Chapter 23   Proposal

This toad was really very big. Its two hind legs were as thick as a child’s arm... Zhou Ji looked at it curiously, “This thing is called a devil frog?”

“Yeah, it’s very delicious.” Xiong Ye said. Devil frogs were indeed especially tasty, and Shi Li liked them a lot, so he had always given Shi Li the devil frogs he had caught to eat.

But now, he was definitely going to give them all to Zhou Ji!

Zhou Ji couldn’t hunt. Although he went out every day, he could only gather up some plants. Even so, Zhou Ji never forgot about him and would always leave the best food for him.

“Oh.” Zhou Ji looked at the devil frog again. Frog meat was very tender. It should be the same for this thing, right?

“I’ll go and clean it, and then we can cook it.” Xiong Ye was very excited.

Zhou Ji naturally had no objections. He nodded.

Xiong Ye happily went off to kill the devil frog and peel off its skin.

Although he had said that it was for Zhou Ji to eat, he knew that Zhou Ji would certainly leave some for him.

Xiong Ye had already gone off to get started, so Zhou Ji grabbed the fruits and vegetables he had gathered today and headed towards Xiong Ye’s cave.

Xiong Ye saw what he was doing and called out, “Zhou Ji, leave those things below. I’ll bring them up for you later.”

Zhou Ji laughed and really put his things down.

Shi Li found the interaction between Xiong Ye and Zhou Ji a little unpleasant to watch.

Xiong Ye had always been like this, but the person who he had treated this way had always been him. When did it become Zhou Ji?

Zhou Ji had no ability at all. Why was Xiong Ye so good to him?

“Zhou Ji’s luck is really good.”

“He’s gotten a lot fatter after living with Xiong Ye!”

“Zhou Ji is so good looking. Will Xiong Ye get together with him?”

......

Some people in the tribe looked curiously at Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye.

Xiong Ye liked men, and as for Zhou Ji, although his strength was weak, he was attractive!

And it was only after he had started living together with Xiong Ye that they discovered that Zhou Ji was actually so good-looking!

In the tribe, men who had poor strength were generally unable to find partners. However, if they were good-looking, then it was another matter. There were some women who didn’t care about their man’s strength and only liked those who were good-looking.

“Zhou Ji doesn’t have Xiong Ye’s scent on his body. Don’t talk nonsense!” Shi Li said.

“Niu Er has been there recently. Perhaps it’ll happen later on.” One of the youths from the tribe chuckled.

Shi Li inexplicably felt rage blooming in his heart and headed towards Xiong Ye without conscious thought.

Xiong Ye had already peeled off the devil frog’s skin, cut off its head and claws, and dug out its intestines, giving those things to the children waiting nearby, “I used poisonous herbs to kill this frog, so you guys must cook it first before eating it.”

“Got it. Thank you, Brother Xiong Ye!” The children were smiling as they thanked him before taking the frog parts away to cook.

Xiong Ye washed the devil frog in his hands carefully.

“Xiong Ye!” Shi Li called out to Xiong Ye, “Xiong Ye, are you going to let Zhou Ji continue living with you?”

“What about it?” Xiong Ye was puzzled.

“Zhou Ji can’t do anything and is living in your place and eating your food. Don’t you feel that there’s a problem with that?” Shi Li asked, “Or are you just trying to make me jealous and angry?”

Shi Li didn’t believe that Xiong Ye would like Zhou Ji. Although Zhou Ji was pretty good-looking, Xiong Ye wasn’t the type of person who liked people based solely on looks.

However, it was possible that Xiong Ye was doing this on purpose so that Shi Li would grow jealous.

He knew how much Xiong Ye liked him.

“What does Zhou Ji have to do with you?” Xiong Ye looked at Shi Li in displeasure and felt that something was wrong with Shi Li–Why would he want to make Shi Li jealous and angry? They had broken off things between them a long time ago!

As for Zhou Ji, it wasn’t that Zhou Ji was unable to do anything. Although he was very weak, he knew a lot of things, and... Compared to Shi Li, Zhou Ji really hadn’t eaten much of anything.

Xiong Ye didn’t want to talk to Shi Li any further, so he turned to go back to his cave.

Niu Er had already moved out. Xiong Ye helped him move out this morning and had given him a piece of meat when he left.

Niu Er didn’t refuse it and only said that he would return it to him later.

Only Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye remained in the cave now, and Xiong Ye suddenly felt that it was really nice this way.

Zhou Ji, who had arrived back at the cave first, had already lit a fire and had begun to boil some water. Seeing that Xiong Ye had come up, Zhou Ji picked up several fruits and handed them to Xiong Ye, “They’re sweet.”

