CHAPTER 508: CHAPTER 499: THE BIG BOSS 17

Yan Shuangshuang frowned slightly, these wild vegetables are too few! Although they no longer lack food and now have salt, insufficient vitamin intake is not good either. Not to mention the issues of heat and growth development, even just a lowered immunity is a big trouble.

But the wild vegetables around here have almost all been picked, and with the dry season these wild vegetables are continuously withering, they will become increasingly less and harder to harvest.

In past dry seasons, the tribe would gather to hunt and collect wild vegetables ahead of time to get through the dry season.

But this year’s dry season, because Yan Shuangshuang discovered salt fruit, for over ten days everyone was busy picking, sorting, and storing salt fruit, causing the storage of both game and wild vegetables to fall drastically short.

With her hand covering her forehead, Yan Shuangshuang suddenly wondered if it was right to have found salt fruit earlier. Perhaps she should have waited until the dry season was over to talk about the salt fruit.

Yan Shuangshuang had something on her mind, so she didn’t feel like picking Big Leaf Grass. Her eyes scanned around to see if there were any edible wild vegetables, hoping the big stockpile in her mind could help her find a large amount of edible plants.

Unfortunately, this time Yan Shuangshuang was disappointed. Until she stumbled upon the napping Earth King Beast again, the stockpile helped her discover two new edible wild vegetables, but unfortunately, the amount was far from enough to solve the tribe’s vegetable shortage.

Placing the Big Leaf Grass under the Earth King Beast’s nose, Yan Shuangshuang stared blankly at the beast eating grass, pondering whether to venture further out.

But in this Primitive World, venturing too far without strength is truly dangerous. Though she’s been in this world for a long time, she knows very little about its dangerous species, which really makes Yan Shuangshuang too afraid to make reckless moves.

Because being near the Earth King Beast was very safe, Yan Shuangshuang’s mind unconsciously relaxed. She was thinking about all sorts of things until she felt something cold land on her hand, snapping her back to reality.

Looking up, she saw the Earth King Beast’s damp nose nudging her hand, its big dark eyes looking at her very gently. Yan Shuangshuang couldn’t help but smile. She touched the Earth King Beast’s hard, scaly face, thinking it seems quite easy to gain the creature’s favor.

The Earth King Beast sniffed Yan Shuangshuang’s scent, then turned its head and bit off a scale on its side. With a little effort, the scale came off, revealing a white line beneath, suggesting it was a scale about to fall off.

The Earth King Beast’s big head inched forward, its nose nudging Yan Shuangshuang’s chest lightly, then placed the scale on the ground in front of her, staring at her softly and benignly with its dark eyes.

Yan Shuangshuang was taken aback, looking down at the meter-long scale on the ground, resembling a huge machete, and feeling puzzled, she wondered if the Earth King Beast was actually trying to gift her its scale!

Yan Shuangshuang tentatively reached for the large, cold scale that was quite heavy, and indeed, the Earth King Beast’s eyes became even gentler, with a hint of delight, clearly it was a gift for her!

Holding the scale, Yan Shuangshuang felt its hard texture, and the edge was as sharp as a knife. Her mind was already whirling with ideas on how to turn this into a big knife, using it for hunting, chopping vegetables, cutting meat, and various other uses.

Bidding farewell to the Earth King Beast, Yan Shuangshuang, in high spirits, carrying the massive scale, started pondering what to use as a handle to make good use of the scale. But a meter is a bit long; if it could be split in half, making two half-meter knives would be a better fit.

As for what to use to break the scale, only a diamond would do. Although an uncut diamond doesn’t display its brilliance, as an Earthling, whether interested in jewelry or not, one can’t resist wanting to collect a diamond or two.

What Yan Shuangshuang had collected were diamonds that people from the tribe brought back when making stone axes and stone spears, among which two had sharp edges, perfect for cutting the scale. Yan Shuangshuang thought that no matter how hard the scale was, it couldn’t be harder than a diamond!

It might be the Earth King Beast that brought Yan Shuangshuang some good luck, as after saying goodbye to it and walking not far, the mental stockpile started alerting her about edible plants appearing.

Judging from the frequency of the alert sound, it was clear the range of edible plants ahead was not small, and Yan Shuangshuang’s eyes lit up with excitement!

This was like getting a pillow when you’re sleepy, but when Yan Shuangshuang excitedly followed the stockpile’s guidance to the area where edible plants were indicated, she was surprised to find nothing but a large expanse of giant trees ahead!

Question marks formed above Yan Shuangshuang’s head. Could it be that the stockpile was misleading her—there might be edible plants ahead, but perhaps they haven’t borne fruit yet?

Thinking this, Yan Shuangshuang’s first instinct was to check the stockpile in her mind, and she found that the stockpile indeed indicated edible plants were right at this location. She looked at the reference image and discovered the edible plants shown in the picture were the leaves of these giant trees!

Yan Shuangshuang couldn’t help but twitch her lips; could the stockpile be telling her to eat the leaves of these trees? She was not an Earth King Beast!

However, the stockpile wouldn’t deliberately mislead her, Yan Shuangshuang thought, stroking her chin. It’s not all that strange that the leaves could be edible.

On Earth, there are many edible leaves, like elm leaves, which taste good. When she was on Earth, she used to snack on elm seeds and elm leaves, and the tender leaves of the locust tree can be made into a traditional dish called locust leaf cold noodles—a delicacy passed down from ancient times! There’s also the leaf of the Chinese toon tree.

By similar reasoning, there’s nothing strange about the possibility of these giant tree leaves being edible like elm or locust leaves. With this thought, Yan Shuangshuang reached out and picked a tender leaf marked as edible, put it in her mouth, and chewed it.

This leaf wasn’t bitter like other leaves; instead, it had a special aroma, somewhat like Sichuan pepper but not quite, resembling black locust but not exactly. It wasn’t particularly delicious but wasn’t hard to eat either.

While chewing the leaf, Yan Shuangshuang kept feeling the taste was very familiar, as if she’d eaten some food or ingredient with this flavor when she was on Earth, but she couldn’t recall what it was for the moment.

While Yan Shuangshuang was in a daze, over at the side, Ben spotted a large, well-fed wild boar as massive as an elephant!

It was rare to see such a boar, and Ben naturally couldn’t let this excellent prey slip away. He gave Tie a call to have Tie lead a few people to protect Yan Shuangshuang, while Ben took five or six members of the Hunting Team to engage in the fight with the giant wild boar!