Chapter 10 – Follow me and get meat in return
Chapter 10 – Follow me and get meat in return
Translated by Sunyancai
After eating, the five of them caught another six fish through joint efforts. One fish was given to Caesar, not grilled, for he liked to eat raw food. As for the remaining five, Shao Xuan and the other four kids each took one of the fish as their trophies.
When Shao Xuan led the four people back, Uncle Ge, who was in charge of delivering food, was already in the cave and waiting outside because he had not found Shao Xuan.
The kids in the cave had already had their biological clock formed, so they woke up naturally every day when it was time for them to eat. Also, after a long day’s sleep, it was their most energetic moment when they woke up. However, Shao Xuan was not at the cave, and Uncle Ge wouldn’t distribute the food just yet. The kids were hungry and began to turn anxious. Two of them even fought with each other because of some minor issue, and both of them bled from their noses.
Uncle Ge sat in silence at the edge of the cave, with a stone crock filled with food. He ignored these kids’ fights and did not let them go near the stone crock.
Dozens of children gathered around the stone crock but they did not dare to get any closer. Whoever tried to steal the food would get kicked away by Uncle Ge, and he would get less food than others, in the end, they dared not risk it.
Uncle Ge, who was sitting at the edge of the stone crock and looking up at the sky while thinking of something, suddenly noticed something and looked not too far into the distance. He saw 5 children and a wolf walking over, the person leading them is the new Cave Leader Shao Xuan.
However, when Uncle Ge’s gaze fell on what they were pulling, his eyes widened and he fell down from the stone crock from too much excitement.
……..
Before Shao Xuan and his companion got near, Uncle Ge couldn’t help but jump off the stone vat and walk toward him. But only after a few steps, he turned back and then carried the stone crock with him to approach them. If he left it there those brats in the cave would definitely steal the food.
“This….This….Is this …fish?!” Uncle Ge pointed at the fish in Shao Xuan’s hand and asked.
Because of an accident in the river many years ago, Ge had seen this creature before but since their tribal leader doesn’t allow anyone to go in the river, so he never saw it again. He didn’t think that he would see it again today.
“How did you get it?”
If it was just luck there is no way to get this many. One is rare enough, could something have happened to cause a large amount of dead fish to appear on the shore? That shouldn’t be possible, there are some people guarding the river so if anything had happened they would already have reported. Also, there are signs of being hit by sticks on the fish.
Hiss…
After Uncle Ge saw the fish’s open mouth and the sharp teeth he couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air. He is a very experienced hunter and can calculate a creature’s personality and attack power from each creature’s appearance. This is clearly a very lethal creature, even a totem warrior with powerful physical ability wouldn’t want to fight this creature. He couldn’t understand how these weak little kids, who hadn’t awakened their totem power yet, caught these fish.
The two older kids next to Shao Xuan couldn’t hold it in anymore and proudly told Uncle Ge about their morning “hunt” to show off their bravery. Showing off their ability in front of experienced soldiers would help them get into the hunting teams and is something the kids in the tribe liked to do.
The two kid’s descriptions didn’t quite follow any order but Uncle Ge, who had a lot of experience in hunting, could guess more of what happened from their words. He looked at Shao Xuan with a complicated look and said, “Let’s distribute the food first.”
The children in the cave saw the fish Shao Xuan and his companions held and surrounded them. The four people beside Shao Xuan quickly became alerted, even the face of the previously good natured Ba became vicious. One of his hands threw the fish behind him and the other hand held a wooden stick. If anyone dared to come and steal the fish then he was going to go all out on them.
Since Caesar was guarding Shao Xuan’s fish, none of the kids in the tribe would dare to try and steal it, so their gaze could only fall on the other four. Luckily it was time for distributing food so their attention was drawn away again.
Although it was the first time Shao Xuan distributed the food, he had seen how Ku did it, so he easily caught on. He even saved food for the four that were helping him guard their fish.
Uncle Ge just stood on the side and watched Shao Xuan finish distributing the food. Then he looked at Shao Xuan’s fish, picked up the crock, looked at the fish again, walked two steps, looked at the fish again, not really wanting to leave. As with the two guards at the river, he didn’t want to eat it but was just very curious about the fish.
Unfortunately, Shao Xuan didn’t give him a chance to observe or explanation, just like whoever let him suddenly become the cave leader had not explained the reason.
No one in the tribe had given these fish a name so Shao Xuan called them “Piranha Fish.”
Shao Xuan noticed a long time ago that inside the cave there were some devices used to hang stuff in the upper portion of the cave, it was unknown how many years it had been since they were last used. Shao Xuan first used his fish to test it, he was able to hang it there, and the stone hook didn’t seem to be breaking.
