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1.17% 48 Hours a Day / Chapter 17: Desert Island Survival XI

Chapter 17: Desert Island Survival XI

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Zhang Heng woke up from his sleep and saw Bell roasting the python that nearly swallowed him the night before.

"Zhang, you're awake just in time for breakfast." The explorer stirred the bonfire with a stick to adjust the flames, and then pointed at the thing next to him that was still dripping with blood. "Snake skin. I just peeled it. After I wash it, we can use it to make a water bag of some sort, it'll be much more impervious than pails; or we could use it to make clothes. It can keep us cool—very useful in hot weather."

"Thank you for last night." Zhang Heng found a place to sit on the ground. The red marks around his arm were still visible.

"Oh, don't worry about it. You saved me from the sea. If we want to survive in the wilderness, we have to help each other, right?" Bell said as he passed a roasted snake skewer to Zhang Heng.

He was about to refuse when a thought struck him—this might be the only chance in his life that he got to eat a python without being thrown into jail. So, he accepted it.

He took a curious bite and found that it tasted pretty good. It did not have a strong smell and tasted a bit like chicken, only chewier.

When he thought about how this creature nearly took his life last night, Zhang Heng decided to have a second helping.

...

After breakfast, the two set off again.

Bell continued to play the role of a capable guide, clearing the path in the front with his knife and explaining the various organisms they encounter to Zhang Heng along the way.

"The python we ran into last night is not the only predator in this forest. When pythons eat, they normally swallow their prey head-first. Because of their poor eyesight, they sometimes eat prey that are too big for their stomachs to handle and their belly would explode. But snakes have very good digestion. They could digest bones and flesh all together without a problem. The animal bones we saw back there, some of them are still in perfect condition. It didn't look like they were the python's victims."

Zhang Heng quietly noted down this trivia. Many things seemed to be of little use but you never know when the time would come that you would actually come to use it.

For example, Ed and the guy in shorts never taught him how to salt out of seawater; it was something he had seen from a video on some bullet screen website. Using heat, crystallization and repeated filtration process, you could obtain relatively pure food-grade salt and make food much more appetizing.

Speaking of which, when Zhang Heng was in primary school, he had visited Xishuangbanna with his grandfather. The forest park there left a deep impression on him.

But that place was developed by man, and only a small portion of it was opened to the public for safety reasons. This was the first time Zhang Heng had been in an all-natural forest like this. Like Bell said, the colony in this place was rich and it really opened Zhang Heng's eyes.

For instance, along the way, he spotted a little amphibian with a semi-transparent belly that gave Zhang Heng a view into its heart, liver and digestive system. What was more incredible was that the frog's body was only about 1-2milliliter.

"Glass frogs generally reside in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. To date, 134 types of glass frogs have been identified. Among which, sixty of them are on the verge of extinction," said the explorer as he carefully placed the tiny creature back onto the leaf.

"What about this?" Zhang Heng pointed at a bump growing on a Banyan tree like a tumor. There was a new shoot growing out of it.

"Oh, staghorn fern. A type of epiphyte. They are tender green when they are young, and turn light brown when they mature. They mostly live on the trunks and branches of other trees. It's commonly found in tropical rain forests."

Other than that, Zhang Heng also saw: a colugo. This thing was neither cat nor monkey with wings like a bat's that enclosed its neck, limbs, and tail. Spreading them allowed the mammal to glide in the air. It looked rather playful; a Bagheera kiplingi, a species of jumping spider and the only species of spiders with a herbivorous diet—they eat nubs at the tip of leaves. The name was too difficult to pronounce. Zhang Heng had Bell repeat it three times and was still doubtful; bird-of-paradise whose cries sounded like gunshots. When Zhang Heng first heard it, he nearly jumped out of his skin. But the bird was very beautiful, especially its feathers that changes colors…

 Even Bell could not help but exclaim, "This place is a biological paradise! This is the first time I've seen so many tropical plants and animals from different regions gathered in one place! This is unbelievable! Biologists would love this piece of land." 

