The great rivers of Nanzhao were different from those elsewhere. Sometimes a river that started out vast and misty would flow along and become a mere trickle. Along the way, Yun Ye had seen several enormous caves swallowing up the river water. He avoided the entrances to these underground rivers with trepidation. The karst topography created a crisscrossing network of subterranean streams. He truly didn’t have the courage to explore the caves—being able to float on the river surface was already a kind of happiness.
“On both shores, the apes’ cries never cease; the light boat has already passed ten thousand mountain peaks.” Thinking of this poem, Yun Ye very much wanted to know who Li Bai’s grandmother was. The river surface grew narrower and narrower, the current swifter and swifter. The bamboo raft moved faster than a galloping horse. In his ears was only the whooshing sound of wind. The jagged mountain cliffs on both sides flew backward as if in flight. Ahead came a deafening roar. Needless to say, ahead was a damned waterfall. He paddled desperately toward the shore, but Yun Ye’s individual strength was almost useless against the turbulent current.
Fortunately, he seemed to have entered a small lake. The current slowed down, but the sound of the waterfall grew even louder. Taking advantage of this last opportunity, Yun Ye poled the bamboo raft to the riverbank.
Wang Cai, who had been lying on the bamboo raft for two days, jumped impatiently into the shallow water and rolled around nicely on the sandy shore. Yun Ye threaded the bamboo pole through the raft to secure it on the shoal, then also went ashore. He lay flat on his back on the warm beach, hearing his spine singing out in comfort. After any person endures two days and nights of inhuman torment, what they most crave is a good sleep.
Yun Ye couldn’t sleep, and didn’t dare sleep. He had to find a safe shelter before he could sleep without worries. After walking halfway around the small lake, Yun Ye discovered that the place he was in was simply a natural prison. The only entrance was that turbulent river, and the only exit was that waterfall. He didn’t know what the situation was on the opposite side, but from Yun Ye’s perspective, he shouldn’t hold too much hope.
The side he had climbed up was the sunny side, though the concept of “sunny” was only relative—in the canyon, the sun couldn’t be seen for much of the day.
There was a recessed platform that could barely provide some shelter from wind and rain. Looking at his palms that had turned white from being soaked in water, he smiled bitterly. A perfect escape plan always has flaws. One of the rules of exploration in later generations was to follow rivers and you would enter the civilized world. Yun Ye had forgotten that this was ancient times, not the later era with six billion people where any place you could stand would have people. Now the probability of seeing people was too low.
All of Nanzhao wouldn’t have a million people. In terms of numbers, there might not even be as many as pandas. He shook his head, driving away all the miscellaneous thoughts in his mind. He cut down a small bamboo stalk to use as a broom and swept out all the messy dead leaves and bird droppings inside. Then he spread out two blankets—this would be his temporary home. Right now he couldn’t consider more things; quickly recovering his strength was the urgent priority.
He strung silk thread densely across the cave entrance and warned Wang Cai not to touch the threads. Wang Cai had suffered from silk thread before, so now he absolutely wouldn’t come within two feet of it.
Seeing the food in his bundle, Yun Ye’s mood turned bad. All this grain had been collected by Tange bit by bit from her subjects’ homes. To preserve the grain, Yun Ye had starved for two full days, subsisting on wild vegetables and mushrooms.
Looking at the array of items in the bundle, Yun Ye’s tears flowed uncontrollably. He had never imagined that one day he would owe someone his life. Debts could be defaulted on, favors could be repaid, but life comes only once to each person—once used, it’s gone. This bundle was too heavy a burden.
The rice had been parched. Yun Ye carelessly stuffed a few mouthfuls into his mouth, fed Wang Cai a handful, then put it away. Pillowing his head on Wang Cai’s belly, he entered his dreams.
The next day, Yun Ye was awakened by the cold, damp air in the valley. Seeing Wang Cai pacing impatiently back and forth on the platform, he untied the silk threads and let Wang Cai out. He himself also went down to the river, scooped up clear water and washed up. The river water scattered and reflected Yun Ye’s distorted figure. Perhaps this moment was the true portrayal of Yun Ye—he had always been a psychologically twisted person.
Before finding a way out, stockpiling sufficient food was the way to survive. He didn’t dare waste the parched rice anymore—even if Wang Cai acted cute, he couldn’t give him any more.
He cut down a bamboo stalk, split it in half, knocked out all the bamboo joints, bound them together with rope to make a bamboo tube, then cut off another section, split it into a net shape, and fitted it over the end of the tube. A simple fish trap was complete. He carefully used stones to secure the bamboo tube at the top of the waterfall, letting the rushing current pour through it, then flow out from the bamboo net at the tail end. If any fish passed by the intake, they would be sucked into the tube and ultimately drop into the bamboo net. Simple and effective—Yun Ye made three such traps.
He cut a suitable bamboo stalk to make a bamboo spear, then cut several short sections. He carved an opening in the frontmost section of bamboo tube, filled it with sand to make the center of gravity forward, and threw it a few times. Not a bad javelin, though the accuracy was a bit off.
Returning to the beach, Wang Cai pushed over something round with his mouth. A goose egg? There were goose eggs here? But seeing Wang Cai’s sticky mouth, he knew this fellow had already eaten some—this egg was left for Yun Ye.
