Chapter 16: A Bear That Knows How To Use A Stick
The Dragon Pearl clearly disliked such treatment, and even the liquid metal was very dissatisfied. It seeped out from the surface of the Dragon Pearl and once again enveloped it, turning the originally slightly plump Dragon Pearl into a metallic silver-white full of metal style.
The liquid metal did not devour that little wild boar, probably because it wasn’t interested. Yun Ce thought that little wild boar already possessed preliminary sentience, which should be what the metal liquid liked, but unexpectedly, it didn’t like it at all.
Animals that have gained sentience cannot be eaten; this is Yun Ce’s most basic moral view. In general, animals that have gained sentience can be killed or tricked, but they alone cannot be eaten as food.
This is respect for wisdom.
Anything else said is false; food actually has a disdain chain too. From the matter of the little wild boar, Yun Ce thought that whether it was the Dragon Pearl or the liquid metal, both believed his, Yun Ce’s, meat was superior to that of the little wild boar.
The bracer reflected silver-white light under the moonlight. Yun Ce pressed it with his hand, and the silver-white glow disappeared, turning into a somewhat filthy bracer.
They were very obedient, and it seemed they had no intention of devouring Yun Ce’s body or any other good things.
Of course, Yun Ce wouldn’t fully believe it. The Dragon Pearl and metal liquid were very important to him; he had already prepared to lose one hand, and it could only be the left hand.
The war in the distance had not yet ended, but the scope of the war seemed to have expanded, with some battle sounds and screams very close to Yun Ce.
The extremely high mountain peak was already stained with some light yellow, a sign that the sun was about to emerge. Some birds of prey that started hunting early in the morning were already circling in the high altitude, sporadically turning golden when stained with sunlight, then disappearing into the shadows of the high mountains.
1 Yun Ce tightened his shoelaces, stood up to prepare to leave this battlefield about to become a rout. If he didn’t leave soon, there would be trouble; the defeated wild boars would definitely vent their anger on him, this living thing, and the victorious bear-like guys would naturally consider everything within the battlefield scope as their spoils of war.
1 The full moon gradually became blurred, while the half blood moon became clearer amid the darkness before dawn. Yun Ce started by walking slowly, but after hearing the ground behind him begin to tremble and emit rumbling loud noises, he began sprinting wildly through the field.
1 According to Yun Ce’s knowledge, wild boars on Earth run at speeds of up to forty kilometers per hour, and when fleeing for their lives, they can even reach seventy kilometers. At that speed, he absolutely couldn’t outrun them and could only escape ahead of time while there was still time.
1 As for those bear-like creatures fighting the wild boars, their running speed on Earth was also not inferior, reaching between fifty and sixty kilometers.
1 This is why wild boars can fiercely fight bear-like creatures and complete pursuit battles.
1 However, Yun Ce didn’t know much about his current body. After he discovered he could span seven or eight meters in one step, he momentarily failed to maintain balance and awkwardly fell to the ground, braking with his face for over ten meters before being stopped by a not-small tree.
1 His face hurt a lot. After Yun Ce patted the dust and grass stems off his face, he found his face wasn’t broken, but the outdoor exploration clothes on his body were damaged in several places.
1 Yun Ce stomped the ground hard with both feet, and his body shot up like a cannonball ten meters high. He had jumped up, but he feared falling and breaking something, so he hurriedly grabbed a tree branch and hung in mid-air, looking down at the ground and feeling it was very high…
1 A wild boar whooshed past under his feet, and only then did he realize that when running, the wild boar’s stout body surprisingly turned into a shuttle shape with very low wind resistance.
1 A giant bear then charged past under his feet. Its black fur was sleek and glossy, and when running, the fat all over its body surprisingly rippled with waves.
2 Even so, after one pounce and leap, the giant bear was as fast as a shooting star.
2 Yun Ce slightly exerted force with his arms and pulled his body up from mid-air. His arms felt little resistance, and with his hands slightly adjusting the angle, he supported his body, letting his feet land on the tree trunk. He conveniently pulled over a tree branch dense with leaves to conceal his body, exposing only a pair of eyes curiously watching the various wild boars and giant bears of different colors charging past below.
2 The wild boar’s tusks protruded from its mouth fully half a foot long, but the giant bear’s claws, exposed from its meat pads, were also fully half a foot long. In terms of weapons, the two were evenly matched.
2 Until a giant bear gripped a wooden stick and smashed it ruthlessly onto a wild boar’s head, flipping that wild boar onto the ground, Yun Ce was greatly surprised.
2 Soon he discovered that more and more giant bears were gripping wooden clubs with their claws. After a barrage of random clubbing, the group of wild boars with buttocks facing the big tree and sharp teeth snarling at the giant bears all fell down one after another.
2 This time Yun Ce saw very clearly: these giant bears were indeed gripping wooden clubs, and they seemed very proficient in using them.
2 Yun Ce had eaten quite a few bear paws as a child with his parents in Xinjiang, made with honey from the front paws, so he was somewhat familiar with bear claws.