Just then, Zhang Heng felt something underneath his feet. He bent down to pick it up and saw that it was the tooth of some animal with a circular hole at the bottom.

"This thing looks man-made. Naturally formed holes are generally not that regular." Bell took the tooth from his companion and examined it. "I know that some aboriginals would wear the teeth of the animals they hunted around their neck to show off their strength. The more powerful their game is, the more powerful they are deemed to be. That way, when it comes to choosing their partners, it would be easier for them to pick their desired mate. I have a friend, who went hunting a lion alone so that he could marry the most beautiful girl in their tribe. He never came back. "

There was indeed a reason for the smaller population of foreigners. Zhang Heng made no comment about this. Instead, he asked a question that he was more concerned about, "Are there aboriginals living on this island? Could they be cannibals?"

Bell shook his head. "The chances are small. The island is not very big. You said that you've been living on this island for more than a year now. If there were other people on this island, there's no reason that you haven't met them yet… Also, this thing looks like it's quite old."

"So, you're saying that there were aboriginals living here?" Zhang Heng could feel sweat dripping down his back. If those aboriginals were still alive, they could have captured him and Ed to make soup on the first day they arrive on the island.

'Mm, let's keep going further." Bell was also interested to find out. The possibility of a lost civilization appealed to the explorer in him. He nearly forgot that they had come to search for a way to leave the island.

The two continued towards the heart of the island.

As of now, they were already nearly halfway into their journey, and the deeper they went, the more evidence of human civilization they found.

Bell took a look at the completely eroded little huts, and the moss-covered stone wares and tools, and could tell that a long time ago, an aboriginal tribe had once lived here in the forest of this island.

What happened to them? Why have they all disappeared? The explorer was getting more intrigued by the minute.


next chapter

Chapter 18: Desert Island Survival XII

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Zhang Heng was not surprised mainly because he was aware that this was just a game and he would not have been surprised if they had found Winnie the Pooh in the forest.

But, at the moment, Zhang Heng could not deny that everything around him right now was so realistic. If it had not been for his extra twenty-four hours causing a major complication and lengthening the span of the game, he would not have detected any bug at all.

Other than the huts and stone tools, the pair also found a small, almost 1-hectare lake nearby. Bell tasted the water and said, "It's drinkable. This is a freshwater lake. No wonder they built their village nearby."

Zhang Heng's eye, however, was drawn to something half-buried in the mud by the lake.

 "This tribe… Did they already possess the skills to smelt metal?"

Zhang Heng pulled out the item and found that it was a piece of very rusty ironware. It appeared to have been attached to a piece of wood but the handle was beyond recognition.

Upon inspection, Zhang Heng found himself clueless as to what that item was.

Bell was not all-knowing: he did not know what the thing was used for either. So, he could only analyze. "From the look of the craftmanship, they are most probably still in the stone age era. This piece of metal may not have belonged to them."

It was getting late so they did not continue further but found a place nearby and started a fire for cooking.

The closer they were to their destination, Zhang Feng found himself in a tangle of emotions.

For the past one year, he had relied on the objective of exploring the center of the island to keep himself working hard on improving his archery skills, and exercising to keep in shape until it became essentially almost like second nature to him. But to say that he was concerned about what was in there was not entirely true either.

In light of this, Zhang Heng often envied Ed, Bell and the guy in shorts. They could comfort themselves that perhaps tomorrow a ship would dock at the island, or perhaps there was something on the island that could bring them home. On the contrary, player Zhang Heng knew very well that unless the time was up, he was not going anywhere.

When he thought about how they were going to solve the mystery tomorrow, he was both emotional and excited—he had been thinking about this day for the past one year, after all—but most of all, he was at a loss.

Once this was over, what was he going to rely on to survive?

Thank goodness four-fifths of the time had already passed, leaving only another hundred over days to go. Even if he did not have a goal to work towards, he should be able to bite the bullet and pull through.

On the third morning of the expedition, Zhang Heng rose early but when he opened his eyes, he saw that Bell was already up.

"Morning, Zhang," the explorer greeted him excitedly. "I just took a walk around the lake again. Guess what I found?"

