Chapter 85: Leaving The Arrogant Little Octopus Out To Dry
Gray sniffed at the four-eared ox that had gathered at the bird’s nest entrance and was already dead, then straightened up, swept its tail behind it, turned to Su Ran and said: “Ran Ran, Yao Yao, hunting.”
“Yao Yao?”
Su Ran heard this and slightly raised her eyebrows.
The four-eared ox in front of her was not small in size. If the beastmen ate it themselves, even a male beastman with a big appetite could only eat a little more than half in one meal.
Yao Yao hunted such a large prey but placed it at the entrance of her and Gray’s bird’s nest. What did it mean?
Su Ran looked and suddenly a very human society term popped into her mind: “Gift-giving!”
But why gift-giving?
While she was still thinking, Gray had already started moving, lifting the four-eared ox from the bird’s nest entrance.
Then it carried the four-eared ox, flew to another tree trunk a few meters away from the bird’s nest entrance, and placed the four-eared ox in its hand on top of the tree trunk.
After placing it, it even reached out and patted the ox’s body to make sure it wouldn’t fall, then flew back.
Meanwhile, Su Ran was already staring blankly at the new things that had suddenly appeared in the bird’s nest.
Her and Gray’s bird’s nest was not big to begin with.
In the round bird’s nest that was over two meters and nearly three meters in diameter, aside from the spot where she and Gray slept, there was only the open space on both sides of the dry grass bed and the less than one-meter-wide open space in front of the bird’s nest entrance.
And now on this bit of open space, at the bird’s nest entrance, there was a pile of various wild fruit nearly half as high as the entrance.
Next to the wild fruit was a pile of seafood that still looked dripping wet.
Su Ran even saw a small red octopus that had arrogantly crawled onto the animal hide blanket she had laid on the dry grass bed.
On the other side of the wild fruit was a small pile of colorful various small mushrooms.
“Ran Ran, wild fruit, Xiao Ju, A Jin and Umbrella, Xiao San.”
“Woo… seafood, A Huo and Qing Yu and… many beastmen hunted.”
“Mushrooms are Bai Bai!”
After sniffing each of the piles of food one by one, Gray turned around and reported to Su Ran.
When mentioning that pile of mushrooms, its voice carried obvious happiness.
Su Ran now knew that most mushrooms in this world had medicinal value.
Like the yellow mushroom Gray had found for her before, which could be used to stop bleeding and heal wounds.
The purple mushrooms in this pile now could treat diarrhea.
The green mushrooms were something female beastmen ate during pregnancy. Su Ran guessed they probably had the effect of preventing miscarriage.
In addition, there were red mushroom and blue mushroom,
But Su Ran temporarily didn’t know the uses of these two kinds of mushrooms and hadn’t seen any beastmen using these two kinds of mushrooms.
But now these weren’t the main point.
As Su Ran listened to Gray report the origins of these foods in front of her one by one, the doubt in her heart grew bigger and bigger.
“Why send this prey to us?”
Su Ran looked at Gray doubtfully. Clearly, Gray understood the intention behind these beastmen sending the food.
Because from the moment it saw the four-eared ox, its attitude had always felt very expected.
Now hearing Su Ran’s puzzled question, it tilted its head slightly, thought for a moment, then said to Su Ran: “Ran Ran bleeding, Xiao Ju, Yao Yao, they give you… woo… give you meat. Mushrooms are… use yellow mushroom to make Ran Ran not bleed!”
Su Ran was stunned after hearing this, and only reacted to the meaning in Gray’s words a few seconds later.
On the night she first got her menstruation, Gray had made a big commotion because of panic.
Plus, in the following days, her bleeding was always heavy. The bloody smell in the bird’s nest was something even she could smell, let alone the beastmen living in the vicinity with their keen sense of smell.
So these prey, seafood, mushrooms, and fruit were all sent by the beastmen thinking she was sick, as… condolence visits?
Just like on Earth, when relatives and friends are hospitalized, they bring gifts to visit?
Su Ran looked at the small red octopus that Gray had carried back to the seafood pile but was still persistently trying to crawl out, and blinked.
After figuring out the reason for these unexpected gains, she couldn’t help laughing.
Although her usual interactions with the beastmen had always been harmonious, she hadn’t expected that the beastmen’s social interactions already included ways like gift-giving and visiting.
Su Ran wouldn’t narcissistically think it was because she was different that the beastmen did this.
After all, from Gray’s calm performance, it was clear that this kind of interactive care had always existed in the beastmen’s lives.
With the doubt resolved, Su Ran had Gray go back to the river beach to fetch a few large winnowing baskets and wooden basins.
Suddenly having so much food without any effort, of course she was happy.
But no matter how happy, she had to put these things away first and move them outside the bird’s nest.
Otherwise, at night when she and Gray slept, they would be smelling half the sweet fragrance of fruit and half the fishy smell of seafood in the bird’s nest to fall asleep!
Gray quickly retrieved the winnowing baskets and wooden basins she wanted from the rain shelter.
Su Ran first loaded that pile of seafood into the wooden basins.
The seafood filled three basins in total, then the fruit filled two heaping basins, and the mushrooms were all spread out on the winnowing baskets.
Su Ran had Gray first take the three basins of seafood to the river beach.
Then fill the basins with water so these seafood wouldn’t die so quickly.
She specially filled each basin of seafood only halfway to prevent the live seafood from crawling out.
As for that uncontrollable arrogant little octopus, Su Ran processed it clean directly, rubbed it with salt, and hung it with rope next to the drying sausages to air-dry.
Then she had Gray take the several basins of fruit and the mushrooms in the winnowing baskets outside the bird’s nest to store, before lying down on the dry grass bed.
Not long after, Gray also flew back from outside.
By now, inside the bird’s nest it was pitch black, nothing could be seen.
Outside the bird’s nest there was still some light, but only the rough black tree trunks could be seen, and the leaves on the trees were also unclear.
The animal hide blanket under her sank down a bit, and then Su Ran felt a tall body lie down next to her.
Gray lay on its side, habitually pulling her into its embrace.
The nights now were no longer very cool, basically no need to cover with a blanket.
Su Ran usually only placed the thinnest red-skinned pig blanket at her feet before sleeping, and then covered it over herself when she felt cold in the middle of the night.
But later, her movements of getting up at night to get the blanket always woke Gray, which instead made Gray remember the time when she would feel cold.
So much so that on later nights, as soon as the temperature dropped in the middle of the night, Gray would automatically extend one wing to cover her.
As for Gray itself, back when the temperature was only in the teens during spring, it ran around completely naked, so this bit of cold in summer was nothing to it at all.