2 He clearly remembered that the thumb of a bear’s claw had little function and lacked strong gripping ability; gripping ability was a special skill unique to humans, gorillas, and monkeys.
2 Now, watching a group of wild boars being smashed almost into meat sauce by a group of giant bears with wooden clubs, Yun Ce really wanted to know what the humans here would look like.
2 However, when he recalled the several skulls full of tooth marks unearthed by that little wild boar, his heart sank continuously. It seemed humanity’s current survival situation was worrisome.
3 Yun Ce simply sat on a high tree branch overlooking the Shura field below, watching those giant bears use their claws to scoop up the freshly smashed wild boar blood and flesh to stuff into their mouths. Although these giant bears had mouths and bodies full of blood from eating, Yun Ce also discovered that the giant bears that could use wooden clubs were not the majority; more giant bears walked over on all fours and also pressed their bear skulls to the wild boar blood and flesh to eat.
3 Obviously, the bears that walked on all fours and gnawed pork with their mouths seemed to have lower status than those that used clubs. Once they started eating, the giant bears with clubs would leave the table and obediently hold their clubs waiting at the back.
3 This scene became clear with a little thought: to use a club as a weapon, the bear had to stand up, and once standing on its short legs, it absolutely couldn’t run fast.
3 Once a wild beast couldn’t run fast, its fate would probably be quite miserable.
3 You know, clubs aren’t that easy to hold. Once a tool is picked up, putting it down becomes extremely difficult—this is something the human race has full authority to speak on.
3 Back in the day, after the human ancestor-like ape descended from the trees and began walking upright, it could no longer return to the trees to live on wild fruit.
3 After the ape-like ancestor picked up a club and began using it as a weapon, it never put it down again, and weapons evolved from clubs to fire, to thrown spears, to spears, to bow and arrow, fishing nets… until rockets, cannons, tanks.
3 The bears holding clubs should be the most noble among this group of bears.
3 Thinking this way, Yun Ce saw a guy similar to a pig—with a pair of big ears, long mouth, bright eyes, body sturdy as a mountain, arms long and robust, and a pair of thick legs seemingly containing infinite strength—gripping a thick wooden club full of spikes and smashing a bear holding a wooden club to death with one blow.
3 It had just killed one bear when the rest swarmed up, so clubs flew everywhere, and sharp claws swung so fast they nearly left afterimages.
4 Yun Ce watched the familiar guy in shock. If he had to classify this person among acquaintances, without doubt, this guy should be called Zhu Bajie.
4 This guy arrived covered in blood, with sharp teeth in its long mouth full of blood-red meat fibers in the gaps, apparently having fought for a long time. Now restarting the battle, it was still ferociously powerful.
4 The giant bears besieging it were continuously smashed flying with broken tendons and fractured bones; some were even more miserable, their entire bear skulls smashed to a pulp at the crown.
4 With the pig demon battling the bears, the bracer on Yun Ce’s wrist became very unstable at this time. The liquid metal kept changing shape, most obviously once turning into a half-foot-long needle. Yun Ce wanted to stop it, but the needle broke in mid-air into fine needles almost invisible to the eye, silently detaching from Yun Ce’s wrist.
4 The pig demon’s body suddenly trembled violently while fighting the bears, and who knows where it got the strength from—it grabbed a bear’s head, brought it to its mouth, and bit down ruthlessly. The giant bear’s head burst with a pop, the pig demon stuck out its long tongue to lick its lips full of brain matter, then kicked a giant bear flying straight toward Yun Ce’s hiding spot.
4 Yun Ce determined that this pig demon hadn’t discovered him; it was just a natural reaction after being sneak-attacked by the liquid metal.
4 This bear kicked by the pig demon had its eyeballs exploded from its sockets with no chance of survival. Yun Ce used the force to push the bear outward, so the bear’s body crashed into the adjacent tree trunk, emitted a muffled sound, lost its momentum, stuck to the tree trunk for a moment, then fell down.
4 The pig demon seemed to harbor deep hatred for this bear; as soon as it fell, it angrily grabbed the bear corpse, one hand on the head and one on the body, tore forcefully, and yanked off the giant bear’s head.
4 No more giant bear shadows in sight; even the sturdy pig demon felt fatigued. It grabbed a bear heart from the giant bear with a ruptured chest and crunched it loudly.
4 Yun Ce saw clearly: the pig demon’s shoulder was slightly sunken, though not obvious. If Yun Ce hadn’t seen a few cow-hair fine needles stuck there, he wouldn’t have noticed this change.
5 After the pig demon ate seven or eight bear hearts in a row and stood up to leave, it unintentionally saw several blood-red needles stuck in its shoulder, and these needles sucking its blood and flesh were growing thicker and larger.
5 The pig demon roared madly, clawed at its shoulder, tore off the needles along with blood and flesh and threw them to the ground, then charged away in a cloud of dust to the right of the big tree.
