On this grassy plains, no more grass could be made out, only hard and greyish yellow roots. Was it because the surrounding grasses had been gnawed to the ground by the herbivores? Or because they’ve became too dried?
Some patches around here only had dry sandy soil left, even the grassroots had been gnawed away.
A gray black hare peeked out of a hole in the sand. It keenly sensed the surroundings, and after not detecting any threat, lowered its head to nibble on roots. They were on the verge of winter. All animals were trying to store as much fat as they could during this period, so that they could survive the long winter.
A tall figure in the distance grabbed a long spear with a sharpened head, with waist tucked in, it approached the fat hare quietly like a wild leopard.
Swoosh!
The rabbit’s foot shook for a spell. The spear didn’t pierce into the hare, but smashed the hare’s head with its flat side instead.
The figure leaped towards it and grabbed the hare with smashed head but otherwise intact fur. He tied its feet with a grass rope and hung it upside down on a dip of his spear.
The hunter was about to leave, but suddenly his steps stopped and he stooped over to take a closer look at the ground.
There was a trace of something being dragged along from the west to the east on the grassy, sandy ground. It looked like a wooden stake.
The man straightened up and followed the dragging trail with his eyes. The trail was very long, it extended far ahead.
The tall and dark man rubbed his fingers. He raised his hand and took a sniff. When he touched the ground, he found blood there. It had dried, but it still clearly smelled of blood. Whatever it was that left this trail of blood, human or animal, they’re not going to last more than half a day.
And an injured animal, or human, meant…
The man licked his lips. A pair of long and narrow black eyes flashed with cold-blooded greed. The knife scar and strange markings on his face made him look all the more savage.
One rabbit was not enough. He needed to find other food.
He followed the trail all the way to the east. After following it for about 2.5 km out, he came to see a marshland that was about 12 metre wide.
There’s a depression in the middle of the marshland that couldn’t even be called a pool. It had collected murky yellow water mixed with sand and mud. There were even many hydrophilic plants in the water. This place was the only piece of green that could be seen around these parts. At the same time, this small depression of less than one third of a metre deep was the only source of water you’d find within the surrounding 10 km.
Someone lied on the edge of that puddle, it’s unclear if he’s alive or dead.
Whether because he was exhausted or because he had squeezed out all his force of life, that person had crawled all the way to the edge of the water, one of his hands was in the puddle, but his mouth hadn’t touched the water at all.
His upper half was bare and a grass rope was fastened around his waist. Judging from the skin that was exposed, this person wasn’t very old. He didn’t seem very tall either. He was so skinny his entire body was just bone covered with skin, the only place on his body that had some curves was his buttocks, there’s still some meat there.
Flies from who knows where had gathered around the guy. Aside from the flies, many insects he couldn’t name were clinging on the person in the puddle. They’d decided on this piece of meat to be their meal for today and the next few days, and were roaming for their seats to start feasting.
This person’s right leg had the most insects on it, compared to the rest of his body.
There’s a rather big wound on this person’s right leg, just a bit above the knee. It looked like the bone was broken from some beast’s bite. The wound had been treated in a simple manner, the broken bone was tightly secured with a grass rope. But the rotting skin around the wound had begun to fester, whether because of the too hot weather or the lack of medicine to treat it. There were a lot of white maggots roaming around the opening.
A black beetle bit onto the rotten meat on his leg. Its huge pincer tore out a piece of the meat, then tried to dig into the bloody flesh with its sharp triangular head.
His whole body shuddered. The pain pulled him back to consciousness.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Mnmx…!”
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The water was a little warm, but it’s cool enough for someone who’d been baking under the sun for a day. At least it could serve to lower the temperature of his head.
Yan Mo didn’t drink the puddle’s water. He’s just sobering up his mind.
He was currently wounded and sick, if he drank such a dirty water without filtering it, his condition would 90% become worse.
He had looked around and found some animal footprints when he reached this depression. Based on his many years of experience as a doctor, the water didn’t look poisonous. Before he fainted he wanted to scoop some water in his hand, let the sediments settle, look at the water quality again then think how to drink it.
Right now, he discovered that he might’ve gotten a fever again because of the infected wound, so he couldn’t wait for the water and sediments to separate. He decided to take a cool bath first.
Yan Mo only took out his head from the water when he couldn’t hold his breath anymore. Thanks to the hot weather and desert-like climate, there were no living creatures in the water except for the wild water plants.
Good and bad comes in one package. He wanted to grab two leeches to suck the excess blood around his wound. Dried and ground leeches could be used to treat trauma wounds and had certain effect in treating bone fractures; Now, obviously, he couldn’t use that method.
