Once he understood the importance of fish, he glanced again at the countless fish fighting over bait in the river. The two children might not yet understand what this meant, but the woman's eyes lit up instantly. This was a new source of food, and there was plenty of it. It was also far less dangerous than hunting in the jungle. Perhaps fish would become the tribe's main food source in the future.
The woman babbled and gestured, asking Luo Chong to teach her how to catch fish, but Luo Chong did not let her do that. Instead, he rearranged the tasks for the three of them. One child would focus on smashing the innards, the woman would gut the fish, and the other child would gather branches and sticks from the small trees by the river, then thread grass through the fish's gills and hang them up.
The three divided the work clearly, and Luo Chong continued scooping up fish. This time, he was genuinely scooping them up. After he scattered a handful of bait, the fish gathered together, and the basket could barely be lowered because the fish kept pushing it up. Luo Chong simply squatted at the riverbank and used the basket as a scoop. Every time he lowered it, he came up with something—never fewer than two fish.
The four of them worked like this all afternoon. Whenever the fish grew scarce, they moved to a new spot. In the end, they had caught far too many fish, and Luo Chong decided to call it a day. He and the child who had smashed the bait helped the woman gut the fish. Their final tally came to more than two hundred. The largest probably weighed around ten pounds, while even the smallest were palm-sized. The three of them could not carry them all back.
Luo Chong sent one child to call the older children over to help. The woman carried the water basin, while two children carried a wooden pole hung with fish. Luo Chong himself carried another pole, shouldering it like a carrying pole with two baskets full of fish hanging from it. The group headed back to the cave in grand procession beneath the setting sun.
The teams that had gone out to gather fruit and hunt had already returned. It was too dangerous to remain in the jungle at night, so everyone had to return to the cave before sunset. At that moment, they were gathered around the Terror Bird's skeleton and the Chieftain's corpse, listening as the women who had stayed behind told them what had happened that day.
Just then, the children returned carrying the fish. They crowed and showed off to the adults, boasting that they had made a great haul too, no less than what the adults had brought back. Since they had no tools, the adults had mostly hunted small animals such as rabbits, groundhogs, snakes, bird eggs, and pheasants, and there had not been many of them.
The adults had initially been somewhat upset by the Chieftain's death—not because they had loved him dearly, but because the tribe had lost another adult man capable of hunting. However, the moment they saw Luo Chong's haul, they became happy again. The Chieftain's tragedy was instantly cast to the back of their minds.
After they finished cleaning today's haul, all the tribespeople gathered outside the cave. A huge pile of firewood had been stacked in the clearing before the entrance, with the Chieftain's corpse placed on top. An old man with two sheep horns on his head lit the wood, and the blazing fire soon swallowed the Chieftain's body.
The firelight shone across everyone's faces. The children swallowed hungrily at the smell of roasting meat, without the slightest trace of sorrow. The adults, too, wore calm expressions now that they had a new source of food.
Luo Chong also took the opportunity to observe the tribe carefully.
The tribe currently had a population of fifty-two, not counting the Chieftain lying atop the fire. There were eight adult men, fifteen adult women, and fourteen children over six years old—six boys and eight girls. There were fifteen children under six.
The number of adult men was pitifully small, and in Luo Chong's eyes, they were all a sorry lot. The man who had just lit the fire was the tribe's Elder. He was the oldest-looking, and thus recognized by everyone as the tribe's wisest person. However, he might soon be ranked second, because Luo Chong was gradually taking his place in everyone's hearts.
The Elder had sheep horns on his head and a goatee, making him highly distinctive. His status in the tribe was nearly equal to the Chieftain's.
There was also a man with six fingers on one hand. His preferred weapon was a wooden club, and he seemed somewhat dim-witted, as could be seen from his vacant eyes. He was probably the product of close-kin breeding.
Beside Six-Finger stood a man wearing a feather necklace around his neck. Luo Chong named him Feather. Feather was quite clever, and like Six-Finger, he preferred using a wooden club.
Behind Feather was Stone, who wore a bone necklace. He had no weapon in his hands, because he usually relied on stones the most. Thus, his name was Stone.
