Chapter 4 Ancient Tramp
Donford Wu sat at the borders of the forest by the stream, the only thing he could do right now was to sit in silence. Any kind of movement would cause his broken bones to become out of place.
At around nine o’clock, the woman that was catching fish at the river went onto sh.o.r.e and left. She didn’t catch any fish today, but only left with a few frogs.
Donford Wu stayed by the stream for three days, in correct terms, it would be waited for three days. From the first day, he knew that that the people he waited for would never come, what he waited for was not the result, but rather he waited so that he could slowly accept the cruel reality of the situation, this cruel reality was that he was completely ripped out of the world he was in, and now, was in a whole new different world, a world he had no idea about. If he wanted to survive, he must become familiar with and adapt to this new world of his.
If he wanted to live, he had to eat. Not eating for three days made Donford Wu extremely hungry, he had a wealth of experience regarding outdoor survival. Even though hunting with only one leg was not too hard, if he couldn’t catch something that ran quickly, then he would catch something that ran slowly. This place had snakes, poisonous snakes, but if you lop off its head off and wash away the blood, it would be good to eat.
He didn’t start a fire, but ate them raw, he wasn’t familiar with the surrounding environment. Starting a fire meant smoke, smoke would expose himself. He had no way to determine what would happen to him if he exposed himself.
These few days, the woman came back every day to catch fish. But her fish catching techniques weren’t anything to praise, adding those crude tools, in theory it was catching fish, but most of time, she only caught a few frogs and toads.
She didn’t actively try to speak to him, Donford Wu also didn’t try to interact with her. He didn’t know who this woman was and he didn’t know if she was part of a group or not.
Just when Donford Wu was tearing off a piece of snake flesh, a piercing yell resounded from the south side not far away, Donford Wu turned his head towards the noise, and only saw the woman running towards him with a shocked expression.
Donford Wu thought that there was some kind of wild beast chasing the woman. And just when he was searching his surroundings, that woman rushed towards him and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the snake meat in his hand.
“Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?” Donford Wu planning to s.n.a.t.c.h back that piece of snake meat.
The woman threw away the snake meat and then quickly repeated in her language, the p.r.o.nunciation sounded like “Wu Xu”, and also like “Wu Xiu”.
Even though Donford Wu didn’t understand what she was saying, but he could guess that she was trying to stop him from eating the snake meat. Because of the language barrier, he couldn’t say thank you to her, but could only smile and nod in her direction.
That woman said something in a rapid session while taking out a toad that hasn’t died yet from her waist, she then stuffed it in Donford Wu’s hand, picked up her pole, and quickly ran away.
“This little f.u.c.ker has parasites.” Donford Wu couldn’t laugh or cry when he looked at the toad that was still twitching its leg
His gaze sending off the woman that ran towards the forest, Donford Wu threw away the frog and picked up the snake meat. This poisonous snake really could kill a person with its bite, but the snake meat doesn’t have any poison, that woman most likely didn’t know about this.
Before he finished off all the snake meat, the woman came back, her hand clutching a leaf of a plant, seeing that Donford Wu was still eating the snake meat, her face exposed an angry expression, but she didn’t try to s.n.a.t.c.h it away this time, she just plucked the leaf and ran off.
“Even though I can’t understand what you’re trying to say to me, I still want to thank you.” Donford Wu said.
The woman didn’t look back and quickly ran into the forest.
Donford Wu naturally didn’t die from poison, because he handled it appropriately, the areas where his bones fractured didn’t have any more signs of swelling, and he didn’t have any sort of fever.
The following days, the woman didn’t show up, this part of the valley was very secluded. Except for that woman, he didn’t discover any other people.
When he saw the woman again, half a month has already pa.s.sed, seeing that Donford Wu was still alive, she seemed to be very surprised, she ran over and took a look at him.
What Donford Wu cared for the most right now was what period he was in, he was using gestures to ask her, but she didn’t understand what he was trying to say at all, so he could only give up for now.
The woman went back to catching fish just like her normal routine. Donford Wu sat by the sh.o.r.e by himself, thinking. Right now, the area he was in was at the south western frontier, most likely, even the local people living here didn’t know what year it was.
It must have been the breeding period for the fish these few days, today’s harvest for the women was rather large, it didn’t even take half an hour before catching four or five. The way she caught fish was extremely simple, she used the sharp point of the pole to jab at the fish. More fish escaped the jab than the amount that died from the jab.
Just when she was planning to leave, a few males from down the stream ran up to block her from leaving.
The women seemed to be extremely scared of these males. She screamed while trying to escape, but her opponents were three people, and all of them were strong and young men. They were able to catch up to her very quickly. One of them held a club in his hands and smashed her into the ground, while turning her body around, he ripped off the remaining of what was clothes on her.
The women screamed an ear piercing scream while fighting back. Don’t look down on her just because she was not as burly as her opponent, with kicks and punches, biting and scratching, the man couldn’t take a good hold of her. The other two males got a good laugh out of this, then went to help, planning to restrain her from kicking and scrambling.
Even before the woman was. .h.i.t, Donford Wu already quietly got up and started to move. Even with injuries on him, he thought of ambushing them, but who would’ve thought that they could take their pants off so quickly. If he waited for a few more seconds, it would be all over. Because the situation required it, he yelled at the top of his lungs, attracting their attention.
Hearing Donford Wu’s yell, the two helpers raised their clubs and rushed towards him, the other one still pressing down on the woman’s body, using his legs to spread open the woman’s legs.
