My husband is too wild, I need to go home and find my mom.

Chapter 97 The Origin of the Ferocious Beasts and the Birth of the Cursed Land

Lin Ni spoke formally, and everyone sat up straight on their stools, looking at her with curiosity.

It's worth mentioning that although they made six more chairs with backrests for the winter, no one really liked sitting on them. Unlike the wooden stools, they couldn't be sat on or stood up from any direction, especially when holding Linni. The backrests were a bit of a hindrance, so they were all placed to the side. Only the long bench would Linni occasionally sit on. Although Linni liked the backrests, it was too cold in winter. Even with animal hides padded on them, they weren't very warm, and it was better to sit on her partner's lap! Besides, she wasn't in good spirits during the winter and slept a lot. When spring came, her partners were all in heat again, so there was still not much time to sit.

Just then, Yao came in carrying several large leaves, some half a meter long, some withered and some fresh. Lin Ni took the leaves and placed them on the table, then said to everyone with a serious expression, "Let's have a family meeting."

Yao sat down at the head of the table and looked at Lin Ni, asking, "Does a family meeting mean that everyone in the family speaks together?"

Linni nodded: "Yes, it's about everyone in the family talking about things that are important to the family."

Upon hearing this, everyone straightened their backs even more, and Feng and Yan were so nervous that they didn't know where to put their hands.

Seeing this, Lin Ni couldn't help but laugh: "You don't need to be so nervous!" Then she heard Yan breathe a sigh of relief, so she smiled at Yan. Lin Ni chose a dark green old leaf and placed it on top, preparing to use it for writing. Before speaking, she looked at Yao again and saw Yao looking at her with an encouraging smile. She composed herself and then said to everyone, "I want to go to the Ten Thousand Ren Cliff."

After hearing this, everyone exchanged glances, and Ye asked directly, "What are we going to do at the Ten Thousand Ren Cliff?"

“Go find clues to break the curse on this land,” Linnie gave a seemingly noble answer. Actually, she wanted to find clues to get home, but she feared that if she said it directly, her companions wouldn't just refuse to help her, but would actually hinder her.

"Go find clues to break the cursed land?" Feng asked lightly. "But there was no cursed land at Wanren Stone Cliff before; it was only newly formed last year."

Linni looked at him and asked, "Feng, I heard from Yi that the cursed land with its towering mountains has existed for a hundred years. You go to clean it up every year, but the cursed land is only increasing. What does the tribe think about this?"

Feng said, "Father's plan is to send a dozen or so flying beastmen to the Ten Thousand Cliffs, the Rainforest Swamp, and the Vast North Sea to contact their strongest members to discuss this matter. However, we have never had any contact with the Rainforest Swamp and the Vast North Sea, so we don't know if they are willing to participate in this matter."

Linni drew the terrain of the orc continent on the large leaf: a volcano in the center, surrounded by forests, a stick with a circle representing a tree, and the words "Central Forest" written on it. She then drew several mountains to the west, and a rectangular stone tablet at the westernmost point, with the words "Tiger Beast Tribe" written below it, and further down, "Layered Mountains." The other three directions were left undrawn, and she wrote "Towering Cliffs," "Rainforest Swamp," and "Vast Northern Sea" respectively. After finishing, she looked up and asked, "Are the stone tablets for these three places also at the end of the world?"

Yan said, "The Ten Thousand Cliff is there. However, the Beast God Stele of the Ten Thousand Cliff is not in the territory of any tribe. It floats in the sky, and everyone can go there to pray for blessings. There are two large tribes next to it: the Eagle Beast Tribe and the Falcon Beast Tribe."

Following Yan's instructions, Lin Ni drew a stone tablet at the very bottom of the towering cliff and wrote down the locations of the two tribes.

Yao suddenly asked, "Lin, is this writing?"

Linni looked up at Yao and saw him intently studying the words she had written on the leaves—her handwriting, written with these twigs, wasn't actually very pretty. Linni nodded: "Yes."

She knew that the Orcish continent didn't use a written language; they used pictures as markers. However, the Orcish ranks were actually represented by ancient numerical characters, leading her to suspect a connection between this Orcish continent and the mysterious and ancient Chinese civilization. Furthermore, she had written characters in front of Bai, but he clearly couldn't understand them. Thinking of this, she looked at everyone and couldn't help but ask, "Have any of you seen these characters before?"

Everyone shook their heads, except for Bai, who said, "I've seen Lin write about it."

Only Yao knew that these were characters.

Linni wrote two words under the volcano in the middle: "Volcano".

Everyone repeated after them like elementary school students: "Volcano".

Lin Ni pointed to the west again: "Layer upon layer of mountains."

Everyone read it aloud again, when Yao suddenly pointed to the two characters after "Tiger Beast Tribe": "These two characters are 'tribe'?"

Linni: "Yao, you're so smart! The word 'tribe' appeared three times, and he recognized it right away?"

Yao smiled and said, "I think words are a very powerful thing."

Everyone stared at the leaf for a while, but didn't sense any power. Only Linni looked at Yao, and her confidence in finding a way home grew stronger!

Linni looked up at Feng again and asked, "Feng, do you know how the Cursed Land was originally created?"

Feng was lost in his memories: "In the past, the mountains and valleys were not as united as they are now. There were conflicts between tribes, and the males often fought each other for prey and females. Some beastmen, because no females were willing to mate with them, would go to small tribes to abduct females or force females to mate with them. These beastmen were called wandering beastmen."

Linni could imagine how perilous the survival of women must have been in such towering mountains. What difference was there between those beastmen and robbers/rapists?

Feng continued, "Later, a powerful female was also captured by the wandering orcs. After she was rescued, she and several other females who had also been harmed by the wandering orcs cursed them. From then on, whenever a male forced a female, killed a female, or ate his own kind, these orcs would turn into ferocious beasts. But some orcs were not afraid even after becoming ferocious beasts and continued to do evil. In fact, ferocious beasts have no intelligence, only animal instincts and the characteristic of going mad when they smell a female. But as time went on, the number of ferocious beasts increased, and they gathered together to attack tribes. Later, the good orcs of the towering mountains worked together to kill those ferocious beasts. The blood of the ferocious beasts polluted that land, and thus the first cursed land was born."

Linni had visited the Ape Beast Tribe, the Fox Beast Tribe, and now this united Tiger Beast Tribe. She thought the tribes in the towering mountains were really friendly! Little did she know that countless years ago, this mountain forest had also witnessed so much bloodshed.