Chapter 94 – Speculation
Translated by Sunyancai
In the morning, Shao Xuan saw Lang Ga running towards him breathlessly as soon as he went outside the door.
“Ah-Xuan, quick! Come to the riverside, now!”
Lang Ga was red-faced, perhaps he had done a lot of work, or perhaps he was just too excited.
“What’s wrong?” Shao Xuan was curious.
“The fish fences! The fish fences!” Lang Ga said no more, but came and dragged Shao Xuan, running towards the river.
Early in the morning today, when the day was still a little dim, Lang Ga came to the riverside to check on those fish fences. Judging from his experiences in the past few year, he knew that there would be huge tides last night, and he thought that there was a slight chance that the fish fences could trap something inside. Because for the last two days, people’s hearts were so calm, so he did not disturb Shao Xuan. Today, as he couldn’t wait to check on the fish fences, he found that there were a lot of aquatic organisms inside!
There were piranhas with giant heads, but there was more; creatures that they had never seen in the past.
Lang Ga was so excited, that he immediately checked on every fish fence along the river. Later, he called on some patrolling warriors to help him slaughter the few fishes that almost got away from the fish fences, and they decided to leave the others fishes in the fish fences as they were. Because he had been excited for quite a long time, all his attention was fixed on the things in the trap. Only then did Lang Ga think about Shao Xuan, so he quickly ran to Shao Xuan’s place to call him over
Last night, the water rose again, and the river became as quiet as before, as if the abyss of 2 days before was just a dream.
When Shao Xuan finally came to the riverside, there were already a lot of people surrounding the fish fences. Some of them were patrolling warriors, and some of them were just residents in the mountain foot area. Kids from the orphan cave also came by to see the wonder.
People all had curiosity, and they liked to watch the hustle and bustle as well. In the meantime, people realized that many good things could be captured once they build something similar in the right time of the year.
When Shao Xuan came by, he noticed a one-meter-long mussel, pried open already, and left on the ground.
“I came across that thing in the morning, almost let it get away. Luckily, it was not fast.” Lang Ga chuckled, “That thing had real tight shells, and I went through a lot of trouble to open it up.”
Lang Ga pushed away those people standing in front of them, and pointed at one fish fence while explaining to Shao Xuan excitedly: “Look, Ah-Xuan! There are so many creatures inside! Some of them have never been seen before!”
Being a hunter with over ten years of hunting experience, naturally, Lang Ga, like the other warriors, was very interested in newly found catch, and he had dissected many of them in the morning himself.
Shao Xuan jumped up to the top of a stone pillar and glanced inside.
There were creatures in every fish fence, and most of them were piranhas. They were all brought by the giant waves.
Lang Ga had no interest for those giant-headed piranhas, and he only kept two of them as a gesture. After talking with Shao Xuan, he decided to distribute all the remaining piranhas to the kids and other residents in the mountain foot district. Lang Ga was in no lack of such food after all, and he did not care for the meat with low energy value. Shao Xuan was in the same situation.
Lang Ga used the long spears to poke out the piranhas inside the fish fence. For every stab, he would pull out one piranha and toss it to the other side.
All the onlookers had merely come to check if those big headed fish had returned. If they did, people could finally prepare to do the fishing for the coming days. Unexpectedly, they had gained some food for just coming here. Seeing that Lang Ga was pulling those piranhas out, they all came forward to collect them.
There was no water in the fish fences, and many of the fish had died due to struggle. The blood that Lang Ga caused when forking those fish out, made the fish’ combat even more fierce.
Shao Xuan saw a lot of fish of various shapes. Some had long and narrow eyes, some had flat bodies like the manta rays, and some were like pufferfish, which could stuff themselves with air and push all the other fishes to the corners.
Shao Xuan even saw shrimps and crabs in the fish fence. However, they were not the same shrimps and crabs as those in Shao Xuan’s previous life. Compared with the other fishes, they were not so large. Indeed, if there were larger shrimps and crabs, they would not have been trapped by this simple fish fence. Even if they came here last night, they wouldn’t even have seen their shadows.
“How’s this one? I think it’s edible.”
“Hey, this one is nice! Looks ferocious! We can play with it even if it’s not edible!”