This kind of fruit was usually a very sour fruit that Xiong Ye used to eat in order to fill his belly. He didn’t like sour things and really didn’t like to eat this fruit, but the ones that Zhou Ji picked for him were always very sweet.

Zhou Ji must have spent a lot of effort to pick so many sweet fruits.

Xiong Ye had that in mind as he accepted the fruit Zhou Ji handed him and stuffed it into his mouth.

As expected, it was very sweet! It was his favorite flavor!

Zhou Ji saw that Xiong Ye was eating the fruit and brought out some vegetables, planning to cook them in the pot.

Xiong Ye should eat some fruits and vegetables every day.

In fact, he should also eat a bit of staple food... There were staple plants around the tribe that people from the gathering team would tend to, but it wasn’t the season for these plants to be harvested.

Zhou Ji felt a little helpless when he thought of this.

After the water boiled, Zhou Ji put the cleaned devil frog into the water and added some of the salt that he had processed himself.

The salt brought back by the salt team had contained a lot of impurities, resulting in a slightly bitter taste, but after adding some water to dissolve it, then boiling the salt water and repeating the process several times, he could create a relatively purer salt. This was what he had been using to cook with recently.

“We should cut back on salt...” Xiong Ye started, then felt a little irritated halfway through his words.

Zhou Ji was using the salt that his mother had left for him. How come he had said ‘we’?

“There will be more in the future.” Zhou Ji said. Since they had been able to trade for salt before, they would certainly be able to in the future.

While cooking the devil frog, Zhou Ji didn’t add any other seasonings other than salt. Even so, the cooked devil frog was very fresh and flavorful.

Zhou Ji took a frog leg for himself and left the rest for Xiong Ye, but he had only just taken a bite when Xiong Ye, who was now skilled in using chopsticks, placed the other big frog leg into his bowl. “You should eat more so that you’ll have strength.”

The tastiest, fleshiest parts of the devil frog were its two hind legs, and they were now both his... Zhou Ji glanced at Xiong Ye, then bowed his head to eat the meat.

He had initially begun to interact with Xiong Ye with the intention of repaying a debt of gratitude, but now that Xiong Ye was acting like this, it made him feel that... this gratitude couldn’t actually be repaid.

That wasn’t bad, either.

Previously, Zhou Ji had never felt any sense of belonging to this world. Now, however, he felt some sense of it.

The devil frog’s bones weren’t very hard, so Xiong Ye chewed up the bones along with the meat as he ate.

He ate all of the meat on the devil frog except for the two legs, but that only padded his stomach slightly. He was about to roast another piece of meat when he saw Zhou Ji throw a lot of vegetables into the pot that still held quite a bit of devil frog soup.

Xiong Ye sighed and had a feeling of ominous foreboding... Sure enough, when those vegetables were cooked, he was given a bowl, “Eating some vegetables is good for your health.”

Xiong Ye felt that eating meat was good for his body, but he couldn’t refuse to eat the vegetables that Zhou Ji had specifically cooked for him...

After Xiong Ye finished eating his vegetables, he saw that Zhou Ji had started to cook meat again.

This meat was definitely something that Zhou Ji was cooking for him to eat.

Xiong Ye was very delighted, but Zhou Ji had begun to miss having an iron pot again–cooking things with stone pots took too much time.

Fortunately, there was nothing else to do at the moment, so it didn’t matter even if time was wasted.

He leaned against the cave wall and began to absorb the energy in their surroundings out of habit, dividing a bit of it for Xiong Ye as he did so.

“Zhou Ji, my animal form has grown bigger recently. In a few years, I might be the biggest in the tribe!” Xiong He said. His animal form wasn’t comparable to Xiong He’s and Xiong Qi’s right now, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t grow bigger in the future!

“Mm.” Zhou Ji nodded. Seeing that the meat had finished cooking, he added, “Do you want to send a bit of meat to Niu Er?”

Xiong Ye immediately agreed, “Alright!”

The next day was another collective hunting day.

After fighting Shi Li the evening prior, Xiong Qi had remained in his own cave for the rest of the night. He only emerged again today, but his expression was very ugly when he did so.

His injuries had gotten worse, and he couldn’t participate in the hunt.

This was bad news for a warrior, but Xiong Qi had no choice but to accept it. And since he couldn’t go hunting... Xiong He had assigned the team that had originally been his to Shi Li.

The people in the hunting team didn’t have any objections and felt that he was qualified to lead them since he had enough strength.

Xiong Ye didn’t concern himself with Shi Li’s affairs, but when they went hunting today, he was more attentive to the hunt and really tried his best–he didn’t want to lose to Shi Li.

“Xiong Ye, you’re getting stronger and stronger!” Xiong He was quite satisfied as he looked at Xiong Ye.

