TPWBI Chapter 6

“I had already been thinking before, even if you could pluck down the sun from the sky, I wouldn’t find it strange. I didn’t expect that you could really do it.”

Yan Shi looked at the light as bright as broad daylight, filled with emotion.

Everyone had thought they had already long grown numb, but they discovered they hadn’t. This guest who came from afar always brought them many wondrous things.

Yang Yi smiled a little: “This is all human wisdom. It’s created by people, so we can do it too.”

Among the people present, not a single one felt they had this ability; being able to see a divine miracle was already an immense fortune to them.

Jiao was also very interested in the paper and pen in Yang Yi’s hand: “What are these?”

“Paper and pen. They can be used for writing.” Yang Yi used the pen to write a few characters in the notebook.

Seeing those characters, Jiao had a guess in her heart and became even more excited: “Are these your characters? You can write too?!”

Characters were created by the gods, and only shamans were qualified to learn them. And only big tribes could have them; small tribes had no rights at all.

In the past, Jiao could learn medical skills from the old shaman, but the characters were something she could never touch.

From these people’s shocked gazes, Yang Yi could see that the characters here were extremely sacred.

“Yes, I can teach you all. It’s just that they should be different from your characters.”

Teaching these people to read was something that must be done in the future. Before coming here, he had bought many books, covering every field.

He was just an ordinary person. He couldn’t know and understand everything.

He wasn’t that clever, nor did he have that much energy.

Letting these people study was the only way to better mobilize the wisdom of the masses. Only then could he truly create the city he dreamed of.

“R-really, c-can it really be done?” Jiao, who had always appeared very steady, couldn’t keep her voice from trembling now.

“Of course. I hope everyone can learn.” Yang Yi’s tone was firm. “But for now, we should first solve the problem of survival.”

Jiao still couldn’t pull herself away from this shocked state. With her rough hands, she gently stroked the characters Yang Yi had written, her gaze burning.

Luckily, the other three members of this meeting—Jing, Yan Shi, and Rong—probably because they were warriors and only cared about hunting, acted much calmer about the topic of characters. So Yang Yi could continue tonight’s meeting topic with them.

Yang Yi’s limited vocabulary made him have to express himself half in the local language and half in Chinese.

He had always been bold when learning foreign languages, never afraid of others laughing at his accent or grammar mistakes. As long as he knew a bit, he dared to chat with people.

Especially when playing games on international servers, this trait showed to the fullest.

This made him learn languages very fast, and he even figured out his own method.

Now he had a translator in his mind, and today he had absorbed many more words, letting him grasp the language here even faster.

Adding gestures, expressions, and the other party guessing along the way, simple communication was no problem. It was just that the efficiency of communication was a bit low.

Yang Yi: “What plans do you have? Do you plan to live here in the future?”

“What do you think?” Jing threw the question back.

Yang Yi had brought them so much shock that everyone believed he definitely had extraordinary insight.

Yang Yi shook his head: “I don’t understand this place. The place where I used to live was completely different from here.”

Not to mention that this was another world. As a kid who grew up in a city, he had never been to a place like this that was completely undeveloped.

Everything here was very unfamiliar to him. The knowledge he had seen on TV or in books could only serve as some reference experience.

The location of a settlement was too important. It would affect many years into the future.

Migrating was not easy; moving once would greatly drain their vitality. So from the very start, it had to be planned well. Yang Yi didn’t dare show off with shallow knowledge.

The people present didn’t look down on Yang Yi because of this. They only felt he was a cautious person with plans.

Such a character was much better than someone who acted recklessly, thinking they knew it all.

Jing: “This place is not a good habitat. It’s too close to the Black Forest. It makes it hard for people to feel at ease.”

Yan Shi, who had been hunting these days, had an even deeper understanding:

“Our numbers are too small, our weapons too poor. We don’t dare go too far to hunt. There are many plants here that we don’t recognize. This makes our food very scarce.”

Rong: “This land is too flat. The temperature difference between day and night is too big. Without caves to shelter us, we simply wouldn’t survive the cold season. If we had a choice, we definitely wouldn’t stay here.”

