The wicked female is extremely fierce, but she's pampered by her seven beast husbands.

Chapter 93 Egg Yolk Jellyfish
"Let's go down and take a look first." Ling Chengen trusted Bai Qingyu's judgment. "If the situation is not good, we'll retreat."

And they were going beachcombing. She had lived in a small fishing village by the sea when she was very young, so she was quite familiar with beachcombing.

Bai Qingyu watched as she jumped down from the tree branch first, and immediately followed suit.

The two had barely stepped out of the woods, and hadn't even gotten close to the sea, when they were immediately spotted by the orcs of the Shanna tribe.

A group of teenagers, barefoot, ran towards the village as soon as they saw them from afar, shouting something as they went.

Ling Chengen, with his keen senses, noticed their movements immediately and turned to ask Bai Qingyu beside him, "When you came here before, were there any tribes around here?"

Bai Qingyu nodded: "There's a small tribe here, I think it's called the Sea Spirit Tribe, but I'm not entirely sure. The Shanna beastmen we cooperated with back then weren't from this tribe."

The two were unsure whether the Shana orcs here were friendly, but they planned to see how the Shana would react upon discovering them before making any further decisions.

The two walked to the beach and stood on the tall rocks, quietly watching the females and their young gathering at the beach.

The Shanna orcs were indeed excellent swimmers. Some of the females would go directly into the water without fear of being swept away by the waves, and stayed in the sea for a long time before surfacing. Ling Chengen roughly estimated that it was more than ten minutes.

When the females came out of the sea, they were carrying a lot of seafood in their arms.

"Who are you?"

A cold voice suddenly came from behind.

Ling Chengen and Bai Qingyu turned around at the same time and looked at three Shan Na tribe youths holding weapons twenty meters away, who were looking at them with full vigilance.

Ling Chengen asked, "Are you beastmen from the Hailing tribe?"

The young man at the head of the group frowned, looking at the little female who didn't answer but instead asked a question. He then glanced at Bai Qingyu, who was standing silently to the side. Although somewhat displeased, he still answered, "Yes, who exactly are you people? What are you doing at the beach?"

"Don't you know that all inland orcs are prohibited from approaching the coastal areas?"

Ling Chengen looked at Bai Qingyu with a puzzled expression: "Has the xenophobia reached this point?"

Bai Qingyu nodded: "More or less, but because the temperaments of the Shanna tribe beastmen stationed on each section of the coast are different, there will be slight differences, but overall they are similar."

Ling Chengen said to the young man in the lead, "We come from the central region. I am Ling Chengen, the young clan chief of Shilin, and he is Bai Qingyu, the young clan chief of Hanshan tribe."

"We came here to check things out. We were wondering if any of your orcs know how to make sea salt?"

The young man paused for a few seconds upon hearing this, then said in a deep voice, "You're not here to hunt?"

"No, I can't go into the water."

Ling Chengen admitted that she was not a good swimmer, and the sea in front of her was obviously more turbulent than she had ever seen before. She had no interest in conquering this sea, nor did she want to use the ocean to test how tough her life was.

The young man put away the shield smeared with colorful paint and tucked the long harpoon in his right hand behind his back. He shook his head at them and said, "None of the beastmen in our Shanna tribe know how to make sea salt. Seawater is salty by itself, and we spend half our time at sea, so there is no shortage of salt."

Bai Qingyu frowned slightly. Sure enough, they didn't know enough about the Shanna tribe.

Ling Chengen simply smiled and said calmly, "It's alright if you don't have one. I wonder if your Hailing tribe's chieftain is here? May I see him?"

The young man handed the shield in his hand to the orc beside him and said, "I am Hai Xing, the young clan leader. If you want to see the clan leader, please follow me."

Ling Chengen leaped down from the high reef and followed the young man named Hai Xing at a distance, heading towards the dense forest in the distance.

The forests by the sea are generally not tall, unlike the towering ancient trees hundreds of meters high that can be seen everywhere in the mountains and forests of the central region. The trees here are basically no more than twenty meters tall, and the tree species are ones that Ling Chengen has never seen before.

The dense forest was not large; after walking about a hundred meters, we could see low hills in the distance, and vaguely make out figures of people moving around.

"This is where our people live, mostly in the stone caves above."

Seeing that they had behaved relatively well throughout the journey, with only curiosity and inquiry in their eyes and no malice, Hai Xing took the initiative to strike up a conversation with them.

The Hailing tribe is not much better off than the tribes in the central region. Poverty is visible to the naked eye. Shells of various shellfish are everywhere, which have begun to weather and crack under the wind and sun. Occasionally, you can see sea fish hanging on the stone walls, drying in the sunlight.

