Chapter 17 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation 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 pa.s.sed 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.