Because he walked too much during the day, the pain in his left leg worsened. Wu Dongfang did not sleep well at night, and was awakened by strange noises coming from outside at three in the morning.
After waking up, the strange sound continued. The strange sound should be made by some kind of large animal. It was somewhat like a cow's braying, but heavier and more harsh than a cow's braying. The location should be in the southeastern valley, where he had previously heard. Somewhere down the river bank to heal.
Wu Dongfang had never heard such a sound before. Judging from the sound, the size of this animal should be very huge. In addition, the sound was mixed with pain and anger, indicating that it was fighting something.
Curious, Wu Dongfang walked out of the cave leaning on a branch. Today was the beginning of the month, there was no moon in the sky, and it was dark outside. There was a faint light of fire coming from the valley in the southeast, flickering bright and dark, erratic.
After groping his way to the top of the cave, he saw a terrifying and strange scene. In the valley more than ten miles away, a huge snake-like animal was climbing up the cliff on the east side of the valley and moving upwards rapidly. It is more than 20 meters long and more than one meter wide. Its body shape is somewhat similar to that of a giant python, but it is definitely not a python because its head is different from that of a python. Although the details cannot be seen due to the distance, it can be seen Its head is much wider than that of a python, more like a bull's head. Additionally, the way it moves along the cliff suggests that this big guy probably has claws.
The unknown behemoth was certainly scary, but what really frightened Wu Dongfang was the monster's opponent. A ball of red flames that looked like a humanoid repeated rapidly in the air and in the river valley, and from time to time it fired round fireballs to attack the bull-headed monster on the cliff, trying to kill it. It drives me back to rock bottom.
The monster was hit by the fireball and let out a shrill scream. However, it did not turn around and return to the bottom of the valley. Instead, it accelerated and climbed up desperately. Just when it was about to climb to the top of the cliff, the humanoid flame quickly approached it. He didn't see what happened specifically. He only saw that after the humanoid flame approached the monster, the monster screamed and fell back to the bottom.
The human-shaped flames followed and fell into the river valley. The light disappeared and the river valley fell into darkness.
It was only then that Wu Dongfang came back to his senses. He was certain that the scene he saw earlier was by no means his hallucination. The bull-headed and snake-body monster did exist and was indeed defeated by the humanoid flame. This was the Xia Dynasty four thousand years ago. It was normal to have large unknown creatures, but what was abnormal was the humanoid flame. The flame resembled a humanoid, and it also had an obvious strategy when attacking monsters. If we say There is a person inside the flame, so how can this person withstand the high temperature of the flame, and how can he float in the air? If there were no humans inside the flames, why would there be human strategies when launching attacks
Just when he was puzzled, light appeared again in the river valley. This time the light did not rise into the sky, but moved rapidly upstream along the river valley. After a few minutes, he left the river valley and came to a spacious area, where he did a short After a pause of time, it quickly took off and flew towards the east.
Due to the shortening of the distance, Wu Dongfang could clearly see that there was a person inside the flame. Although he could not tell whether it was a man, a woman, old or young, he could be sure that there was definitely a person inside the flame.
The incredible scene made Wu Dongfang sleepless and he sat on the top of the mountain in a daze. He originally thought that the difference between the Xia Dynasty and modern times was just in the level of science, technology and civilization, but now he found that he had simplified the problem. In addition, his self-confidence was also greatly affected. If the person in the flames attacked him, it would not be more difficult than trampling an ant to death.
At five o'clock in the morning, it started to rain lightly again in the mountains. It rains often here, sometimes four or five times a day, but each time the rain is not heavy and does not last long.
At dawn, Wu Dongfang left the cave. On the way, he cut two Y-shaped tree branches with a dagger to use as crutches. He went down to the Dongfang River Valley and walked downstream along the river bank. He was going to where the monster fought with the human-shaped flames last night. Take a look at the place.
Due to the injury on his leg, he walked very slowly. It took him two hours to reach the river valley downstream. A long way away, he saw the monster's body lying belly up on the beach on the east bank of the river. , his guess last night was correct, this monster did have four claws, which were somewhat similar to those of a crocodile. There were many obvious burns on his body, and the unburned areas were covered with palm-sized black scales. His head was split in half, and the red and white flesh was shocking.
The belly of this behemoth was also opened, and the smelly intestines were exposed. A pile of horrible bones corroded by gastric juices were mixed in the pile of internal organs.
