Chapter 28

Qi felt somewhat frustrated; Male was too strong. He also wanted to awaken his bloodline power, but when he asked Grandma Feng about it the other day, she said he was still too young to do so.

The sun was already high in the sky, and Emily's stomach was growling with hunger. However, like the other children, she worked tirelessly, almost like a machine, not knowing the meaning of fatigue.

So, she had no choice but to endure it and continue picking up pebbles. Although she was supposed to be gathering stones near Male, he had now moved about five hundred meters away from her.

The ten plots of land in front had already been cleared, yielding a total of thirteen hoes.

In the unmarked areas, everyone worked together voluntarily and cleared a small section.

Finally, someone from the tribe came to call everyone back for lunch. Emily cheerfully stopped what she was doing, handed in the task of clearing the small section of land, and received another hoe as a reward.

She smiled and said, "Everyone did a great job this morning. We've earned fourteen hoes and cleared this much land. In a while, we can break up the large chunks of earth, level the ground, and spread the compost we've prepared. Then we can start planting crops and vegetables. For now, let's all go back for lunch, take a short rest, and then return to continue clearing the land."

Initially, she planned to wait until the sun wasn't so harsh, but the reward of iron hoes was a rare opportunity. Besides, clearing the land was something that needed to be done anyway, and the people of the Nuwa tribe were hardworking. This was a good thing.

So, they decided to push through and work a bit more to clear the land.

At noon, Emily ate a full bowl of meat and drank two bowls of soup.

What her mother said before was indeed true: when you're truly hungry, everything tastes delicious! Especially after hard work, the food tastes even better!

After a brief rest, Emily and the others returned to the land-clearing area, this time even bringing along the frail Banana.

With Male's participation, and some older women with weaker constitutions, like Banana, joining in after hearing that children could also contribute, the speed of land clearing was greatly accelerated!

No, it was like they were flying through the task!

Especially when they realized that instead of picking up pebbles by hand, they could gently scoop them into a pile using the iron hoes. Once everyone discovered this more efficient method, they all followed suit, even singing mountain songs as they worked.

No wonder some ethnic groups in Huaxia have mountain songs, often sung during work.

Emily used to wonder why people would have the energy to sing while working, especially when these songs made people feel joyful rather than burdened.

Now she finally understood! Even she couldn't resist the urge to sing.

The feeling of having a shared goal, working together with unity and determination, was wonderful. Although her untrained arms were starting to feel a bit sore, she was still full of energy, with a sense of tirelessness.

When handing in the tasks, she no longer bothered to count how many hoes they had collected; she would wait until the end of the day to tally up.

As the sun slowly set and Emily's stomach began to rumble again, she looked at the rising smoke from the tribe's cooking fires and at the smiling faces of everyone still hard at work. A contented smile spread across her face.

When she handed in the final task, the system responded: "Congratulations, Master. A total of ten acres of land was cleared today, equating to one hundred points, reaching the maximum limit. Further land clearing will not yield additional rewards. Since the maximum limit was reached, in addition to the one hundred narrow hoes already received, you are awarded an extra ten wide hoes!"

"Hahaha..." Emily couldn't help but laugh out loud. After laughing, she announced loudly to the confused crowd, "We're done for the day! The True Messenger of Nuwa said that the people of our Nuwa tribe are so amazing that we've been rewarded with an extra ten hoes."

As she spoke, she took out one hoe after another.

To the others, it looked as though she was magically making them appear.

"Hey, these hoes are different from the ones before!" A sharp-eyed child pointed out immediately.

"That's right. The first one hundred hoes were narrow ones, and these are wide hoes. When you're gathering small pebbles, using these wide hoes will be quicker. There won't be any more rewards for clearing land today, and everyone has worked hard, so you should go back and rest! But the task of land clearing can continue, though there's no need to rush like we did today."

Today, they had cleared ten acres of land, all close to the river, making irrigation easy. Once the compost was ready, they could start the summer planting.

Ten acres of land might not seem like much for so many people, but for the Nuwa tribe, which had barely cultivated land before, it was significant.

As they continued to clear more land gradually, the legendary harsh cold season would at least be less terrifying, especially with the additional food supplies.

To Emily's surprise, everyone carried the hoes back to the Nuwa tribe and neatly placed them in the large rectangular building beside Male's house, the only one of its kind in the entire tribe. Not a single hoe was missing.