Yan Mo propped up his upper body and folded the wounded leg to himself. When he looked down, he saw that black beetle had already buried half of its body into his open wound.
Instead of using fingers to pull it out, he broke off a hard grass root and used it as a blade tip. He ruthlessly cut into his skin and flesh, then picked out the beetle that had drilled in from within the mass of blood.
Fresh blood gushed out. Yan Mo extended a hand into the water pit, his wrist dug lower, reaching the bottom of the depression. He dug out large amount of mud from under the yellow sand, and smeared it on the wound.
This was crudest way to stop the blood. For only when you really have nothing better on hand.
He picked out the small insects feasting on his wound, leaving only the white maggots eating rotten meat. He didn’t fuss about the mosquitoes around him. Not that he could do anything to them right now. Yan Mo’s mouth slightly tilted up, making his smile look extremely mocking.
Dragging his legs, Yan Mo lied down beside the puddle again and scooped up water with his hands. The sand content in the water was very high. If he wanted to wait for it to settle completely, he’d need to leave it in some container for at least a day.
Drinking water with a high sand content like this may be able to quench thirst for a while, but would only make him even thirstier afterwards. But he already couldn’t stand the thirst.
Die of thirst now or die of thirst later? Die out of thirst, or push myself to certain death by drinking unclean water?
Yan Mo found a place that looked fairly clean, and used his hand to brush away the dust floating on the upper layer of the water visible to the naked eye. He filtered it roughly with fingers, licked his lips, and drank out of his hand.
The water that had some strange smell flowed down his throat and into his insides. It felt like the water rehydrated his dried body. Even though the water tastes very weird, he still gulped it down again and again. He kept drinking, not stopping even after he was no longer thirsty. He drank until he felt completely full with water.
After drinking, he sat up to rest. He tried his best to ignore the pain in his leg, there’s no other choice since he didn’t have anything to treat it now.
He stretched out his head and looked at the water. The reflection on the water surface was distorted, but he could somewhat see his current appearance.
His hair was rather long, messy and had straws in it. The itchiness on his scalp was torture, he didn’t know how many lice he was feeding on his head.
He touched his face. It’s quite smooth, he didn’t have a beard so he mustn’t be that old. He looked at his own skin and felt his bone. Yan Mo guessed that this body of his was between 12 to 16 years old. The reason why he couldn’t narrow the age range down was because one, he couldn’t see his face clearly, and two, he couldn’t figure our his age just by looking at his skin because the environment was not ordinary. People in the desert would always grow up faster, so he couldn’t accurately pinpoint his age.
If only he had a knife here, even better if he could have a lighter.
Yan Mo stopped himself from thinking these. When you start wanting one thing, you’ll eventually want another then another. The him right now had nothing to his name aside from straw rope on his waist and a grass ‘pouch’ hugging his family’s jewels.
The straw rope and straw pouch were even not originally his belongings. He needed to crawl through the sandy grass and his thing needed protection so he fashioned it by rubbing the grass together and covered his private place a little. But such a last minute creation wasn’t that comfortable. The grass pouch provided barrier between his thing and the ground, but the grass was stiff and had sharp bits, so it still hurt.
He was most likely abandoned by his group. He couldn’t walk because of his injury, and it was infected, to boot. The people who abandoned him probably thought he wouldn’t be able to survive. He didn’t have a single piece of clothing on him, it’s probably because they saw that he was going to die anyway and had no need of clothes or other things so they stripped him bare.
If his guess was right, that meant that the ordinary people here couldn’t even afford to let their dead die with some clothes to cover themselves, it could be inferred how poor the people here were.
He also thought of a more positive scenario. For example, someone kidnapped this body of his, and tossed him away when he discovered he was gonna die soon. The kidnapper took all his belongings, even his clothes, so that the police wouldn’t have any clues.
If that was true, at least he’d have a chance to return to the modern society.
However!
Look at his sun burned skin, it was completely darkened. He wasn’t naturally black skinned, but now he couldn’t tell whether his skin was actually brown or yellow.
Look at his rough feet and palms. Clearly, the person with them had done a lot of hard work. These hands were calloused and felt very rough. Did he look anything like rich young master who would be kidnapped by someone?
So, he must now be in an impoverished area with a ruthless folk customs, otherwise how could they leave a dying kid here? He was still alive. The people here might not understand the law, or they could be a vicious and violent criminal gang.
Either way, he’s royally screwed.
“Ugh!” Yan Mo made a muffled cry and plunged his head into the puddle again. This time, not to cool himself down, but to wash his hair.
His scalp was so unbearably itchy. He could even feel the small black blood-sucking bugs roaming his scalp.
He would’ve shaved his head clean if he had a knife now!
Yan Mo pulled his head out of the puddle. His head was less itchy now, finally.