“Check on that fish, it changes color once you poke at it!”
“……”
People were chatting in the surroundings. Shao Xuan was observing while he heard Lang Ga shout from the other fish fence, “I think I have seen that while hunting! But not totally the same….”
Shao Xuan looked at where he pointed, and suddenly he laughed once he saw the thing that Lang Ga was pointing at.
Oh, my goodness, there was a turtle!
Specifically, it looked more like a crocodile turtle. When Shao Xuan was looking at it, it was biting the tail of a big piranha and directly tore a slice of meat off.
“I’ll keep that one and cook it in my cabin!” Shao Xuan pointed at the crocodile turtle with his long spear and said to Lang Ga.
“Okay, then it’s yours.” Lang Ga was thrilled with today’s harvest, and he could not care less about this thing that he had seen in the past. In fact, he was now paying no attention to whether the things he caught were edible or how much energy they contained. He felt that it was a very glorious thing to be surrounded by people like that. It was a sense of accomplishment, as if he were walking on the path of glory again.
Check on that! I can not only set ground traps! I can set traps to catch fish as well!
Lang Ga was acting as a commander there, and many residents in the mountain foot district were surrounding him, learning from him. Lang Ga stood on the stone pillar of the fish fence, and he had been talking ever since he got there.
Shao Xuan looked around, and he chose not to steal Lang Ga’s spotlight. Although he and Lang Ga were the joint owners of the catch, all he wanted to see was what else there was in the river besides those piranhas. Aside from that crocodile turtle and a few fish in the fish fence, he left all the other things at Lang Ga’s disposal.
Shao Xuan squeezed out from the crowd and walked along the riverside.
In the little woods near the river, many branches were broken. Maybe that was caused by last night.
When the water rose, clearly there would be big tides. There were obvious marks that indicated that the bank had been washed, and the things in the fish fences were brought back by the tides.
There were no broken branches in the water, and there were no floating things on the river.
Shao Xuan walked into the woods. He broke off a branch and tossed it into the river.
The branch floated on the surface and drifted along the tides. But after only a few breaths’ time, the branch sank, and a series of bubbles came up.
Those wood-eating worms had returned as well.
During the rainy season, perhaps those worms had swum downstream together with the river monsters, or perhaps, like those long-tailed frogs, they had their own places to go to. But after the full moon, they had returned with the water.
If his speculation was right, Shao Xuan believed that maybe a boat could float in the river safely from the end of the rainy season to the full moon.
In the middle of that period, the river seemed very rough, but only those piranhas were active. There was a saying, that the monkey reigns in the mountains when the tiger is absent. It made sense. Without their natural predators, of course those piranhas would stay active all day long, and they would fight each other over slight traces of blood.
Shao Xuan could not confirm whether the truth was the same as his speculation. It was a shame that this phenomenon only happened once a year. He had to wait until the next rainy season to confirm his theory.
When he got back to the cabin, Shao Xuan carefully recorded todays observation and his speculation in his secret notebook. After he was done, he carefully rolled the animal skin roll, and tied it with a leather rope, before placing it into a stone box. He sealed it, and put the stone box under his bed.
There were a lot of things recorded in that animal skin roll. For now, Shao Xuan could not let the others in the tribe learn about it, for the information inside would probably cause a panic, as well as some unnecessary troubles. Now, since Shao Xuan’s strength was limited, he could not bear the consequences. So, there was no other option but to keep it well-hidden.
“Hopefully, it will be useful someday in the future.” Shao Xuan whispered to himself.
Is their tribe the only tribe in this world?
Now, everyone in the tribe, together with their ancestors, had only had connections with the other people in this tribe for their whole lives. From birth to death, no one had ever encountered any outsider. When they talked about the other tribes, it was like when people were talking about aliens in Shao Xuan’s previous life. It was too remote, and aliens only existed in legends instead of in real life.
Where were the others? Were they any other people besides them? Shao Xuan could see something from the pictures on the stone room’s walls.
But, how could he get out from this tribe and meet someone from other tribes?
Perhaps he had to travel through that dangerous forest to go further. Or perhaps, all he needed to do was to travel across the river…