Chapter 3: Cultivating A Pepper Field

November 3, 2021 by danmeiheaven

It’s already the next day when Zhuang Yu woke up. The light from the outside made him a little lazy.

When he’s about to get up from his nest, a glance from his side makes him stunned. There’s a strange creature lying next to him, its short limbs kicking and grasping in the air, seeming to be having some strange dream.

Isn’t this the extremely clever little mushroom yesterday?

Zhuang Yu’s action of getting up seemed to have affected this strange creature. The little mushroom opened its eyes in a daze.

Then… It screamed wildly, climbed, and ran out with its head in its arms.

Zhuang Yu was amused but didn’t care about it. Judging from the two contacts, although he didn’t know what kind of mushroom it was, it shouldn’t be dangerous.

He got up. Even when he slept, his body was still very weak. He knew that this was because this body had eaten too little food.

The most urgent thing at present is to solve the food problem. But judging from the situation of the entire Golden Centipede Tribe, this is probably not an easy task.

He can only take it slowly step by step.

Speaking of food. Zhuang Yu picked up the pepper from the side, which was the one the little mushroom hit him with yesterday.

Although this chili can’t be eaten directly as food, it’s not useless.

He found a clean shell and separated the pepper seeds. The area outside his cave was flat, and it’s not small, just enough to open a field.

He has now come into this ignorant world. Everything has to be started from scratch. If he wants to survive, he has to make a long-term plan that covers everything. Planting some chilies may be useful in the future.

With this in mind, Zhuang Yu walked out with pepper seeds. Outside the cave, there were a few large shells lined up. Inside was the rainwater collected by the rain yesterday. Perhaps this is how people store water here?

Zhuang Yu found a stick and began to turn over the ground.

Because it’s only a small amount of seeds, he turned over a small area and stopped for a while, sprinkled the seeds in, and covered it with thin soil.

With the current weather, if he’s lucky, it should sprout.

After doing this, Zhuang Yu began to wash the mud on his hands.

Speaking of washing, he had to make complaints about the bad taste of the original owner. His body was painted with sloppy patterns with some unknown type of paint. Maybe it’s the fashion of the people here?

Fortunately, there was heavy rain yesterday. It washed and refreshed his body clean.

Zhuang Yu is washing, but why are there still some patterns on his body that haven’t been washed off?

He was so sleepy yesterday that he didn’t look at it carefully.

He was about to clean it again, but Zhuang Yu was astounded when he looked at the pattern on his body, “This is…”

The markings on his body are that of giant beasts, with familiar Chinese characters beside them.

“Isn’t this the content of my “Taoist Sutra”? Why are they here?”

What’s happening?

Zhuang Yu was a little puzzled. It was already incredible that he came to this world. Unexpectedly, his book came with him in this way.

He washed it with water, and it was indeed not done with paint, so it couldn’t be washed off.

He can’t understand. But there are a few things that he can understand now, okay?

In the distance, a small mushroom tilted its head and looked at Zhuang Yu who’s bathing, and then looked at its dirty body. It’s so small that it walked a lot of dirt roads yesterday. You can just imagine what happened to it. 

The little mushroom is the most beautiful baby in the mountains.

Seeing Zhuang Yu returning to the cave, Little Mushroom rushed over, lifted the shell that just contained the chili seeds, scooped water, and then jumped into the shell to wash his body.

Not to mention, the cleaned little mushroom looks really different. On the mushroom’s head, the green lines are particularly mysterious, exuding a soft light in the sun.

He’s clean, but the water in the shell is dirty. The little mushroom is a little shy. He peeks around, then lifts the shell, and pours his bath water into a small piece of land Zhuang Yu had just reclaimed.

For a long while, quietly, in that small piece of land, a touch of green pushed out of the soil…

At this time, Zhuang Yu was so starving and exhausted that his vision spins a little. You can imagine how difficult his situation is now.

But it’s inappropriate for him, as an adult, to compete for limited berries with a group of African-like children of the Golden Centipede Tribe.

It’s just that if he doesn’t do anything like this, he’ll starve to death.

This isn’t just talking. He has already felt the weakness of his body due to a lack of food.

Zhuang Yu thought for a while. Yesterday, the little mushroom shot him with a berry and pepper. With its little short legs, its range of movement shouldn’t be wide. In other words, there were berries near the little mushroom’s place, but he didn’t find them.

As Zhuang Yu analyzed, his eyes couldn’t help but brighten. Apart from this reason, he really couldn’t think of other logic.

Zhuang Yu got up and went outside. He’s even more hungry when he thinks of food.

To go to the mountains, he must pass the place where the berries were distributed yesterday.

Seeing Zhuang Yu coming, a group of people became nervous, “Here comes Yu from the Water Lake Tribe. Get ready, everyone. Don’t let this little rascal rob us.”

Zhuang Yu: “…”

Rascal? What kind of person is the original owner?

As he got closer, that group of people was also a little dazed, because Zhuang Yu’s face is clean and completely different from the way he used to apply all kinds of paint to his face.

Looking at this clean little milk dog face, for some reason, a group of women inexplicably felt that he’s not so ugly. It’s strange. It’s obviously different from their aesthetic standards.