There is a dark cave entrance at the bottom of the cliff a few hundred meters below, half of the cave entrance is submerged in water. It is easy to see from the messy paw prints left outside the cave that this monster may have been hiding there before.
Wu Dongfang didn't stay here for too long. When he returned, he was secretly afraid. The human-shaped flame last night was probably a cleric of the Fire Tribe. He came here to find the three Fire Tribe people he killed yesterday morning. If the monster that devoured their corpses hadn't acted as a shield and scapegoat, the other party would have quickly found the real murderer, who was him.
Returning to the flat area upstream, Ming Wan ran towards him with an anxious look on his face, saying something anxiously.
Wu Dongfang smiled at the other party. Mingwan might have found that he was no longer in the cave, so she came here to look for him.
Due to the language barrier, the two could not communicate. Mingwan helped Wu Dongfang back to the cave and handed over a small clay pot. Wu Dongfang reached out to take it and found that it was half a pot of corn porridge.
"I've eaten. Take it back to your child." Wu Dongfang put down the clay pot.
Ming Wan didn't know why he delivered it again. Wu Dongfang carefully caught it and put it on the ground. He raised his finger and pointed to his mouth, "I've eaten it."
Mingwan stared at Wu Dongfang in confusion, and Wu Dongfang smiled at her.
Mingwan didn't insist anymore and walked out of the cave with the clay pot. Before leaving, he pointed at Wu Dongfang's leg and then the cave in an extremely serious manner, meaning that he had an injury on his leg and should not run around.
Wu Dongfang agreed with a smile and watched Mingwan leave. He never saw Mingwan's husband from beginning to end. Mingwan's house was also the most dilapidated in the village. She also risked her life to go to the river to look for food. All this showed that her The husband may have had an accident. To put it bluntly, Mingwan may be a widow.
After sending Mingwan away, Wu Dongfang once again thought of what happened last night. He was not entirely sure whether the person who could fly with the help of flames was a cleric of the Fire Tribe, but he was sure that this person must be a master of Qi training. There are also people in modern times. Although those who practice qi cannot fly with the help of flames, they can kill a cow with hard qigong and fly over walls with light qigong.
He is a soldier, and soldiers are materialists, but this does not affect his belief in the existence of qi. Special forces have to practice hard qigong. If they don't believe in the existence of qi, they still practice it.
After sitting for a while, Wu Dongfang left the cave again. He couldn't walk fast now, and the only prey he could catch was snakes. On the west side of the ridge, there was a small stream between the cave and the village. After drinking water by the stream, Wu Dongfang took it. He returned to the cave with two sections of cleaned snake meat. He liked it here better than the riverside. Although the water was farther away, it could shelter from the rain, and the terrain was higher and relatively cooler. There were not as many mosquitoes as there were at the riverside.
This time he ate roasted snake meat. People in the village already knew of his existence, so there was no need to hide his whereabouts.
Snake meat is fishy, and if you eat too much, it will make you dry. As the saying goes, it will take a hundred days to hurt your muscles and bones, and it will take less than three months to hurt your legs. You can't keep eating this food for such a long time.
It is possible to use the dagger as a flying knife, but the dagger cannot be thrown too far, and if it is thrown out, it will not kill the prey, and it may be carried away by the prey. After thinking about it carefully, Wu Dongfang decided to make a bow and arrow.
Making bows and arrows was not difficult for him. Bamboo can be seen everywhere here. The curvature of the bow, the length of the arrow, and the placement of feathers are all training subjects for special team members to survive in the wild. After finding the required materials, he remembered that he had not yet For bow strings, the first thing he thought of was the monster's big sinews. However, although animal sinews have been used to make bow strings for a long time, the production process is very complicated and requires a long period of soaking in oil in the early stage.
When he was at a loss, Wu Dongfang had an idea in his mind and took off his body armor. The bulletproof layer of the body armor is a multi-layer fabric made of special fibers. It has extremely strong toughness and elasticity. However, because it is interwoven, , there is no way to peel off one layer alone, so I can only use a dagger to slowly cut off a strip.
He was making the best use of everything. Although the bulletproof vest can block bullets, it does not have much protective effect against being stabbed by sharp objects. Simply put, the bulletproof vest cannot be used as stab-proof clothing. There is not much use in keeping this kind of thing. usefulness.
The cut fiber fabric was no different in appearance from ordinary silk. Cutting some of it did not damage the main body of the body armor. After putting the body armor back on, Wu Dongfang started to light a fire and bend the bamboo bow to make arrows.
