When Tianhao walked into the walled gate, he happened to meet a few villagers escorting a faltering and indifferent old woman walking in the direction of the council hall.

The extremely thin body was slumped like a smashed, wrinkled piece of dried walnut. The white hair stands out against the brownish-black skin, is very small in number and is scattered in the cold wind. There was a hint of gray in the godless eyes, and there was no sign of hope.

This is already the third person in a week.

This year's winter came earlier than usual. The sudden heavy snow turned the whole world white, and at the same time, it completely cut off people's hope of survival. The tribes, which have not collected enough food, can only rely on the savings they have since the beginning of autumn to survive.

Since last week, Panshizhai has run out of food.

People who were so hungry that they went crazy had to brave the snow to go into the mountains to hunt. The women and children who remained at home also cut through the snow around the village, digging through the frozen soil that was harder than iron with simple tools, hoping to find a little grass root and wild stem to feed their stomachs. However, even if there is a fluke and an occasional harvest, the little food you get will not satisfy everyone's needs. Hunger has become a terrible disaster that hangs over the heads of all the villagers.

In this case, after consulting with the priests, the chief reluctantly announced: a certain number of old people from the village were selected to be "abandoned".

Compared with the young and strong, the frail and sickly old people obviously belong to the burden of the tribe. They produce very little, but they consume a considerable amount of food. Instead of wasting resources to feed them, it is better to solve the problem in advance so that those able-bodied villagers can survive this cold winter safely.

Panshi Village is near the sea, people have been accustomed to boiling meat directly with seawater, and the food produced in this way has a salty taste, but the villagers are reluctant to discard the internal organs of the prey, and the broth smells very fishy and disgusting.

Even if it is such a faint and tasteless thing, it is only a small half bowl when it is distributed to everyone.

Food must be given priority to the young and strong hunting party. As for the women and children, they can only taste a little leftovers at most. In the village, it is common to see extremely hungry children grinding their teeth with whatever they thought was edible. Even the hardest joints of large animals thrown away in the summer, the tooth marks can be seen with great clarity.

The whole village was starving. Especially in the cold winters, more people will die.

In Tianhao's view, all this has nothing to do with himself at all.

Still, he cowered sideways to the wooden fence and carefully let the hungry and grim-looking villagers pass before trotting back to his cabin.

If the hunting party doesn't bring back enough prey, if this heavy snowfall is going to last a long time......

Tianhao has reason to be frightened by this.

As long as there is a woman, you can have children.

As for men...... Hehe, there is no shortage in this world.

Anyway, tomorrow, when the spring flowers bloom and the food is abundant, the women will be able to give birth to more.

……

Like all the buildings in the village, the house where Tianhao lives is also made of thick logs. Coarse, rudimentary, but quite sturdy. This is also the only thing his parents left him.

As far back as I can remember, my father was the strongest hunter in the village, and my mother was a recognized expert at sewing hides. Two years ago, while on a hunting trip, they were both gnawed off by a terrible bear on their heads. Although the remaining corpses were snatched back by the fellow villagers, they were not buried in the ground.

Food is the biggest problem that will always plague Panshi Village. Regardless of birth, old age, sickness and death, the corpses of all villagers will not be wasted.

Before entering the house, he took a special look at the wooden bowl placed in the doorway. There was nothing extra than a thin layer of frost at the bottom of the bowl.

Every morning, the villagers would leave their containers at the door. The "heads of the ten" and the "heads of the hundred" distributed the corresponding amounts of food according to the population. Even the food distribution from the dead villagers was the same.

The scale of Panshi Village is not large, with a total of more than 200 people. The highest ranking person in the stockade was the chieftain, followed by the shaman. Further down, there are two "hundred heads" equivalent to deputy leaders. Finally, it is the "head of ten" who is in charge of each family.

After the death of his parents, the food that Tianhao received was also intermittent. Sometimes, it takes days to get a small piece of rotten stinky flesh and bones. Especially since the beginning of winter, he has not received any food rationed at all.

