Chapter 220: Come On, Be Wild
“We’ll only need to keep two or three pieces,” Nan Xun said. Under A-Mang’s slightly regretful gaze, she took all the flints out of the basket and replaced them with salt stones.
By the time the two of them returned to the treehouse, dusk had already fallen. A-Mang couldn’t wait to take out the flints and test them.
He gathered some dry grass and wood shavings into a pile and struck the two flints together at that spot three or five times.
Sure enough, the pile caught fire quickly, which delighted him immensely.
Nan Xun sat to the side, propping up her chin as she watched him. Seeing how he looked, she couldn’t help laughing. “Honestly, you’re like a little kid.”
In the jungle, the leaves on the trees turned yellow very quickly. Before they could even wither, the first snow of early winter fell.
After this snowfall, the temperature in the jungle would drop sharply, and some animals would begin to hibernate.
The day before the heavy snow arrived, A-Mang happened to catch a spotted wild leopard. When it stood upright, it was about as tall as Nan Xun. Although Nan Xun already had a tiger-skin outfit for winter, A-Mang still gave her the leopard’s hide. She loved it to bits and used it to make a leopard-skin loungewear outfit.
She re-sewed the belly, opened an opening at the hips, widened the openings for the limbs, and especially at the two hind legs—there she attached two trouser legs made from other long-haired pelts.
When Nan Xun put on the spotted leopard loungewear and pulled the leopard-head hood over her head, A-Mang’s gaze instantly changed.
“A-Xi, you’ve really turned into a little wild leopard!” His eyes stuck to her, unable to move away.
Nan Xun, who hadn’t expected that even wearing a piece of animal hide could get him worked up: …
Outside the stone cave, snow fell with a soft rustling sound. Inside, the rogue tiger tugged the little wild leopard’s legs out of the hide, pushed that beautiful leopard-skin outfit up above her lower belly, and then pressed her down to enthusiastically “make pancakes” in all sorts of positions.
In the spacious, luxurious stone cave, the air kept heating up and heating up. The broken sounds were like an out-of-tune melody, oddly flavorful in their own way.
The heavy snow fell for a full day. By the time it was nearly dark, it finally began to ease.
Holding the broom Nan Xun had made, A-Mang first cleared the snow off the treehouse and suspension bridge, then cleared out an open space beneath the big tree and stone slope.
At the foot of the stone slope was a small stove platform A-Mang had built with stones and clay. When it snowed, he covered it with dry grass to keep it from getting wet. When it was time to use it, he simply moved aside the grass that had accumulated snow.
Nan Xun fetched dry firewood from the woodshed. A-Mang skillfully struck the flints, quickly getting a fire going.
A-Mang chopped the meat into chunks with a stone knife and put them into a large pot made from nut shells to boil. Nan Xun added some of the dried wild vegetables she’d made into the water; the resulting soup was wonderfully fresh and flavorful.
Wild meat was fairly tough and needed to be boiled for at least an hour. Nan Xun couldn’t wait, so she tossed two sweet potatoes into the small stove.
When they were almost done roasting, Nan Xun leaned against A-Mang’s back and said with a bright smile, “A-Mang, my sweet potatoes are ready. Peel them and feed me, okay?”
A-Mang raised an eyebrow and saw right through her. “A-Xi, you just don’t want to dirty your hands, do you?”
“Of course not. I’m just afraid they’re hot. I’m so delicate—can’t compare to your thick skin,” Nan Xun huffed.
A-Mang curled his lips and said no more. He used a wooden stick to fish out the sweet potatoes, peeled them, and fed her bite by bite.
Nan Xun was eating happily when Little Eight’s exaggerated cry of amazement suddenly sounded in her head. “My god! I open my eyes and see something this clingy—your vacation’s going pretty well!”
Nan Xun’s mouth twitched. “Could you give me a heads-up before you show up every time?”
Little Eight gave a very insincere “oh.”
The very next second, Little Eight suddenly became cheerful, as if it had discovered something that put it in a great mood.
“Darling, enjoy your vacation. If you need anything, call Grandpa three times—Grandpa’s going to sleep.”
Nan Xun: “So you weren’t sleeping before?”
Little Eight roared, “I was in closed-door cultivation! Cultivating! Cultivation requires total concentration!”
Nan Xun lazily went, “Oh.”
Little Eight: …
With Little Eight no longer peeping, Nan Xun went right back to shamelessly clinging to A-Mang.
Even though they had plenty of meat every day and A-Mang would occasionally hunt fresh prey, Nan Xun still wanted to eat something different. So she had A-Mang help weave a fishing net.
The two of them slowly slid to the middle of the frozen river. A-Mang used a stone axe to chop a hole in the ice, and Nan Xun lowered the net through it.
“A-Xi, the big fish in the river don’t taste good,” A-Mang reminded her. “I and the others tried them long ago. They’re full of bones—easy to get stuck in your throat.” Though he never questioned whatever Nan Xun wanted to do, the big fish in the water really weren’t good.
Nan Xun smiled sweetly. “If there really are a lot of bones, we can just eat the fish heads. Fish heads don’t have bones, and they’re good for the brain.”
Nan Xun had noticed that the prehistoric people here never ate the heads of any wild beasts; even the heads of the hongchi beasts were chopped off and thrown away. It seemed to be a kind of custom.
But when A-Mang heard her say she wanted to eat fish heads, he didn’t object. He just looked at her with pure indulgence. “Alright. Whatever A-Xi wants.”
Before long, Nan Xun pulled up the net—and actually caught two big, plump fish.
She scraped off the scales with a stone knife and removed the innards, roasting one fish and boiling the other.
The roasted fish turned golden brown, its aroma so tempting that Nan Xun nearly drooled.
However, the moment she took a bite, she immediately spat it out. “Peh, peh!”
“Hahaha…” A-Mang couldn’t stop laughing. “A-Xi, I told you there were too many bones to eat, but you just had to try.”
Nan Xun shot him a sideways look. “So, A-Mang, were you just waiting to laugh at me?”
Although there were indeed too many bones to eat the fish properly, Nan Xun tasted the fish head and found it pretty good. She wanted A-Mang to try it too, but he refused.
Her mischievous streak flared up, and she insisted. In the end, when A-Mang finally couldn’t out-stubborn her and took a bite, his eyes instantly lit up.
It was as if a whole new world had opened before him.
After that, for a period of time, A-Mang tried eating the heads of all kinds of wild beasts. Nan Xun was so disgusted she nearly threw up and demanded that he was only allowed to eat fish heads—nothing else.
A-Mang’s regretful expression made Nan Xun deeply appreciate the saying: you reap what you sow.
In the cold weather, Nan Xun lay around in the cave out of boredom. In summer and autumn she could still go out to pick fruit and wild vegetables, but in winter there was very little she could do.
She originally wanted to sit in the cave and sew some clothes, but ever since A-Mang discovered that her hands were constantly being pricked and bleeding from the bone needle, he never let her touch one again.
In this prehistoric age, the only man willing to use a bone needle to sew clothes was probably this oddball A-Mang.
Nan Xun gave instructions from the side, and A-Mang followed her descriptions to make all kinds of gloves, hats, and scarves—his craftsmanship was so good he could practically graduate as a master.
Little Eight yawned and sneered, “You’re really lazy, making this savage do even the work women usually do.”
Nan Xun replied, “My man dotes on me and won’t let me do it. I’m helpless too~”
Little Eight: “That tone of yours is really… suggestive.”
Nan Xun immediately started singing, swaying on purpose, “Come on, be wild~ Anyway, we’ve got plenty of time~”
Little Eight: …
Damn it—that was its song.
