Chapter 16 – Winter is coming (2/2)

“This is from Mai, and the clothes are from Lang Ga.” Said Ge, “They are pretty busy today, because the Shaman said winter would come tomorrow. Everyone is busy checking on houses and preparing stuff. So they asked me to help deliver their things to you.”

Mai’s hunting team returned yesterday, and they hurriedly finished their last hunting mission of the year before wintertime. The harvest was good, and Shao Xuan had seen the game they had dragged back. He was positive that the food was sufficient enough and could totally guarantee a nice winter. Let alone that many people from the hunting team had some food stored back at home, so they wouldn’t suffer from starvation during winter. Yesterday, every hunting warrior that returned had a satisfying and relaxed smile on his face.

Shao Xuan took it all and had a satisfied look at them. The meat jerky was fresh and of good quality. The animal skin blanket and clothes were also far better than the animal furs and skins he traded for these days.

It was impossible to say that he was not touched by this kind gesture.

“Thank you, Uncle Ge! Also please kindly forward my thanks to Uncle Mai and Lang Ga. Oh, yes…”

Shao Xuan dragged two fish over, and asked Ge to pass them on to Mai and Lang Ga. Even though he knew that Mai’s game from the hunting mission was sufficient for him to go through the winter, he still needed to show his gratitude. Those two fish were from Shao Xuan’s own share, so naturally others in his group would not have a problem with it.

“Hey, aren’t you afraid that I will keep the fish to myself?” Ge tossed the fish into the empty stone crock and he left, with one arm carrying the stone crock.

Since the Shaman had predicted that tomorrow would be wintertime, Shao Xuan passed on the words to the others in the cave. All the furs and animal skins had been distributed, and he needed to say no more. Everyone knew how to protect themselves.

That night, the sky was totally dark. Up till a few days earlier, two crescent moons could be observed, but tonight, they disappeared.

The darkness looked depressing.

Shao Xuan woke up because of the coldness in the middle of the night, and he felt as if he was lying in the snow, shaking like devils. However, he felt less cold when he woke up, which was odd.

Shao Xuan pulled away some of the straws blocking the vent after he sat up. And instantly he got chilled by the icy wind that blew in.

Winter has officially come.

Winter’s arrival made the life in the cave return to what it was long time ago; besides eating, they would only sleep. The temperature outside was very low, and they could not do anything anyway, so they had to go back to sleep, with an expectation that winter would be over the next time they woke up.

With enough food and thicker animal skin blankets they put on, they had a comfortable sleep. At least more comfortable and relaxed than that from their memories.

During wintertime, Ge came by everyday delivering food as usual, regardless of the heavy blizzards outside. Shao Xuan felt that Ge did not have to go through so much trouble. So during discussions, Shao Xuan proposed Ge to come and deliver food every three days, and he would bring three days’ food at a time. Anyways, there was less mess and chaos in the cave, and Ge knew that Shao Xuan could keep the situation in the cave under control. So he raised no objection, and he even left Shao Xuan a lighting stone spoon and some lighting powders, so that Shao Xuan could make a fire on his own.

However, in wintertime they did have something else to do. For example, someone would be sent here to teach them numbers and letters from the tribe. Like old times, the teacher would come here every twenty or thirty days. This winter was no exception.

A certain day, it was when the teacher came by. The day before, Ge had shared the news with Shao Xuan, and let him prepare ahead, or else they would miss the precious learning opportunity just because they slept over the day.

So, when the old hunter in animal skin clothes lifted the curtain while trembling, and went inside the cave, before he felt the warmth of the fire inside, he was very surprised to see all the kids who were supposed to be sleeping on the ground, sitting there spiritually with sparkling eyes staring at him.

He lived up in the mountain, and earlier he was held up for something, so if calculated correctly, he hadn’t been here in nearly forty days, so he barely knew what had happened down here. Yesterday he had consulted Ge about the situation in the cave. At first it was routine questions, but unexpectedly things had changed a lot within recent days.

When he heard that Ge appointed Shao Xuan, a less than ten years old boy, in charge of the cave, the old hunter was quite unpleased. He assumed that it was totally a bullying decision. Were the kids easy to deal with? In the past when he went to teach them, Shao Xuan was the only one that paid attention. So the old hunter had a nice memory about him.

He did not believe him when Ge explained, but seeing the situation in the cave for himself, he kind of believed what Ge said and it really seemed to be different.

Under two dozen kids’ quite excited and eager eyes, the old hunter went inside with stiff strides, and sat on the stone bench he used to sit on. He took out a piece of animal skin with numbers on it, and took a look at it closely by the fire. He cleared his throat after he made sure that it was the correct roll of animal skin.

“Ahem. Well, today, I plan to teach you numbers and how to count from one to ten. Listen up closely. I will say it first. Ahem. One, two, three, …”

After he had gone through it from one to ten, the old hunter felt that the atmosphere turned weird. He moved his sight from the animal skin roll and looked up, only to find out that the earlier eager eyes became impatient. And some of those were even full of despise obviously.

What? It was just the beginning and they were already bored? The old hunter was displeased and it reminded him of the old times when he came to teach them. They wanted to go back to sleep with endless yawns even when he just began to teach them.

As he was about to yell at them, the old hunter heard a boy complaining, “So I’m listening to this crap during wintertime, and that is why I give up on my sleep?”

“Only from one to ten? This old man is useless.”

“Exactly!”

“Hey, can you teach or not? Or is it that you can only count from one to ten?”

“Ah-Xuan, perhaps we should ask the old man to leave, and let others come and teach us.”

“Yes, I agree!”

“Change the teacher!”

“Change the teacher!”

“Make him go!”