Catgrass and Deer Water even thought they were seeing their past selves, staring at a bone with only a little bit of meat in their eyes, with the same longing look they used to have.
The Wood Tribe orcs put a lot of effort into making bone broth; they used all the necessary seasonings without any skimping.
Aside from having very little meat, it tastes even better than meat broth.
Soup isn't something that actually stifles hunger, so for the Wood Tribe orcs, bone broth is something to drink after they've eaten their fill. They each drank a bowl, and the rest were distributed among the elderly and children in the large cave.
The tribe provided them with meat every day, enough to keep them from starving, but they were never without hunger, and they simply couldn't resist the bone broth.
Especially the bone broth that was pushed in front of them.
Fox Tree didn't go far. She was afraid that the old people and children in the cave would be tempted to snatch the food. She knew the strength of the Wood Tribe beastmen; even a gentle push could kill these old people and children.
At first, she wasn't worried that the elderly and children would be unable to resist, but she really didn't expect the Wood Tribe orcs to make the meat smell and taste so good.
Seeing her tribesmen drinking the delicious bone broth, Fox Tree habitually gritted her teeth. She made up her mind that no matter whether the priest agreed to let the Tree Tribe go to that market or not, she would trade that strange stone pot with the Wood Tribe.
She couldn't feed the elderly and children in the cave enough meat, and she couldn't even provide enough bone broth.
After confirming that the old man and the child were safe, Fox Tree ran to the priest to tell him what she had seen and what she thought, and to hear what the priest had to say.
…
While Tu Feng and the others were enjoying good food and drink in the outlying tribes, Shen Nong was so busy among the cannibals that she didn't even have time to drink water.
The issues left by the Salt Department weren't too many and could be resolved quickly. The Wood Tribe was already involved in trade, so taking over the salt and stone trade wouldn't be difficult. Shen Nong had even started preparations to set up a simple "market" so that everyone could exchange goods and services.
Even if other tribes don't set up stalls at the first market, the Tamu tribe has enough resources to support a small market.
The orcs left behind by the Salt Department were also easy to arrange. The level seven ones were left to Shen Er and Ze to look after, and for the time being, they were given basic food every day so that they wouldn't starve to death. They would be reassigned later depending on the situation.
The remaining orcs were all placed under the care of the hunting team. Every day, they were either taken to the brick-making team to learn how to make mud bricks, or to the production team to help cut down trees. They were fed meat three times a day, and their appetites were good. The efficiency of both the brick-making and production teams improved significantly compared to before.
However, the cannibals caused Shen Nong a lot of trouble.
Shen Nong never imagined that more than ten days had passed since that battle, and summer had arrived, yet the Wood Tribe orcs could still find a group of women in a large cave in a relatively remote part of the cannibal territory.
Upon receiving the news, Shen Nong immediately led the medical team of the Mu tribe back to the former territory of the cannibals.
Inside the dark and cold cave, a dozen or so women were huddled together. They were all heavily pregnant, emaciated, with their limbs and joints clearly visible, large heads and bulging eyes, and their bellies were the most prominent feature.
Chapter 74
Are you afraid of me?
Tu Dong and his medical team helped the women out of the cave. They were covered in mud and grime, some with messy, dry hair, and others with sticky hair clinging to their scalps and cheeks.
Hot water has been prepared since the time of the cannibals. Tu Dong took out the powdery pills from the earthenware jar, dropped one into each earthenware basin, and stirred the water in the basin with his hand to speed up the dissolution of the pills.
This is a topical insect repellent, its main function is to kill lice.
When Shen Nong first arrived at the Wood Tribe, every beastman had lice on their bodies, and the beastmen could only relieve their itching by scratching each other's lice.
Back then, Shen Nong himself had been bitten by lice on his legs and arms several times. Everyone around him was covered in lice, and he couldn't escape them at all. Fortunately, they weren't in his hair.
Later, the shop offered both oral and topical deworming medications at very low prices. They weren't sold by the pill, but by the kilogram. One base point could be exchanged for one kilogram, so Shen Nong didn't hesitate to exchange for a large quantity and distribute them to the Wood Tribe beastmen for internal and external deworming.
Because the orcs always ate meat and the environment was unsanitary, after the medical team was established, Shen Nong also released a lot of rabbits into the winter.
The internal medicine was distributed to the orcs of the tribe once a month, while the external medicine was obtained by the orcs themselves; whoever had lice would go to Rabbit Winter to get it.
Now, the people of the Mu tribe are almost free of lice, and Shen Nong has long since forgotten about them.
We met again today, and these cannibal women had so many lice that you could see them jumping around in their hair. They needed to be cleaned.
After reviewing the system instructions, Shen Nong confirmed that pregnant women could use external deworming medication to kill lice, but they could not take oral deworming medication and would have to wait until later.