Later, Emily learned that this building was used to store communal items—it was essentially a warehouse.

For instance, during the cold season, everyone would bring all the food from their homes to this building, where it would be distributed.

This tradition, despite the hardships of the cold season and the fact that people were often only partially fed, had helped the Nuwa tribe minimize losses and survive until now.

However, before they stored the hoes, the warehouse had only contained some firewood. It was quite empty...

It had been a truly satisfying day. After dinner, the river, now resembling a swimming pool, was filled with people who had worked hard all day, all in high spirits. Emily felt a bit shy about getting in the water, but she was eventually pulled in by Yue Liang.

As they splashed and played, Emily suddenly felt that the people of the Nuwa tribe no longer feared her as much. It seemed that the whole day of shared hardships and joys had begun to foster a sense of camaraderie between her and the people of the Nuwa tribe. This was an unexpected but delightful surprise!

The construction of the bamboo house had been delayed by a day due to the land clearing, but it was completed by the third day.

Under the bamboo house, several sections had been divided, the largest of which was the sheep pen, although it housed only one ugly and fat sheep.

Inside the sheep pen, they had used wooden poles to create a structure where they placed two rectangular bamboo rabbit cages. The pair of breeding rabbits sent by the system occupied one cage, while a few rabbits Male had captured in the mountains over the past two days were kept in the other.

The children of the Nuwa tribe had a new favorite game: cutting grass to feed the sheep and rabbits, watching to see which one preferred whose grass.

As a result, the children also discovered that while both animals liked fresh, tender grass, there were differences in the types of grass that rabbits and sheep preferred.

When they received praise and encouragement from Emily and Male, they became even more diligent in caring for the animals.

However, the wild chicken was more difficult to please. Although it ate tender grass and leaves, it ate very little, and the children were worried it might starve.

Then they saw Qing Ye digging up earthworms for it, which it ate happily. They also heard that chickens like various insects.

So, the children who hadn't yet learned to hunt found another game they enjoyed: turning over rocks or digging in damp, dark places around the tribe to find earthworms, or searching for insects on the grass near the tribe to feed the chicken.

However, there was only one wild chicken, the one Male had caught initially, and it couldn't possibly eat all the worms and insects the children were gathering.

So, the children asked Male to catch more wild chickens.

But Male still struggled with controlling his strength—most of the time, he accidentally killed the animals he caught. Over the past few days, aside from one rabbit, he hadn't managed to catch any other live prey.

In the past, this would have frustrated him, but lately, he seemed unusually calm.

Seeing Male in good spirits, Emily didn't worry too much. After all, Male had always been good at controlling his strength around her, never hurting her.

Emily spent her days completing tasks or assigning them to others. Every morning, she would carry a basket and follow Male up the mountain to search for wild vegetables and fruits. She often encountered familiar plants but wasn't sure if they were edible. As a result, her efforts hadn't yielded much progress or success.

It's worth mentioning that the 110 hoes were almost all borrowed every day and returned in the afternoon.

This was because Male had told everyone that the land cleared together belonged to the entire Nuwa tribe. Dà Shān assigned twenty people to take turns clearing land each day.

As long as it didn't interfere with hunting, whoever cleared the land owned it, and if they had extra seeds, the crops grown on that land would belong to them.

Aside from a few people, like Ān, who were skeptical about Emily's planting, most of the tribe was excited about clearing land and growing crops. Whenever they had free time, entire families, young and old, would go out together to clear land.

It was during this time that Emily discovered an unexpected genius!

That genius was Banana.

As the custodian of the Nuwa tribe's warehouse, Banana had no written records to rely on. Yet, despite that, she could remember perfectly who borrowed each of the 90 hoes (apart from the 20 taken by Dà Shān's group) every day!

If Emily's knowledge of medicinal herbs was extraordinary, she knew it was mostly due to her short-term memory and the system's storage function.

But Banana's ability was truly a natural talent!

If she lived in Huaxia, she could probably compete on The Brain!

Her memory was undoubtedly the best in the Nuwa tribe!

Grandma Feng likely knew about Banana's exceptional memory, so why did she choose to teach medical knowledge to someone with average potential like Yellow Leaf instead of Banana?

