Translated by Sunyancai
Keke was brought away by Tuo, but only after he got beaten up as hell.
Before they left, Tuo and Keke both promised that they would pay Shao Xuan a lot of food if Shao Xuan helped make another two for them.
Boomerangs were said to have been invented by indigenous people, but here, it was of no big help at hunting, given that there were quite a lot of ferocious beasts in the forests. Boomerangs had no actual lethal power to them.
However, it could be used to drive away the irrelevant animals and birds, or to be used as bait to draw the attention of ferocious beasts.
As for the question brought up by Tuo before he left, about whether he would be willing to rejoin the advance group, Shao Xuan provided no absolute answer. Because, what he wanted to do for now was to upgrade his strength.
Tuo and Keke might not have come here under Ta’s order, but Ta must have known it in advance, and he did not stop them from coming.
No matter what Ta was thinking, Shao Xuan had no intention in rejoining the advance group, for he felt more comfortable staying in Mai’s hunting group. Because of Shao Xuan’s harvest and merits before, the Shaman would provide him with the herbs he needed. Shao Xuan had given all the herbs to Old Ke, and Old Ke looked far better than last few years.
When he came back to himself, he saw Caesar sitting on the ground, staring at the broken boomerang. Shao Xuan went over to collect the broken boomerang and threw it inside to be used as firewood. He tapped on the wolf’s head gently as comfort,
I’ll make a new one for you tomorrow.
Perhaps because of the exercise during the day, Caesar’s energy was consumed a lot, and he became a lot quieter at night.
Shao Xuan stood at his door, staring at the sky.
The moons were almost round, and they were gradually overlapping. According to the stories of experienced old warriors, the river would sink quickly once the two moons joined.
The change was pretty obvious.
In the following day, when Shao Xuan came to the riverside, he noticed that the water-level had indeed dropped a lot. The river was running towards the regular downstream rapidly, as if the water was being flushed somewhere.
would
disappear
when the moons turned full.
After the river dropped, a lot of silt was revealed to the outside. People could even see something moving around inside that silt. Sometimes, some unknown birds would fly into those silts and peck into the dirt. But occasionally, some giant mouth would open from the silts and drag the flying bird into the mud.
Even if there was only silt left, it was still a very dangerous place. No wonder that the leadership of the tribe forbade people from getting near the riverside. Not only was it easy to sink into the sediment, the creatures hiding in the dirt were also a big threat.
In the following few days, the two moons would gradually overlap each other some more, and the river would be flowing more rapidly, and sink even more rapidly. Now, when you stood beside the first fish fence, you would see nothing aside from the silt. However, if it weren’t for the dropped water-level, people would never have been able to see what it was like at the riverbed.
Besides silt, there were some odd-looking river plants standing there, just like coral. Some other river plants could move like ordinary aquatic plants.
Less than ten meters ahead of the first fish fence, there was a steep slope, while a hundred meters away, it became very deep. People even had the feeling that they couldn’t see the bottom.
Because the lords of the river lived in it, it was definitely not a normal river. It was hard to imagine how deep the river actually was.
Before the water
vanished
, Shao Xuan would toss a piece of wood into the river, and watch it drift away downstream. Before they went too far to be seen, none of the woods sank. Obviously, the wood-eating creatures were not in the river anymore for now.
With the complete overlap of the moons approaching, Caesar and Chacha were not the only ones that became more and more abnormal. The night swallows were more ferocious than ever.
Other people could not hear the screams of the night swallows, but Shao Xuan could. He could hear traces of excitement in their calls. It was a thirst for blood, a maddening thirst for blood, which helped them overcome their fear of fire. Even when someone traveled at night with a torch in their hand, he would still be madly attacked by the night swallows. Many night swallows would be burnt because of that, but they were acting as if all they could see was the target of the attack.
Caesar would also keep howling at night in these days, just like the wolves in the forest. Last year, Caesar’s symptoms were not so obvious because of his young age. But this year, things were different.
At first, the patrolling warriors thought that some wolf packs might have entered the tribe, but they realized that it was Caesar after they had seen him with their own eyes. Because, Caesar didn’t used to howl in the past.
Chacha would remain in his nest and not go nowhere, doing nothing, as if he thought that outside was dangerous. Shao Xuan would even have assume him to be sick if he hadn’t had a growing appetite.
However, the big river down the mountain was gradually disappearing. The most intuitive feeling that people had was that the water was going away, as if there never was such a big river down the mountain, and the only thing left was an abyss filled with silt.
If you raised your head and look afar, you would find nothing. No river, no bank, no boundary.
If he hadn’t been warned about this by some experienced old warriors, Shao Xuan would have had a psychological panic of the unknown because of the abnormal phenomenon.
At the very night that the two moons fully overlapped, it was as bright as day.
After the two moons overlapped, it looked like that they were merged together into a larger moon.
One giant round moon hanging in the sky, it was like huge pale eyeball looking down at everything down below.
At that night, night swallows were wildly dancing above the empty riverbed, but they never returned to the tribe.
On the mountaintop of the tribe, the Shaman was murmuring something beside the fire pit. While inside the fire pit, the originally small ball of flame had grown into a big one, which filled up the whole fire pit. The tall flames kept dancing in the air, which made the mountaintop look like a massive torch. It somehow lightened people’s mood and eased their nerves.
It was horribly quite in the whole tribe. Aside from the Shaman, who was standing on the mountaintop, no one was allowed outside. Shao Xuan had been told to stay in his cabin and behave himself, long before tonight. Caesar was howling in the room, while Chacha curved himself up in a ball of feather in his nest. He would totally shrink his head under his shoulders if he could.
Even in the cabin, the could hear the vague roars of animals from the forest afar.
People only came out the next day, when the moons disappeared and the sun came out. Everyone had a delightful expression on their faces. The overlapping of two moons clearly did not have any actual harm physically, but the sense of fear that it created had clouded everyone’s heart. They could only find comfort in the flame on the mountaintop. Now, with the two overlapped moons gone, everyone seemed to have come back to life again.
On the following night of the overlapping of the two moons, there was also only one moon in the sky, but not as large as the night before. If you watched closely, you could slightly see the two moons slowly separating.
While in the late night, Shao Xuan noticed that the ground beneath his feet was trembling, and it was getting worse and worse. He had learned some more about the events from Old Ke, so he was not worried this time. Thinking about last year when he was still in the orphan cave, he thought it was an earthquake, so he ran outside the cave, but got dragged back in and got laughed at by the other kids.
Late at night, Shao Xuan was awoken up by the trembling ground again. Along with the trembling, there were loud noises, like ten thousand horses galloping together, very overwhelming.
It became more and more moist, for more and more vapor was forming in the air.
The wind was blowing hard outside, and gravel was thrown around, hitting the wooden walls, which created cracking sounds. Shao Xuan even wondered whether the wooden walls would be pierced through by the gravel.
The rumbling noise grew bigger.
The rumbling sound, accompanied by severe tremors on the ground beneath one’s feet, and the moist air…Obviously, like the experienced old warriors had said, the
disappeared
river was coming back.
After a while.
Woo~~!
It was a shrill scream, and it stood out in the midst of the rumbling sounds. Right after the whistle-like shrill scream, came the familiar thundering sound, which covered the earlier rumbling. It was the declaration of the lord, and all other sounds must show deference!
However, it was like a signal, a signal of a glorious return.
All those creatures that disappeared during the rainy season, all came back with the water.
The rumbling sound gradually faded away, but the voice of the lords of the river rang all night. It was believed that many people in the tribe had a sleepless night, just like Shao Xuan did.
