Chapter 19: The Woman Drumming
Time and life are closely related.
Life is the counting point of time, and time is the carrier of life.
Once life disappears, time loses its meaning of existence. In a sense, this is also a way to transcend shackles.
Yun Ce looked up at the sun that was about to be obscured by clouds, feeling that time was still there. Then he looked at the bracer on his wrist and thought that life this thing could also be transformed from one energy into another energy and stored, which was magical. However, this also proved the conservation of energy theorem from another perspective, which was pretty good.
Gentle river bends have always been places humans like to live. Downstream of this river, the probability of human survival is very high.
Not knowing what the people living downstream of this river looked like, Yun Ce still decided to wash his face and put on a clean set of clothes to meet them. At least, a person wearing filthy clothes poses a different level of threat to bystanders compared to someone wearing clean clothes. Of course, it’s mainly about the impression.
Squatting by the river to wash his face and hands, tidying his hair, and changing into a clean, cool quick-dry outfit, Yun Ce pushed the bamboo boat equipped with the stabilizer wing into the river. Holding the two sharpened oars, he boarded, gently pushed the bamboo boat with the paddle blades, and it drifted into the river, struggling a bit before flowing downstream.
The river is not a single whole; on the contrary, because of different flow speeds, it is threads of strands. How to put it, it’s very much like a person’s tendon after the skin is peeled off.
With a nearly one-meter-long stabilizer wing, the bamboo boat drifting in the river had no worries of swaying side to side or capsizing. Yun Ce’s attention was not on the river water. Since this thing was a physically real entity, its properties should be extremely stable.
The fish in the river were different.
1 This was a low-altitude area, and looking at the environment, it had a strong subtropical rainforest vibe. In this kind of environment on Earth, many ferocious aquatic animals lived, such as crocodiles and hippos.
1 After the bamboo boat had raced in the river for an hour, the riverbanks on both sides were still a scene of wilderness, with quite a few wild beasts coming to drink at the river staring covetously at Yun Ce passing by in the river.
1 The river itself was completely quiet, with some brightly colored fish swimming calmly in the water, showing no interest in the bamboo boat as a foreign object.
1 Logically speaking, fish colors shouldn’t be too conspicuous. Fish that are too brightly colored easily attract predators. Since these red fish didn’t care, it meant they weren’t afraid of predators, or rather, they themselves were the most powerful predators.
1 The river water turned a bend of nearly one hundred twenty degrees in front of a huge mountain. Glancing at the faintly visible half moon on the horizon used for positioning, Yun Ce understood that the river had turned westward.
1 The water flow at the bend was very turbulent. After passing the bend, the river surface suddenly opened up wide. The river water barely moved, and the narrow river channel spread out in a fan shape, sparkling beautifully.
1 After the big mountain, there were no more high mountains, at least none visible in the line of sight.
1 At a glance, it was all flat grassland, with no people, only a few tall, strangely shaped wild beasts wandering on the grassland with their cubs.
1 After seeing the vast grassland, Yun Ce’s heart sank by more than half. Such fertile and flat land with convenient water resources—if no large areas of farmland had appeared, it didn’t match Yun Ce’s cognition of civilized people.
1 Farming and agriculture—these are instincts melted into the bloodline of Han people. Whether a place is good or not, for Han people, just see if it’s fertile and suitable for farming.
2 The river water rippled, carrying the bamboo boat downstream. In an eddy bay, Yun Ce abandoned the boat and went ashore. Looking back at the bamboo boat, he wanted to store it in the dragon pearl, but the dragon pearl showed no reaction. It seemed this big thing couldn’t fit inside.
2 So he fished the bamboo boat out of the water, carried it on his shoulder, went ashore, found a place with dense vegetation to hide the bamboo boat. After hiding it, he realized it was pointless—there were no people here, not even a single wild beast in sight.
2 A few snake-like strip-shaped animals came out from the grass. In annoyance, he casually killed them.
2 Just as he threw the killed animals into the water to destroy the evidence, a drum sound came to his ears.
2 This drum sound was very faint, but to Yun Ce’s ears, it was like a thunderclap.
2 “Dong, dong, dong dong dong, dong dong, dong dong dong dong dong…”
2 Yun Ce listened very carefully and once again confirmed it was drum sound, with a certain rhythm. This ruled out wind, water, or some bored wild beast slapping its belly.
2 The drum sound had an uplifting quality, which could be called art. And wild beasts don’t understand art.
2 Yun Ce ran very fast, crossing large expanses of grassland and small hills in a few steps. When he got close to the drum sound, he stopped, took out the telescope, and looked ahead.
2 Ahead was a small hill, but this hill wasn’t high yet was very large, like a huge steamed bun grown on flat ground.
3 A woman in green robe was drumming at the highest point. That drum was also very large, about four meters in diameter, so the drumstick she used to drum was also very large, over two meters long.