When these things were brought up, everyone couldn’t help but sigh.

Jiao finally pulled herself away from her obsession with the characters and felt the gloomy atmosphere.

“It’s not that bad, is it? At least there’s abundant water here. Being close to the fearsome Black Forest means no one will come to fight for this place, so we’re relatively safer.”

When everyone heard Jiao’s words, they all couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

The area near the Black Forest was indeed a fearsome existence. The fact that in such a huge area it was extremely hard to see any prey proved this point.

Being too close to the Black Forest was not a good choice. There were too many uncertainties.

“There is no place that’s perfect,” Jiao spoke again to comfort them. “Back at the Blackstone Tribe, we would also run into this or that kind of problem.”

But they had many people and strong fighting power, so many problems simply weren’t problems for them.

However, no one said this out loud. Sinking into pure dejection was useless.

They had already come here, so they had to adapt to here. They had no other place to go.

Yang Yi listened to them seriously while brushing a few strokes in his notebook, roughly drawing out the geography of this place.

“The west is the Black Forest. The place where we are is to the east, which is here.”

Though it was just a few simple strokes, everyone still understood it.

Yan Shi pointed at a spot on the map: “The forest to the north is the Green Python Tribe’s territory. We came here from the south. There’s no suitable place over there either.”

“What about continuing east? How about this stretch of plains?” Yang Yi asked.

Yan Shi shook his head: “Deep in the plains isn’t safe either. Many animals there move in herds. Without forests for cover, it’s very easy to get trampled to death by a herd.

Our numbers are too small and our fighting power too weak. We not only have to guard against fierce carnivores, but could also get driven away by herds of herbivores.

On the other side of the plains, people like us have no way to cross over either. We don’t know anything about that side, too.”

Yang Yi nodded: “Then what if we go a bit further east, keeping a certain distance from the Black Forest, but without going deep into the plains?”

“Then we’d be too far from the water source. Only deep in the plains are there other water sources.” Yan Shi still felt it wouldn’t work.

But Rong didn’t think the same way: “Now that we have aluminum buckets, fetching water is much more convenient. If we send dedicated people to fetch water every day, since our numbers are small, if we save some, it should still be enough.”

Ordinary people didn’t stand a chance against fierce wild animals, but work like fetching water, they could still handle.

After saying this, Rong thought of the problem she had brought up before: “But our shelter will be a big problem. The weather now is still barely manageable. When the cold season comes, we definitely won’t make it through. We can’t possibly dig burrows like rabbits, can we?”

“For housing, we can build. How exactly to build it, I still have to think about that. The air here is humid, so the rainfall should be pretty decent. The Black Forest isn’t too far, so the underground water resources should be quite abundant. We can try to dig a well.”

“Dig a well?”

“There’s water underground?”

Everyone was very unfamiliar with these words and ideas.

“The chance of success is quite high. It’ll just take some time. We can try it first. If we can dig it out, then we can relocate.”

Yang Yi felt that digging a well should produce water. He just didn’t know how deep they would have to dig.

Everyone’s eyes lit up.

“If we can solve the water source, then we can choose a much safer place. We wouldn’t necessarily have to stay here!”

For survival, the most important thing was the water source. All tribes were built by water and couldn’t be too far from it.

If there was something like a “well”, then many problems could be solved easily, and they would have many more places to choose from.

“Now that we have Military shovels, digging soil is very easy. Tomorrow, we’ll go dig a well!” Jiao was very excited.

Everyone had no objections. Finding a safe place as soon as possible was one of the most urgent things right now.

Yang Yi naturally moved on to the second topic of the meeting:

“Right now, we need to first count how many people are here. We have many things to do in the future, and only by doing this can we reasonably arrange manpower. I hope everyone can register with me.”

Household registration and establishing files were very important. This would allow him to quickly understand this group of people, and then more reasonably divide the work and cooperate, and better manage or, in other words, motivate these people.

Jiao and the others had no objections to this. Although it was night now, it was still early. Since their numbers weren’t large, there was no need to put this work off until the next day.

The registration contents included name, age, whether their talent had awakened, what skills they had, hobbies, and family relations, etc. This made it convenient to grasp each person’s situation. If anything changed, it could be updated at any time.

