Chapter 155

Chapter 155

The wind in the valley was fierce, and the snow stung his face like tiny stones.

Qibai pulled his cloak tighter and covered his mouth and nose.

Ever since the earthquake, it was as if the sky had sprung a leak—every few days, another heavy snowfall.

The weather reminded Qibai of when he had first arrived in the Beastman Continent, except back then it had been rain pouring down, not snow.

He turned into the tribe’s main road and happened to see two horse-shaped beastmen pushing a wooden snowplow straight toward him.

At the start of winter, whenever it snowed, the tribesmen would shovel it away. But as the snow grew heavier—sometimes piling half a man’s height overnight—eventually, people simply let it be.

But Black Mountain Tribe wasn’t like the others. Their people didn’t spend the whole winter huddled in their houses, waiting it out motionlessly. Daily life here was full: feeding sheep, working in the forge, attending lessons in the school, training in the field. Even the old beastmen who didn’t do those things visited each other’s homes daily.

To keep roads open without draining too much labor, Qibai had modeled two wooden snowplows after the ones from his old world.

Three meters wide, two meters high—just one beastman in animal form could push one. With two plows making a few passes, a narrow road for people was quickly cleared.

Behind the plows, a group of teenage beastmen were rolling a big tree trunk sideways, pressing the snow flat after the plows had cleared it.

The youngsters were full of energy, their laughter ringing out through the snow.

Leopard Yue, his fur hat crooked, waved happily at Qibai. But when he grinned, the snot under his nose froze into an icicle and dangled down.

Qibai instinctively sniffled his own nose.

Who was he to laugh? In weather like this, anything damp froze instantly—the worst wasn’t a frozen nose, but a frozen backside.

When he had built the tribe’s public latrines, Qibai had focused only on ventilation and smell. He hadn’t considered how cold the Beastman Continent’s winters were. A single breeze in there was icy enough to make him shiver just thinking about it.

At the orphan dormitory entrance, Qibai stomped the snow off and stepped quickly inside.

Several tribesmen were grinding sweet potatoes into starch. In the larger rooms, even more people were crowded on the heated kang beds, each with a little tray in front: some sewing hides with bone needles, some knitting, others twisting fibers into yarn.

The room bustled with warmth and noise. Qibai looked around until he found Yangluo, surrounded by people.

Seeing him, Zhu Zhu stood. “Qibai’s here. Let’s clear out and give them space.”

The past few days Qibai had been learning ritual arts from Yangluo, and those weren’t lessons others could overhear. The crowd assumed he wanted privacy.

But Qibai stopped Zhu Zhu. “Not today. I’ve got another matter with Grandpa Priest. We’ll be going out after this—no need for you to move.”

Yangluo paused halfway through rummaging in his pouch of ritual tools and looked up. “Besides rituals, what else could you need from me?”

He was proud, after all. When he’d first joined Black Mountain Tribe, Qibai had been the first apprentice he chose. Later, Yangluo realized Qibai’s knowledge might surpass his own, so he’d dropped the subject. Never did he expect Qibai to ask him for lessons one day. That had made Yangluo swell with pride.

To him, it was proof that Qibai thought highly of his ritual arts—maybe even more than those taught in great tribes and cities.

Others in the tribe couldn’t grasp that feeling, so Yangluo had only bragged about it to Wolfze a few times.

Qibai found Yangluo’s wolf-fur cloak on the wall, shook it out, and said, “Grandpa Priest, let’s talk while we walk.”

Yangluo hunched against the cold, eyeing the warehouse door. “Why drag me to the storehouse in this weather?”

Qibai opened it. “Grandpa Priest, I was tallying numbers at home just now. Isn’t our food running low? Let’s count again.”

Normally, Qibai left food distribution to others. He’d been calculating how long their redstone ore would last, estimating how much iron they could get from it—when he happened to tally the food supplies too.

The numbers startled him. Their winter stores should be nearly gone by now. Yet Yangluo and Houyan had never mentioned it. That’s why he wanted to check together.

Yangluo scoffed. “Impossible. I check our stores every day.”

The food warehouse was like a treasure hoard, and Yangluo was the dragon guarding it. Every shift in a basket’s position, he noticed.

