The woven wood frame was built right up against one side of the house, adding a one meter by one meter by two meter tall room. Not that it was much of a room before they slowly built up the mud walls. They would be lucky if it lasted through the winter were Chiaki's thoughts. Still with a covered fire-pit to direct all the smoke into the space, it would at least let them keep preserving the meat even during heavier rains. But it didn't need to last more than a season, when the Spring arrived she was planning to continue their journey. They moved the meat into the new space, spearing it on thin wooden poles and hanging row after row in the collecting smoke. There was a small open area just under the roof to let excess smoke escape and keep the heat from building up in the room. The meat needed to dry, but not cook, to keep it over the coming months. They had collected quite a large amount of watchers while building and now that everything was finished Chiaki could see several thinking faces in the crowd just before everyone dispersed.

"This is what you call a 'smoke house'?" Curtis asked, looking at the small room they had added to the side of the house.

"Yes. Though I admit, it isn't a very well made one." Chiaki shook her head. "Next year we will have to make another one, and hope it turns out better."

Qianhuangs ears perked up. "Next year?"

Chiaki nodded. "Yeah... wherever we are living by then."

"So you do not wish to stay here in this village?"

"Not forever." She shook her head. "I'm still aiming for the City of Beasts, so I can learn the most about this world. With so many kinds of beast-men living there, I can gather lots of information."

Curtis was curious. "What are you wanting to know?"

Chiaki looked at them both. "I want to find out more about the Beast God, and if other females from my world have been appearing here. I already know Ji Mo and Bai Qingqing. We appeared here fairly close together in both time and area... what could be happening?" She looked around, but none of the villagers were close enough to hear her words. "I want to know what the Beast God plans."

Qianhuang nodded understanding his mates desire for knowledge. She had been learning everything he could teach her from the very first night they were together. While she brought with her new ideas too, she threw herself into knowing everything about this world that she could. He smiled. She was a good mate, the best female ever. "I promise, we will go live in the City of Beasts for as long as you want."

"Thank you, Key."

Curtis frowned. "Why do you shorten his name so?"

"You want a nickname, Curtis?"

He looked away. He hadn't meant for it to sound so childish, it had simply came out like that. "N-no!"

"Awe, I think someone does!" She picked. She saw his face become pink and laughed. "Cute!"

Qianhuangs ears pulled back as he watched his mate bonding with the feral male. He didn't like it, she was his mate! But she had promised to give the feral a chance to prove he was a worthwhile male, worthy of being her mate. Qianhuang didn't think Curtis was a good male... a very strong male, yes, he was four striped after all... but a good person? No. Still, Curtis had spent his every waking moment beside Chiaki helping her build the smokehouse and that showed he was willing to work hard to impress Chiaki. Qianhuang would have to think more on this matter later. "I'm going to go look for vegetables." he said suddenly.

"Wha? Oh, yeah!" Chiaki jumped up to her feet from where she had been feeding small slivers of wood into the smokehouse fire pit. "We can look for sweet potatoes and carrots! Bai Qingqing was eating some kind of sprout when we were out the other day, maybe I can figure out what they are."

"Are you going to invite the other female?" Curtis asked.

Chiaki shook her head. "No, Bai Qingqing is having a hard time adjusting to this place... and I think she needs to befriend the villagers more than she needs to befriend me."

Qianhuang nodded. The female Bai Qingqing was very childish and was having a difficult time with the females of the village. He was a mated male though and tended to pay little attention to any female other than Chiaki. He had heard some things in passing though.

Curtis simply nodded at Chiakis words. He only knew the female Bai Qingqing because she had visited once, but she was terrified of snakes and had refused to come near him. He did not care for her. Her eyes were large and watered easily, she was very thin and pale in complexion, and the male leopard that was courting her was annoying. To Curtis she could never compare to the female he was courting. Chiaki was plump and her skin kissed by the sun, she was determined and had no time for playing games with a males heart, and though she did have a mate already in the winged lion... well nothing was perfect. And he was living in a village, he'd never spent so much time in one before. Yes he had visited the villages of weak beasts to trade for supplies very rarely, but that was different.

"We can all three go together." Chiaki was saying. "Bring some of the collecting baskets."

The area around the leopard clan village was littered with edible plants! Chiaki was amazed. Potatoes, carrots, wild onion! There were no sweet potatoes though, and the sprouts that had excited Bai Qingqing almost a week ago had already gone to seed for the year.

"Are you sure these are still carrots?" Qianhuang asked. The basket was filled with tubers of many colors. Purple, yellow, light yellow, almost white, light orange. They were smaller than the ones Ji Mo had found around the winged Lion clan village and none of them were the bright large orange ones she had called a carrot.

Chiaki nodded. "Yeah, these are still wild carrots. The wild potatoes are not really the same as a sweet potato though. They can still be baked, but you can fix them in all kinds of ways and they store for Winter very well!" The basket of potatoes was also multicolored, almost white, light yellow, brown, and red-purple, all much smaller than what a sweet potato was.

The third and last basket was filled with a mixture of plants, ones that Chiaki called wild onion covered the bottom, with their long green tops and tiny white bulbous root. They smelled strongly. On-top of those were many plants Qianhuang had seen in the healers home, though he didn't have a name for any of them.

They worked in the drizzle of rain that had been a near constant as the light-rainy season got closer to the cold season.