Chapter 189

In spring, the mountains rang with the sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs. The forest was lively.

Yang Luo returned with the foraging team from the bamboo grove, parking the carts under the shade of a big tree before everyone stepped into the cool shelter.

Diao Lan, already in the shelter, immediately pulled the tea that had been chilling in spring water and filled the bamboo cups on the table.

Yang Luo fanned himself with a large leaf, picked up a bamboo cup, and took a long drink, sighing in contentment.

Even though the bamboo forest wasn’t far from the tribe, the group had worked all day and pushed carts full of bamboo shoots under the blazing sun. Reaching the foot of Heishan still required a climb—it was not light work.

That’s when you realized how precious it was to have a cool shelter at the mountain’s base.

Not only could everyone rest their feet, but more importantly, one sip of the cold tea made the day’s fatigue melt away.

Diao Lan handed a bamboo cup to She Li and casually asked, “Not much harvest today, huh?”

She Li had taken four carts out to the bamboo forest with the gathering team today, but they weren’t very full.

He accepted the tea and nodded. “The newly sprouting shoots in the grove are hard to find now.”

A nearby sub-beastman raised a hand and said, “You wouldn’t believe it—those shoots change every day. They grow so fast.”

An old sub-beastman smacked his thigh and said, “Forget a day! Just yesterday, I was crouched digging up one shoot, and another behind me already grew taller—I thought someone was grabbing my butt!”

The one sitting next to him scoffed, “As if anyone wants to grab your butt.”

After the laughter died down, She Li chuckled and said, “I figure the bamboo shoot harvesting season will end early this year.”

Though it was wrapping up sooner, the tribe had more participants this year and better tools. In just over a month, they’d gathered a significant amount of bamboo shoots.

Also, with the dry weather and stronger sun, the shoots dried into preserved bamboo much faster than last year.

Tu Ruo laughed, “We had just arrived in the tribe last winter and only got to eat the preserved shoots others made. This year, we can finally let everyone try what we made.”

Several old beastmen clapped. “Yes, it’s great we can store so many plants now.”

Yang Luo was inwardly proud: Glad you all appreciate it—this was all Baibai’s idea.

He stood up, stepped behind the pillar, and peered hard into the fields.

But there was no point. The 400 mu (about 65 acres) of fields stretched 500 meters across. From where Yang Luo stood, he could only see small figures and oversized straw hats covering their heads. Who was squatting out there? Impossible to tell.

Yang Luo quickly gave up and turned to ask Diao Lan, “Where’s Baibai?”

“Baibai and Lang Ze went out,” Diao Lan replied.

Just as Yang Luo was trying to guess what they were up to, Dai came running back from the fields, having seen the gathering team return.

She looked up at him and chirped, “Priest Grandpa, Brother Baibai said he and Brother Lang Ze are done working. He told me to let you know not to record any work points for them the next few days.”

Everyone in the shelter exchanged glances. Come to think of it, ever since Qi Bai took the kids to herd sheep, they hadn’t really seen him or Lang Ze around. Now they weren’t even collecting work points?

Yang Luo cursed not being clairvoyant. If he had known, he would’ve shut Dai up beforehand.

Fine, Lang Ze skipping work was expected—but why did he have to drag Qi Bai into it too?

And how were they “not working”? Qi Bai still checked the fields daily and trained the young ones to herd. That was work! You can’t just dismiss those duties as trivial.

Yang Luo felt a pang of heartache—just like that, those precious work points were gone.

To him, clearly Lang Ze had led Qi Bai astray. After all, when Lang Ze first came to Heishan, he always snuck off alone for food. Don’t think Yang Luo didn’t notice.

But Yang Luo was far off—the truth was, it was Qi Bai who’d roped Lang Ze into this.

It all started when Qi Bai, returning with the sheep, spotted bees gathering nectar on wildflowers by the roadside.

