Chapter 82 – The bird eggs (1/2)

Translated by Sunyancai

According to Ta’s theory, once badly wounded, plants like the Fire Lance would not approach them again for a short period of time. Also, its blood could prevent other creatures from coming close. So temporarily, the tree hole was safe. In fact, it was a lot safer than it was previously.

Many speculated that those two Fire Lances were coming after them for the Green Thief. Because of that, Ta didn’t waste any time. He took a few warriors to the marsh pool and brought back some mud. They covered the stone box containing the adult Green Thief with a layer of mud. After that, they used a tree leaf with a refreshing fragrance to wrap it up and finally tied it tightly with straw rope. By doing that, they could hide most of the Green Thief’s smell. This was the same method used in the past when they found plants with strong smells. Although it was very difficult for humans to smell the scent of the Green Thief, some plants and animals had their own special ways to sense it. In any case, taking a few protective measures was also good.

Now, no one would belittle Shao Xuan again. Even though they still felt that setting traps were merely some little tricks, nobody could deny the benefit they had gained from it. And so, Shao Xuan was treated with a much better attitude by the others.

Perhaps it was true that Shao Xuan had the blessings of ancestors, which helped them to find the Green Thief. Meanwhile, Shao Xuan’s own skills could not be ignored. At least in the eyes of the group, Shao Xuan had many more accomplishments than most of the newly-awakened warriors back in the tribe so far.

After resting for some time, Ta took a few warriors to go search nearby, hoping they would be lucky enough to find more Green Thief seedlings, while Shao Xuan climbed up a tree following Tuo and Keke. The tree hole was in the middle of the trunk. Above it, different kinds of birds inhabited the treetops where there was lush foliage. Although they were not big, with the biggest one only one meter in wing expanse, however, they were large in numbers. So normally, the advance group wouldn’t mess with them for no reason.

But because of the earlier fierce battle, many birds were scared away. Basically, all the birds that were usually guarding or resting in their nests were scared off by the crossfire. So when the warriors got back to the tree hole, Shao Xuan followed Tuo and Keke to rob the nests, and they collected many bird eggs.

When eating bird eggs in this place, Ta and the rest always ate them raw.

“Are they all edible?” Asked Shao Xuan.

Keke looked back, “Sure, I’ve tried them all.”

“How can one nest have different eggs?” Shao Xuan carefully put the eggs in his animal skin bag, and he had also put a lot of tree leaves.

“Perhaps the bird stole the eggs from elsewhere.” Keke did not seem to care.

“Stolen?” Shao Xuan was surprised.

“Of course! With their size, how can they lay such big eggs? The bird from this nest can only grow this big.” Keke gestured the size with his hands, “How could a tiny bird like that produce fist-sized eggs? It’s not possible! But that kind of bird has long, thin talons, convenient to steal eggs from the other birds.”

“All the bird eggs here are stolen?” Shao Xuan was shocked one more time.

“They must be.” Keke was positive.

There’s a saying that things of a kind gather, birds of a feather flock together. These were all egg-stealing birds, regardless of their different species. They lived together because they did not worry about the eggs in the nests being stolen by others, for they were not their own eggs! They wouldn’t feel heartbroken when losing them, anyway.

Thinking about that, these birds must have their own secret places to lay their own eggs. It should be somewhere concealed, or they must have had some unique way to reproduce.

When collecting the eggs, Shao Xuan noticed that there were many eggs that were pecked to pieces. Some broken eggs had some leftover egg white, while in some broken eggs there were remains of the baby birds. It turned out that all those eggs were stolen to be used as food.

When Shao Xuan filled up his animal skin bag, he climbed back down to the tree hole. Ta and the others had been searching for a long time, but none of them could find another Green Thief seedling. They were probably taken away by other creatures. Judging from the behavior of the Fire Lances, the Green Thief was indeed in hot demand. Luckily, Shao Xuan’s trap caught the Green Thieves at night, and they got up early enough to find them before they were snatched away.

In the meantime, it could be speculated that it was highly likely that most of the creatures interested in the Green Thief were diurnal ones, while the nocturnal creatures had no special interest in the Green Thief.

No matter what, they were fortunate enough to have caught the adult Green Thief and some seedlings.

“Boss, would the Green Thief seedling die soon after picking them up?” Ah-Suo looked at the few turquoise seedlings and shared his worry with the others.

The others quickly understood Ah-Suo’s point. They had been in similar situations before. When they picked up a seedling from the soil, it would die quickly, no matter how careful they were, even if they used soil to wrap it. The shelf life of a seedling was much shorter than a grown one’s.

“It’s possible.”