“I’m still not strong enough, but I’ll keep working hard!” Xiong Ye replied. He liked the feeling of growing stronger.

Xiong Ye’s group’s harvest was quite good today. Although they failed to catch one of the horned dinosaurs, and some people were injured, they were able to catch some other prey later on.

However, Shi Li’s group actually managed to hunt down more than they did, and Shi Li had even obtained some dinosaur eggs.

This inspired Xiong Ye’s fighting spirit further, while Shi Li enjoyed the compliments from the people around him.

He had lived for an extra few decades and had gained a lot more experience. For example, this time, he had relied on his own experience to find a dinosaur nest, and not only did they manage to obtain dinosaur eggs, he had led the people with him to kill the female dinosaur when she returned.

That night, Xiong Ye was given fifteen kilograms of meat as well as some liver. Even Zhou Ji was allocated three kilos of meat.

Of course, all of the meat was given to Xiong Ye; Zhou Ji wasn’t interested in dinosaur meat.

Even though Zhou Ji wasn’t interested in dinosaur meat, since Xiong Ye had remained down in the valley, he had followed Xiong Ye over and took the opportunity to check out the dinosaur eggs. He used his spiritual powers to probe at what they contained.

The little dinosaurs inside the dinosaur eggs hadn’t formed yet, and they looked no different from chicken or duck eggs.

“You want to eat a dinosaur egg?” Xiong Ye asked Zhou Ji. He’d noticed that Zhou Ji paid a lot of attention to those dinosaur eggs.

“You didn’t get one.” Zhou Ji replied. There had been a total of five dinosaur eggs. Xiong He had taken one, Shi Li took one, and the warriors who had followed Shi Li shared one. Xiong He had given the remaining two eggs to the priest.

The priest was old now. He had lost his teeth so this kind of food was essential for him as he was no longer able to chew dinosaur meat.

“I picked some herbs today. I can go and trade them for a dinosaur egg with Grandpa Priest.” Xiong Ye said.

He would pluck some herbs on the way whenever he went out to hunt, and they were usually given to the priest when he came back. He had already given him a lot of herbs.

It shouldn’t be a problem to ask the priest for a dinosaur egg in return.

“You can also give this to the priest.” Zhou Ji brought out a bamboo tube that was about two fingers thick and filled with honey.

He felt that the priest would enjoy the honey.

“It’s honey!” Xiong Ye sniffed at the fragrance from the bamboo tube. “Where did you get it from?” They had already used up all the honey that Zhou Ji’s mother had left for him that he had brought out back then.

“I set some of it aside.” Zhou Ji said.

Xiong Ye kept feeling like something was off, but he wasn’t suspicious as he took the honey and his own freshly-picked herbs with him to look for the priest, soon returning with a dinosaur egg.

However, he was holding the dinosaur egg and hadn’t even reached Zhou Ji’s side yet when he was called back by Shi Li, “Xiong Ye, why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to eat dinosaur eggs? I can give you mine.”

“No need.” Xiong Ye said.

Shi Li said, “Xiong Ye, stop throwing a temper tantrum and being angry at me, alright? We can still be together even if I can’t become mates with you.”

Seeing the youthful Xiong Ye swaggering around in front of him, Shi Li couldn’t help being a little attracted to him.

“I’m not throwing a temper tantrum, and I also won’t get together with you.” Xiong Ye frowned as he looked at Shi Li.

“If you’re not going to be with me, then who can you be with? Xiong Ye, I know that you like me.” Shi Li continued.

Xiong Ye’s expression turned a little ugly.

He had indeed really liked Shi Li, and he didn’t dare say that he felt nothing towards Shi Li even now.

Eight years of feelings wouldn’t just disappear because he said so.

But Shi Li had already gotten together with others, would have other men and women in the future, and he would have children. In that case, he could no longer be with Shi Li.

He had tried hard to make himself forget Shi Li. And yet, he didn’t know what was going on with Shi Li, but Shi Li kept strutting about in front of him and even said these kind of words.

The current Shi Li felt like a stranger, and he also disgusted Xiong Ye. All the beautiful memories that were related to Shi Li that he used to have were all disappearing now!

“If I don’t get together with you, I can be with someone else.” Xiong Ye replied, then immediately left to head towards Zhou Ji.

Zhou Ji was sitting alone by the fire pit roasting meat, and he looked particularly peaceful.

Xiong Ye suddenly recalled the question that Niu Er had asked him.

In fact, being together with Zhou Ji was really nice...

Xiong Ye arrived by Zhou Ji’s side, handed the dinosaur egg to Zhou Ji, then asked abruptly, “Zhou Ji, would you be willing to become mates with me?”

Juurensha: YAAAY :DDD

xiin: *munching on frog legs instead of popcorn and watching the show...*