Ning Shu nodded in satisfaction when she heard what Zhi said. “Let’s keep the cured meat as backup for now. We need to go hunt.”
Due to the earthquake, there were a lot of animals roaming around which they could eat. If they just stayed in the cave and ate the cured meat, they’d eventually run out.
“But we’re females. How are we supposed to hunt?” Zhi gripped the stick she was holding tightly, her face pale.
Ning Shu said calmly, “It’s fine, I’m here. Every beginning is difficult. We need to survive, so right now we can only rely on ourselves.”
Ning Shu found a wild boar that was currently digging at the ground. It had very long tusks that looked very dangerous. Ning Shu could sense Zhi trembling next to her.
“Watch how I do it,” said Ning Shu quietly. Following that, she started moving quietly towards the wild boar. However, since she was walking on snow, it was impossible to make her movements completely silent.
When the wild boar turned around and saw Ning Shu, it wasn’t scared at all and started charging towards her to ram her to death with its tusks. Ning Shu didn’t hesitate and lifted her wooden stick to stab it towards the wild boar’s head and pierce straight through its brain.
Zhi stared at Ning Shu blankly.
Under Ning Shu’s guidance, Zhi successfully hunted a… rabbit. But that was enough to make Zhi really excited.
They dragged the wild boar back and the female beastmen inside the cavern started cooking the meat.
Ning Shu looked at the women and the children, then said, “From now on, I’m the tribe chief. Before Wu died, she told me lead the tribe onwards. We are now a tribe. If we want to survive, we must be united.”
“Cao, could it be that we’re going to live on our own? How are we supposed to live without males?” asked a female beastman. “Are the males not coming back for us?”
Inwardly, Ning Shu was scoffing, but she just replied calmly, “Then we have to survive until the males come back from us.”
“Starting tomorrow, we’ll be hunting for ourselves in order to survive until the males come back to look for us.” Ning Shu saw that the boar meat was about done and said, “Portion some out for the children first, then we should eat.”
Ning Shu ate a bowl of meat stew, then sat down to meditate. She had used up too much energy earlier. Her body couldn’t hold up anymore.
She needed to revolve the energy in her dantian to repair her injured muscles.
The female beastmen hugged their children and huddled together fearfully to wait out the night. Aftershocks were still going on, so the entire world was shaking. Some of the more timid beastmen were quietly crying.
Ning Shu took some of the female beastmen to hunt the next day. The cruel reality of evolution was that if you wanted to live, you had to shed blood.
Ning Shu had pointed out a lot of things to pay attention to beforehand, but there was still a female beastman that froze in fear in front of a prey and got killed.
This terribly bloody scene made the other female beastmen even more scared and some started screaming in terror.
Ning Shu suddenly questioned her own actions. Was it really the right choice to make the females that had always lived under careful protection to face these bloody things?
The first day of hunting failed. Ning Shu had to hunt by herself in order to get enough food for the day.