He hadn’t doted on this fellow for nothing. Yun Ye took out his handkerchief, wiped the egg liquid from Wang Cai’s mouth clean, then prepared to deal with this egg. If he could avoid eating raw food, he wouldn’t. He found a thin stone slab, heated it over the fire, and prepared to fry the egg.
He tapped it once—it didn’t break. Tapped it again—still didn’t break. Yun Ye scratched his head. Why was this egg so solid? He tapped it hard again before finally cracking it. Seeing the egg liquid solidify on the stone slab, he was full of joy. He broke off two thin bamboo sticks to use as chopsticks. Just as the yolk was about to solidify, Yun Ye moved the stone slab away and put his mouth to the yolk and sucked. The mouthful of egg liquid made Yun Ye so happy he almost cried. Though a bit fishy, in the wilderness, these small details shouldn’t be minded too much.
When the sun appeared overhead, Yun Ye finally knew what kind of creature’s egg he had eaten. A crocodile two meters long not counting its tail was going mad on the beach, its tail flicking sand flying everywhere. It opened its wide mouth searching everywhere for the egg thief, not even sparing that clump of bamboo. Its great mouth bit through bamboo stalks as thick as human legs in one bite, and its body rolled twice until the bamboo was completely broken before it gave up.
Yun Ye carefully lay on the platform watching the crocodile rampaging everywhere below. Wang Cai hid far away, not even snorting his favorite snort, looking as innocent as a saint.
He had eaten the egg himself, so of course he couldn’t blame Wang Cai. The problem was that now there was a deadly menace below—how could he drive it away?
Fighting with a crocodile was something Yun Ye would never contemplate. If his brain overheated and he wanted to be a dragon-slaying hero and provoke that killing star, the probability of becoming a pile of crocodile dung was very high. Weapons made of bamboo were no match for a crocodile.
The crocodile’s great mouth tore down a white vine. This thing had very strong toughness—one as thick as a finger could easily suspend three to five Yun Ye’s, but it was easily torn down by the crocodile.
A monkey became Wang Cai’s scapegoat. It inadvertently jumped onto a solitary small tree. The small tree was bitten through by the crocodile in one bite. Yun Ye discovered that the crocodile’s speed was very fast—even with the monkey’s agility, there was no time to react before it was held in the crocodile’s mouth, skin, bones and all. After just two swallows, the entire monkey disappeared into the crocodile’s mouth.
The mournful cries of other monkeys rang through the valley, calling “oo-oo” in protest at the crocodile. The protests of the weak had no meaning. The crocodile had taken revenge and eaten a dessert. Satisfied, it patrolled back and forth on the beach. Seeing the monkey’s tail that had been bitten off and dropped on the ground, following the principle of not wasting anything, it swallowed that too.
The monkeys frantically shook the trees, as if threatening. The crocodile, unconcerned, dug open another sand pit and lay there to lay eggs. Seeing the crocodile laying eggs, both Yun Ye and Wang Cai perked up—everyone loves delicacies!
After laying her eggs, the crocodile circled around examining her accomplishments, even touching them with her chin. The look of a loving mother was disgusting. Then she used her hind legs to cover the warm sand over the eggs, and gently left a few claw marks on the sand—a look of “there are definitely no three hundred taels of silver buried here” that made Yun Ye laugh out loud.
The crocodile slowly slid into the water, swaying her tail upstream. Even the turbulent current posed no great threat to her. Mother crocodiles generally don’t leave their eggs and don’t bury them. He didn’t understand why this crocodile would leave her children and go upstream. For food? Or for something else?
The true egg thief came down from the platform. Amid the oo-oo sounds of a large group of monkeys, he dug open the sand and carefully placed the seven or eight eggs inside into a basket woven from vines. He put them on the bamboo raft, preparing to leave. He couldn’t stay in this place anymore. When the crocodile came to count her eggs tomorrow and discovered not one remained, who knew what would happen? Perhaps she would guard the eggs constantly, and wouldn’t he be starved to death?
The three traps were good—all had a harvest. Inside were five fish over a foot long. Two were already dead, and three were still alive. He threaded vine through their gills and piled them all on the raft. After Wang Cai got on, Yun Ye poled the bamboo raft toward the opposite shore. The sky was overcast, as if heavy rain was coming.
Reaching the shore, Yun Ye irritably pounded his head. In the end, he had still been harmed by his habit of preferring the right side. The clearing on this side was obviously much larger than the opposite side, with more trees—a grove of camphor trees. In this kind of forest, there were no leeches and such. Places with natural insecticide were not paradise for insects.
Several wild orange trees grew far away on the outer edge of the forest. Wang Cai happily ate an orange, but was made to bare his teeth and grimace by the sourness, drool flowing continuously downward.
At this moment, he couldn’t worry about Wang Cai—first find a place to shelter from the rain. Going up a slope, there was a cave, but it was pitch black inside and couldn’t see the bottom. He lit a piece of dry wood and threw it in, only to discover it was very shallow. Inside was black—turned out it had been smoked by firewood. There were people here?
Touching it, he discovered the blackened area was already many years old. Even the black charcoal ash was fixed to the rock. In the clean areas at the entrance, there were some messy lines and simple drawings. The brushwork was rough, carrying a primitive flavor. After years of forced cultivation by Lishi, looking at paintings was no problem.
Since people could reach this place, didn’t that mean there must definitely be a way out? Yun Ye’s heart immediately grew hot.