Chapter 76 – Playing a small role
Translated by Sunyancai
“What?”
Seeing that Shao Xuan literally removed the poison caps on the white hairs, Keke couldn’t help but shout out “what”. Also, he used a pitched tone, showing his astonishment.
The other resting warriors all became quite curious by Keke’s “what”. They felt like there was a cat scratching their hearts, for not knowing what exactly happened. They wanted to take a look, but were afraid to be despised by the team leader. All they could do was to sit there in silence, while staring in Shao Xuan’s direction.
Unfortunately, Keke was a big fellow, who blocked everyone’s sight completely. The crowd wanted to swing a hammer on his head. You just observe closely all you want, but why block the sight of others?
Tuo did not mind it. He arrived at Keke’s side and squatted after he had taken care of the wounded warrior. He watched Shao Xuan being busy.
In fact, Shao Xuan was merely experimenting. Even though those white hairs were not easy to cut, they were still plants, so they were supposed to be afraid of fire. Unexpectedly, it worked.
Looking at the white hairs of different length in his hand, Shao Xuan twiddled his fingers.
Keke saw Shao Xuan take out two white hairs, and with his fingers twisting and turning, those two white hairs became tightly entwined with each other. In a short period of time, Shao Xuan connected all the white hairs without poison caps together into a long thread. It was nearly two meters long, and it felt elastic if you dragged it.
“Eeeh~~?!”
Keke’s “Eeeh” was much louder, and the rising tone was also higher.
The others sitting aside felt even more uncomfortable, for they were being tortured by their curiosity. Some of the warriors felt an itch to slap Keke sideways.
What the fuck! Why can’t you roll over and look from afar?!
However, the crowd dare not to tempt the team leader’s fury, and they remained sitting where they were.
Ah-Suo wanted to go and look, to check out what Shao Xuan was playing with. However, he had just taken one step, before he found that the team leader was glaring at him. He had no choice but to step back. Since he wasn’t not able to go closer, Ah-Suo picked up a chunk of dirt beside his feet, and tossed it towards Keke.
Bang!
The dirt bulk hit on Keke’s back, and immediately got scattered.
Keke totally ignored that dirt chunk. He was very curious seeing Shao Xuan turn the white hairs into a long elastic thread. He knew nothing about politeness or courtesy, so he directly grabbed the thread from Shao Xuan’s hand, “Give me!”
Shao Xuan did not hold tight on the thread, and he just gave it to Keke, and then continued to collect the white hairs in the surroundings.
Tuo had nothing else to do, so he helped collecting the white hairs.
Keke stood up with the thread in his hands. He tried tearing it but it did not break. Oh, it was really elastic!
“It’s a funny thread!” Keke murmured.
Ah-Suo glimpsed at Ta, and only to find that the blue veins in his forehead were popping.
Perhaps he was trying to see if this long thread of tiny white hairs could be pulled off, Keke twirled the thread around his hands at both ends, and pulled hard when there was only a small part of the thread in the middle left.
Just when Keke was about to bleed because of the thread, the thread broke and made a ‘pluck’ sound. However, the part that broke was not the middle part in between.
“This is super cool! What do you plan to do with it, Ah-Xuan?” Keke asked while rubbing his hands that were almost wounded.
“I’m thinking about setting a trap with it if there’s enough time, to see if I can catch something.” Said Shao Xuan.
The team leader was even more unsatisfied.
Ta regretted taking him out this time, and he decided to kick him out of the advance group once they came back. He would not allow Shao Xuan into his advance group ever again!
When Ta announced the end of the break, Shao Xuan had collected and fletched lots of white hairs. He rolled them up into a big roll and put it into his animal skin bag. Those white hairs were very light. Although the roll looked large in size, it weighed only as much a mere small nut.
Then, they had to besiege and hunt for those jumping fruits.
Those jumping fruits that dislocated themselves from the tree, if they were cut they would be totally disabled. The warriors in the hunting team were quite experienced, so they hardly missed.
As for Shao Xuan, he was not even qualified enough to pick up those disabled jumping fruits. the team leader just told him to “Stay aside and try not to be a burden.”
Shao Xuan did not complain, but observed closely. He was learning how the others were striking the fruits.
Those fruits were very prompt in jumping, and sometimes they would flee in large groups. People were easily distracted by the massive moves. So warriors had to keep an eye on one single fruit, and strike it down before paying attention to another. Meanwhile, they had to measure the striking trajectory on the fruit in their minds.
The jumping fruits had no complicated emotions as animals, but they knew how to chase profit and avoid harm. You could let them slip away if you didn’t pay enough attention.
Shao Xuan hid behind a tree, yet struck down six fruits while he had the chance.
The jumping fruits away from their tree mother would probably spend one or two days in the wild, before they attached themselves on the branches again. If they could not make it back on time due to various reasons, they would just die out, or be eaten by other creatures. Also, there was a slight chance that they might root themselves in the ground and become a new plant.