When Emily asked Male about this, she learned that Banana had been frail since birth. Grandma Feng even worried she wouldn't survive to adulthood. Over the years, she had carefully monitored Banana's health, using medicinal herbs to keep her alive.

Banana was the same age as Male, having lived through twenty-two winters and summers. But because of her frailty, she hadn't even participated in the bite-the-festival once, fearing she wouldn't live long enough and would burden a partner.

Was it really that serious? Emily couldn't help but feel sorry for Banana.

However, after spending so much time with Banana, Emily noticed that apart from her being visibly thinner than the other members of the Nuwa tribe and occasionally short of breath, she didn't seem to have any severe symptoms. It seemed that Grandma Feng had been taking good care of her.

Banana's excellent memory reminded Emily of her promise to teach Qing Ye and the others memory techniques and to promote literacy.

It was easy to talk about, but difficult to achieve.

First of all, without paper and pen, how could they write? Were they supposed to use bamboo slips like in ancient times? Find materials to make ink?

That wouldn't work—it was too impractical. Not everyone could awaken their bloodline power like Male or had a "divine knife" that could cut bamboo as easily as slicing tofu.

Making bamboo slips was too time-consuming, and the work would be overwhelming. Besides, only a few characters could be written on each slip.

After careful consideration, Emily decided to postpone promoting literacy for now. The most important thing at this stage was still to solve the food problem.

You have to eat one bite at a time and take one step at a time!

After talking with Banana, Emily discovered that she had her own method of memorization, which delighted her.

Emily had learned shorthand, which initially required drawing and writing to help with memory. After long-term training, one could rely on imagination for memorization. However, Banana, who didn't understand writing or drawing, used associative memory techniques.

Banana's method was simple and grounded, and with the consent of both Banana and Grandma Feng, Banana began teaching the children how to remember the names and uses of medicinal herbs.

Although Banana didn't know anything about herbs, Emily had stored the information in her system. So, Emily took Banana to the place where Grandma Feng grew her herbs and explained five types of herbs in one go.

When Banana shook her head, saying she hadn't remembered them, she asked Emily to repeat the explanation. After Emily went over it again, Banana repeated the information, and Grandma Feng judged her accuracy. To everyone's amazement, Banana remembered the information about all five herbs with perfect accuracy. Emily was astonished, and the others, including Yellow Leaf, looked at Banana with newfound respect!

Banana had always had a low presence in the tribe. Due to her poor health, she never learned to hunt or participated in activities with her peers. Aside from her younger brother Dà Shān, she was only close to Male and Moon.

The others stared at Banana in surprise, making her feel uncomfortable.

Emily encouraged Banana to share her memory method. At first, Banana spoke softly, but as she gained confidence, she began to explain loudly how she memorized the information.

After hearing Banana's explanation, the children immediately and fluently recited the two herbs they had previously struggled to remember. They were thrilled to find that Banana's method made it much easier to remember the information.

The children gathered around Banana in admiration, while Grandma Feng beamed with pride. Emily truly was the Nuwa tribe's lucky star. Grandma Feng had long known that Banana had a good memory, but because of her poor health and the fear that she might not live long, she had hesitated to teach her medicine.

However, she never realized that Banana's memory technique could be taught to others, allowing them to quickly learn and retain information.

Grandma Feng immediately decided that whenever she taught the children about herbs, Banana would be present to help them memorize the information quickly.

Banana was taken aback by the attention, but the children cheered around her!

Even though they all knew the value of learning medicine, they had found it difficult. Now, with Banana's help, they believed they could learn much more easily.

Although Emily hadn't succeeded in promoting literacy, the children had gained a new "teacher," and Grandma Feng had gained an "assistant." Emily breathed a sigh of relief, considering this the first step in the Nuwa tribe's education system.

Once the issue of food was resolved, Emily planned to experiment with papermaking and then promote literacy, so that their knowledge and experiences could be recorded in writing.

Yellow Leaf, however, felt utterly dejected.

When Emily had memorized all of Grandma Feng's herbal knowledge in a single day, Yellow Leaf had suspected that Emily, like herself, had studied medicine for over ten years and had already memorized everything but was pretending to be a novice in front of Grandma Feng.

But Banana, who had no knowledge of medicinal herbs, had managed to memorize five pieces of herbal information after hearing them from Emily just twice!

So… was she really just that stupid?