newbobooks Chapter 135 The Origin of Silver Peak Mountain
Chapter 135 The Origin of Silver Peak Mountain
When Jiang Luoluo woke up early in the morning, Ge was not at home. She slept alone, so she first folded her small animal skin quilt before getting out of bed.
First, check if there's enough broth in the stone pot that's been simmering all night. If not, add some water to make up for it.
If you have enough, move the stone pot to the side and let it cool down for a while before you can prepare breakfast.
Then, taking advantage of this time, I filled a wooden basin with water from the full water tank next to me, washed my face, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth all in one go.
Don't throw away the water after you've finished washing up; you'll need to wash your hands again after dinner.
He had only brushed half of his teeth when the wooden door of the cave creaked, and Ke's figure appeared at the cave entrance.
After tidying up the wooden door for the cub, Ke placed a bowl of freshly made jam next to the fire, called out to everyone, and went back to his own home.
Jiang Luoluo's family naturally had a lot of jam stored up, but the jam Ke delivered was different. It was made from a variety of fruits unique to the Great Beast Season after the rainy season ended. The variety and quantity were quite rich, and there was no repetition every day.
In other words, the jams Ke sent were all new varieties and flavors that Jiang Luoluo had never tasted before, and she specially sent them to her to try.
Some fruits make delicious jam, while others make very strange-tasting jam. These days, Jiang Luoluo feels like she's opening a blind box every day.
However, no matter how delicious it is, Jiang Luoluo will always save half of it, waiting for Ge to come back and share it with him.
The jam delivered today had a slight yogurt flavor and texture, which Jiang Luoluo quite liked. She ate half a bowl of jam with the meat chunks cooked in the pot—Jiang Luoluo is probably the only one in the tribe who would be so extravagant as to eat jam.
After finishing breakfast, Jiang Luoluo rinsed the stone pot briefly, added fresh water, and put it on the fire to boil.
The tribespeople prefer to cook meat soup and eat and drink it anytime, but Jiang Luoluo is not used to this cooking habit of constantly adding things to the pot.
Jiang Luoluo prefers to wash the pot briefly before cooking each time to ensure it is clean and to minimize the mixing of flavors.
After all, the taste of different kinds of wild animal meat is completely different.
Moreover, Jiang Luoluo usually prefers to drink boiled water, and with the dried flowers she had exchanged with happy's family, the water tastes even better when steeped.
Just like drinking tea, it tastes a bit bitter, but it's more thirst-quenching than regular water. After eating a lot of meat, drinking this flower tea made from dried flowers is also more refreshing and helps to cut through the greasiness.
Moreover, dried flowers will bloom again when soaked in water, restoring their original beautiful appearance, which is very beautiful. Just admiring these blooming flowers is a great pleasure every time.
For this reason, Jiang Luoluo even specially asked Cong to customize a wooden water cup with a lid, and sewed a cup cover out of linen herself, so that she could carry her little water cup with her when she went out and drink flower tea anytime.
After tidying up, Jiang Luoluo swept the floor briefly, washed her hands, and then wiped some dusty areas with a damp cloth.
Finally, he carefully poured the water from the wooden basin outside the cave and discovered that the plants in the area where he frequently poured water were much more lush than those around it.
That's true. I don't use any chemicals in my daily washing routine; everything is all-natural. It certainly won't harm the plants; it will only make them grow more vigorously.
Jiang Luoluo stared at the plants for a long time, and suddenly realized that she should start trying to plant the seeds she had collected before.
……
"Luo?" Xing looked at the familiar figure lurking in the bushes and spoke hesitantly.
"What are you doing?"
Jiang Luoluo straightened up, peeking out from the grass, and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a pained expression.
“Soil…” Jiang Luoluo said, pointing to the ground.
Why is the soil so hard?!
Jiang Luoluo couldn't understand it at all. At first, she thought that the ground, which was as hard as the cave floor, was the result of being deliberately compacted.
But to their surprise, even the seemingly normal muddy ground outside the cave was actually as solid as bricks and could not be easily dug.
