I am a Primitive Man

Inside the granary were circles of storage pits or bins, each filled with freshly harvested grain from this year.

The spaces between the storage pits were narrow and tight.

Mice could scurry through with ease, but larger people couldn't manage it at all.

In such conditions, catching a mouse was genuinely difficult, let alone at night, when the lighting was poor.

Seeing that the time was right, Han Cheng began trying to persuade the Shaman to return and abandon the difficult task of catching mice in the dark using brute force.

Indeed, the main reason why the Green Sparrow Tribe was staging such a grand, noisy night-time mouse hunt was because of the Shaman.

"Old child, old child"—it's said that when people grow old, they start acting more and more like children.

Back when Han Cheng hadn't yet arrived, and the tribe often worried about food and other essentials, the Shaman naturally wouldn't have behaved like this.

With no pressure left, the old shaman, this spiritual leader, began acting younger and younger in spirit.

And after the two elders, Fire One and Fire Two, who were even older than the Shaman, passed away, the people of the tribe began treating the now-oldest Shaman with a different kind of respect and affection.

Otherwise, Han Cheng would never have allowed people to carry oil lamps into the granary at night to catch mice.

Even if those oil lamps held only a little oil, the flames were shielded with thin paper.

After all, this was the granary—a high-security zone where fire prevention was of utmost importance.

At this moment, the meticulous old primitive man was chattering away in a corner of the warehouse.

This was a stern rebuke aimed at the mice who were destroying the tribe's grain.

He even used the tribal dialect, which hadn't been spoken in ages—a sign of just how furious the Shaman was at these troublesome pests.

Still, anger aside, once he heard Han Cheng mention that fire might burn down the whole granary, the Shaman immediately gave up his plan of battling the mice tonight.

Even before Han Cheng could say another word, the Shaman, once the most enraged about the mouse problem, took the lead in urging everyone to get out of the granary quickly.

After everyone had exited, the Shaman personally stuck his head back into the darkened granary for a moment. Only after confirming that no points of light remained did he solemnly bolt the door shut.

Just imagining the granary full of grain going up in flames made even this experienced old man shudder.

Thankfully, the divine Child (Han Cheng) had reminded him. From now on, under no circumstances could fire be allowed into the granary…

Hearing the Shaman's remorseful words, Han Cheng and the eldest senior disciple, who'd spent half the night catching mice and hadn't even gotten a tail, ended up comforting him instead.

It took quite some effort to persuade the now-childlike Shaman to go to sleep finally. Only then did Han Cheng return to his room to rest.

Little Pea had gone to sleep especially early tonight, and by the time Han Cheng entered the room, Bai Xue and her child were already fast asleep.

Han Cheng gently draped a linen sheet over the mother and child before lying down himself, taking care not to make noise.

Thinking back on the Shaman's childish behavior, Han Cheng couldn't help but chuckle.

But amusement aside, the mice in the granary still needed to be dealt with.

Aside from traps and other physical methods, the most straightforward and most effective approach would be to raise cats.

After all, cats were the natural enemies of mice. Just two cats in the granary would be far more effective than the Shaman crouching at the door peering in all day.

Of course, the kind of cat being talked about here wasn't Tom—the one constantly bullied by mice and big dogs working together.

If Fu Jiang and the others dared to side with the mice, Han Cheng wouldn't even need to intervene. The Shaman—still spry when angry—would give them a few swift kicks himself.

But this was just wishful thinking on Han Cheng's part. As of now, he hadn't even seen a cat.

He had seen tiger and leopard cubs—ferocious and cute as they were—but they weren't suitable for catching mice.

Cats, for Han Cheng and the Green Sparrow Tribe, were still a luxury that could only be hoped for but not acquired.

Much like the draft animals Han Cheng had dreamed of since he began farming, they remained an unattainable dream.

Fortunately, they had managed to lure back a group of foolish deer using baby rapeseed early on. Otherwise, even planting fields now would be a huge problem.

Since there were no cats, other mouse-catching creatures remained—like the owl, a flying beast supposedly born from a sleeping eagle and a tree-climbing cat.

Owls were no less skilled at catching mice than their eagle fathers, who might be off somewhere unknown.

However, while owls were excellent hunters in the wild, they weren't suited to working inside the granary.

So, with cats and owls both ruled out, there were also snakes—those cold-blooded creatures—which were also quite effective at catching mice.

They were also easier to find. But just imagining snakes slithering all over the granary—or worse, one falling from the rafters onto his neck—was enough to send chills down Han Cheng's spine.

He wasn't afraid of snakes when eating them. At other times, he preferred not to mess with them.

Whenever he encountered one, his first instinct was to find something to whack it with.

But thinking about how many people had gone out to hunt mice tonight for no reward, Han Cheng began to feel that it might be more efficient to introduce a few snakes.

At least in the whole Green Sparrow Tribe, aside from him and a few others, most people didn't seem to be afraid of those cold-blooded creatures. On the contrary, many would drool at the sight of them.

Han Cheng thought that once the non-poisonous snakes were introduced into the granary, he would have to issue an order to protect these seemingly cold but edible animals.

Otherwise, they might be eaten by the tribe members before they have the chance to eat any mice.

With that thought in mind, and a plan forming, Han Cheng suddenly remembered his earlier conversation with the Shaman about fire prevention in the granary.

This was indeed a critical issue for the Green Sparrow Tribe, as it was the foundation for everything else they did and the reason so many people had gathered here.

If these grains were destroyed, not only would all of the tribe's current initiatives be forced to a halt, but the entire gathered population would have to disperse in search of food again.

Although the tribe already took fire prevention in the granary very seriously—and previously, Han Cheng hadn't thought it a problem—now he couldn't help but worry.