A little farther away from the two of them stood a fifteen-year-old youth, though that already counted as adulthood here. He left the deepest impression on Luo Chong because he had only one right ear. Four scars ran across the left side of his face. Supposedly, he had received them while hunting a wildcat alone. The wildcat had torn off his left ear with one swipe and scratched his face, but he had killed it in the end. One-Ear's weapon was a bone fork, made by sharpening a straight thigh bone. It was hollow in the middle, and its slanted tip was extremely sharp.
Beside One-Ear was the seventeen-year-old Beast Tooth. The beast-tooth necklace around his neck was supposedly passed down from his father, who had been the Chieftain two generations ago. His weapon consisted of two saber-toothed tiger fangs, each more than a foot long.
There was also Big Strength, the tallest man in the entire tribe. He stood nearly six foot two, which was already freakish among primitive humans. He was powerfully built, and his weapon was simple and brutally direct: a thigh bone. Luo Chong had no idea what animal it had come from, but the bone was certainly long.
The last was Lame, who leaned on a wooden staff. Lame was middle-aged, and his right leg was disabled from a hunting accident in his youth. He could walk without trouble, but he could no longer run. Now he followed the Gathering Team every day to search for fruit, handling path-clearing and sentry duty. He also liked sharpening stone tools. Though his body was crippled, his will was unyielding. Lame's greatest dream was to carve a stone basin before he died.
One-Ear, Beast Tooth, and Big Strength should have been the tribe's top fighters—of course, excluding Luo Chong.
The Chieftain's body turned to ash in the raging fire. They would clean it up tomorrow. The fire at the cave entrance could also keep wild beasts away.
After the Chieftain had burned away, night had fully descended. Luo Chong's face had darkened completely as well—not for any other reason than that he had seen two moons in the sky, one large and one small. The larger one moved from east to west, while the smaller one traveled from north to south.
What the hell? Crossing worlds would have been one thing, but this isn't even Earth. I wonder whether everything I learned before will still work here.
Everyone returned to the cave to prepare dinner. The entrance had already been blocked with huge stones. Tonight's main food was fruit and fish. Fruit was difficult to store, so they ate it first, leaving only nuts behind. Among the Gathering Team's haul, Luo Chong spotted chestnuts. Those things were still fairly easy to identify.
In the past, the Chieftain had always distributed the food. Today, they made an exception and let Luo Chong do it, mainly because everyone had never eaten fish before and did not know how.
Luo Chong stuck a wooden stick through the mouth of each fish and handed one to every adult, telling them to roast it themselves. He repeatedly warned them that the fish contained bones. He even roasted one fish beforehand to demonstrate how to eat it and how to pick out the bones. Everyone imitated him earnestly and ate with great relish.
The children, meanwhile, shared one large fish among a dozen or so of them. The larger the fish, the larger its bones, and large bones were easier to pick out and less likely to get stuck. Two fish weighing more than ten pounds each were enough for the twenty-nine children. With a piece of fruit each, they were all delighted.
Luo Chong picked the bones from the roasted fish and divided the meat into pieces for the three- and four-year-old children. The little ones behaved very obediently while eating. They hugged fruit in their arms, licked their lips with tiny tongues, and stared at the grilled fish with shining eyes as they waited for Luo Chong to hand them pieces of meat.
At the very back of the cave was a natural upward-running crack in the rock. It provided ventilation, and all the smoke in the cave drifted away through it.
There was no denying that this place had been chosen well: concealed, safe, and well ventilated. In this age of prowling beasts and dangers lurking everywhere, it was a rare haven.
The firelight in the middle of the cave shone over everyone, casting countless shadows that swayed across the rock walls. Simple murals told of the tribe's rise, decline, and history. The Elder with the sheep horns held a charred stick and painted a mural of Luo Chong scooping up fish by the river, while the children, still unsatisfied after eating the fish, licked their little hands.
Outside the cave, the autumn wind carried faintly discernible beast roars in every direction. Inside the warm cave, the women hummed soft tunes to lull their children to sleep. Lame was still battling desperately with his stone basin, several little girls sorted through fish bones, unsure how to turn them into jewelry to adorn themselves, One-Ear sharpened his bone fork, and Luo Chong continued weaving his Woven Basket.
The warm scene suddenly gave Luo Chong a sense of home. His powerful ability to adapt had quietly allowed him to blend into this group.
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Today, I received a private message from the contracts department, but I'm not panicking. Stay calm, stay calm... I absolutely mustn't make the same mistake again.
Thank you all for your support. Everyone, please keep those recommendation votes, collections, and comments coming...
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