No wonder that even with such heavy rains during the rainy season, there wasn't much mud or mud on the ground. At most, the water was so deep that it was above ankle level, making it a little inconvenient to walk.
No, the soil here is so hard, how do these plants grow?
Jiang Luoluo was greatly shocked; this was no less than a jungle growing on a concrete surface.
After spending some time figuring out that the cub wanted to plant all the seeds she had collected, Xing hesitated after digging in the soil at the cave entrance, as if she was deciding whether to tell the cub directly.
"Luo, nothing can be grown on Silver Peak Mountain." Xing hesitated for a while before deciding to tell the cub the truth, so that the cub would not waste its efforts.
Can't plant them? Jiang Luoluo thought of the herbs planted next to the witch's wooden house on the mountaintop, and the many things planted in the happy family's yard.
"Witch?" Jiang Luoluo asked with a single word.
Xing was taken aback, then explained, "The herbs and soil used by the witch are all brought from the Taz Forest; they are the soil from the original growing areas of those herbs."
"But even so, the witch only managed to grow a very small portion of them, as Silver Peak Mountain is not suitable for their growth."
Xing's meaning was clear: she was telling Jiang Luoluo that it was impossible to plant the plants using the soil from Yinfeng Mountain. They would have to bring back soil from where the seeds of these plants grew in the Taz Forest to have any chance of making them grow.
Moreover, Xing wasn't entirely sure whether the soil on Yinfeng Mountain could still be considered soil.
After all, the entire Silver Peak Mountain and the large and small stone mountains were actually built by the tribesmen.
"Huh?!" Jiang Luoluo was completely shocked.
No, what did you say? You mean, Yinfeng Mountain and the two large and small rocky mountains next to it are actually man-made?!
Three mountains this big???
The cub's exaggerated expressions made Xing laugh, and then she told Jiang Luoluo the story of the tribe.
"When our ancestors first came here, it was just a plain with nothing and nothing that could be grown. If they wanted anything, they had to hunt it in the nearby forest."
"But the forest is too dangerous. There are always countless poisonous insects and wild beasts. They know better than our ancestors how to survive in the forest. So our ancestors were driven out of the forest time and time again and returned to the plains where there was nothing."
"To defend against the wild beasts that roamed the forest, our ancestors built high stone walls and kept building them higher and higher... until they formed a giant mountain at the edge of the forest."
"This is the origin of the name Yinfeng Mountain."
Jiang Luoluo's eyes were confused. So, the soil on the ground of Yinfeng Mountain was so firm, was it really compacted by someone?
The stories told by Xing are commonly used by parents in the tribe to soothe their children, much like bedtime stories. Many aspects of the tribe's history, and even important tribal traditions, have been passed down through these stories.
Therefore, most people in the tribe knew about these things, and Luo should have known them as well, but Jiang Luoluo didn't.
Now, Xingwei retells those stories to Jiang Luoluo.
……
No wonder, after learning about the history of the Yanshuang tribe after they moved here, Jiang Luoluo suddenly realized.
From the very beginning, Jiang Luoluo had been curious why the Flame Frost Tribe didn't choose to settle down inside the Taz Forest, given its abundant resources.
Instead, they want to live on a Silver Peak Mountain on the outer edge of the Taz Forest.
The only advantage is that it is next to a big river, but the tribe members do not usually eat soft-shelled turtles, and catching soft-shelled turtles in winter is not worth the effort, so it cannot be used as food to supplement the consumption. Isn't this a pure waste of resources?
It turns out that the environment in the Taz Forest changes too quickly and randomly, which does not meet the stable and secure requirements of the tribe for settling down.
For example, it might not be a problem for a few powerful individual orc warriors to temporarily reside in the Taz Forest for a period of time, but it would be very difficult for an entire tribe, young and old, to live together for an extended period of time.
This can actually be seen from Jiang Luoluo's experiences in the short few months since she transmigrated.
Before the rainy season, Jiang Luoluo used a batch of fruit to make jam. During the rainy season, she harvested another batch of fruit varieties unique to the rainy season and made jam. After the rainy season ended, there were still a considerable number of fruit varieties available.
