Orc Girl's Tribal Daily Life

Chapter 33 The Fallen Tribe

The plant resembles a scallion. Its roots are a clean white color, followed by several tubular leaf sheaths. At the top grows an umbel-shaped inflorescence with hundreds of small flowers clustered in a circle, making it quite easy to identify.

The only problem is that they are too big. Jiang Luoluo estimated that the shortest one is over a meter long and the longest is over three meters long. And this is not the growth limit of this plant, because most houses or caves can only fit things that are over three meters tall.

The flower ball growing on top was even a size larger than Jiang Luoluo's head.

During the exchange on the small rocky hill, the little girl said that this was called "stinky flower" in the tribe. It was a non-toxic and edible plant, but it tasted very strange, and after eating it, it would leave a peculiar stench in your mouth.

Hmm... it sounds more like a green onion.

Jiang Luoluo carefully picked the flower off the stinky flower, then plucked a small piece of the cylindrical leaf sheath and put it directly into her mouth to taste.

Brown couldn't stop him in time. Just as he was about to say that the taste was strange, he saw the cub's eyes light up. For a moment, he wondered if there was something wrong with the cub's mouth.

Although the taste is slightly different from what Jiang Luoluo remembered, such as being more pungent and having a stronger grassy taste, it is undoubtedly a scallion.

At first glance, green onions seem to have little use; you can add them to dishes or not, except for some people in certain regions who like to eat them raw with dipping sauce.

However, when you open the recipe, you'll find that "scallions" are listed as an ingredient in the vast majority of dishes, whether it's being fried in hot oil at the beginning or sprinkled on top at the end.

All of this proves that scallions do indeed play a rather complex and important role in the kitchen.

After identifying the scallion, Jiang Luoluo picked all the flower buds and carefully collected them, as the scallion seeds were hidden among these flowers.

When the weather is better, take them out to dry and extract all the seeds.

Green onions are a relatively easy plant to grow. Basically, you can just find a spot, scatter the seeds, and they will grow on their own in a short time, requiring almost no care.

Not to mention that every household in the countryside has one, even in the city, there are quite a few people who just find a flowerpot and grow something to eat.

After tidying up the scallions and arranging them against the wall, Jiang Luoluo looked at the other plants. It seemed that she had already used up her daily quota for unlocking the illustrated guide, and the remaining plants were all true ornamental flowers and grasses.

Of course, it's also possible that Jiang Luoluo can't recognize its effect yet and needs to try it little by little later.

Overall, Jiang Luoluo was already very satisfied with having harvested both scallions and chili peppers.

Jiang Luoluo originally wanted to continue looking at the remaining pile of stones, but unfortunately it was getting late and the light wasn't very good at night, so she could only go to sleep first and continue tomorrow.

In the Taz Forest, the young boy Go had already packed his things and was getting ready to sleep.

The result of eating too much for dinner was that a group of people took turns going out to digest their food, resulting in a pile of small prey carcasses deep inside the stronghold—they couldn't stray too far from the stronghold, so they just looted the nearby area.

The strong smell of blood permeated the cave, overpowering the aroma of the food left behind, and finally allowing everyone to fall asleep peacefully.

Young Ge laid the grass raincoat that Jiang Luoluo had made for him on the ground, and then spread the animal skin cloak on top of it. He had been in the Taz Forest for two days and had not yet used the grass raincoat to keep out the rain.

However, since it was laid on the ground every night, providing an extra layer of insulation, I did get a much better rest at night than before.

Before falling asleep, young Ge was still thinking about how the cub was doing in the tribe, whether it was eating well and taking good care of itself.

……

Jiang Luoluo, who was filled with worry, was almost frightened when she arrived at Xiaoshi Mountain.

If yesterday's skirmish was just a minor incident, today's scale can only be described as exaggerated.

Except for a few children, like Mao, whose family was special and who didn't carry anything, everyone else was carrying a large bundle of things.

