Chapter 87.2   – Pottery Pot

Xiong Ye had originally wanted to learn some tricks from Zhu Zhan and hadn’t expected to receive this kind of answer. He was left disappointed for a moment––Zhou Ji didn’t like to hit people, didn’t like meat, and didn’t like weapons. As for prey... Who didn’t give prey to their mates?

Xiong Ye felt that he wouldn’t be able to make a good mud man and was currently pondering over what to give Zhou Ji instead as a gift when Zhu Zhan spoke up, “Xiong Ye, how does it feel when you’re together with a man?”

“Very good.” Xiong Ye replied.

Xiong Ye’s reply was practically instantaneous. Zhu Zhan continued, “Looks like Zhou Ji is great... He does indeed look very good, and it must feel very pleasurable to hold him. It’s just that he’s a little tall. I know someone from the outside who likes men, but he only likes slender men with good looks.”

Xiong Ye was a little confused, “Would they still be attractive if they’re slender?” Wasn’t it better to have a powerful body? He always felt that Zhou Ji was a little thin.

Zhu Zhan: “You’re really... Oh, right. I know that he uses this kind of thing... Do you want some? It’ll make it more pleasurable.”

“What kind of thing?” Xiong Ye asked.

“It’s a type of oil from a fruit.” Zhu Zhan explained it to him.

The more Xiong Ye listened to him, the more he felt that something wasn’t right.

The thing that Zhu Zhan was talking about wasn’t the same as what Zhou Ji and he did together!

Could it be that he and Zhou Ji had done it wrong the whole time when they slept together before?

Xiong Ye abruptly understood, and he had a kind of feeling like he had just been struck by lightning.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zhu Zhan asked.

“When two men sleep together, do they not use their hands?” Xiong Ye asked.

Zhu Zhan: “......” So, what exactly did these two people do after they had become mates?!

Zhu Zhan was a little dumbfounded. Xiong Ye also wanted to thump his chest and stamp his feet in anguish––how much time had he wasted?

Xiong Ye immediately climbed back up to his cave.

Zhu Zhan saw that Xiong Ye was running off and finally recalled what he had originally come to find Xiong Ye for, “Xiong Ye, are you not coming to spar with us today?”

He was still waiting for his subordinates to fight against Xiong Ye in exchange for seasonings!

Yet Xiong Ye had actually run off?!

However, he could also understand why. Xiong Ye suddenly learned that he hadn’t actually been enjoying his mate completely despite having had him for so long. Anyone would be anxious in that kind of situation!

Zhu Zhan had no choice but to go back and prepare himself to eat the most basic salt-rubbed, roasted meat. As for Xiong Ye, he had already run back to his cave, “Zhou Ji, I learned something.”

Zhou Ji was puzzled, “What did you learn?”

“It turns out that two men together should be like this...” Xiong Ye swiftly explained it all.

Zhou Ji hugged his head somewhat helplessly.

He had known that Xiong Ye would learn about this sooner or later, but he hadn’t thought that Xiong Ye would figure it out so soon.

“Who told you that?” Zhou Ji asked.

Xiong Ye replied, “Zhu Zhan... Zhou Ji, should we try it?”

Xiong Ye had always been bold and direct. As he spoke, he had already embraced Zhou Ji and picked him up.

He wanted to be intimate with Zhou Ji!

He believed that Zhou Ji must also want to be intimate with him!

Xiong Ye might think so, but Zhou Ji said, “Wait a bit, I’m a little scared.”

“Scared?” Xiong Ye was puzzled.

Zhou Ji: “I’m scared it will hurt. Doing that... will it hurt?

Only... Zhou Ji said, “I’m worried it might injure and hurt you.”

Zhou Ji gave some reasons, and the reasons made sense.

However, those weren’t the main reasons why he was refusing.

When he had originally agreed to Xiong Ye’s ‘proposal’, he had only wanted to help Xiong Ye and hadn’t thought too much about it. At the time, if Xiong Ye had really offered himself up, perhaps he would’ve taken him up on it and slept with him then and there.

But now, the feelings between the two of them were growing deeper and deeper, and he had a lot of concerns.

For example, did Xiong Ye really like him? If he hadn’t agreed back then, would Xiong Ye have just gone on to find another mate? Would he have been as good to that other person as he was to him?

As for himself, how did he feel towards Xiong Ye?

Zhou Ji gave Xiong Ye a deep, searching gaze.

Xiong Ye kissed Zhou Ji on the mouth and felt that Zhou Ji’s appearance of being concerned over him being injured was really too cute!

In fact... What two men did together should all be pretty much the same, right? In fact, there was no need to do that specifically...