Most importantly, these fruits were all obtained near Silver Peak Mountain, on the outskirts of the Taz Forest.
In other words, the location hasn't changed, but the plants growing on this land have actually been replaced time and again over the course of a few months.
Let's put it this way: it's probably just a bird, or some other random animal, with a few seeds stuck to its body somewhere far away, and they just landed somewhere randomly.
From the moment a seed falls to the ground, germinates, grows, and spreads, it may take no more than ten days, and then the plant species of an entire area may be changed just like that.
Moreover, this change is not accidental; it is a continuous and ongoing process. Plant species are constantly changing, and these changes are completely unpredictable.
A powerful orc warrior might possess the ability to adapt to any situation in such a place, and could live smoothly no matter if the surrounding environment changes from a sea of flowers to a field of vines, or from weeds to thorns.
But the children in the tribe couldn't do that; their fragile bodies couldn't cope with the overly complex living environment.
Faced with sharper thorns, more pointed leaves, and alluring pollen scents, it's incredibly difficult for children to grow up smoothly.
There are even offshoots, wild animals or insects attracted by certain plants. Not to mention how dangerous it is for children, even adult members of the tribe can lose their lives if they are not careful.
For a tribe to survive, it must find a stable environment that doesn't experience too much change. This way, the children in the tribe can grow up safely and the tribe can be passed down smoothly.
So, after realizing that something was wrong and that the Taz Forest could not be a stable environment for the tribe to live in, the ancestors of the Flamefrost tribe resolutely left the treasure-filled Taz Forest and chose to settle on the outskirts of the Taz Forest.
Even if the place they chose to settle was a barren plain where nothing could grow, the tribespeople, with their formidable strength and indomitable spirit, built their homes in the desolate land where there was nothing.
Meanwhile, the tribe has not given up exploring places outside the Taz Forest. For example, the large amount of ore brought back by the mining teams every year is actually the result of the tribe's continuous exploration of the outside world.
There's very little to find outside the TAZ Forest, and the interior of the TAZ Forest is only suitable as a place to gather resources, not as a place to live long-term.
Perhaps when the tribe has tens or hundreds of thousands of members, they will be able to carve out a place for themselves in the Tas Forest.
However, with only a little over two thousand people in the tribe, it's impossible to do much.
Therefore, the most important thing for the tribe has always been the continuation of the lineage. Only when the tribe has a large population will they have more choices.
But hearing these stories aroused Jiang Luoluo's curiosity.
She was curious why the tribespeople said that nothing could grow on the plains. Could it be that the plains were actually deserts?
However, there are oases in the desert, and many plant species unique to the desert; it is not truly a barren wasteland.
Could it be saline-alkali land? Or some kind of highly radioactive mineral area...? But even that wouldn't be enough to leave nothing but barren land. Given the incredible resilience of plants in this world, it should only give rise to a group of unique plant species that are resistant to salinity and high radiation.
Moreover, a plain must be extremely large to be called a plain, but how could such a large place really be completely barren?
But the tribespeople didn't seem to be the type to exaggerate. If they said nothing grew, then it was probably true that nothing had ever grown at all.
It's really intriguing yet incomprehensible.
Perhaps Jiang Luoluo's expression was too obvious, Xing sighed and patted the cub's head, "Because there is only gray dead soil on the plains."
"No plant can grow on the gray, dead soil."
"They are lands that have died, barren lands where nothing can live."
Gray, lifeless soil? This word instantly activated Jiang Luoluo's memory, reminding her of when she was making bricks there before.
The clay ratio was exactly what would produce incredibly strong bricks, but the addition of a portion of dead clay made the fired bricks extremely fragile, even crumbling at the slightest touch.
No wonder Zao insisted on joining in no matter what, and no wonder the shaman and Chief Jing reacted that way when they found out.
In the more than 1,500 years since the tribe moved here, the tribe members have probably tried countless times to find the "useful value" of the gray dead soil, but all to no avail.
However, it's just ashen dust, worthless.
It is death, the opposite of life, and it offers no help to the living.