After checking that the women had no wounds on their heads, the orcs from the medical team began to wash their hair.
From the moment the people of the Mu tribe discovered them to the moment they were led out of the cave, and now as they were being dragged to wash their hair, these eighteen women had the same expression on their faces the entire time—terrification.
Because they were heavily pregnant, they couldn't bend over, so Tu Dong had them sit on stones. The medical team worked in pairs, one person holding a ceramic basin while the other stood and washed the women's hair.
The clear water in the ceramic basin quickly turned murky, and when it was finally poured out, a thin layer of black sand-like substance had accumulated at the bottom.
The women's heads were wrapped in soft, dry animal hides, and they finally revealed a second expression besides fear: bewilderment.
Just as the eighteen women here had finished washing their hair, the Wood Tribe orcs discovered ten pregnant women in another remote cave belonging to the cannibal tribe.
Shen Nong rubbed her temples and followed her clansmen to check the situation.
Upon arrival, it was discovered that this pregnant woman already had three children who had recently given birth. However, her belly hadn't shrunk yet after delivery.
Perhaps due to their powerful orc bloodline, the three infants, though breathing weakly, were still alive.
As the women were being helped out by the medical team, Shen Nong glanced into the cave. The sun was shining brightly outside, and the cave wasn't particularly large, so the interior was completely visible.
The place was filthy and reeked of a foul stench. The blood from childbirth was nowhere to be found, soaking into the dark mud, with only remnants remaining on some sharp stones. Shen Nong traced the shapes of those stones with her eyes, guessing they were probably used by women to cut the umbilical cord after childbirth.
However, no trace of the umbilical cord, or even the placenta, was found inside the entire cave.
Shen Nong's brows furrowed slightly, unwilling to think about it further.
The orcs of the Wood Tribe conducted a thorough search of all the cannibal caves, finding twenty-five heavily pregnant women, three who had just given birth, and fifteen women who were not pregnant.
Saying she wasn't pregnant isn't entirely accurate, as Shen Nong's special ability allowed her to sense the life force emanating from six of the women.
She must have just gotten pregnant; her belly isn't showing yet.
Shen Nong instructed the medical team to pay close attention to the condition of the six women, as they were less than three months pregnant and their fetuses were very unstable.
Finally, the search was completed. Although the Wood Tribe beastmen didn't feel tired, they were starving. While the medical team washed the women's hair, they all started cooking meat soup, and didn't forget to cook some for the cannibal women as well.
The aroma of meat quickly spread. The cannibal women had never smelled this before. Several of them, who were washing their hair, didn't care whether the medicine would drip into their eyes. They suddenly looked up and searched for the source of the meat smell.
If it weren't for the medical team's quick thinking and immediate action in wiping the water that had slid onto their foreheads with animal hides, these people's eyes would have suffered a lot.
More and more women were drawn in by the aroma, but the orcs in the medical team, who were already used to the smell of the broth, didn't find anything unusual about it.
But they could understand how these people felt, because when they first tasted the broth, they were also eager to try it.
"Don't worry, everyone will have something to eat after we finish washing their hair." After reassuring the women, the medical team sped up their work considerably.
These women were all very thin; the children of their tribe were much stronger than the women in front of them.
The orcs in the medical team had all come from times of hardship, struggling to get enough to eat and wear. They knew how painful it was to be hungry and were eager to get the cannibal women some hot meat soup.
"If you want to drink the meat soup sooner, I won't bother to straighten your tangled hair here." The orc from the medical team held the tangled hair that was impossible to separate and suggested, "I'll just use a bone knife to cut it for you. Our tribe's bone knives are sharpened from the bones of giant beasts, so they're very sharp."
The cannibalistic women, who had no particular feelings about hair, readily agreed to the suggestion. Their stomachs, already aching from hunger, throbbed even more from the smell.
The bone knives of the Wood Tribe are indeed sharp. A cannibal woman said, "Then cut them all off for me, otherwise my head will get very hot and uncomfortable in the summer."
"good."
…
When Shen Nong looked up, what came into view were the cannibal women's hair that looked like it had been chewed by dogs.
No matter how sharp the bone knife is, it can't trim hair neatly. So everyone ended up with strange hairstyles, some bald, some bald. Shen Nong quickly looked away, determined to forge a pair of scissors once the iron smelting team was established.
The cannibal women finally got to drink meat soup. They had never eaten such substantial meat before. In the past, the men in the tribe were afraid that if they ate enough, they would have too much energy and become disobedient, so they always gave them parts of meat that they themselves did not want to eat.
They couldn't describe what the broth tasted like, but if they were to die after drinking it, they would be willing to do so.
Amidst the slurping sounds of soup being drunk and meat being chewed, the sudden exclamation sounded particularly jarring.
