Under the cover of night, buoyed by a victory that had yet to come, the Amani warriors answered the Horde's call one after another. Their bodies were marked with puncture scars and adorned with colorful warpaint as they took up their weapons and headed for the battlefield against the Alliance.
Most of Zul'Aman's able-bodied fighters had been sent away, leaving only the old, the young, and the civilians behind. As they began preparing for the great autumn harvest, Tian Sang took up his duties as a Witch Doctor and started getting a fuller picture of Amani Forest Troll society.
Amani Troll society was headed by a chieftain, who served as the military leader and oversaw all affairs. All the Trolls obeyed him. Below the chieftain, Witch Doctors, priests, and Shadow Hunters formed the ruling class; the common people looked to them for spiritual guidance.
Below the Witch Doctors, priests, and senior hunters were the lower-ranking warriors and hunters, who served as the instruments of rule. Women and artisans made up the common class. Beneath them were criminals, slaves, and captives, who were, more often than not, kept as food reserves.
In this society, each class had its own responsibilities. The lower-ranking warriors and hunters handled the hunting, while the women and artisans took care of making things and gathering food.
As for the Witch Doctors, priests, and senior hunters, besides relieving their spiritual burdens and treating their injuries, they were also responsible for solving all kinds of everyday problems for the tribe.
They guided the tribe on when and where to gather and hunt so they could obtain enough food while ensuring the land remained viable for the long term. They also read the signs to predict the arrival of famine and prepare countermeasures.
Many Witch Doctors and priests looked down on such practical knowledge, but Kal'ma was an ambitious Troll Witch Doctor. As his apprentice, Tian Sang had a wealth of this sort of knowledge in his mind.
Good thing I transmigrated into this body and inherited its memories. If I'd arrived in my own body, the Trolls would probably have sacrificed me and thrown me into a pot right away! Tian Sang gazed at the vast mountain forest, thinking of the essential knowledge in his mind. He felt both relieved and wistful.
If he'd arrived in Zul'Aman in his own body, he would never have survived. Now he'd transmigrated into a Troll—ugly as they were, at least he was alive, and he'd inherited a wealth of knowledge that would help him survive and thrive. It would've been even better if he hadn't also inherited that confusing identity.
Living in this otherworld with a Troll's body, Tian Sang took in the memories of the Troll boy, Zul'ra. As time passed, he increasingly felt like Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly. He couldn't tell whether he was a human dreaming he'd become a Troll, or a Troll who'd woken up dreaming he was human.
Am I Zhuang Zhou, or the butterfly? Tian Sang gazed at the forest and murmured to himself.
"Zul'ra." A slightly hoarse voice called from nearby. Tian Sang turned to look at the female Troll approaching, her body smeared with green moss. Like other female Trolls, she had small tusks and long, pointed ears. A copper ring beneath her nose marked her as married, and both her arms, hanging at her sides, were powerfully muscled.
"Haimuxi, have you all rested enough?" Tian Sang looked at the approaching Troll woman and pushed his little question aside. Whether he was a Troll or a human, staying alive was what mattered most.
"Of course." Haimuxi nodded.
"Then let's get started. Today, we'll gather root yams and sweet potatoes. Only harvest root yams from plants that are taller than your knees, and only take sweet potatoes from plants whose leaves have turned yellow or withered. Leave the little ones behind to sort everything." Tian Sang laid out the harvesting standards.
Trolls lived by a combination of hunting and gathering. Though they gathered food in the wild, most of their gathering grounds were areas they had fenced off and protected, keeping beasts from damaging them. It was a kind of natural, free-range cultivation.
Wild-grown food couldn't be harvested all at once like crops in a field. Gathering it selectively meant sorting the harvest and carefully tending to the plants, replanting cuttings and seeds so they could be harvested again the following year.
"All right. We'll get started." Haimuxi wasn't one for many words. She nodded, then immediately passed on the instructions.
Before long, everyone had been assigned a task. The Troll women dug up the root yams and sweet potatoes that met the standards, then handed them to Tian Sang. He directed the Troll children as they sorted and prepared everything. Once it was taken back to Zul'Aman, it would still need to be processed, weighed, and stored properly.
Trolls had a wide range of food sources. Fish and game were everyday fare, but more like side dishes; root yams, breadfruit, potatoes, and chestnuts were their staples. Berries, wild jujubes, bananas, and mushrooms were among their other foods, and protein-rich insects and snakes also made up part of their diet.
Despite their wide range of food sources, poor production and laborious gathering meant they could never count on having enough to eat. When hunger struck, they turned to humans, or even their own kind. That was one of the roots of the Trolls' cannibalistic ways.
Kal'ma had told them to gather as much food as they could, without setting any upper limit. Tian Sang knew the Horde would lose the war, so he went all out—even gathering wild vegetables, carrots, and tomatoes that the Trolls didn't normally eat.
Tian Sang didn't just gather food. He also tried planting some of the wild gourds, winter melons, tomatoes, and cabbages he'd found in the open spaces of Zul'Aman's ancient city. Vegetables could be harvested again as soon as they regrew, and they grew quickly, making them a good way to make up for a shortage of staples. The only problem was that Amani Trolls didn't eat them. Still, they could try—by cooking them.
He chopped the vegetables up and stir-fried them with oil, salt, and meat, then stewed leftover bones, tendons, and carrots into soup. The dishes didn't quite suit the Amani Trolls' tastes, but at least they no longer resisted eating them, and the meals filled their bellies easily. The catch was that they used far more oil and salt, so production would have to increase.
During the great harvest, Tian Sang introduced stir-frying, steaming, and other cooking methods to Amani Troll society. He also got a close look at the Amani Trolls' cuisine. Well, they liked their food strong.
The Amani Trolls had their own culinary traditions. They had no qualms about eating organs or food raw, and they often let meat and organs turn slightly sour and rotten to intensify their flavor and smell, much like stinky tofu or fermented mandarin fish.
Though they had a habit of eating raw food and people, that was mostly for sacrificial rites. Amani Troll commoners actually preferred cooked food, since it was easier on the stomach. Besides, they didn't get to eat those intelligent beings anyway. Another way of understanding cannibalism was that by eating intelligent beings, one could take their power—but not everyone got the chance.
Amani Trolls seasoned their food with oil, salt, and unique medicinal herbs. They generally liked strong flavors, so Tian Sang gathered the game's hearts and lungs along with vegetables and cured them separately with salt, so they could be stored and eaten later.
The great harvest went on. Tian Sang worked alongside the Amani Troll civilians, getting to know their society and daily lives in detail. By the time they'd filled Zul'Aman's food-storage cellars, news from the front had begun to arrive. The final outcome came as no surprise: the Horde had retreated.
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