Not just plants and stones, but also linen, animal hides, bitter salt, dried vegetables... almost everything in the tribe was held in the hands of these children.

"?" Jiang Luoluo looked at the group of children, then looked down at the jam jar she was holding.

She made a burlap backpack yesterday, which she is carrying on her back now, filled with several wooden jars of jam.

She anticipated that there would be more people exchanging jam today, so she brought a little extra, but it seems... the extra amount is not enough.

“…I’ll go back and get it.” Brown and the cub exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with bewildered confusion.

Mao walked over consciously, just like yesterday, to help Jiang Luoluo maintain order. The little girl happy and the little boy Zhuang squeezed out of the crowd, helped Jiang Luoluo carry her things, and went to her special little corner.

The children were the most restless. Although they were obediently lined up and waiting to be exchanged under Mao's control, they kept talking.

Through their conversation, Jiang Luoluo managed to figure out the reason quite well—it was because the jam was so delicious.

At first, Jiang Luoluo simply exchanged some jam with the little girl, which attracted the attention of many children and aroused their interest.

Later, several children also exchanged jam with Jiang Luoluo. They would share some with other children they were close to, and as a result, more children learned about the deliciousness of jam, or became interested simply by smelling its aroma. This led to the scene yesterday afternoon where dozens of children were exchanging things.

But that's not the key point. Even if all the children know how delicious the jam is, they won't be able to get many things out of the house to exchange for it because they don't have control over the distribution of household resources.

This is all because they brought the jam home, and through its allure, they attracted their parents as well.

Jiang Luoluo completely underestimated the appeal of jam to the tribesmen who could only eat boiled and roasted meat every day.

Of the five flavors—sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty—the tribe hasn't even mastered the basic saltiness... After all, salt mines are scarce and far away, so the amount transported back is limited, barely enough to sustain the tribe's basic needs.

Moreover, too much bitter salt makes it really unpalatable.

Although one can taste the sweetness, no one has ever incorporated it into food. One reason is that hunting is physically demanding, and unless one happens to come across it, no one is willing to spend a lot of effort picking a bunch of fruits. Besides, fruits don't keep for long and are prone to rotting and spoiling.

Another reason is that, generally, after having children, the adults in the tribe are more willing to leave the fruit for the children to eat.

Upon learning that the jam was obtained by the children through bartering on the small rocky hill, the adult tribesmen immediately rummaged through their homes and brought out all sorts of items that met the criteria, allowing the children to exchange them for more jam to take home.

Some families with modest means, who didn't have many fancy items, brought out unused linen, animal hides that were too small to make a complete set, and so on, and let the children exchange them.

It's okay if you get rejected. Just try to exchange something else next time.

Jiang Luoluo didn't refuse at all. She had so many ideas she wanted to realize, but she had been unable to carry them out due to a lack of materials. Now that she finally had the opportunity, how could she miss it?

On the contrary, the initial suggestion of exchanging plants and stones gave Jiang Luoluo a headache. She couldn't distinguish too many plants, and they couldn't be kept for too long. If she collected too many, she wouldn't be able to fit them all in the cave.

However, Jiang Luoluo soon realized that she was overthinking things. The herb-gathering team only had a few dozen people, and not everyone liked to bring plants home for no reason.

The herbs Jiang Luoluo received yesterday were almost half of the tribe's stock. Even if she wanted to collect more, she couldn't collect much more unless the herb-gathering team returned from their next trip and could replenish the stock with new plant species.

Jiang Luoluo only finished her exchange for the day after emptying half of the jam in the cave.

Everyone had a smile on their face; they were all very satisfied with the exchange outcome.

Jiang Luoluo felt guilty when she remembered that the jam that the young man Ge originally wanted to give to the tribe had been mostly consumed by her... even though she did it for the sake of their little family's future.

However, it was indeed her fault for acting on her own initiative. She would make it up to him when he returned.

Besides jam, she can make other things too.