Seeing Shao Xuan do this the other four also asked Shao Xuan to help them hang their fish. There was no way for one of them to finish such a large fish by themselves and they didn’t want to share with the others, so they had to prevent the other kids from stealing them so it was best to hang them up.
The other end of the straw rope was tied to the wall. The four of them each guarded their rope because they felt safer when they guarded their trophies.
The other orphan kids in the cave began to regret not following Shao Xuan in the morning since they saw those four kids each getting one fish of their own.
In contrast, Shao Xuan also took the opportunity to ingrain the kids with a thought – ‘follow me and get meat in return’.
Want to tag along tomorrow? Sure, but…
“You have to listen to me.” Shao Xuan said.
It was not easy for the kids in the cave to listen to anybody. Striking them, again and again, wouldn’t help for even a little bit. Many of the kids in the tribe were very stubborn, violence-resistant and they were ready to risk everything. If you beat them up this time, they’ll still try to steal or rob your things the next time. Even when the “former cave master” Ku was around, the children did not get along well. Many of them got beaten up by Ku, and Shao Xuan had in fact witnessed some of those fights. It was pretty severe, and the loser would have to recover for more than ten days to be able to stand on his feet again.
However, now, with Shao Xuan’s theory of “follow me and get meat in return,” everyone was appeased.
The next day, Shao Xuan told those kids to weave straw ropes.
In this time of the year, there was a lot of grass that could be processed into a straw rope. It was easy to find raw materials, but not everyone in the cave knew how to weave them. There were a few kids who had learned the skill from their parents, but they had never practiced it since their parents passed away.
There were originally twenty-seven children in the cave. Since former master Ku had left, and there was one silent kid who was not always around, only twenty-five children remained in the cave. Shao Xuan divided them into five groups, with five kids in each group. Within every group, there was someone who knew how to weave. Then Shao Xuan told them about the division of labor and cooperation. Someone would go to collect grass, while the others would be in charge of weaving and finding stone worms.
Except, these kids were not fans of cooperation. They would fight each other over some of the tiniest things, even when they were in the same group.
After Shao Xuan had quelled the conflicts, he thought for a moment and changed his way of expressing,
Now each group is a small hunting team! It’s your own hunting team!”
Small hunting team…
Those were magic words to those dozens of children, and all of them began to fantasize about it.
In the mind of those kids from the tribe, “hunting team” was a very fancy and bright term, that only warriors with totemic powers could join.
Joining a hunting team would mean lots of food.
Joining a small hunting team was so thrilling and unexpected! They could begin to hunt!
Shao Xuan looked at the crowd and said, “Okay, now whoever wants to quit, or disobeys my commands, or loves to fight each other, stand out now and you won’t be included in our mission!”
No one moved.
The kid standing at the very front looked at his surroundings and felt himself standing too far out, so he hurried and stepped back, for fear that he might be misunderstood as one who wanted to quit.
The one who just beat another kid in his group also acted pretty seriously, and stood there still, not slightly feeling that he belonged to the “loves to fight each other” kind of people.
“Fine, since nobody wants to quit now, let’s go! Just a reminder that you shall all follow my orders! Anyone who disobeys will get thrown out of the small hunting team!”
Shao Xuan used “hunting team” as a threat because he knew what they were afraid of. These children had a bad temper, but they were simple-minded. You can control them as long as you know what they cared about.
As expected, this time they behaved much better.
However, when it came to the real mission, it didn’t as smoothly as predicted.
Along the riverside.
Those two guarding warriors were standing not far away and they smiled as they watched Shao Xuan being busy commanding the kids to catch fish. In a fit of anger, he would just beat some kid, and the one that got beaten would just roll on the ground, stand up, wipe off the blood on his face with a smile, and then get back to work as normal.
All their dull eyes were sparkling today, especially when they would see a fish pulled out of the water. Some of them would even make a few jumps in order to vent their feelings of thrill and excitement. If the fish weren’t that aggressive with their mouthful of tiny sharp teeth that could bite their flesh off easily, they would hug the fish in their arms and take a huge bite as their unique marks.
For days, Shao Xuan would take them fishing. There were lots of fish in the waters, so they harvested a lot every day. Even if they ate with an empty belly, there would still be leftovers. However, perhaps out of the fear of hunger, those children would naturally think about storing food for bad days. Some of them got the habit from their parents and the others were just following what others were doing blindly.
For the kids in the orphan cave, those few days were their happiest since living there, and as time went by, they looked more energetic than ever. Some sleepy heads would get up earlier than Shao Xuan and wake him up. At night, they would lay on the ground and stare at those big fish hanging on the top. Even when the fire was out, they would keep staring. Shao Xuan could sometimes hear their chuckles in the middle of the night, which was extremely creepy…What the fuck!