If the parents were alive, this would never have happened.

The same thing would not have happened to the two brothers, Tianfeng and Tianmad. They were strong, they were members of hunting parties, and they belonged to the kind of people in the stockade who had to prioritize the supply of food.

"Humph!"

Glancing at the empty wooden bowl, Tianhao sneered and shook his head, and walked into the room.

Wooden houses are the traditional architectural pattern of the northern barbarians. Huge logs are sawn in the middle and divided into planks about five centimeters thick. Between the floor and the ground with permafrost and rock, there are usually four pier foundations and six pier foundations of two types, between the pier foundations with gravel and mud filling, forming a hollow low wall, and then the wooden planks are spread above the pier foundations, and the vertical and horizontal planks are staggered to form a circular house. The roof is covered with dry thatch, or treated branches. There is nothing aesthetic about it, but it is sturdy enough to keep out the wind and snow.

The number of pier foundations at the bottom of the wooden house corresponds to the identity of the owner of the house. Under normal circumstances, the "Hundred Heads" are eligible to build a wooden house with six piers, and the leader and wizard can reach eight. If the status is more noble, the number of pier foundations can be more.

It is said that the kings of large tribes had more than a hundred dwelling mounds. Such a building can no longer be summed up simply as a "wooden house", it should be called a "palace".

In Tianhao's memory, this kind of building is quite similar to the "stilted bamboo building" in the southern tropics. The difference is that at that time, the stilted houses were used to insulate and cool, but now the stone pier wooden houses are used to keep warm.

Nine-year-old sister Tianshuang sits by the fire to catch lice.

The physical development speed of the barbarians in this era was very different from what Tianhao remembered. Tianshuang is now about the same height as an adult in the civilized era. Her skin was dark, with a lot of dirt on her surface, which believed the blackness of her true complexion. After not getting enough nutrition for a long time, the cheekbones on both sides of the cheeks are raised high, and the slightly open lips reveal dull yellow teeth.

There is no shortage of animal skin robes in the rock village. Whether it's summer or winter, it's the villagers' standard uniform. The most popular is the skin of the giant horn deer, followed by the skin of the ferocious dog. Especially the former, they are vegetarians, and as long as they don't provoke the bighorn deer during the estrus season, it is not difficult for hunters to deal with them.

The leather robe had to be worn in turn with the hairy side inside to keep warm. The deerskin robe on Tianshuang's body was very old and tattered. She learned the craft of needlework from her dead mother, sewing and mending, using a lot of loose skin, but despite this, she relied on to keep herself from freezing to death in the cold weather.

The wide leather robe contrasted with Tianshuang's thin body. From a distance of more than five meters, Tianhao could see through the empty neckline of his leather robe and see his sister's ribs protruding from under his skin.

He had never seen such a soybean-sized lice before.

According to past experience, lice are most rampant in the summer, and can only jump until autumn at most. When the temperature plummets in winter, these blood-sucking creatures that have left offspring in corners that are difficult for humans to detect in advance die, and when the flowers bloom in the spring of the next year, they will continue to repeat the fixed pattern of life continuity.

Tianshuang grabbed a lice from the crotch of his pants, which emitted a strong body odor, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed it with relish with a crisp "rattle" sound between his teeth.

Lice are also edible.

In this cold season, in the eyes of the villagers of Panshi Village, as long as they can move freely, they can all be classified as "food".

Walking from the door to the fire pit and sitting down, the unkempt Tianshuang kept staring at Tianhao. Her sunken eye sockets glowed with a dark glow like that of a wolf.

"Brother...... I'm hungry ......."

Tianhao glanced at her, reached out and took out a piece of meat from his leather robe, pulled out his saber, and sliced it in half on the floor.

Most people in this world can't kill an adult tusk-toothed pig on their own. Weighing more than four hundred kilograms, the beast's strength was a source of strength, and its protruding fangs curved slightly upward, more like a pair of swords ready to pierce straight ahead.