However, there weren't many salted fish that were actually dried, and they were generally small in size.

Ling Chengen looked at this situation with some confusion: "Chief Hai Shao, I see that the salted fish you are drying are mostly smaller dried fish. Do you eat the larger sea fish directly? Don't you dry and store them?"

Hai Xing was relatively gentle with the females. After thinking for a moment, he explained, "Although we can catch a lot of fish in this area, there is a large jellyfish nearby that will compete with us for our catch. Moreover, once you touch it, your body will swell and sting. Especially from April to October each year, this giant jellyfish is very active and will appear in large numbers in the near sea."

Ling Chengen asked in shock, "Every day?"

Hai Xing nodded: "Pretty much. Only a day or two before and after the arrival of a storm will these jellyfish go to the open sea or dive into the deep sea."

“Every year we need to spend a lot of time cleaning up these jellyfish, and we are also very vulnerable to injury. But if we don’t clean them up, they will multiply rapidly during these six months, eat more of our catch, and cause food shortages.”

Bai Qingyu asked in shock, "Does this jellyfish have a name?"

"Egg yolk jellyfish," Hai Xing said, seeing their curiosity. "We'll be cleaning them up at the beach later. If you're interested, you can come and take a look."

Ling Chengen was indeed curious. Finding a salt supply channel was one thing, but on the other hand, it would be good if it could enrich the products of the central region and facilitate trade between the two places.

However, we should wait and see how things develop before making any decisions.

Ling Chengen asked, "I just saw that the cubs and females of your tribe have gone to the beach to gather seafood, and some are even catching fish in the sea. Aren't they afraid of being stung by the egg yolk jellyfish?"

As Hai Xing walked, he said, "The tide is just going out now, which is when the number of egg yolk jellyfish is at its lowest. This is usually the only time suitable for fishing. Two hours before noon, egg yolk jellyfish will appear in large numbers in the nearshore waters and will only disappear briefly when the tide goes out again in the evening."

"But the waves are very strong at dusk, and females and cubs are easily stunned and swept away by the waves. So usually the male beastmen in the tribe fish at dusk and are responsible for cleaning up the egg yolk jellyfish and doing other things during the day."

The ship stopped in front of a cave. An old man with graying hair was squatting on a stone at the entrance, using a small bone blade to open seashells.

“Chief, these two outsiders said they wanted to see you. I didn’t think they were here to poach, so I brought them here.”

The old chieftain, wearing a grass ring on his head and black sea pearl earrings, struggled to open the palm-sized seashell before turning back to look at them. He said calmly, "As long as they don't poach, bully our tribe's beastmen, or provoke the sea creatures, we'll leave them alone."

"Is this really a good idea?" Hai Xing asked hesitantly.

The old chieftain, Hai Lin, was the one who founded this tribe. He picked up the meat from the shell, popped it into his mouth, chewed it slowly, and then his heavy eyelids fluttered open as he looked at Hai Xing, who seemed hesitant to speak. "What are you still standing there for? Have you finished your work? Go, go, go, get back to work!" The old man raised his hand to shoo them away, ignoring Ling Chengen and Bai Qingyu beside him. He leaned against the stone wall and swayed as he stood up, laboriously rubbing his lower back. With a hunched back, he said coldly, "If you want to wander around here, then feel free."

"But don't go into the sea. The sea creatures hate you inland orcs the most. If they find out you want to go into the sea, they will get angry and create giant waves or tsunamis. Then our tribe will suffer."

Ling Chengen asked, "We're not going to sea. I wanted to see you mainly to ask if you want your tribe to live a better life."

"Hai Xing said that from April to October you are plagued by an infestation of egg yolk jellyfish, which has greatly reduced the tribe's fish catch, forcing the orcs in the tribe to tighten their belts to make ends meet."

Have you considered doing business with the central region?

The old man turned to look at the young female and sneered, "Doing business? Doing business requires resources. How are we supposed to do business with our heads?"

Ling Chengen looked at the stubborn old man speechlessly and said helplessly, "Don't you live by the sea? Do you know that the eastern and central regions of the Beast Plains are short of salt right now?"

The old man shook his head: "I don't know. We are separated from the eastern land-dwelling orc tribes by several mountains. Who would go to those barbarians' territory for no reason? They also dislike our fishy smell and don't want to talk to us. We don't need to make trouble for ourselves by dealing with them."

Ling Chengen laughed and said, "If you can't get along with some tribes in the eastern region, then just don't do business with them. We in the central region are willing to do business with you!"

"Moreover, the orcs in the interior don't necessarily have an easy life either. Every year during the cold season, countless people still die due to food shortages. Everyone is struggling to survive in such harsh conditions, so who is more noble than whom?"