The people here basically hadn’t formed a marriage system yet. Although some men and women would choose to live together, like Rong and Jing, more people leaned toward a “walking marriage” like the Mosuo, probably in a stage where the matrilineal clan was transitioning toward a patrilineal clan.

The first people Yang Yi registered were the few people around him. Everyone was very excited to see their own name, and even shamelessly asked Yang Yi to tear off a small piece of paper with their name written on it.

Yang Yi took out sticky notes and wrote their names on them, and also wrote each person’s number. The others could get theirs the same way.

By remembering their own number, it would also be convenient to check their files in the future.

Yang Yi firmly believed that in the future, their people would only grow more and more numerous.

Aside from the wounded who still couldn’t move, everyone else came over one after another to register. As for those wounded, Jiao explained on their behalf.

Jiao knew everyone very well. For things that some people couldn’t think of, she would add details on the side, which let Yang Yi understand these people even more deeply.

The better he understood this group of people, the more Yang Yi gradually blended into this group; that feeling of drifting on the outside slowly weakened.

When the population census was finished, there were a total of 118 people here.

Among them, there were seven children aged one to five. If they could survive all the way here, they very likely had warrior talent.

What surprised Yang Yi was that Mao was already six years old. He was smaller and thinner than other children his age.

Warrior talent usually awakens around eight years old. The higher the talent, the earlier the awakening. Even if it hadn’t awakened yet, it could still be guessed from one’s physical condition. The accuracy was generally quite high.

Children who could already start helping with simple labor numbered about thirty-eight. The elderly, disabled, and those who couldn’t do heavy labor numbered twenty-eight.

Among them, there were quite a few disabled people, and many were level one warriors. Most were missing arms or legs, which greatly affected their combat power. It was only because they had strong and sturdy bodies that they could drag their crippled selves all the way here.

There were thirty-seven young and healthy non-warriors and eight warriors.

Overall, the male-to-female ratio was about half and half, but there was only one female warrior.

This was because female warriors were not only powerful fighting forces, but they could also bear strong children, so the Blackstone Tribe was unwilling to let them go.

Rong was fierce enough, with a firm will. Only then could she leave.

On this journey, although they did lose some warriors, the number wasn’t large, because the original base number was already very small.

Most able-bodied warriors were unwilling to leave the Blackstone Tribe. That would be equivalent to being abandoned. And when they left, they couldn’t take weapons, furs, or other things with them.

Warriors without powerful weapons would have much weaker fighting power.

Many people thought that, in the end, this group would perish.

This group’s disability rate was indeed quite high, but Yang Yi didn’t think they were burdens. They could still do many things. They just weren’t suited for hunting in the wild.

One hundred and eighteen people, compared to one million people…

Forget it, better not to think about that terrifying number. Settling down here, working well, and living more safely and comfortably was the most important task for now.

“I think we should come up with a name for our tribe,” Yang Yi suggested.

When a team has a name, a shared symbol, it will have cohesion.

Jiao and the others were stunned. A tribe name?

They had always thought of themselves as people who’d been abandoned. Even though they had now settled here, that idea hadn’t disappeared.

So, they had never thought of themselves as an actual tribe, and naturally had never thought about giving their tribe a name.

“We… we’re a new tribe…” Jiao started crying, overwhelmed.

The other people’s eyes also faintly flickered. Being abandoned by the tribe didn’t feel good; it was like seeing no future ahead.

But now, they were no longer drifting souls. They were a tribe!

They had their own people, companions whose names they could rely on, and a place for their souls to belong.

“This matter must be done by you.” Jiao looked very serious, and the others all agreed one after another.

It was he who brought them hope, gave them a chance to survive.

Yang Yi paused for a moment, then, after thinking for a bit, spoke: “What do you think of naming it Spark?”

“Spark?”

“The place I came from, there was a very remarkable person who once said something: ‘A single spark can start a prairie fire’.” Yang Yi looked up at the vast sky, where countless stars dotted the darkness.

“We are this spark. Each one of us may seem so small and weak, but we can set this whole wilderness ablaze.”

---