"No! Don't let my child eat meat! She won't eat meat! She won't eat it!" The thin, frail cannibal woman who was screaming not to feed her child meat suddenly found strength and snatched the baby from the arms of the medical team's orc.
Not only that, the other two cannibalistic women who had given birth also rushed at them to snatch their children, refusing to let the children drink a drop of meat broth.
The orcs in the medical team had to persuade them: "They'll starve to death if they don't eat soon. Do you want to watch the children starve to death?"
He thought these words would persuade the three women to let them feed the baby with meat soup, but to his surprise, the three women shook their heads, looking as if they would rather let the baby starve than give them a single drop of meat soup.
"What's going on?" Shen Nong put down her bowl and came to check after hearing the commotion. Under Shen Nong's gaze, the orc from the medical team gripped the ceramic spoon tightly and explained nervously, "Priestess, those three children will starve to death if they don't drink the meat soup, but they won't let us feed them..."
The orc who answered was quite young. Shen Nong noticed that he was too tense, so she smiled and reassured him, "Relax, I'm not blaming you."
The orc breathed a slight sigh of relief upon hearing this, feeling less tense than before. However, this was the first time he had been so close to the priest, and he couldn't completely shake off that nervousness.
Shen Nong stopped looking at the little beastman and instead swept his gaze over the three cannibal women. His gaze was neither gentle nor sharp, but even so, the three women were so frightened that they fell to the ground.
Fortunately, they held their child tightly, which prevented them from falling.
Shen Nong looked at their actions and asked in confusion, "Are you afraid of me?"
The three of them lowered their heads, their bodies trembling visibly; the answer was obvious. Shen Nong even wondered if her features had become less gentle after arriving in the Beast World, or even more ferocious, otherwise why would they all be so terrified of her?
The three babies were in very poor condition; just as the orcs in the medical team had said, they would starve to death if they didn't eat something soon.
Shen Nong could roughly understand why these three cannibalistic women would rather their children starve to death than let them drink meat soup.
Based on the background information about the Beast World I learned from the system, the cannibals are a rather unique tribe.
This tribe consists entirely of orcs who cannot transform into human form, and the reason they cannot transform is because they eat people.
Once an orc has consumed the flesh of one of their own, they can no longer transform into human form. However, the orc bloodline within them remains and will be passed on to the next generation. But the orc bloodline in their offspring will not be as pure as that of other orcs, and after awakening, they will be much weaker than orcs of the same level.
Moreover, these bloodline impurities accumulate generation after generation. If cannibalism ceases after five generations, the orc bloodline within the cannibalistic beastman's body will completely disappear due to the excessive impurities, and future generations will not possess orc blood.
However, only Shen Nong herself knew the information about the bloodline completely disappearing. According to the system, none of the cannibal beastmen in various regions had the brains to discover and summarize this pattern.
He picked up the ceramic bowl from the side and slowly approached the three women. Fearing that they might lose their composure if he got too close, he stopped a meter away from them. "This is beef soup made from cow meat, not human flesh."
Shen Nong deliberately lowered his voice. His voice was already clear and non-aggressive, and now it was more like a babbling brook. The three women had clearly taken his words to heart, and they were now secretly examining the ceramic bowl in his hand.
Shen Nong then moved the ceramic bowl forward so they could see it more clearly, and continued to guide them, "Smell it carefully, it's different."
They weren't actually sure if the smell was from a meat-eater, but the meat they'd eaten before was always dirty and smelly, while the meat broth in front of them smelled particularly good, which made the three of them start to soften.
Shen Nong waited patiently, not in a hurry. The aroma of the meat broth, so close at hand, grew even stronger. For someone who had been in a state of extreme hunger, this was undoubtedly both torture and the ultimate temptation.
After a series of swallowing sounds, the woman who had first snatched the child asked softly, "If I drink the meat soup, will I be locked in a cave and keep giving birth forever?"
The question seemed abrupt, but Shen Nong understood the unspoken meaning: he couldn't guarantee that the three baby girls would become orc warriors in the future, because he didn't know which generation they were in.
“Whether they can become orc warriors or not, I can guarantee that they will not be locked in caves and endlessly give birth.” Shen Nong’s voice was clear and melodious, each word striking not only the hearts of the three women, but also the hearts of the other cannibal women who were pregnant. “They will be just like all the orcs in the tribe, without any difference.”
Some of these women were originally cannibals, while others were kidnapped from various tribes by cannibals and forcibly fed the flesh of cannibals, rendering them unable to transform into human form.
The female orcs who were abducted knew that in other tribes, only the orcs' abilities mattered. But in the cannibal tribe, because they couldn't transform into human form, the female orcs were much weaker than the male orcs and couldn't participate in the cannibal tribe's unique "hunting."
Therefore, the only purpose of cannibalistic women is to bear children for men.