Donford Wu couldn’t move very well, but he didn’t take his opponents into his eyes. If he had enough time, he might have thought of taking down his opponents, but situation was dire, he could only ask for speed, dodging one of the clubs, his dagger quickly pierced the man’s heart. Taking out the dagger backhanded, he slashed diagonally towards the other one’s throat, before he could even fall, Donford Wu already plugged his dagger into the last man’s head.
From his position, Donford Wu could see some of the details, his eyes saw that the male was still was outside the “entrance”, only then did he sigh a breath of relief.
The woman was still in frightened, screaming as she pushed away the body that was on top of her, she crawled up and ran towards the forest.
“Your fish.” Donford Wu yelled at the women.
Hearing the noise, the women turned her head back, Donford Wu pointed at the fish that was left by the sh.o.r.e.
The woman took a look at the fish, then at the three bodies, at last she looked at Donford Wu, she hesitated for a long time before turning around, picking up the shredded clothing, trying to cover up.
“You don’t even have anything to look at.” Donford Wu took off a piece of clothing off a body, throwing it towards the woman.
While taking off the clothing, he accidentally found out that the man’s chest at a curious tattoo, around the size of a palm, the tattoo took the shape of fire.
Looking at the other two, their chests’ also had the same kind of tattoo, this could be the symbol of his clan, or maybe it was some kind of Sect’s mark, if there was actually Sects.
While Donford Wu was looking closely at the tattoo that was on one of the bodies, the woman already threw the other two bodies into the water, the bodies didn’t sink to the bottom, but rather floated down the stream.
Except for the wooden club and the bit of clothing, these people didn’t carry any other things on them, the clues were extremely limited. Donford Wu still couldn’t guess what period he was in.
Waiting until the woman threw away the last body into the water, Donford Wu asked, “Why did they attack you?”
The woman could guess what Donford Wu was asking, through a series of gestures, Donford Wu could also guess what she was trying to say. These three men and this woman were part of a different clan, this stream belonged to the clan of these three men, and she sneakily came here to catch fish.
“After half a day, so you were actually a thief.” Donford Wu laughed.
The woman naturally didn’t understand what Donford Wu was saying, through another series of gestures, she said that since they killed people, they couldn’t stay here anymore and had to quickly leave.
There was no use chatting, so through a gesture, Donford Wu said that she should go first, but after she hesitated for a bit, she held the fish in one hand and pulled him into the forest in another.
“Where are you taking me?” Donford Wu asked.
The woman didn’t say anything, but looked down while walking forwards.
Donford Wu didn’t ask again, using tree branches as rails, he followed behind her. He actually already knew the answer, if she was living by herself, she would take him to where she hid. If she was part of a clan, then she would take him to her village.
The woman was wearing straw shoes, she rushed pretty quickly, while running, Donford Wu quietly sized her up from behind. This women was about twenty five or six years old, her round face was squarer, she was about a meter and sixty centimeters tall, very skinny, probably because of malnutrition. Not only that, this woman probably gave birth before, because her crotch was rather wide.
Even though the woman stopped from time to time to wait for him, Donford Wu still followed her with great difficulty. Anyone would find it hard to climb a mountain with only a single leg.
After climbing to the top of the mountain with great difficulty, Donford Wu was already covered in sweat. Just when he wanted to sit down and take a break, he discovered that north western hill had a patch of land that didn’t have any gra.s.s on it, and a bunch of rocks were exposed. Lots of naked men were standing there digging for something.
“Is that your village?” Donford Wu pointed towards the north western side.
The woman shook her head, pointing at the north western side saying something, turning back towards Donford Wu, she urged him to get up and get going.
The positioning device didn’t show any change after Donford Wu moved from his spot, it still showed his last position where he landed. Right now, it’s only use was as a clock.
Twelve thirty, the woman brought Donford Wu to a village, seeing the village, Donford Wu relaxed a bit. Even though the houses and buildings were a bit broken and shabby, but was much more advanced than the shacks he thought of. With this, he knew that he wasn’t in primitive times.
The woman’s house was at the village’s south eastern side, two six or seven year old children ran towards her, screaming “ah me” while welcoming her.
The woman gave the fish to the two children to take back to the house, she then brought Donford Wu towards the village center.
Because the men were all working in the mountain, there were mostly only women and children, Donford Wu’s arrival made them feel curious, taking to the woman in a high pitched voice while taking a look at Donford Wu.
Donford Wu was also sizing them up, even though these women were also wearing rags, but they had a more complete set. Their houses were also st.u.r.dier than her house. Through this, it wasn’t hard to guess that this woman’s position in this village was lower than the rest.
The village took up the a lot of s.p.a.ce, but the houses were rather far apart, the s.p.a.ce between the houses were around ten or more meters, this might be because of they wanted to prevent snakes and bugs from getting in, the houses were also not built on the ground, but were raised a meter high by wood poles.
The woman brought Donford Wu to the village’s center house. Sitting in front of the house, she talked with a middle aged man. The middle aged man didn’t have any arms, at the moment, he was using his legs to use a grinder and it was currently grinding some herbs.
Seeing the grinder, Donford Wu’s heart lit up. Grinders are a metal object, according to the color it should be made out of copper. Apart from the grinder, the tattoo on the man’s chest also raised Donford Wu’s interest. This person’s tattoo was shaped like a t, looking at it carefully, it was a sword pointing down.
This armless middle aged man didn’t seem to be the owner of this house, after hearing what the woman had to say, he turned to look at Donford Wu, at last, he stood up, used his feet to open the door, then went in.
The woman stared at the entrance, clearly showing that she was nervous. At one side, Donford Wu was rather quite relaxed. This women was clearly asking the chief of the village to take him in. If they accepted him, then he would stay for a period of time. If they didn’t, then he would leave…..