Crossing the Savage Age

41-50

41Shadows on the Ground

Because black-billed chickens eat pine leaves, Heishan gradually thought that raising chickens might be a good idea. After all, humans can't eat pine leaves, and it didn't take much effort to get some food for the chickens every day. On this day, Montenegro actually took the initiative to capture a black-billed chicken alive. The only drawback was that it was a rooster.

Xu Ling didn't think much and asked Heishan to break the tips of the wings, then threw the chicken into the chicken shed. It was quite late at that time. After everyone finished eating, they went back to the house to sleep. At night, Xu Ling tossed and turned, and heard the crow of bang bang bang bang chickens in the chicken shed. If it weren't for the cold weather outside and the difficulty of opening the door, Xu Ling would have wanted to go out and have a look. He lay on the bed and thought to himself, this new chicken The chickens that came were so lively that they kept crowing for half the night without giving up.

In the middle of the night, the rooster stopped crowing, Xu Ling was a little confused, and the child started crying again. Xu Ling was so frightened that he sat up, his brain hurt, and his eyes were astringent. Heimei and Zaohua also got up. One of them changed the child into a clean animal skin, and the other fed him rice cereal. The child was not so squeamish now. They had mixed the rice cereal before going to bed. It's getting cold now, so the black girl feeds her directly.

"Did he wake you up? He's not crying now. You can go to sleep." The black girl hugged the child and said to Xu Ling.

Xu Ling nodded and lay down.

Zaohua yawned and lay on the kang to watch the black girl feeding the child. She fell asleep while watching and snored a little. The child was also very sleepy and fell asleep after just a few feedings. Anyway, when Xu Ling was still vaguely conscious, the black girl was already lying on the kang with her arms around the child.

Xu Ling became more and more sleepy, and the child made trouble several times, but he didn't hear it at all. When he got up in the morning, there was no one on the kang, except for the child lying in the middle, sleeping soundly.

Xu Ling got dressed and went to the ground. Before going out, she wrapped an animal skin into a bundle to protect the child. In fact, the child could not turn over yet, and his neck was soft, but wasn't it just in case?

There was a bowl of meat porridge on the stove outside the house. The bowl was warm to the touch, which suggested that they hadn't been gone for long. Xu Ling rinsed her mouth and drank the meat porridge without washing her face. Then she went to pick pine leaves as usual, grabbed a few branches, and then went to the chicken shed.

Pushing open the door of the chicken shed, there were chicken feathers all over the ground. The newly caught one yesterday was lying on the ground. It was bald in several places on its head and body and was motionless. Xu Ling was startled and came forward to take a look. He's already dead. Xu Ling quickly looked at the hen inside. The hen was still squatting on the eggs, but there was no change. The rooster also had several feathers plucked out, revealing the white skin inside. It was a little wilted. Seeing Xu Ling's hand The pine branches inside made a few bang bang noises, and then slowly walked over.

Xu Ling threw the pine branch to it, and then picked up the dead chicken on the ground. A closer look showed that it had more wounds on its body, all of which were pecked out. It also lost one of its eyes. It looked really miserable. Xu Ling didn't. After staying in the chicken shed for a long time, he went out carrying the dead chicken.

At the door of the dead chicken stall, Xu Ling wondered in his mind what was going on. The chicken was still there. It must not have been a wild beast that came to steal the chicken. The other rooster was also injured. Could it be that there was a fight between two chickens?