Chapter 91 – Changes in the rainy season (2/2)

The rainy season was relatively shorter than winter. But it was not just a day or two. The rainy season would last for about thirty days. No one could say the exact date, for each year it varied.

Two days later, the unceasing rain made the river grow a lot.

Shao Xuan speculated that based on that rising trend, in less than ten days, the river will rise over the stone line. However, seeing their behavior, the others didn’t seem to be scared at all.

When Shao Xuan was patrolling again, he could see a large amount of triangular heads and bloated eyes along the river bank line

No wonder that Lang Ga said that later they would be difficult to catch. So many long-tailed frogs…Rather than pulling them to the shore, they would pull you down into the water..

When there was nothing else to do, Lang Ga would stuff mud into the empty shells, and toss them towards the frogs to watch the frogs snatch them with their long tongues. Just like the frogs that Shao Xuan knew in his last life, those long-tailed frogs would capture moving objects. Most of the times, before the shells fell into the water, they would be snatched with the long tongues.

Those long tailed frogs never came on the shore, they would at most stand in the shallow waters, with their triangular heads and bloated eyes revealed above the water. Unlike in Shao Xuan’s old memory, they barely made calls. Occasionally, a loud “Quack” could be heard.

With the rising river, every time when Shao Xuan went patrolling, the patrolling line would be drawn back a little. Because of the existence of those long tailed frogs, they needed to maintain a safe distance from the river.

Until one day when Shao Xuan came towards the riverbank, he found that those long tailed frogs near the river bank had all disappeared. He also noticed that the river, that had risen to the seventh fish fence, had begun to recede.

The rainy season was not over yet as Lang Ga told Shao Xuan. It was merely the first ebb of this rainy season. In the coming days, there would be more ebbs in this rainy season. But after the first ebb, all those long-tailed frogs would all disappear, and never come back again until the next rainy season.

In the meantime, Shao Xuan noticed that when the river was ebbing, the obvious trend of the flowing direction of the river seemed to have changed. As Shao Xuan speculated, nowadays, the river was not flowing in the same direction as those lords of the river, but it was flowing what was before upstream.

The altered flowing direction, and the long-tailed frogs that disappeared overnight, both told Shao Xuan that something happened upstream of the river. Per Lang Ga’s theory, there would be quite a few times that the river would ebb, and along with every ebb of the river, the flowing direction of the river would alter. A lot of strange things were happening during every rainy season. [Who can make a guess at what might have happened? Quite a few hints were dropped, not saying that it might be relevant to the story in the future. Maybe it might, maybe not.]

Just because of those weird phenomenons, people in the tribe felt that the limitless mysterious river became even more mysterious. The whole time, they were reluctant to explore, for they did not dare to explore.

During the first ebb, Shao Xuan found a wood-eating insect in the seventh fish fence.

Shao Xuan personally set the seventh fish fence, and he placed a few bulks of wood inside the fish fence. Unexpectedly, this sudden ebb trapped a few wood-eating insects inside.

The wood-eating insect was like a ball of mucus. When they smelled wood, they would quickly attach to the wood, or just drag the wood down after the insect changed its shape.

However, Shao Xuan noticed that there were a lot of trees growing in a place that was flooded by the water, but they were not chewed on much. But if you tossed a bulk of wood into the river, in over an hour, you could see it being dragged down. Normally, the wood bulk would disappear from the surface within two minutes.

Apparently, those wood-eating insects were acting abnormally during rainy seasons.

So, every time when Shao Xuan was patrolling, he would place a piece of wood on the river to see how long it would take for it to be dragged down. On the wood bulk, he attached a thin straw rope, with the other end tied on a stone pillar so that the wood bulk doesn’t drift away. When he returns home that day, he would write the observation down in his secret notebook.

This rainy season only lasted for twenty-seven days, and it was shorter than last year. It was a normal situation. According to the experienced warriors, the longest rainy season in their lives lasted for about forty days, while the shortest rainy season was no more than twenty-five days.

When it stopped raining and the haunting dark clouds finally faded away, the precious sun finally shined again above people’s heads. Everyone in the tribe was feeling refreshed from the fine weather.

Having been cooped up in their houses for nearly thirty days, the kids now were running around excitedly outside their houses. Children in the orphan cave also began to prepare things again. With the end of the rainy season, they could start fishing as usual. Temporarily, they did not have to worry about the disturbing noises that might hurt their chests.

Why temporarily?

Because, the disappeared water demons would appear again after some time, and then they would scream again.

“Let’s go, Ah-Xuan!”

Lang Ga and the others were packing their things and preparing to leave.

“I’m almost done! You guys go ahead!” Shao Xuan answered.

After the rainy season ended, you weren’t in danger anymore so long you didn’t step into the river. So, Lang Ga and the others were not worried.

When Lang Ga and the others had left, Shao Xuan took out a small wooden boat from the animal skin bag. It was made by him during these last few days after he came back from his patrolling duties. It was a simple sailboat, and he made it with some wood he had and some tiny stone needles.

The sail was made from the leaf of some plant, and the wood planks were all normal timbers. The body of the little sailboat was only two palm’s long.

The wind was blowing from the bank towards the river. Shao Xuan placed the simple little sailing boat on the surface of the river. With a slight push from his fingers, the little boat moved away from the bank and was sailing away from the shore, drifting towards the center of the limitless river. The dot of green on the boat was particularly conspicuous.

There were a lot of piranhas in the river. Those big fellows with low IQ, that had disappeared during the whole rainy season, had now finally come back, and became more active than before. One single slice of meat or blood would cause chaos for a long time within the river. They were very energetic. Luckily, they had no interest in wood, while the wood-eating insects that were obsessed with wooden objects seemed to have disappeared.