What the Shaman required was not the whole fruit, but the seeds. Normally, warriors in the advance group would just eat the flesh and keep the seeds. So in here, most things on their menu were plants.
They only stopped when all the jumping fruits dislocated themselves from the tree.
If they see the disabled fruits on the ground, they would pick them up and put them into their animal skin bags. So when they were hungry, they could eat the flesh and keep the seeds of the fruits.
Aside from the seeds of jumping fruits, the advance group was required to cut out the root of some swamp plant. Unlike other plants, its branches and leaves grew down the swamp, while its roots would grow up into the air, and reach outside the swamp.
Warriors would need to be careful not to slip into the swamp.
People in the advance group would use a certain cutting method: While one warrior entangled the root of the plant, the other warrior would chop it off with a blade.
It was easy to say, but very difficult to execute. The method contained high technique, and it would test the tacit understanding of the warriors. If one could not successfully cut down the main root, those roots would quickly shrink down into the swamp. Once they did that, it would be nearly impossible for people to find its root again. So it had a big chance to escape. Of course, nothing would happen if the first warrior could not manage to entangle the root.
As for Shao Xuan’s task… Ta told him to help pick up those muddied roots and collect them together.
If you ask what Shao Xuan was feeling now, he would say that, okay, I am only playing a small role here.
At night, the advance group would rest on a giant tree. There was a hole in the trunk, and it was especially carved out. Not only this tree, there were holes established in quite a few trees around. However, it was a matter of luck whether they got to spend nights in those holes. Sometimes the holes would be taken over by birds or other animals. Warriors needed to find other tree holes if they could not drive them away.
Shao Xuan had seen them collecting some kind of a fruit. After being burnt, the fruit would emit thick smoke. Warriors would throw those burnt fruits into the tree holes, and soon enough, the little bugs inside the tree holes or on the trunk would be smoked out and then drop on the ground. When the smoke wore off, there would be a layer of different kinds of bugs kids lying on the ground.
When they were tossing burnt fruits into the holes, Shao Xuan took out the thread and kept himself busy nearby.
Someone in the advance group would be responsible for the guarding, so Shao Xuan worried about nothing. It’s just that Ta was very unsatisfied with Shao Xuan’s behavior. When Shao Xuan asked for Ta’s permission, Ta had a poker face all the time, and it took him quite some time to say yes in a very rude way, as if Shao Xuan had done something shameful.
In fact, Shao Xuan knew it at heart, that Ta did not plan to take him out during the next hunting mission. He also didn’t want to tag along the next time. Although there are quite some advantages of being a member of the advance group, he preferred staying with Mai’s hunting group. He was treated as a mascot in this advance group, and Ta was a strict but stubborn person. It was not comfortable staying in the advance group, doing nothing. Compared to that, it was real hunting that thrilled him.
As some warriors were throwing the burnt fruits into the trunk, they found Shao Xuan rushing back and forth not far in the woods as they looked back. So they asked their teammates, “What is he doing?”
“Setting a trap, I guess?” the other said unsure.
“What could be trapped at night? We can’t use the prey anyway. By the way, doesn’t he know that the boss hates setting traps and that stuff?”
“Who knows? He might as well play hard while he can. Have you seen boss’ attitude? It’s doubtable whether he could tag along for the next hunting trip.”
“Then we won’t care what he does.”
For most warriors in the advance group, Shao Xuan was no relative or friend. Later on they did not plan to be attached with him, either. So he was totally shut out from their small cliques.
There were factions even within the tribe.
When there was no more bug dropping out from above, Ta called on the crowd, “Now let’s go up. It’s almost dark.”
Shao Xuan had just finished his job, so he followed the others climbing up.
Just as Keke said before, in this place they would rarely start a fire. So during the night when they were sleeping in the tree, there was no bonfire.
People used giant leaves to block the entrance, and all of them started to feel drowsy. Of course some would take turns to be on duty as to guard against the surroundings, which was more than necessary.
Shao Xuan was not hungry as he had eaten something while outside. As night fell, the vast green land outside became noisy again. All kinds of sounds were created from near and afar, which indicated that some leaves and flowers were closing and opening.
With the waves of sounds, Shao Xuan gradually fell asleep, until he was woken up by sounds of clattering and buzzing. Some others woke up at the sound as well, but seeing the guarding warriors show no signal of danger, they fell back to sleep again.
Shao Xuan paid extra attention to those sounds, as he was trying to figure out what creatures had fallen into the traps, and how many of them were captured. However, he was not as experienced as old Ke, and his estimation was without accuracy.
Since it was already night, it was impossible for Shao Xuan to go outside and check on the traps. He had to wait until tomorrow. In fact, he did not wish for something precious, all he wanted to do was to see what kind of nocturnal creatures existed in this land. It’s probably his only and last chance to be here, he wanted to see more.
Just wait, he’ll have his answers tomorrow.