Chapter 5 – Are you fucking kidding me? (2/2)

Once upon a time, Shao Xuan would try to mediate when he saw parents disciplining their kids, and sometimes he would even get into a fight when he saw parents beating up their children. He would have never hurt children, but what about now?

Sure, the environment was different, and the children in the tribe were not the same as the children from his past life. Even if they were at the same age, their characters had much in difference. Take kids from the orphan cave, for instance, even if you beat them down this time, next time they would still come up and fight when there’s food, with even fiercer attitude and harder fists. When they are controlled by their emotions, no one would ever hold back like Shao Xuan. Wood or stone, they would use whatever by their hand as a weapon when they fight. One shall only lose if he has even the slightest mercy in his heart. For example, Zhan was trembling and he was afraid earlier, but next time, he would still swing his weapon at Shao Xuan and try to rob his things together with Sai.

For God’s sake, the first day when Shao Xuan woke up from a coma, it was the time when people were distributing food in the cave. Shao Xuan thought that perhaps he had fallen into a wolf’s cave when other kids were staring at each other with hatred. They were all kids from six to thirteen in age, and only a few of them were thirteen years old.

Savageness is contagious.

After he had enough rest, Shao Xuan used two fine stones to trade with a stoneware crafter and got four meat jerkies back; two with bones and the other two without bones. He gave Caesar the jerkies with bone and ate one without bone himself. The last meat jerky, he used to trade for a cheap animal skin in medium size. Winter was coming and he had to prepare early.

He returned to the orphan cave, just when food was about to be distributed. The man in charge had already prepared the food and stored it within a giant stone crock. Only those with totem power could have the strength to lift a stone crock that large.

The tribe would bring food to the orphan cave until the children there awakened their totem power and left to build their own house.

Sometimes there was meat on their menu, but there was not enough, and could only maintain the basic living needs of children, for meat was hard to obtain. Besides meat, usually their food would be plants, for example the red-haired fruit that Shao Xuan was looking at.

That was a tuber from some trees in the color of red-brown, with plenty of thin root tubers on the outside, like fine hair. The big ones had the size of pumpkins in Shao Xuan’s past life, and the small ones were in the size of adult’s fist. It tasted like potatoes, and one would easily feel full. The only problem is that the red-haired fruit had some side effect.

Speaking of the effects, red-haired fruits are good for regulating gastrointestinal functions. In plain words, it would create lots of gas. And, the effect would be more obvious, if one’s only food was the red-haired fruit without meat. No meat left only the direct side effect of farting. But that would not be so if one also ate some meat.

Most children in the orphan cave only slept and ate every day, resulting in only a few children trying to go out for extra food. And with the main source of food coming from the tribe, it led to the fact that every time they ate red-haired fruit, the air quality in the orphan cave would be extremely unique and quite ‘special’.

Shao Xuan’s face turned green.

“Hey, Ah-Xuan!”

Ku was in charge of distributing food and he ran towards Shao Xuan as he saw him, with a piece of boiled red-haired fruit in his hand. That was a big piece, at least obviously larger than what the other kids were having.

Ku was one of the oldest kids in their cave. He was thirteen years old. There were two other thirteen-years-olds but they were not as strong as Ku, so Ku was in charge of managing the cave and he helped in distributing food every day. There were obvious advantages in taking that job, one of which was that he could have more food to eat himself. This let Ku grow much stronger than the other orphans; even looking like someone with parents.

Normally Ku would not talk much with others, as he usually spent all day out and only came back to the cave when food should be served. He had not spoken much with Shao Xuan either, but why then was he approaching him with a big piece of fruit in his hand?

Shao Xuan looked at Ku and took over the red-haired fruit.

Ku was in a good mood, and he was somehow excited.

“Ah-Xuan, I will go to the hillside tomorrow and spend the whole winter there. You shall take over the cave.” Ku said.

Shao Xuan almost threw his red-haired fruit at Ku’s words. Even if Ku leaves, the cave should be taken over by other older kids. There were two thirteen-year-old children and quite a few eleven and twelve-years-olds. Why would the job fall onto him, while he was under ten?

The appointment could not have been made by Ku, so Shao Xuan asked, “Who said that?”

Ku pointed to that person who was in charge of bringing food every day, as that one leaned against the stone crock, casually picking his teeth while shaking his toes.