Ancient Eden

Mu Qing, sitting in the wooden boat, drifted for another morning, the sun was hot over her head when the man stopped under the shade of a tree with a huge crown, on the riverbank. He took out a piece of roasted venison that he did not eat the night before, tore a piece and threw it towards Mu Qing.

Mu Qing remembered the history of that piece of meat, the surface might actually be stained with mucus from the snakeskin. With a tense jaw, she threw it back to him.

The man did not force her. He ate his piece, got up and walked towards the forest.

Mu Qing carefully moved to his seat, there were some wild fruits who had originally been placed behind the pile of prey. Looking through the pile, she discovered that only a few coconut fruits were left, the other fruits were long gone.

She was a little disappointed, but took a coconut, and slowly moved back to her seat.

This wooden boat was not very stable, moreover, it was loaded with a lot of prey. She had to be very careful to keep her balance.

While she was struggling to open the coconut shell, the man returned, carrying a green bundle in his hand, which he put in front of her.

It was a large leaf which was at least one square broad. Red and yellow berries were wrapped inside of it. The berries looked mouth-watering, especially in comparison with the piece of venison just now.

Mu Qing was a little surprised. Looking up at the man opposite her who had already sat back and started paddling, she hesitated to express her gratitude to him. Naturally, that thought disappeared very quickly like a flash. She decided to ignore the hypocrisy of the civilized person she was.  She was clearly feeling extremely uncomfortable inside her heart, expressing gratitude wouldn’t be really sincere.

She rubbed the skin of one wild fruit against her clothes and then ate it. It tasted sour and sweet, it was full of juice, it was not bad at all.

When she rubbed a second one against her clothes, she suddenly couldn’t help but laugh. The clothes on her body were probably now dirtier than the muddy river water around them. Yet she subconsciously would rather rub the fruits on her own clothes, rather than to wash them in the river.

Following that, she just directly rubbed the fruits with her hands, before putting them into her mouth.

After the first two days, she found that her intestines were not as delicate as she would have thought. The only thing that made her a little depressed were those times when she had to sneak out to take care of her physiological needs, she had to be careful of her surrounding so that a snake wouldn’t suddenly come out of nowhere, and after the deed was done, she also had to worry about how to clean herself.

Fortunately, nature was prodigious, and resources were available at fingertips to use.

She comforted herself like this.

She was a little dizzy from the sun exposure. Taking a look at the man opposite her, she saw that he was concentrating on swinging the pair of paddles in his hands to speed up, his forehead and his body, full of muscles, was covered with water droplets, she was unsure whether it was sweat or the river water that was being splashed on him by the paddles.

Right now, she was not in the mood to appreciate the man’s muscles, sitting here and watching, she was of no help to him, she figured that she might as well lie down, which she slowly did. Curling up her legs, she took the big leaf he just gave her to cover her head, face and upper body from the hot baking sun.

Although it was still very hot, but it was better than being directly exposed to the sun.

She very quickly fell asleep.

By the time she woke up, the sun was already inclined towards the west.

To her displeasure, the man didn’t wake her up by calling her, or pushing her up or anything.

He woke her up with his feet, with a kick.

He didn’t kick hard, but she felt insulted.

She felt like she was being ridiculed.

She was just the captive of the savage man, yet during these two days the guy had not abused her, had not made her do hard labor, he had fed her and gave her water, he had stopped the physical assault against her that he had in mind, and he had also saved her life once from the beak and claws of a monster bird.

If she was still not satisfied, heaven might come at her with another thunder and rip her from this wild man’s side to take her to the dinosaur world.