7 Doubt

The Mud Mountain Tribe's fruit-picking team had returned.

 The fruits around the tribe's territory had basically been picked clean. They had not managed to gather much, but fortunately, they had not run into any danger.

 "Haaaa..."

 The people plaintively sighed as they placed their harvest on a rock in the clearing.

 If this went on, they wouldn't have enough food to eat.

 Although the tribe had its hunting team bringing back game, it had to be understood that in order to preserve its military strength, the tribe would prioritize feeding meat to the Warriors, and Warriors ate so much… thus, ordinary people normally ate fruits and seeds. Their small harvest meant that they would have hungry stomachs today.

 The chief's expression dimmed on seeing today's harvest.

 "I hope that the hunting team can bring back some more game today…"

 But the tribe had so many people. It was impossible to survive on just the game brought back by the hunting team.

 Someone came over to put away the harvest.

 The fruits and seeds piled up on the rock were further divided. A fruit picker could keep thirty percent of the fruits he had picked, but the rest had to be offered to the tribe to be further distributed.

 Crssh! Crssh!

 Rustling came from the jungle.

 The crowd turned and saw Ye Xi, Plate, and Awl, their shoulders laden with heavy burdens, pushing aside the trees and coming over.

 When the chief saw their shoulders apparently burdened down, his eyes brightened, and he happily asked, "Is this your harvest today?"

 Plate and Awl put down the bundles on their shoulders, unrolling them to reveal the boar meat.

 "Yes, chief. We were lucky and ran into a few boars. This is the meat of the boar we hunted today. There's also this." Plate pointed at the large pile of sweet potato tubers and said, "This is the food Ye Xi took us to find. We've eaten it, and there's no poison.

 "And there are a lot of these things. In the area we found them at, we dug up this many."

 The chief solemnly grabbed a bundle of sweet potatoes, plucked one off, and took a bite.

 Hurried footsteps came from the distance.

 "Hurry and get the shaman! Have the shaman take a look at Carving! He's been injured!"

 The hunting team had returned.

 They had not managed to hunt anything today, and they had even brought back a casualty. A large hole had been torn through his belly, blood flowing out from it as he was carried back. His breathing grew weaker with each breath he took.

 Plate anxiously said, "I'll call the shaman," and then hastily ran into the cave.

 The chief walked up to the wounded man.

 The leader of the hunting team, Courage, had his fists tightly clenched, his eyes somewhat red, and he spoke as if the words were being squeezed out from between his teeth: "We… originally hunted a lot of game, but on our way back, we ran into a Terror Beast. Carving was bitten by it."

 The chief silently patted Courage on the shoulder.

 This was how hunting went. Some days, one might be able to hunt a lot of game and go to sleep full, but the next day, one might run into some unbeatable giant beast or insect, and one could only cast aside all the game one had hunted and run for one's life. And escape might not even be possible, requiring the sacrifice of members of the hunting team.

 For only one person to be heavily injured after encountering a Terror Beast was already very lucky.

 "Chief..."

 On the ground, Carving had awoken from unconsciousness, and when he saw the chief, he opened his mouth to speak. But at this moment, a woman clenched his hand and told him not to talk.

 Carving turned his head with great difficulty toward her.

 "Mo-mother..."

 Carving's face twisted in pain, and more blood flowed out of the wounds on his chest and stomach.

 Several large and gruesome holes had been torn open on his belly, and some of his intestines were exposed. The injuries were frightening to behold.

 Standing in the back, Ye Xi was stunned by these wounds.

 He knew what a Terror Beast was. People in Loose Grass's original tribe had spoken of it. It was apparently a carnivorous dinosaur similar to a Tyrannosaurus. He found it easy to imagine how a Tyrannosaurus could easily bite down on Carving and how the hunting team might have put their lives on the line to get him back.

 An ordinary person would have been stone-cold dead from these wounds by now, but the cavemen, or perhaps one could say the tribe's Warriors, had tough enough bodies that this man was able to be brought back alive.

 "Carving, just hold on a little longer. The shaman will be here soon."

 The hunting team leader tightly gripped Carving's other hand.

 Ye Xi looked over at the cave.

 He was extremely curious about this place's shaman. From Loose Grass's memories, he knew that everyone in the tribe revered the shaman. Shamans were apparently able to predict the weather and could heal the sick and injured without using medicine.

 But Loose Grass's status in his original tribe had been too low, and he had never been able to get close to the shaman, only seeing him from far at the back of the crowd. And when he arrived in this world, he had also not seen the Mud Mountain Tribe's shaman. The tribesmen would always send the food into the cave.

 Did he not find it trying to spend all his time in the darkness?

 Were shamans just lucky, or did they really possess mystical powers?

 Ye Xi dearly wanted to know.

 After a little while, Plate came out.

 Behind him was a thin elder with profound eyes, wearing a shabby cloth and holding a bone cane as he walked out with firm and measured steps.

 Ye Xi was astonished to see the shabby cloth worn by the old man.

