Chapter 1 - Xiong Ye (1/2)

Ch1 - Xiong Ye

The sun shone down from the sky and dappled across the luxuriantly green woods.

Giant trees spread out their branches and used their broad leaves to take in the sunlight.

The leaves of these trees were so large that only stars and dots of light remained by the time the endless sunshine fell on the vegetation below.

A gust of wind blew through, and the speckled sunlight flickered.

The wind caused the leaves to rustle, and a Lesothosaurus approximately one meter in length with tiny arms and powerful hind legs jumped out of the bushes.

This was a relatively rare, very small, bird-footed dinosaur. It was a hunting target for many carnivorous dinosaurs.

The Lesothosaurus raised its upper body and looked around. After determining that there was no danger, it used the arrow-shaped teeth on both sides of its jaw to bite off the leaves in the shrubbery and began to eat.

It ate very attentively, its mouth moving incessantly. But right at this moment, a huge brown bear sprang out from behind the bushes beside it and rushed over…

It was too late for the Lesothosaurus to escape the brown bear, and in an instant, there was silence.

The brown bear finally stood up.

The brown bear was more than two and a half meters in length, and when it stood up, one could see that the Lesothosaurus on the ground had been crushed – just now, the brown bear had used its own weight and crushed the Lesothosaurus to death… After all, even if he had lost a lot of weight over the winter, he was still 400kg while the poor Lesothosaurus weighed only a little more than 10kg.

The brown bear scented the air, then looked at the Lesothosaurus on the ground again before suddenly transforming into a tall, handsome, but rather slim man that was about 1.8 meters tall.

The man jumped behind the bushes and brought out a leather skirt made of dinosaur skin. He put it on before picking up the Lesothosaurus he had just caught and dashing through the forest, his honey-colored skin and fluttering dark green leather skirt blending in and out of the forest.

He ran very quickly and soon arrived at the valley under a nearby mountain.

The valley was not very big. It covered about eight to nine acres and had no vegetation. The soil on the ground had been trampled flat by people passing through so it was very smooth, forming a large square surrounded by mountains.

The square was surrounded by a number of shacks made of wood and other debris. A steep mountain slope on one side was covered in man-made steps and cave entrances from which people intermittently came and went.

Currently, dozens of men and women dressed in animal skins were busily doing things in one corner of the square. When they saw the man run in from outside, they greeted him one after another, “Xiong Ye!”

“Xiong Ye, you’re back!”

“Xiong Ye, you’re amazing! You just went out for a short while and still managed to catch a Lesothosaurus!”

……

Everyone’s faces were full of envy. One of the women, who had a beautiful figure, swallowed and said, “This Lesothosaurus is really substantial, it looks delicious!”

“I was lucky.” Xiong Ye, who was carrying his prey over, laughed and passed by the group as he headed towards the eastern part of the valley.

He was in a hurry to find someone—Shi Li will be very happy that he’d managed to catch some prey!

Those who spoke to Xiong Ye watched him go and returned to their work—they were cutting apart several Struthiomimus.

These Struthiomimus each weighed about two to three hundred kilograms and had been hunted down by the young warriors from their tribe this morning. Prey that had been brought down through collective hunting became public property that belonged to the entire tribe, and after the tribe had prepared it, everyone in the tribe regardless of their gender or age would have a share. Of course, the best parts would still be left to the fighters who participated in the hunt. As part of the main fighting force for the tribe, people like Xiong Ye and Shi Li would also obtain a portion of the prey’s heart and liver.

The viscera provided them with extra strength, made their eyes brighter, and was one of their most favorite foods. Some vagrant beastmen who hunted in their animal forms would tear apart their hunted prey’s stomach and eat the viscera raw as soon as they caught their prey.

The beauty that had coveted the Lesothosaurus in Xiong Ye’s hands cut apart the Struthiomimus’s long neck with a stone knife and stared at the back of Xiong Ye’s figure in admiration, “Xiong Ye is really powerful! He went hunting with everyone this morning and still has energy to go out again in the afternoon. It would be great if I could have a child with him!”

“Don’t even think about it. He likes Shi Li. When the time comes for the flame flowers to blossom, they will become mates with the priest’s blessing.” A skinny man next to the beauty spoke up.

In their tribe, the vast majority of people did not mate with others, but instead got together with whomever they liked. They would have children with whomever they wanted to have children with, and separate if they no longer liked each other.

Some women had seven or eight children, and the father of these children might all be different.

However, if two people swore to be mates in front of the Beast God on the day the flame flowers blossomed, they would no longer be allowed to separate, and the other beastmen would no longer try to hook up with them – it was a crime to break up a mated pair that had been blessed by the Beast God.

They had always believed in their lord priest’s words.

The beauty pouted after hearing what the skinny man had to say, “Who doesn’t know that? Alas! Why did Xiong Ye choose Shi Li as his mate? They’re both men, and Shi Li can’t even bear children for him!”

The men in the tribe gained more glory the more children they had. Xiong Ye’s father, the previous patriarch of the tribe, had sired nine children amongst five women. The current patriarch of the tribe, Xiong Ye’s uncle, had five children from three different women.

However, Xiong Ye was an anomaly. He actually decided to become mates with a man shortly after reaching adulthood.

When the beauty thought to this point, she felt that it was a great pity.

She grew up with Xiong Ye and was very fond of this man who was the strongest warrior in their generation. Xiong Ye had awakened as an extraordinarily powerful brown bear, and she had told her good friends that when Xiong Ye reached adulthood, she would sleep with him and give birth to his child.

But in the end, this person who was especially well suited to siring children and being a father couldn’t see things clearly and actually went to find a permanent mate!

It would be fine if he just wanted to find a permanent mate, but he went and chose a man from the tribe!

The beauty glanced over at the skinny man next to her and sighed.

Aside from Xiong Ye and Shi Li, the two most powerful warriors in the younger generation, the next strongest would be Hu Yue. Unfortunately, Hu Yue was female, and could not have children with her. And the next person after that… was herself!

She really didn’t want to have children with those men who couldn’t beat her in a fight and weren’t even handsome!