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Jian Mo asked, "What about things for washing your hair and bathing? If you just wash with water like this, won't you have trouble getting the dirt off?"

"If you're really dirty, you can pull up some grass and scrub with it. Everyone bathes often, so we're not dirty." Qing Kuo looked at Jian Mo's exposed, milky-white skin and remarked, "You're not dirty either."

After a difficult conversation with them, Jian Mo confirmed that there were no cleaning agents here.

They hadn't developed plant-based cleansers such as soap pods or soapberries, much less manufactured ones like soap.

When Qing Kuo heard him, he couldn't understand at all. "Why use those things? We're not dirty."

Jian Mo said, "They would get you even cleaner. Take hair, for example. If you had a cleanser, your hair would feel fresher and flow more freely after washing, and it would also keep bugs from infesting it."

Ye Luo said, "We don't have any for now. If we deal with a caravan in the future, we can see if we can trade for some."

Qing Kuo asked, "Did your old tribe trade directly with caravans? Do you still remember where your tribe was?"

Faced with two pairs of questioning eyes, Jian Mo wasn't quite sure how to answer. He could only give a vague acknowledgment before adding, "Sometimes we made our own too."

Ye Luo asked, "How do you make it? Can we make it now?"

At some point, the sub-beastmen who had been playing in the water had gathered in front of them. They were all looking at him curiously now.

"Well," Jian Mo said, meeting the bright eyes of the sub-beastmen around him. He thought for a moment. "I think ash works too. If you don't mind, shall we try it?"

Qing Kuo asked, "Ash? The stuff left after a fire? Isn't that dirty?"

Jian Mo explained, "It looks dirty, but it actually cleans quite well. Washing your hair with it might get it cleaner."

Ye Luo looked at Qing Kuo. "Then shall we try it? We don't have anything else to do today anyway. Why don't we go back for some ash and have a proper bath?"

They hadn't found much at either gathering spot today, and they had no new plans, so everyone readily agreed.

Jian Mo stood up. Seeing how enthusiastic everyone was, he could only follow them back to the tribe to get ash.

The tribe burned firewood but didn't grow crops, so all the ash they cleared out had been piled together.

Jian Mo followed everyone to the ash pile and brushed aside the somewhat damp surface layer. Underneath was good ash, soft and fine.

There was plenty of ash here. Everyone filled a basket and headed straight for the river.

Since they had already returned to the tribe, they didn't go back to the stretch of river they had visited before. Instead, they bathed near the tribe.

This time, Jian Mo went into the water too.

The river was calm and shallow, indeed a good place to bathe. The water was rather cold, though—so cold that he had to grit his teeth to keep from shivering.

He wet his hair and body, then hurried back to shore to scrub himself with ash before rinsing it off in the water.

The other sub-beastmen had no such concern. They stood in the water and scrubbed themselves, and some even swam after washing. They seemed far more resistant to the cold than Jian Mo.

The sun was bright today, and basking in it after a bath felt wonderful.

After Jian Mo finished bathing, he also scrubbed his socks clean with ash.

The plant ash cleaned well. Once washed, the socks dried quickly on a large rock by the river.

While they were bathing here, the tribe's little cubs soon came looking for them too. The sub-beastmen caught them and gave them a thorough scrubbing.

Later still, the beastmen heard the commotion and called out from a distance to ask what was going on. When they learned that everyone was bathing with ash, they too got curious and took some ash downstream to bathe.

Seeing more and more people arrive, Jian Mo said goodbye to Qing Kuo and the others and headed back first.

As he passed a certain stretch of the river, he heard a strange, faint cry of pain from the river valley. It was long and drawn out.

He stood still and listened carefully for a while, but he couldn't hear it anymore.

When he returned, he saw Wu Jiong at home and asked, "Have any beastmen or sub-beastmen in the tribe been injured recently?"

Wu Jiong paused. "Why do you ask?"

Jian Mo said, "On my way back from bathing, when I passed the place with the big rock in the middle of the river, I thought I heard some strange cry. I might have heard wrong, though. It could have been the water or something."

Wu Jiong said, "No one in the tribe is injured. I'll go take a look in a bit."

Seeing that he had agreed, Jian Mo breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good, then. What would you like to eat tonight? I'll go cook."

Wu Jiong had already brought back the meat allotted to the two of them, and it was piled off to one side.

After looking through it, Jian Mo decided to marinate some and try making a steamed meat patty—they had eaten too much roast meat, so he would have something different today.

They each went about their work.

In the evening, when the day's work was done, everyone carried their food out to eat in the open space.

Since most people had bathed, everyone looked especially fresh and clean.

As they chatted, the conversation naturally turned to the plant ash:

"I never would have thought that ash, which looks so dirty, could be used for bathing."

"Right. I've never been so clean. Now when I rub my knees, they squeak."

"Me too. My head feels two jin lighter!"

"Jian Mo knows so much. Didn't he say there were other kinds of cleansers too?"

"I think he did. I just don't know whether our tribe can use them too."

"We'll know if we go ask him in a bit. It's still early, so he probably won't go to sleep that soon."

As they talked, everyone carried their bowls over to find Jian Mo.

Jian Mo and Wu Jiong were eating too.

Today they were having a steamed meat patty and meat stewed with Sour-Sour Fruit, a change of taste at last.

When the people from the tribe arrived, Wu Jiong was telling Jian Mo about the river valley, saying that he hadn't found anything unusual.

Jian Mo figured that what he had heard might have been the sound of flowing water or the wind.

The two were talking when Jian Mo saw the people from the tribe come in. Holding his bowl, he blinked, a little puzzled.

He thought they had something to discuss with Wu Jiong and was about to stand up and give them some privacy.

Zhou Fu, who was among the crowd, immediately saw what he intended and hurriedly said, "Jian Mo, don't go. We came to find you."

"That's right, Jian Mo. We wanted to ask you, didn't you say there was something that worked better than ash? How do we make it?"