"Er… new breakfast?"

"That's actually true. I caught a catfish so that we can have a change of flavors. But other than that, I also found something else." Bell placed two rusty little balls on Zhang Heng's palm.

 "What is this? Marbles?"

"This is a bullet."

"How are solid bullets fired?" Zhang Heng asked. He was not a fan of weapons but he had some basic knowledge about them. Modern weapons relied on the ignition of gunpower in the bullets to be fired. Without gunpowder, the bullet could not penetrate anything. 

 "Remember that thing you found by the lake? I know what it is." The explorer was beaming in excitement. "It's a matchlock—widely used in the fifteenth, sixteenth century Europe. The gunpower and cartridge for this type of weapon are filled separately, and then the match cord is lit up… At that time, the slave trade was booming, and the aboriginals here must have been attacked and captured by the slave traders and then sold off to farmers."

The speculation seemed reasonable and in accordance with what they had seen. Zhang Heng decided to accept this friend's statement as the truth. However, later on that day, when they finally arrived at the heart of the island, they came across a structure that resembled an altar with a mountain of bones stacked up on top of it.

Zhang Heng turned to his companion. "Were your fifteenth, sixteenth century European slave traders this ruthless?"

"… This is not the work of the slave traders. This was a dark and bloody period. As far as I know, slave traders do, in fact, kill those who try to resist captive in order to scare the others. Sometimes, they would also kill the ones who were too old or too young, those too inconvenient to transport." Bell walked up to the altar and picked up a skull. "But this… this is not their practice."

"If it's not the slave traders who killed aboriginals of the island, then who did? Could they have done it themselves?"

Zhang Heng's question stumped the both of them. 

The architectural style of the altar was very similar to the ruins they had stumbled on by the lake.

"Alright, say the slave traders arrived on the island, and these aboriginals saw that they could were no match for the enemy so they came to the altar and ended their own lives… It's a little far-fetched."

Bell walked to the center of the mound of bones, bent down and wiped away the dust on the stone floor. "This is something else. It's a totem depicting a half-human, half-snake creature. It looks like it could be the gods that these aboriginals worshipped."

Zhang Heng was a little disappointed. Although he did not care too much for whatever was in the heart of the island, finding the indigenous ruins that had no use to him caused him to feel dispirited.

He had prepared for this for one an entire year, and it was a dangerous journey coming here. He was even nearly swallowed by a python. In the end, all they found was just a bunch of bones and some altar.

But seeing how excited Bell was by all that, Zhang Heng kept this opinion to himself.

The pair had plenty of food and water. There was still more than half of the food they had brought with them, and then on the way Bell killed quite a number of 'games', which might have looked like things that most people would be reluctant to put in their mouths, were actually surprisingly okay.

Zhang Heng was contemplating whether or not to cut directly through the forest to the other end of the island then travel along the coastline to return to their dwelling when a dark shadow suddenly emerged from behind the altar and sprung for the explorer. 

Zhang Heng jumped. He did not need Bell's scientific explanations to recognize what that thing was—jaguar, the king of the rainforest, with a likeness to a tiger, armed with sharp teeth and claws that could tear into a caiman. It was that large predator at the top of the food chain.

Bell's reflex was very quick. The explorer rolled across the floor and evaded the beast's lightning attack, then drew the knife at his waist.

Zhang Heng quickly drew his bow and arrow, but another jaguar appeared.

This time, Bell's face fell.

What?! Zhang Heng felt a wave of nausea come over him. By right, the explorer's death was still four days away. Why had these cats showed up so early? Did they get the wrong script?

But there was no time for him to think about these things right now. Bell was in grave danger. No matter how good he was there was no way he could fight off two jaguars alone. Zhang Heng raised his bow and shot at the second jaguar.

The cat dodged the arrow swiftly. Zhang Heng had already expected that. They were both now about 27 or 28 meters away from each other. If he had shot at Mickey Mouse from this distance, his accuracy rate was about 50—60%. But the jaguar was much nimbler and lither than the Dodo bird.


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