“Forget it, then.” Xiong Ye suggested.

Zhou Ji: “......” That was it? Xiong Ye didn’t push for it?

Xiong Ye really dropped the idea. He fell straight into a deep sleep that night after going to bed.

Zhou Ji supplied him with some energy and fell asleep in a complicated mood. He didn’t sleep much that night.

Early the next morning, Xiong Ye woke up and prepared to go hunting. Zhou Ji followed after him and left the cave, then noticed Zhu Zhan staring at him.

This was the person who had caused him to sleep badly last night!

Zhou Ji rubbed his forehead and sighed.

Zhu Zhan saw that Zhou Ji was walking normally without any strangeness at all and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed in Xiong Ye.

However, it was a matter between others, and he didn’t care much about it.

He might as well use this time to try and make a boat instead!

Recently, Zhu Zhan had taken a lot of small pieces of wood and collected it in his cave with his subordinates, wanting to make the boat that Zhou Ji had mentioned before. Although he had managed to make something like a boat, it was difficult to make it any bigger. Additionally, dealing with the predators in the river was also a very big problem.

Zhu Zhan was very downcast about it.

While Zhu Zhan was feeling upset about this, the Big Bear tribe had finished firing pottery for the third time.

This time, Zhou Ji had paid extra attention to the process. He was firing the things he had made personally, including the little bear that had been sculpted from clay. Only after he had placed all of his things inside did the other people from the tribe add their contributions and light the fire.

A large fire blazed up and began to burn.

That evening, while everyone was eating next to the pottery fire pit, Zhu Zhan’s people asked Zhu Zhan, “Big brother, do you think that the Big Bear Tribe will be able to create pottery this time?”

“Probably, but maybe it’ll only be one or two pieces.” Zhu Zhan said. The High Priest of the Beast God Temple didn’t have much pottery, which meant that the production process for this pottery should be quite complicated.

The Beast God Temple had been making pottery for so many years, but they were only able to make a very limited amount each year. The Big Bear Tribe had only made it a total of two times, so what kind of success could they have?

Although they now acknowledged Zhou Ji as the Beast God’s messenger, Zhu Zhan still didn’t fully believe the Big Bear Tribe members when they talked about the barley maturing immediately and the earth eggs growing overnight.

As for the slaves who had only recently joined the Big Bear Tribe...

These past ten days had been like heaven for them.

Over the past ten days, they had been able to eat two meals a day and be full after every meal. Although it wasn’t meat and consisted mainly of earth eggs, this was already a very good situation for them.

These people were gaining weight at a speed almost visible to the naked eye.

They were very grateful to the Big Bear Tribe, but were also puzzled about why the Big Bear Tribe was playing with mud and burning it with fire.

They had been burning it when they arrived, and in the end, only created some debris. Wouldn’t it be basically the same this time?

They really didn’t know what the people of the Big Bear Tribe were actually trying to do...

Everyone was curious, and at this time the fire finally extinguished, and the temperature in the fire pit started decreasing.

Xiong Ye was the first to jump into the ‘fire pit’.

He had seen Zhou Ji put the little bear inside, and he wanted to know how it had turned out...

Xiong Ye was hoping that the little bear hadn’t been ruined by the firing process.

After he jumped in, he immediately wanted to go and look for the little bear, but it was a little too hot...

“Be careful.” Zhou Ji reminded him. But even as the words left his mouth, he saw Xiong Ye turn into a brown bear.

Xiong Ye who had turned into a brown bear was no longer afraid of the heat and soon carried out the pottery that had been placed inside.

He brought out the little bear, his expression full of surprised delight––the little bear hadn’t broken!

Zhou Ji had known early on that the little bear hadn’t shattered. Having sculpted it with his spiritual powers, how could it shatter?

As for the rest... Zhou Ji instructed, “Take out the rest.”

Xiong Ye nodded and brought out a complete pot.

After that, he took out a complete bowl, plate, and some other containers.

These things were very thin, and other than the pot that was quite thick, everything else was very light and particularly smooth.

Xiong Ye had polished stone wares before, and he had been very careful when he worked with the stone, but even then, he would be unable to make a pot this good!

Before when Zhou Ji had wanted to make pottery, Xiong Ye hadn’t really understood why. He didn’t know what pottery looked like, but now... Xiong Ye looked at the pots and pans in front of him and felt a little excited.

These things looked great!

“These things are ours. Bring them back.” Zhou Ji pointed to the things he had made. When he had made these things, he had declared that whatever he made would be his personal possessions.

“Zhou Ji, you really live up to being beloved by the Beast God! The pot that you made actually didn’t break!” The priest was also very excited.