3 Though the drum was large and the drumstick huge, the woman’s drumming movements were extremely skilled, and her grasp of rhythm was very precise.
3 Yun Ce carefully observed the woman’s appearance, then walked up along the dirt slope. Seeing the woman drumming in a trance, he squatted nearby and carefully appreciated her drumming.
3 The drum was large, so the sound was loud. Up close, the drum sound had a flavor of resounding across the fields.
3 The drumming woman was very young, looking a bit like a young version of Lin Qingxia, especially that sidelong glance at Yun Ce, which had a vibe of Dongfang Bubai.
3 Her hair wasn’t very long, just over a foot, and her skin color was similar to Yun Ce’s, slightly darker.
3 These weren’t a big deal. Yun Ce noticed that this woman’s appearance seemed to be of the same race as him, which was why he chose to approach.
3 The only thing that shocked him was that the clothes this woman wore were Hanfu—not the fairy-like Hanfu worn by little fairy girls at scenic spots, but the real ruqun worn by women of the Han Dynasty: a top and a skirt.
3 If this woman didn’t have a wooden hairpin in her hair, Yun Ce wouldn’t feel so unsettled. The wooden hairpin on this woman’s head was polished from use, clearly an everyday item, indicating that women’s attire in this era was like this.
3 Though close, Yun Ce carefully examined the material of the woman’s clothing—it was hemp, not cotton cloth, let alone silk.
4 Yun Ce squatted on the ground scratching his head, thinking he would arrive in a technologically advanced cyberpunk world or a high space civilization world. That way, if the dragon came to pick him up in a few years, he could bring back some high tech not available on Earth, to get rich or get promoted—either way useful.
4 After seeing this woman’s attire, Yun Ce was certain that this trip was for poverty alleviation.
4 While Yun Ce was scratching his ears and cheeks, the woman finally finished drumming. She casually tossed the drumstick aside and quickly came to Yun Ce, opening her mouth: “Jili Gulu, jili, jili gulu… gulu”
4 Yun Ce blankly stared at this beautiful woman, his eyes full of bewilderment. To be honest, he didn’t understand a single word.
4 Perhaps during cosmic travel Yun Ce had lost a lot of flesh and blood, so his height was shorter than the woman’s. Thinking he was still an ungrown cub, she started touching him—pinching his face, lifting his nose, prying open his mouth to check his teeth.
4 At first he was quite happy, but then his face fell. After closely examining Yun Ce’s face and touching his lips, perhaps thinking he had no beard and suspecting he was a woman, she tried to pull open his pants to check. Yun Ce was shocked and quickly escaped.
4 “Jili Gulu, jili gulu.”
4 Listening to the woman making ghost calls, seeing the sly glint hidden in her eyes, though he couldn’t understand what she was saying, Yun Ce just felt she was tricking him.
4 Yun Ce was tearful. Since arriving on this planet, he had finally met someone trying to trick him again. How could this not move him to tears.
4 Seeing him crying, the woman gently wiped his tears with her sleeve. If she could hide the smugness in her eyes a bit more, or press down her upturned mouth, Yun Ce would be even more moved.
5 He didn’t know why this woman wanted to trick him, but it was nothing more than tricking him for money, sex, or his clothes and shoes. After all, besides these, he had nothing now.
5 “Gulu lu, lu lu gu.”
5 The woman enthusiastically took his hand, gesturing for him to follow her.
5 Earlier, the woman had pulled his left hand, and the wristband had touched her. Seeing no reaction from the wristband, this ruled out the possibility that the woman was a spirit.
5 Anyway, he was now homeless and had nowhere to go. Following this woman was a pretty good option.
5 “Jili Gulu, jili gulu, gulu, gulu.”
5 The woman was very chatty, but Yun Ce was speechless and just followed her.
5 Sometimes the woman would jump, gesturing for Yun Ce to jump too; sometimes she would laugh, gesturing for him to laugh too. Yun Ce followed like a big fool.
5 Perhaps confirming Yun Ce wasn’t a fool, when passing a small forest, the woman put a large bundle of tree bark on Yun Ce’s shoulder. She continued pulling him along without letting go.
5 Seeing Yun Ce carrying a large bundle of tree bark and still walking briskly, the woman put another large bundle of peeled tree bark on his shoulder. Seeing Yun Ce could still bear it, his shoulders and back were soon piled full of tree bark, requiring him to occasionally use his right hand to flick away the dangling bark to see the road clearly.
6 Though knowing the woman was using him like livestock, Yun Ce worried she wouldn’t take him along and had to show something that could touch her heart, like looking young but having the strength of an ox.
6 “Gu li li, gulu ba cha…”
6 The woman’s tone suddenly changed, with a hint of joy. Yun Ce used his right hand to push aside the obstructing tree bark and saw that on the other side of the hill, there were houses of various sizes everywhere.