But when they pulled away the top layers, only the black stone wall stared back at them.

Yangluo slapped the cold wall in disbelief. How could it be empty already?

He bolted, lifting the plank over the cellar entrance and rushing down.

Only, the packed-earth stairs had long been worn smooth by footsteps. In his haste, Yangluo stepped on the rounded edge, slipped—and fell.

Qibai lunged to grab his cloak, but ended up tumbling down with him.

The impact left Qibai’s tailbone throbbing. He gasped through clenched teeth and looked over. “Grandpa Priest? You alright?”

A muffled groan answered. “Help me up.”

Qibai scrambled to his feet, pulled Yangluo up by the arm, and steadied him as the old man muttered “ow, ow, ow.”

Tears streamed down Yangluo’s face—not from pain in his body. He’d survived bloodied falls while fleeing disasters before. No, this time, he had bitten his tongue hard during the fall, and the sting made his eyes and nose leak uncontrollably. Thank goodness the cellar was warm, or his tears and snot would have frozen solid.

Qibai said gently, “Sit on the steps and catch your breath first.”

“Catch my breath, nothing! Help me check the food!” Yangluo snapped stubbornly.

So Qibai supported him deeper into the cellar.

This storage pit, dug under Qibai’s direction, was deep enough to hold food for the whole tribe. When winter began, it had been filled more than halfway.

But as they walked past basket after basket, it became obvious—most were empty. Because Yangluo and Houyan had only been taking food in small batches, they hadn’t noticed the gradual depletion.

The reality was grim. With the meat left in the warehouse and the plants here in the cellar, they had at best fifteen to sixteen days of food.

Yangluo nearly wept outright. But Qibai’s next words almost knocked him off his feet.

“These tubers here,” Qibai pointed at the last baskets of sweet potatoes and taro, “we can’t eat them. They have to be saved as seed for spring.”

Yangluo clutched his chest. “Were we robbed? Did other beastmen steal our food?”

Qibai shook his head, pointing at a dusty basket. “Everything’s in place. Nobody touched it.”

He tapped his bamboo tally board. “By rights, our stores should’ve run out already. The only reason there’s even this much left is because the hunting team kept bringing back game all winter.”

Yangluo muttered, “But winter isn’t even over yet…”

Qibai asked quietly, “Haven’t you noticed this winter is longer?”

“Of course I know!” Yangluo huffed. “That’s why we stored extra food.”

Last winter had lasted about four months. This one was already past five.

With over three hundred mouths to feed, nearly a thousand jin of meat a day, plus vegetables, five months’ consumption was enormous.

Qibai explained the numbers on his tally board, compared them to the remaining food—it all lined up.

Yangluo’s heart sank. “What do we do now…”

Failing to provide enough winter food was a priest’s greatest shame. In some tribes, such priests would be cast out.

He’d only just begun enjoying life in Black Mountain Tribe. The last thing he wanted was exile.

Even if he had little real authority—Wolfze made most decisions—Yangluo still managed food. And whoever distributed food was always respected. If he did well, he would remain an honored priest.

Now he bitterly regretted it. Having seen the glut of bison meat earlier, he’d felt secure no matter how long the winter lasted. He hadn’t double-checked the supplies.

And there was another reason he didn’t want to admit: he still hadn’t fully mastered counting. Back when the tribe was fifty people, he could barely manage. But with three hundred sixty now, tallying daily rations of meat and plants was an impossible puzzle.

If not for Qibai’s bamboo board calculations, he might not have realized until the baskets were literally empty.

When Wolfze arrived, he found the old man and the young one slumped on the cellar floor, heads together over the tally board, both looking deflated. They didn’t even notice him approach.

He had to interrupt.

Yangluo asked nervously, “Did Niuxin fall into a hole again?”

Wolfze nodded. Worse—he was babbling nonsense now, maybe even offending the Beast God…

But before he finished, Qibai jumped up, face alight.

He winced immediately—his tailbone still ached—and hissed through his teeth.

Yangluo glared. “What are you so happy about?! Adding trouble—when I can’t even handle myself, and now I’ve got to treat Niuxin too?”

Qibai shook his arm excitedly. “It might be good news, Grandpa Priest! Niuxin fell into an ice cave!”