Zhou Ji: “......”

“With the pot that you’ve made, some of the other pottery that was fired was also successful!” The priest continued. He looked in surprise at the other whole products that had been made.

The first two times they had fired pottery, other than creating some things that the people of the tribe could use as decoration, it had resulted in no other achievements. However, this time was different.

This time, other than the ones Zhou Ji had made, there was also another complete pottery pot, two pottery bowls, and a jar.

These pottery pieces were so rough that the difference between those and the ones made by Zhou Ji could be seen by the naked eye. Even so, this was pottery!

The priest knew how precious this pottery was when he picked it up and felt its weight for himself.

Stone tools weren’t easy to use, especially when it came to stone pots since they used a lot of firewood every time in order to heat up whatever was held inside. But the pot he had now...

The priest ordered, “These things... place them in my cave first!”

Xiong He asked, “You only need a pot, right?”

“This open one is for you.” The priest said.

After everyone finished ‘splitting up’ the goods, everyone brought their own things back to their caves.

Zhou Ji began to cook stir-fried vegetables.

There had been an abundance of vegetables in the tribe recently, so he fried up a few different types.

Before when he was using the stone pot to stir fry things, it had felt very unwieldy and sometimes, it had felt like he was boiling things more than frying them. If he was even the slightest bit careless, the vegetables would be overcooked, or they would remain undercooked no matter what he did.

But it was different now.

Although using this pottery pot to cook still wasn’t as good as using an iron pot, it was still countless times better than using a stone pot. Zhou Ji made several very large dishes.

Zhou Ji finished cooking several vegetable dishes in one go, then used some hulled barley to make barley rice.

Barley could be boiled like rice. The grains that were cooked this way were very chewy and fragrant, but also a little hard and definitely incomparable to rice.

However, when there was no rice to eat, it was still nice to have a bowl of barley.

It had been a long time since Zhou Ji had eaten like this. Now that he had ‘rice’ along with some properly stir-fried vegetables... His appetite seemed limitless.

As for the priest... The first thing the priest did when he returned to his cave was to try and fry up some meat with chili peppers in his new pot.

His skills weren’t good, but the meat he used was smoked meat that had already been pre-seasoned, and he didn’t go as far as to overfry anything. While he was cooking, he also discovered how much easier it was to use this pottery pot.

The priest who had never used an iron pot before felt that this was the best pot ever.

Only Xiong He...

When tribal chief Xiong He returned home, he intended to use the new pot to boil some meat to eat, so he left some water in the pot and set it over the fire to boil. As a result, the water boiled away, and the pot got burnt, resulting in the entire pottery pot cracking in the middle.

Xiong He: “......”

Xiong He’s woman saw the situation and picked up half of the cracked pottery pot, setting it on her head and asking Xiong He, “Do you think I look good like this?”

Xiong He: “Yes.” He placed the other half of the pot on his head, thought about it, then took it down and began to grind it.

While Xiong Ye and Zhou Ji were eating in their cave that night, Zhu Zhan was still in a bit of a trance.

The Big Bear Tribe had managed to create pottery so soon!

They could ignore the ones that the priest had taken away, but the pottery that Zhou Ji had made himself was really made perfectly!

Not only could that kind of pottery be used to trade for dinosaurs, it could even be used to trade for territory!

“I’ve decided!” Zhu Zhan suddenly said.

“What did you decide?” Zhu Zhan’s subordinates asked him.

Zhu Zhan: “I want to join the Big Bear Tribe!”

He used to be the young chief of the Giant Pig Tribe, but he hadn’t held such a position for a long time now. He also didn’t want to go back and become the tribal chief anymore, either.

He felt that it would be more beneficial to join the Big Bear Tribe.

His father didn’t have much pottery, but if he continued to work for the Big Bear Tribe, he would definitely be able to obtain pottery!

The more Zhu Zhan thought about it, the more he felt that this was a good idea.

One of Zhu Zhan’s men spoke up, “I thought we joined the Big Bear Tribe a long time ago. Didn’t we?” Didn’t they go hunting with them every day?

Zhu Zhan: “......”

At the same time, Xiong Qi, Xiong Bai, and some others had all climbed into the fire pit where the pottery was fired.

They were a little embarrassed when they encountered each other inside, so they each found a place to lie down on their own. When they did so... They suddenly discovered that there was someone else nearby.

“This is the place where the Beast God gave us artifacts... Are you here to receive some of that glory, too?” The priest’s voice sounded through the fire pit.

Xiong Bai: Priest, you were cooking in your cave not long ago, but now you’re here... your old body is really able to move very fast!