Creatures on the Beastman Continent were generally large—even the bees. These bees were about the size of two finger joints, and Qi Bai was immediately intrigued.

Bees! Where there are bees, there must be honey!

Heishan Tribe had brown sugar made from boiled cane juice, but sugarcane only matured in fall and winter. That meant there’d be a sugar drought for the next five to six months.

But honey was different—bees had flowers to forage from in spring, summer, and fall.

It was as if the universe was flashing a sign at Qi Bai: Go get the honey.

He told Lang Ze, and of course, Lang Ze agreed to anything Qi Bai wanted.

Lang Ze had his own reason—when he was little, his father sometimes brought home honeycombs. Despite coming back swollen from bee stings, the honey and his parents’ smiles left a sweet imprint on his memory.

Lang Ze wanted his mate to taste that too. As for getting stung…

No big deal—he could wait for the swelling to go down before seeing his partner. He wasn’t going to be like his dad, always showing up with a puffy face.

And so the two agreed to ditch work and hunt for beehives around the tribe. But finding a tiny hive in a vast forest? Easier said than done.

They searched two nights straight and found nothing. That only fired up Qi Bai’s resolve.

Alright, little bees—playing hard to get, huh? Now I have to find you.

The cubs were now trained in herding, and Qi Bai had assigned Quan Liu—who’d lost his left arm—to watch over them. Seemed like they weren’t urgently needed back at the tribe.

So Qi Bai made the call: no more tribal work—they were going full-time bee hunters.

They couldn’t just search at night—bees didn’t work at night, and even if they did, it was too dark to spot anything.

Time for a change of strategy.

And so, Qi Bai and Lang Ze went all in on their honey quest.

Wild veggies weren’t as satisfying as honey. If they found it, food trade wouldn’t be a problem.

Qi Bai even packed dry rations. The area near the tribe had already been explored thoroughly. If Lang Ze had seen a hive nearby, he’d have remembered it. Time to widen the search radius.

That’s why Qi Bai had Dai relay the message to Yang Luo.

As for the two of them now? They were crouched behind a large rock.

Qi Bai lay on the white wolf’s back, peeking between its ears with sharp, focused eyes—watching a bee not far away.

But not just any bee. This one was a “spy” bee Qi Bai had marked.

Using fur from Lang Ze and a feather plucked from Duck Da, they carefully tied a small feather to the bee’s belly.

That tiny bee now carried the hopes of the entire household.

The soft feather, about as long as a finger, didn’t hinder the bee’s flight, but made it easy for Qi Bai and Lang Ze to track.

Qi Bai blinked, then quickly opened his eyes again. Since they had to keep their distance, they had to concentrate even harder to track the gray-white feather on the bee’s belly.

Qi Bai had always thought he worked hard, but compared to these bees, he realized he’d been slacking.

Maybe it was because this species had bigger nectar pouches, but their bee had been out foraging over an hour already.

Just as Qi Bai began to wonder if it was slacking off, the bee finally flapped its wings and flew off.

Qi Bai tugged twice on Lang Ze’s fuzzy ears.

As the bee was about to vanish from sight, Lang Ze stood up silently. His thick paw pads landed gently on the ground, and even with Qi Bai on his back, he moved nimbly—keeping just enough distance behind the bee.

After about ten minutes of this pursuit, the bee suddenly dove into the ground.

Lang Ze stopped, and Qi Bai gasped at what he saw.

The ridge before them was blanketed in white blossoms—dense, layered, elegant like a painting.

An apricot grove—rolling hills full of apricot trees.

The giant wolf twitched his ears. When Qi Bai gripped his fur, he moved down the gentle slope, following the feather now floating almost invisibly among the petals.

The grass parted under Lang Ze’s steps. The wind was warm and fragrant. Qi Bai sat up and shouted joyfully.

No need to worry about scaring the bees—because the whole hillside was alive with their buzzing chorus.

And right there, at the edge of the grove, Qi Bai spotted a beehive hanging from a treetop.