In the evening, the bow and arrow were completed. Due to his unstable stance, he could only shoot more than a hundred meters, and the effective range was only forty or fifty meters, which was not satisfactory.
The next morning, Ming Wan arrived, and she was shocked by the situation inside the cave. There were bird feathers everywhere inside and outside the cave, and Wu Dongfang was polishing a bird's leg bone on the rocks outside the cave.
Seeing Mingwan arrive, Wu Dongfang pointed to a few waterbirds outside the cave. They were large birds that lived by the water. The reason why he hunted them first was because he needed to use their leg bones to polish arrowheads. Bird bones are very hard, and the holes inside allow rapid bleeding through the bamboo poles at the rear, which can only be used in the absence of metal arrowheads.
Mingwan was very happy to see the waterfowl. He put down the pottery pot, picked up the bow and arrow outside the cave and looked at it up and down.
Wu Dongfang temporarily stopped what he was doing and tilted his head to look at Mingwan. Judging from Mingwan's actions, she was no stranger to bows and arrows, but for some reason, people living here rarely hunted.
The men in the village would go digging in the northern mountains every day. If he read correctly, there should be a small open-pit copper mine there, and mining was the job of the men in the village.
The main labor force mines all day long. Where does the food in the village come from? Where does the food come from? Women alone will definitely not be able to do it. The biggest possibility is that this village is not completely independent. It is just one of many villages of the Jin people. They work for the Jin people. The Jin tribe mines ores, and the Jin tribe provides them with grain and food regularly.
But he was not sure whether this was actually the case. Because of the language barrier, he was unable to inquire and confirm.
"Come here, come here." Wu Dongfang waved to Mingwan.
Mingwan put down his bow and arrow, turned around and walked over.
Wu Dongfang picked up the stone and drew a square and four circles on the ground, then pointed at Mingwan and said, "Mingwan." After saying that, he pointed back at himself, "Wu Dongfang." Finally, he pointed to the stone in his hand.
"Xiye." Mingwan said.
Wu Dongfang frowned, and then placed the stone in the small circle on the south side.
Mingwan didn't understand what Wu Dongfang meant. The language barrier made it difficult for the two to communicate. They often had to rely on gestures. The end result was that both parties looked like fools.
Wu Dongfang had no choice but to pick up another stone, and Mingwan said again, "West."
Wu Dongfang placed the stone in the small circle on the south side again, imitating Mingwan's pronunciation but adding a questioning tone, "Xi?"
This time Mingwan understood. He picked up one of the stones and placed them one by one in the east, north and center, "West, west, west."
After saying that, he picked up a branch and placed it in the five directions one by one, "Moli, Moli, Moli, Moli, Moli".
Upon seeing this, Wu Dongfang was completely relieved. The top priority now was to learn the language of the Xia Dynasty, but before that, he had to make sure that the language used by Mingwan was common to the other four tribes. Only after he was sure of this, he dared to start learning. This is just like foreigners coming to China. To learn Chinese, they must make sure they learn Mandarin. After working hard to learn a foreign language, they are finished when they finally find out that they are learning the dialect of an ethnic minority.
After confirming that the language was universal, Wu Dongfang immediately started learning, and Mingwan also tried his best to teach him. Mingwan would go back to the village near noon every day, probably to cook and deliver meals to the men in the mine, and she would have nothing to do in the afternoon. , Wu Dongfang is very good at hunting, and brings back prey to Mingwan every day. There is no need to find extra food for his two children, and Mingwan has more time to teach Wu Dongfang how to speak.
People generally believe that to be a special forces soldier you must be tall and very strong. In fact, this understanding is wrong. Special forces must learn tactical skills such as shooting, fighting, assassination, blasting, photography, eavesdropping, swimming, skiing, climbing, parachuting, vigilance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, etc., and they must also master disease prevention and control, wild It is not easy to learn such a long list of relevant knowledge about animals and plants. Therefore, when recruiting soldiers, the first thing to consider is not appearance and physique, but IQ. Idiots will never be accepted.
Wu Dongfang was very smart. He did not memorize while learning, but worked hard to find the similarities and differences between the Xia Dynasty language and modern language. Over four thousand years, the language must have changed a lot, but after all, there are still some Identical or similar, if you find the pattern, you can learn it quickly and remember it firmly. A month later, he was able to have a simple conversation with Ming Wan...