Desert Island Survival Arc (11)

Desert Island Survival Arc (11)

When Zhang Heng woke up, he saw Bear really was roasting the python that had nearly swallowed him whole the night before.

"..."

"Zhang, you're awake. Just in time for breakfast." The explorer poked at the campfire with a small branch, adjusting the flames, then pointed at the bloody mass beside it. "The snakeskin—I just peeled it off. Once it's cleaned, you can use it to make something like a waterskin. It seals much better than a wooden bucket. Or you could make clothes out of it. Wearing it helps cool you down, so it's useful in hot weather."

"Thanks for last night." Zhang Heng sat up from the ground and thanked Bear first. He could still see the red marks the snake had squeezed into his arm.

"Hey, no need to be polite. You saved me at sea too. If you want to survive in the wilderness, you have to help each other, right?" Bear handed Zhang Heng a grilled snake steak skewered on a wooden branch.

Zhang Heng had originally wanted to refuse, but then he thought this might be the only chance in his life to eat python without spending the rest of his life in prison, so he accepted it.

He took a curious bite and found that it actually tasted pretty good. The gamey flavor was not strong. It was a little like chicken, but chewier.

Remembering that this thing had nearly killed him last night, Zhang Heng decisively decided to have two more pieces.

After breakfast, the two set off again.

Bear continued to fulfill his role as a qualified guide. While clearing the way ahead with his Small Knife, he explained the various creatures they encountered along the way to Zhang Heng.

"The python we encountered last night wasn't the only hunter in this forest. When pythons eat, they usually start from the head and swallow their prey whole. Their eyesight is poor, and sometimes their prey is so large that it literally bursts their stomachs. But snakes have powerful digestive systems. They can often digest everything, including the meat and bones. Of the animal skeletons we saw before, some were relatively intact. They didn't look like they had died at its hands."

Zhang Heng silently noted down this bit of trivia. Many things seemed useless in ordinary times, but who knew when they might come in handy.

For example, Ed and Shorts Kid had not taught him how to make salt from seawater, but thanks to a short video he had seen on a video-sharing site, he had used heating crystallization and repeated filtration to obtain relatively pure table salt, making their food much more palatable.

Come to think of it, when Zhang Heng was in elementary school, he had once gone to Xishuangbanna with his grandfather. The forest park there had left a deep impression on him.

But that place had been artificially developed, and only a small part had been opened to tourists for safety reasons. It was Zhang Heng's first time seeing a completely natural tropical rainforest like this one. According to Bear, the ecosystem here was also incredibly rich. It was a real eye-opener for Zhang Heng.

For instance, he had once spotted a tiny green frog by the roadside with semi-transparent skin on its belly. It was only one or two centimeters long, yet from below, he could clearly see its heart, liver, and digestive tract. It was truly amazing.

"Glass Frog. They generally inhabit the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. There are currently 134 known species of Glass Frog worldwide, sixty of which are endangered." As he spoke, the explorer carefully placed the tiny creature back onto the leaf.

"What about this?" Zhang Heng pointed to a bulging growth on a banyan tree that looked like a tumor. New branches had actually sprouted from it.

"Oh, Staghorn Fern. It's an epiphytic plant from the staghorn fern family. It is tender green when newly grown and turns light brown when mature. They usually grow on the trunks or branches of other trees and are quite common in tropical rainforests."

Besides that, Zhang Heng also saw Flying Lemurs. But these things were neither cats nor monkeys. Their bat-like membranes wrapped around their necks, limbs, and tails, allowing them to glide through the air when spread open. They looked like they really knew how to have fun. There was also the Bagheera kiplingi jumping spider, the only vegetarian spider in the world, which fed on leaf buds. Its name was such a tongue twister that Zhang Heng confirmed it with Bear three times and still found it hard to believe. Then there were Bird of Paradise birds, also known as birds-of-paradise. Their calls sounded like gunshots, giving Zhang Heng quite a fright the first time he heard one, but they were beautiful, especially their tail feathers, with their gradient colors...

Bear could not help but sigh. "This place is practically a biological paradise. It's my first time seeing tropical plants and animals from so many different regions gathered together. It's unbelievable. Biologists would absolutely love this land if they knew about it."

Just then, Zhang Heng seemed to step on something. He bent down and picked up a tooth from some unknown animal. There was a round hole at its base.

"This looks man-made. Naturally formed holes usually aren't this regular." Bear took the tooth and examined it closely for a few moments. "I know some indigenous people use the teeth of their prey as necklaces to show off their strength. The more formidable the prey, the more it proves their power. That makes it easier for them to find a desirable partner when choosing a mate. A friend of mine once went alone onto the savanna to hunt a lion so he could marry the most beautiful woman in his tribe. He never came back."

"..."

There really was a reason foreign countries had such small populations. Zhang Heng wisely declined to comment on whether that behavior was sensible. Compared to that, he was more concerned about another question. "So there are indigenous people living on this island too? They aren't cannibals, are they?"

Bear shook his head. "Not very likely. This island isn't that large. You said you've been living here for over a year. If there were other people on the island, there's no way you wouldn't have run into them by now... Besides, this thing looks pretty old."

"So indigenous people really did live here before?" Zhang Heng broke out in a cold sweat. If those natives were still alive, perhaps he and Ed would have been captured and thrown into a stew on their first day on the island.

"Yeah. Let's keep going and take a look."

Bear was interested as well. He was an explorer by nature, and a lost civilization like this held an indescribable attraction for him. He even forgot that he had come to search for a way off the island and back to the civilized world. The two continued toward the center of the island.

By then, they had already covered half the distance, and as they ventured deeper, they discovered more and more traces of human habitation.

Looking at the small huts that had completely decayed beyond recognition, as well as the stone tools covered in moss, Bear was certain that an indigenous tribe had once lived here in the distant past.

What had happened to them? Why had they all vanished without a trace by now? The explorer grew increasingly curious.