 Before this, he thought that everyone wore grass skirts, but it now seemed that they also had the technology to weave and produce cloth?

 But this cloth was probably extremely precious, so precious that the shaman was the only one in the tribe who could wear it.

 The Mud Mountain shaman was extremely old, his hair and beard all white. Ye Xi estimated him to be at least seventy years old. But his eyes were bursting with energy, and his mind seemed very sharp, not at all muddled like an ordinary old man.

 "Shaman!"

 The tribesmen lowered their heads and bowed. In the back, Ye Xi hastily bowed as well.

 Gripping his bone cane, the Mud Mountain shaman gave a slight nod and then strode over to Carving. Wherever he walked, he was like Moses parting the seas, the tribesmen opening a path for him.

 The shaman squatted down next to Carving.

 Carving's breath was already as thin as a hair, and blood was flowing out of the corners of his lips. But when he saw the shaman, he still attempted to bow. "Shaman..."

 "Don't speak," the shaman sternly said.

 He reached out with his right hand, closed his eyes, and placed the hand on Carving's wound.

 As Ye Xi stared with wide eyes, the wound beneath the elderly and shriveled hand began to rapidly close, and the exposed organs were gradually hidden.

 Just when the wound was about to completely close, the shaman swayed. Regretfully, he drew back his hand. "I used too much shamanic power on divinations in the last two days. This is all I can do."

 Through the shaman's treatment, Carving's wound had significantly shrunk in size, and the organs had also been healed. But there was still a bloody opening from which blood slowly seeped out.

 Carving had already lost enough blood on the way back. If he continued to bleed like this, his chances of survival were slim, and he might only be able to last a few days.

 Courage's expression dimmed.

 The rest of the tribe also felt grief. The loss of any Warrior to a tribe was immense.

 Carving gasped and tried to comfort the shaman. "Th-… thank you, Shaman, I… I'm much… much better."

 The muscles on Courage's cheeks tensed, and after a few moments of silence, he declared, "Use fire to seal it."

 "No! Carving is already this weak! He might not be able to endure the fire searing!"

 Carving gasped as he struggled to speak in a soft voice. "It… it's fine. Go… sear it…"

 The crowd fell silent, their mood plunging. If fire searing were used to staunch the bleeding, Carving was highly likely to die from the pain.

 Ye Xi had lived for so long in a peaceful world that he could not stand this tragic scene of parting. He suddenly called, "I dug up three-seven1! I can use it to stop his bleeding!"

 Three-seven?

 What was that? Everyone in the tribe suddenly looked at him, even the shaman.

 Ye Xi explained, "It's a kind of herb that can stem bleeding."

 "…Herb?"

 The tribesmen looked at each other. "What's a herb?"

 This primitive society had no concept of herbs. When someone was injured, they would have to rely on their body's abnormal recovery abilities. If they couldn't make it, they would just die.

 Of course, the world was not completely merciless. There were miraculous flowers or grasses in this world, some of them so powerful that they could bring back a dying man from the brink of death. But these were extremely rare and guarded by frightening creatures. The Mud Mountain Tribe did not have the strength to obtain such fine things.

 Ye Xi took out the three-seven root and showed it to them. "This is called three-seven. Don't be put off by its ordinary appearance. It can stem blooding, dissolve internal blood clots, reduce swelling, and relieve pain. Simply put, it can treat external injuries."

 The crowd was incredibly disappointed.

 In their view, Ye Xi was holding some plant with nothing special about it at all. It was clearly not some miraculous plant and was little different from a weed.

 Could any random weed treat injuries?

 How could that be!?

 Plate, who was standing next to Ye Xi, suddenly asked, "Did your Wolftooth Tribe use this to stem bleeding?"

 Ye Xi paused.

 There were still Wolftooth Tribe captives here, so he could not deceive them. He would be exposed the moment they asked the other two captives.

 "No, three-seven is something I recently found, but its root can be used to stem bleeding. It just needs to be ground into powder and sprinkled over the wound," he said.

 Plate suddenly grabbed Ye Xi by the neck, his eyes cold and his face pale as he asked, "Who are you!? Why do you know so much?!"

 Strange, far too strange!

 Plate's intuition told him that Ye Xi was telling the truth, because Ye Xi wasn't so bold as to lie to them at a time like this.

 But if he was telling the truth, there was an even bigger problem.

 How could an ordinary boy of the Wolftooth Tribe know so much? The sweet potatoes and now this three-seven! The sweet potatoes were easy to explain. It was quite normal for a starving person to dig up things out of the ground to eat.

 But three-seven?

 Who would dig up a plant when they were injured, grind it into powder, or spread it on the wound?!

 Ye Xi's neck was in the grip of a steely hand, and his face reddened as he gasped for air. The three-seven root dropped to the ground as he struggled to loosen the hand's grip.

 He looked around at his surroundings out of the corner of his eyes.

 The faces of the crowd were cold, their eyes staring at him with icy wariness.