribe had been talking about was behind the rocky hill. 

After the attack by the flying beasts, Xiao Bu was still a little uneasy. The bamboo forest was close to the tribe’s camp, so most of the tribe came with Qin Fei to cut the bamboo, even some of the females and youngsters came to help. Xiao Bu also followed Ruma, walking behind Sa Lei and Qin Fei. Eventually, the little brat couldn’t help but be curious and ran up to Qin Fei, “Daddy Qin Fei, with bamboo can we build a beautiful and sturdy bamboo house?”

Qin Fei looked down and touched Xiao Bu’s head, and seeing the uneasiness in his eyes, he guessed that those flying beasts had scared the little brat by tearing the tent apart. He picked him up and nodded, “We will build a beautiful and sturdy bamboo house, and then we will live in it,so Xiao Bu won’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Xiao Bu buried his head in his neck and murmured, “So will Daddy Qin Fei live with us?”

Qin Fei was stunned and then nodded, “Hn, Daddy Qin Fei will live with you.” 

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The group soon bypassed the messy rocky hills. The view that appeared before Qin Fei’s eyes made his mouth drop open in astonishment. They were now standing on the higher ground, with the bamboo forest right underneath them. It should not be called a bamboo forest at all, but rather a ‘bamboo sea’. The forest was undulating like waves in the mountain breeze and the green waves were magnificent. Mocha’s words were true, there was no limit to what you could see. 

“It’s so beautiful…” Qin Fei couldn’t help but to comment and sighed in admiration, at the same time, Xiao Bu nodded in agreement.

Since they had to go down the mountain slope, Qin Fei let Xiao Bu down and held his little hand as they walked towards the bamboo forest. 

Qin Fei was about to follow him to cut the bamboo, but as soon as he entered the bamboo forest he was dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe his eyes, the bamboo shoots and wild mushrooms were everywhere.

“Oh my god, this, this is simply the mountain of food, the food forest…” Qin Fei couldn’t help but say in amazement. 

It was not like what everyone said that there was no food, it was simply an ecological storeroom. He must take the people here and bring the good things here back to the tribe. With this food, they would probably be able to last for a long time without even hunting.

Sa Lei and the tribe were baffled by Qin Fei’s behaviour. Qin Fei, however, fumbled around under some bamboo shoots that looked like small watermelons and found a young bamboo shoot that was just showing a little bit of its tender tip. Using his sabre, he plucked the huge bamboo shoot out of the soil. He peeled off a few layers and used his sabre to trim off the excess. The bamboo shoots were so full of juice that they dripped onto Qin Fei’s hand. Qin Fei ignored the sticky juice and took a bite out of the exposed part. 

The taste and texture were somewhat similar to the bamboo shoots he had eaten, yet there were some differences. The taste was crisper, sweeter and juicier than bamboo shoots from Earth.

Xiao Bu looked at him with a look of reminiscence and could not help but stick out his little tongue and lick his somewhat dry lips like a cat. Qin Fei looked at his little gluttony and couldn’t help but smile as he cut a slice for Xiao Bu with his small knife. 

Xiao Bu hurriedly stuffed that bamboo shoot into his mouth and ate it in front of the admiring and amazed eyes of the tribe people. At the end, he smiled sweetly at Qin Fei and said, “Daddy Qin Fei, what is this? It’s so tasty.”

Qin Fei handed the large bamboo shoot to Xiao Bu to hold, raise up his head to look at Sa Lei and the people of the tribe then said, “This thing is called bamboo shoot, it is the seedling of these bamboos, it’s still young, but the ones that grow out are too old, can’t be eaten, but the ones that just showing their heads and still buried in the ground are delicious.” 

The tribe cheered with joy at his words, Qin Fei then said to Ruma and Sa Lei, “This thing is good for people, I see that our tribe is very dependent on meat, in fact, eating more other non-meat food is more beneficial to the body.”

Ruma and Sa Lei, who had been in contact with Qin Fei a lot, understood some of his arguments and nodded in agreement. 

Qin Fei added, “There are also many wild mushrooms on this mountain, although some are poisonous and could kill you if you eat them; but I have just looked at it for a moment and found out that most of the wild mushrooms in the bamboo forest are edible.”

When Ruma and Sa Lei heard his words, they couldn’t help but look at each other with a frown, and then turned their eyes to Qin Fei. The two of them didn’t even know that it was edible, much less had the ability to tell if it was poisonous or not, otherwise they wouldn’t be guarding the ‘mountain food’ and bringing their tribe members to suffer from hunger. However, they both guessed that since Qin Fei had mentioned ‘wild mushrooms that could be eaten’, then he should be able to identify them. 

Qin Fei looked down and plucked an arm-sized shaggy ink cap mushroom (Coprinus comatus) from the ground, as well as some wild mushrooms that he recognized but were much larger. He carefully identified these mushrooms and confirmed that they were indeed non-toxic and edible. The mushrooms were divided into two parts, one, which was ready to eat once picked and the other one which needed to be dried before it could be eaten.

As the mushrooms in the bamboo forest were relatively homogeneous, there were only a few that could be eaten. With Qin Fei’s careful explanation, the tribe mens were soon able to identify and classify them. 

Xiao Bu and some of the younger ones volunteered for a difficult task which was to go to the tribe to get backpack baskets and small baskets. Since Qin Fei was not too comfortable with the children wandering off, Sa Lei called the two males to follow them and also to call over anyone from the tribe who could still take part in the picking. 

Qin Fei, not wanting to get busy and cut down the bamboo, left the ‘project’ of the bamboo house building to Sa Lei and took the empty-handed females to start picking mushrooms and bamboo shoots. 

There were many people, so the working process was done quickly. In no time at all, the tribe’s camp was filled with mountains of bamboo shoots and mushrooms.

Because the mushrooms were too big, it was not conducive for drying them. Qin Fei had some females specially taking charge in cutting the mushrooms into halves, stringing them up on straw ropes and hanging them in bunches on racks made of thin bamboo poles. This way, not only was it easier to sun-dry, it was also easier to gather and store it.