Compared with adults, children are more direct, “He’s so ugly. He has no scar.”

“There are nine scars on our young patriarch’s face. He’s handsome. Yu from the Water Lake Tribe, don’t have wishful thinking.”

Nine scars? Zhuang Yu couldn’t help shivering. He couldn’t imagine such a shocking and frightening face.

And said he’s delusional? Zhuang Yu thought, even if he’s given to him, he still wouldn’t like him.

Zhuang Yu can’t get along with a group of children, after all, he didn’t know what this body had done before.

He just passed straight by without squinting his eyes, leaving behind a group of women and confused children whose jaws fell to the ground.

“The little bully isn’t making trouble? I’m not used to it.”

“It seems that he’s the same as yesterday.”

“Is there no problem with his brain? He just left without taking his two berries? He’s not going to cause a mess when the young patriarch comes back, is he?”

“That’s his style.”

Zhuang Yu’s mouth twitched. You flattered your young patriarch to the sky, but now I really don’t care at all. Huh, nine scars…

…

At this time, in a mountain range far away from the Golden Centipede Tribe’s land, because the trees are too tall, the broad leaves block all the sunlight, and the air is full of the rotten smell of dead leaves.

A green-skinned velociraptor is jumping with its strong hind limbs, looking for its food.

The velociraptors aren’t the largest and most ferocious of dinosaurs, but because of their strong hind limbs, their moving speed is definitely one of the best among dinosaurs.

At this time, it stopped and seemed to have discovered something. It suddenly kicked the ground and was about to escape.

“Boom!”

Suddenly, a giant bear bigger and taller than it rushed towards it.

It’s also wrong to say that it’s a giant bear because there are two huge antlers on the bear’s head.

The velociraptor was very alert and keen. It discovered the situation in advance and was about to flee.

But with a “poof”, a three-meter stone spear penetrated directly through its chest and nailed it to the ground.

The velociraptor was too late to struggle and lost its breath.

On the huge bear’s head, between its horns, stood a man about two meters tall, with nine golden stripe markings on his face, filling him with unique unruliness and wildness.

At this time, several people came out from behind the huge bear and began to clean up the raptor nailed to the ground.

“The young patriarch is still so powerful, and such a swift raptor can be hunted.”

“In a few years, it’s estimated that no one in the tribe will be the young patriarch’s opponent.”

Several people said, but the wild man standing on the enormous bear’s head didn’t show the happy expression of hunting the prey.

Because if it were in the past, they wouldn’t specifically hunt this kind of animal that runs fast and doesn’t have a lot of meat.

But recently, the number of games in their tribe’s hunting range has decreased a lot. The velociraptor, which was previously despised, has now become the target of their hunting.

Several tribesmen also said, “Recently, we have hunted fewer and fewer prey. The food in the tribe wasn’t enough. I heard that those tribes who live in the cave can only divide some berries recently.” 

Just as he was talking, a huge bird’s shrill sound that could pierce through the gold stone suddenly came from the sky, the sound penetrating the entire sky.

“Damn it, it’s the people of the White Pupil Tribe again. Their ancestral beast has been flying over our hunting range every day recently, driving away all our prey. What are they doing?”

They’re angry!

The White Pupil Tribe is adjacent to their tribe, but their relationship hasn’t been very harmonious.

Well, there are not many neighboring tribes that have a good relationship with each other, because competition for territory and prey happens from time to time.

Looking up, they saw a colossal bird in the sky, covering the sky and blocking out the sun, exuding a ferocious breath coming from a beast.

On the bird’s back, there are many people with stone spears. They all have one characteristic that is their eyes are all white, so their tribe is called White Pupil Tribe.

This is a tribal feature. Just like the people in the Golden Centipede Tribe have golden stripes on their faces.

They seemed to be looking for something nervously, their eyes not leaving the mountains below.

The complexion of the people in the Golden Centipede isn’t good. This is the sky above their hunting range.

“I heard that the ancestral beast of their tribe is about to die. They finally found an ancestral beast egg, but they lost it. This is a matter related to the survival of their White Pupil Tribe. Without the ancestral beast, it would be too miserable to become savages without a fixed place.”

“Even so, they can just go to our territory to provoke us?”

…

At this time, Zhuang Yu was struggling to walk in the mountains looking for food to fill his stomach. Because it rained yesterday, the mountains were all muddy, and there were no existing roads in it.

Suddenly, there’s a deafening baby-like wail.

Zhuang Yu was startled and looked in the direction of the voice.

Then he saw the enormous centipede, which was originally nestled between the mountains, erected its body. One by one, the sections of its body were like the floors of a high-rise building.

What is the spectacular picture of a centipede standing higher than the mountain front?

The terrifying sound of a huge infant-like crying spread far away, not knowing where it was going.

Zhuang Yu’s mouth became O-shaped. Is he going to pass the days hungry and watch sci-fi movies every day?

But he also had some doubts. Why did the ancestral beast of the Golden Centipede Tribe suddenly become violent? Originally, he thought that a gargantuan centipede holding onto a mountain range and gnawing on minerals was quite cute.

Translator’s Note:

I still can’t believe that I’m really translating this story, it feels like a dream for me. I just hope that I translate this story right so all of you will also love this~