He began to think about how he’d live from now.
First of all, he needed to thoroughly search this small grassland. Who knows, he might be able to find anti-inflammatory herbs or herbs that could stop bleeding.
Even better if he could find some hard shrubs that could replace branches, to fix his broken bones together when he change his bandages.
Next, he’d need some weapons to protect himself. It’s going to be dark soon. The nocturnal and other wild animals would shortly gather around here to drink water. He had no weapons and no fire to protect himself, if he couldn’t leave this place before night arrived… there’s only two outcomes, he’d either be eaten or he’d be eaten.
He should leave this place as soon as possible. This place had water source, but it’s too dangerous.
Yan Mo’s eyes sweep through the marsh. He didn’t see any plants similar to shrubs, only weeds.
Yan Mo set his goals to the other end of the weeds. He lowered his body to a crawling position and dragged himself forward with his arms. He hoped there would be useful herbs around here.
Flash! A black wooden stick appeared in front of him.
Yan Mo was first stunned, then wild with joy. There’s someone here!
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The man behind Yan Mo used his spear to block him from running off. He quickly sized the boy’s bare back, but mostly lingering around that sightly rounder buttocks.
The man rubbed his crotch with his free hand. He was thinking if he should vent his desires first or kill this person here then carry the meat back.
His injury was already to this state, he’s probably going to die soon. If not that, then he’ll lose that leg. Taking him home will just be a waste of food.
Yan Mo tried to get his upper half up so he could turn his head and see the man standing behind him.
Yan Mo can now clearly see the the appearance of the man behind him.
The man can also clearly see what Yan Mo looked like.
That small face had been washed clean, and his face gave off a feeling he’s a kind and honest boy.
Yan Mo’s heart thumped. This man was definitely no good chap. Those eyes looked him up and down as if measuring a block of meat.
And, isn’t this a savage man?
The man’s good figure did nothing to mask the savage and bloodthirsty aura rolling out of him. Not to mention the animal skin around his waist on top of the the black tattoo on his face.
What modern man would dress like this?
Yan Mo felt killing intent. This guy wanted to kill him!
Almost exactly when the man was about to kill him, Yan Mo moved faster than ever and forced out a flattering smile that screamed, I’m a good person who’d never lie. He had never made such a smile before in his life.
The man’s hand reaching for on Yan Mo’s neck paused. He was about to quickly break this boy’s neck with one hand. He really did want to do it once before killing the boy, but it was getting dark. The sun was about to set behind the mountain. He still needed to get back to the tribe. This marshland was not that safe that he could stay here after dark.
“Big brother, give me a bowl of rice and I’ll work as your cow and your horse, yeah?”
The man couldn’t understand what Yan Mo was saying, but that smile on his honest-looking face drew him in.
Should I take him back and raise him? Even if he loses that leg and can’t do work, he still has other uses. If he gets broken later, that’s fine too. It’s going to be winter soon, I can keep him for the meat.
“Big brother, I’m alone and have no one else. As long as you help me this once, I will definitely repay you well.”
His voice sounds good, too. It’ll feel great listening to him cry and scream as I fvck him.
“Big br—” Before Yan Mo could finish his third sentence, the man had brought down a hand-chop to his neck, making him lost consciousness.
Padam: Just this one chapter, just this one took me so long, I’m not gonna redo Jade’s chapters.
Who’s the smiling guy??! So handsome ne! I remember reading this novel before but not finishing it so I’m rereading now. Hoping for a good ride in this 600+ chapters and good work translator sama!
That, my friend, is Xiao Zhan 😌
He’s not the official face for any of the characters (no image is canon except the ones I put in the Official Art link in the Novel’s Contents page), but he just has such pure smile that he’s what i thought when I read the passage.
Yeah he’s really got a very cute smile! Reading still right now, good work translator sama!
I had finished this series before despite the inconsistent quality of theEunuch’s translation. I loved it dearly, especial the bird (is it JunFeng or JinFeng? I forgot). Didn’t know there is a cleaner ver project running in CG. I had been wondering, the one in the cover of this novel, is it official art of that mermaid geezer (you know how old he is despite his handsomeness), or is it a fan art?
Yuan Zhan oh Yuan Zhan, your brain is truly rotten!
Are you slandering my Xiao Zhan?!! 😂😂😂
Already done reading this for last July 4, now I’m just skimming. But I suddenly got confused, who’s our Yuan Zhan first time? Is he still virgin here or nah? Since he’s still savage before getting to know Yan Mo. He’s 17 tho, but the people here even got a child at age12-14… So he’s not virgin anymore? Lol nvm, he’s a savage man from primitive era, so people here doesn’t really care about that I guess.