The old man narrowed his eyes slightly at these words, probably because he liked them, so there wasn't a situation where he would refute every single one of her statements.

Seeing this, Ling Chengen knew that they could continue the conversation: "The sea chieftain should also know that seawater is salty, and it should be able to provide the orcs with the salt they need, just like the salt rocks mined from the mines."

The old man glared at her with his large and small eyes and said sarcastically, "Drinking seawater directly? You little female, you're quite the dreamer."

Ling Chengen curled his lip: "Of course we can't just drink seawater. That would be too much trouble. How much seawater would we need to bring back to solve our salt problem? You probably don't have the manpower and resources to transport seawater, do you?"

"Does the old man know how salt mines are formed inland?"

Old man: "Wasn't that already there underground?"

“No,” Ling Chengen explained to him clearly. “Those salt mines were also formed from seawater, but they evolved over millions, even hundreds of millions of years, from seawater into salt mines.”

The old man had never heard this before: "Go on."

"Therefore, seawater can actually be made into salt."

The old man said impatiently, "But it takes millions of years for seawater to turn into salt. Do you think I can live for millions of years?"

"That's definitely not going to work," Ling Chengen said bluntly. If there really were a way to extend one's life by ten thousand years, the First Emperor would have done it long ago.

The old man's grumpy face instantly fell: "Are you trying to lead this old man astray with all this nonsense?"

"There is a way to see seawater turn salt in a few days."

The old man's small eyes suddenly lit up: "Tell me about it."

Life is indeed not easy for the Hailing tribe. In recent years, due to the egg yolk jellyfish, the food shortage has become more and more serious. The consequences of the food shortage are very serious, and the population will gradually decrease. The most direct manifestation is that fewer and fewer babies are born in the past two years.

If this continues, their Hailing tribe might really disappear.

Ling Chengen told him about the method of sun-drying salt fields. This method does not require any initial investment, only some manpower, and the results can be seen in a few days.

In a few months, the dry season will begin, with longer hours of sunshine and stronger sunlight, making it even more suitable for salt production.

Old man: "Can your method really work?"

Ling Chengen calmly said, "Whether it works or not, you'll know for yourselves if you try. Even if it doesn't work, it's just a waste of effort, but if it does..."

"You will gain access to the market in the central region. Do you know how much a piece of salt costs in the central region right now? And the income from selling salt... will be enough for you to buy a lot of game to solve the food shortage problem for the next six months."

The old man then looked her over carefully for a while: "You said you were from which tribe?"

"Stone Forest Tribe"

The old man turned to look at Bai Qingyu, who hadn't said a word the entire time, and pointed at him, saying, "Why is it that you're the one who talks the whole thing? Does he not know how to speak?"

"Do you choose whether your business partner is male or female?" Ling Chengen raised an eyebrow slightly. "He can talk, but he listens to me."

"Oh, I see... Your beastly husband, he's a freeloader?"

Bai Qingyu turned to look at Ling Chengen's crumbling face, then suddenly smiled and pressed down on her arm: "Don't be angry, he's just jealous, jealous that he didn't find a powerful female to freeload off when he was young."

The old man instantly glared angrily at the sharp-tongued brat: "..."

Ling Chengen asked, "In short, old man, are you in or not? If not, I'll go ask other tribes. The Shanna tribe shouldn't be entirely xenophobic, right? Maybe some of the chieftains are quite shrewd and willing to do business with us!"

After saying that, she stood up and waved to Bai Qingyu: "Let's go find the tribe that you Hanshan cooperated with last time."

After she had walked a short distance, the old man's voice came from above the stone platform: "I promise you."

“But we’ve never done this before. If you know how… you should guide our people. If we can really produce salt, all the sea salt produced by our tribe in the future will be supplied to you first.”

Ling Chengen turned to look at the old man above him: "Is this really true?"

“I, Hailin, have lived for fifty-eight years, and I have always kept my word.” He held a withered tree branch in his hand. He tapped the bottom of the branch lightly on the stone twice, and tender buds sprouted from the top of the branch. It quickly blossomed and bore fruit, and finally, the new branches extended and presented two bunches of freshly ripened grapes to them.

“Our Hailing tribe is poor and doesn’t have anything good. Consider this a small gift.”

Ling Chengen took out several roasted flying fish from his spatial storage, hung them on a wooden wedge, and took the two bunches of grapes that had been forced to ripen: "This is a return gift."

"Let's go to the beach. I'm a little curious about those egg yolk jellyfish."

"I'll teach you how to make salt in salt pans later."

(End of this chapter)