Chapter 10: The Laws Of Survival Haven’t Changed In The Slightest
The Carnivorous Bird has a very handsome appearance, appearing fierce and swift in flight, though its color is not attractive—most are gray, some are black, and very few are white.
Small-bodied birds of various kinds flew densely into high altitude, their wings pressed tightly together, forming a cloud of feathers. This made their appearance seem thousands of times larger all at once. Not only did they not avoid the Carnivorous Bird of prey, they bravely flipped upward to pounce.
The Bird of Prey naturally would not fear this false show of strength, fearlessly passing through the massive feather cloud. Its sharp claws and hook-like beak tore out large clumps of scattered feathers, and some birds with their necks torn off fell from mid-air. Yet those unknown birds relentlessly continued using the feather cloud to capture the Bird of Prey…
Yun Ce watched with great interest.
Because these birds were not much different from birds on Earth—nothing more than differences in feathers, size, and combs; the rest showed no difference.
This was good news for him, greatly encouraging his plan to leave the Big Tree and explore the ground.
People living in trees are called Bird People, and on Earth they were called Tree Dwellers. Living in trees is safe, but to survive, returning to the ground is ultimately a major trend.
Living in trees is somewhat more stable, but due to survival of the fittest, they grow a pair of long arms. Even the originally degenerated tail might grow back for better life in the trees.
Yun Ce did not want to turn himself into a long-armed ape, swinging long arms back and forth in the trees, sometimes even using his tail to loop around a tree branch and hang upside down to sleep.
Such thoughts were actually somewhat boring. For a human who had developed to a relatively advanced level, he should not have such ideas at all.
1 However, last night during the coldest time, Yun Ce discovered his body had truly improved. That severe cold of at least minus thirty degrees last night caused no harm to his body. After getting used to the intense cold, he even slept soundly.
1 Despite developing in a positive direction, Yun Ce was still very worried, fearing that after eating the Dragon Eggshell he would turn into a dragon. Compared to being covered in Dragon Scales, he still preferred his own skin that felt good to the touch, warm, smooth, and sensitive.
1 Tree Dwellers on Earth eventually returned to the ground and ultimately became cave dwellers, while Tree Dwellers finally disappeared in the torrent of history.
1 When reading books before, anthropologists boasted this act as extremely great, but Yun Ce did not understand, thinking it was a very simple matter.
1 Now it was his turn. Standing on a tree branch less than ten meters from the ground, he hesitated for a long time, not daring to easily land on the ground full of dry branches and fallen leaves.
1 He had been squatting on the tree branch for an hour and a half, first seeing a fist-sized golden beetle with over a dozen legs crawling out from under rotten tree leaves. Before the Golden Beetle could move a few steps, a one-meter-long long worm with many legs similarly crawled out from under rotten tree branches and swallowed the Golden Beetle in one bite.
1 If things had stopped there, Yun Ce would not have been afraid; at most it was just a daily display of the food chain.
1 But what happened next demanded his serious attention.
1 Because the swallowed Golden Beetle actually kept wriggling inside the long worm’s stomach. As it wriggled and wriggled, it burst the long worm’s stomach, crawled out from inside, and continued on its way, climbing up the tree without even glancing back…
1 The long worm with its stomach burst seemed quite adapted to having its stomach bitten open. Seeing the Golden Beetle flee, it did not chase, just twisted its body with the hole and burrowed back under the dry leaves.
2 This incident gave Yun Ce a big lesson.
2 The Golden Beetle’s vitality is very strong!
2 The long worm’s vitality is also very strong!
2 After waiting an hour and a half, the Golden Beetle finally reached Yun Ce’s feet, so Yun Ce lifted his foot and stomped down hard.
2 The expected bursting sensation did not occur. Lifting his foot, he saw the Golden Beetle embedded in the sole of his shoe. If not for the steel plate in his shoe sole, the Golden Beetle would have had intimate contact with his foot sole.
2 Using a knife to pry the Golden Beetle from the shoe sole, Yun Ce smashed a stick down on the beetle’s back. Lifting the stick, the beetle was unharmed, so Yun Ce raised the stick and struck repeatedly.
2 Yun Ce was strong; in a moment, the stick was covered in lifelike Golden Beetle molds.
2 Yun Ce lifted his foot and kicked hard at the beetle’s body; it flew out immediately. Before the force he applied dissipated, the shell on this thing cracked open, revealing a pair of rainbow-like brilliant wings, and it flew off heavily.
2 The Golden Beetle flew toward the sun, looking badass from behind. Yun Ce truly could not understand what this guy, just stepped on under his foot, had to be proud of.
2 However, he faintly felt regret in his heart, thinking he should not have kicked that Golden Beetle away.
3 “Whoosh,” a wooden spear was thrown by Yun Ce, firmly nailing the long-legged long worm to the ground. The long worm’s vitality was indeed vigorous; even with its body pinned by the wooden spear, it tightly wrapped around the spear, constantly spitting out speckled transparent liquid onto it. Soon, many black spots appeared on the wooden spear.
