Chronicles of Primitive Civilization’s Growth

Chapter 2: Chief, Deceased

Luo Chong wanted to store food, but that required tools. However, looking around the entire tribe, they were truly destitute, possessing nothing. The adult clan members, needing to forage outside, were given priority in tools and resources like animal skins. Luo Chong’s ten-year-old body was still running around bare-bottomed.

By nightfall, all the children could only huddle together in a large pile of grass for warmth, burying their entire bodies in it. Yet, they couldn’t get too close to the fire pit, or they might not wake up again.

In this tribe, one typically had to be around twelve or thirteen years old, reaching about 1.6 meters in height—measured against the elder’s worn wooden staff—to receive priority resource allocation.

Still underage and with no resources at hand, Luo Chong could only ponder how to obtain food in the simplest and most efficient way possible, ensuring he wouldn’t have to resort to eating tree roots like them.

As Luo Chong was deep in thought, from the edge of the distant jungle came the bearded chief wearing a green feather crown, accompanied by two men draped in animal skins. They carried a dead mountain cat, its head smashed and bloodied, as they walked towards the cave, laughing foolishly. It was a feline creature resembling both a cat and a leopard, likely an early lynx. Luo Chong didn’t recognize it, but it wasn’t very large, probably weighing about ten pounds of meat.

These foolish men were easily satisfied; catching just one mountain cat made them happy for half the day. At this rate of gathering food, who knew how many more would starve to death this winter.

The chief arrived at the cave entrance, handed the dead cat to a woman on guard duty, instructing her to skin it, cut the meat into pieces, and dry it. Then, he turned his gaze to Luo Chong’s ankle.

The wound, after being disinfected by high temperature, had dried, though there was slight redness and swelling around it, indicating inflammation.

Seeing Luo Chong seemingly unfazed, the chief smiled and handed him a clump of grass, instructing him to chew it and apply it to the wound.

Luo Chong was utterly astonished—not because of anything else, but because the grass the chief handed him was precisely a dandelion. How did the chief know that applying dandelion externally could reduce inflammation? Luo Chong realized he had underestimated the intelligence of these ancient people.

After all, such simple treatment methods were something Luo Chong learned during his military training in wilderness survival. Most ordinary people only knew that dandelions were edible as wild vegetables, but few understood their other uses and effects.

Receiving the dandelion, Luo Chong treasured it greatly. He quickly chewed it and applied it to his wound. Regardless of its efficacy, having medicine was better than having none. Luo Chong wasn’t about to abandon treatment; he believed he was worth saving.

Seeing Luo Chong obediently follow his instructions, the chief was delighted. This young man truly exceeded his expectations. Yesterday, the chief thought this boy might not survive, yet today, he brought another surprise.

But little did the chief know, within this familiar body now resided a strange new soul.

After arranging everyone’s tasks, the chief turned and left. They needed to hurry and gather more food since time waited for no one.

Luo Chong also had limited time; he needed to store food for the winter. Fish should be relatively easy to obtain right now, but the tribe didn’t eat fish.

In fact, less than a kilometer from the cave was a small river, about eight to nine meters wide, which served as the tribe’s daily water source. However, they were all afraid of water. Since they couldn’t swim and had drowned a few people before, they never considered obtaining food from the water.

Moreover, they lacked fishing tools. Their hunting tools were merely wooden sticks, bone clubs, stones, or stone knives—stone flakes sharpened to an edge. Not even spears existed, let alone harpoons. Thus, it was understandable why they hadn’t eaten fish.

Now, Luo Chong was thinking about how to catch fish. Tools were out of the question. All he had was the stone knife used to cut his wound and a three-to-four-meter-long snake skin from the venomous snake that bit him yesterday—the same snake that killed the original owner of this body, allowing Luo Chong to reincarnate into it.

Last night, everyone ate the snake, leaving the snake skin to Luo Chong. Too thin to make clothing, the chief generously gave it to him as compensation for being bitten.

“Truly impoverished to the point of bleeding, with nothing at all. Where’s the welcome bonus at the start of the game? Where are the equipment drops?”

Luo Chong muttered under his breath, got up, and wrapped the snake skin around his buttocks, forming a triangular loincloth. Tying the ends around his waist, he set off to scavenge for tools.

His plan was to weave a basket to scoop fish. Given the size of the river and the primitive ecological environment, untouched by humans, the river should be teeming with fish.

Materials for weaving the basket could include bamboo or vine plants. There was no bamboo here, but vines were quite common, found in some shrubs or on trees.

It was autumn, and the vines were already semi-dried, making them perfect for weaving. Fresh summer vines contained too much water and were too soft, while dry winter vines were too brittle, breaking easily. To bend them, one would need to heat them over fire. The current season was ideal.

Near the cave, Luo Chong gathered a large bundle of vines from the bushes, returned to the cave entrance, and began weaving his basket. A few children gathered around him, watching curiously, uttering unintelligible sounds. Several pregnant women nearby were keeping watch, shouting to keep the children from wandering too far. Occasionally, they glanced at Luo Chong, curious about what he was making.

Some older children were pulling grass, drying it on the open ground near the cave entrance. This would serve as their winter beds and blankets.

The tribe had a language, albeit rudimentary with a small vocabulary. Many things couldn’t be expressed verbally, so communication involved speaking and gesturing, while listeners guessed. It was inconvenient.

Luo Chong didn’t bother explaining to them. They wouldn’t understand anyway. The vines in his hands kept changing shape. Several vines serving as warp threads crossed in the middle, while another vine acted as the weft thread, crossing through the warp threads sequentially. The gaps were large since it was meant for scooping fish. Weaving it too tightly would be unnecessary as long as the fish couldn’t escape.

Suddenly, in the distance, loud cries and the sound of something running echoed. A few women thought it was a wild beast and shouted for the children to retreat into the cave.

The children all scrambled into the cave. The women pulled Luo Chong inside as well. Both adults and children peered curiously out of the cave.

Following the direction of the cries, from the western edge of the jungle emerged the bearded chief and two adult men, each holding a massive bird egg, the size of a basketball. They ran while yelling loudly.

Gaa!

Accompanied by several piercing screams, a three-meter-tall terror bird burst from the woods, sprinting furiously after the chief.

“Shit, you’re really good at courting death! You dare steal a terror bird’s egg, prioritizing eggs over your life! Why don’t you just drop the egg!” Luo Chong exclaimed in shock, but no one understood him.

The chief refused to abandon the bird egg, and the terror bird refused to give up the chase. In the jungle, they managed to maintain some distance, but once out of the forest onto the open grassland, how could humans outrun a terror bird? The bird’s half-meter-long beak struck down fiercely, and the chief’s head exploded like a rotten watermelon.

The headless corpse moved forward a few meters due to inertia before collapsing, the bird egg shattering beneath it. Egg yolk mixed with blood and brain matter, red, white, and yellow, splattered everywhere.

Chief, deceased.