3 Yun Ce kept waiting for the long worm to finish spitting its venom, but this wait lasted half an hour. The wooden spear was long corroded ragged by the venom, yet the long worm had not died and was still spitting venom.
3 He was not only observing the long worm spitting venom but also the venom falling on the rotten tree branches. Upon contact, the venom began smoking heavily, and within the smoke-covered area, many small insects fled, some appearing colorful and definitely not harmless.
3 Seeing the long worm had spat enough on this side of the Big Tree, Yun Ce used another wooden spear to move it to the other side to continue spitting. Whenever he noticed it slacking off, he poked it again.
3 Logically, the long worm’s venom storage should be limited, but this one seemed off. Yun Ce watched as it spat venom for nearly an hour, its body slowly flattening, yet this did not stop it from continuing to spray venom—only the force seemed weaker, with most venom scattering at the tree roots.
3 Seeing his anti-insect measures were ready, Yun Ce finally released this pitiful long worm.
3 Watching the long worm leave without looking back, Yun Ce was very satisfied with the tree roots covered in insect corpses.
3 On the first day, Yun Ce did not leave the Big Tree.
3 The reason he did not leave the Big Tree was that he still had no hunger even now.
3 Yun Ce now believed what Ao Bing said: the Dragon Eggshell was truly a great tonic.
4 Returning to the tree hollow again, Yun Ce lit a fire in the damp tree hollow. For safety, he lit another fire on the horizontal branch at the entrance, using dry branches from the Big Tree trunk as fuel. These dry branches burned very durably, needing no firewood added for a long time, though the smoke was heavy. To avoid being smoked to death, he made a hole in the trunk for ventilation.
4 When the fire burned up, many visitors came to the horizontal branch in front of Yun Ce’s tree hollow, among them the Giant Beaked Bird with its orange-red huge mouth being the most persistent—no matter how he drove them away, they would not leave.
4 They seemed to have an extremely obsessive enthusiasm for fire. Even after two birds had their heads chopped off by Yun Ce, more landed one after another, wanting to roast by the fire.
4 Yun Ce was not a good person, at least not a kindly indulgent one. He had considered using these Giant Beaked Birds as food.
4 The Giant Beaked Bird’s feathers were fairly good-looking, and its huge beak seemed somewhat useful, but unfortunately, this bird was too smelly. Even after being killed, the blood dropping on the tree released a smell similar to a camel’s hind leg armpit that even strong winds could not dispel. With no choice, Yun Ce had to scrape off the blood-stained tree bark together, which saved his life.
4 Seeing these Giant Beaked Birds so fond of roasting by the fire, Yun Ce divided the fire into three piles. The Giant Beaked Birds eagerly spread their wings, dancing and singing around the fires. Several bold ones even straddled the fire piles with their slender legs on both sides, letting the flames scorch their feathers, heedless even if the feathers on their bellies and tails burned away completely.
4 Watching the Giant Beaked Bird’s belly start sizzling with oil as it turned into roast chicken, it still perched over the fire, looking utterly enjoying.
4 Finally, one Giant Beaked Bird with its belly sizzling oil stumbled and fell from the tree. Yun Ce listened carefully, and several seconds later heard the landing sound—seemingly truly dead.
4 The spot vacated by this Giant Beaked Bird was immediately taken by another reckless one.
4 Kind-hearted Yun Ce, seeing the Giant Beaked Birds so enjoying the flame roasting, specially divided the three fires into ten piles, wanting to observe whether the Giant Beaked Birds’ fire-seeing suicide was group behavior or an individual case.
5 Watching the Giant Beaked Birds queue up to roast and suicide by fire, Yun Ce was utterly baffled.
5 Some Giant Beaked Birds roasted themselves to death and fell from the tree; others, steaming hot, collapsed on the trunk. Yun Ce kept prodding these Giant Beaked Birds with a wooden spear.
5 The Giant Beaked Bird was dead, yet its stomach still rose and fell. In a moment, a parasitic insect strolled out from the Giant Beaked Bird’s anus. Once away from the corpse, the insect purposefully crawled toward nearby Giant Beaked Birds. At this time, even those roasting by the fire cawed and pecked at the insects with their huge mouths.
5 Seeing this, Yun Ce understood why the Giant Beaked Birds committed suicide.
5 The Parasitic Insect in the Giant Beaked Bird’s stomach must have made its life worse than death, preferring to roast itself dead rather than live on. But there are many ways to suicide—why choose cremation?
5 So Yun Ce impaled a glowing red charcoal piece with a wooden spear and tossed it onto the insect. The charcoal dimmed first, then flared up with a large burst of bright yellow flames, like ignited gasoline… making Yun Ce want to collect some of these insects.
5 Being able to figure it out and understand the rules of operation in this world meant the gap between this world and Earth was not so vast as to be incomprehensible—at least many physics laws were the same as on Earth.
5 As the fires on the trunk gradually extinguished, the foul-smelling Giant Beaked Birds left without mercy, leaving Yun Ce with a large mass of intense stench.
