Chronicles Of Primordial War

Winter Comes

When Shao Xuan came back, all the kids had already returned to the cave from the riverbank. Judging from their unrestrainable smiles, they had a great harvest today. Two groups even competed to see who pulled back more fish.

“Ah-Xuan, earlier someone came to trade things with you. You weren’t here, so they said they’ll come by tomorrow.” Tu said as he sat there, weaving a straw rope.

Formerly, Tu was just a timid little boy in the cave. He was relatively weak and thin. But after this period of time, he turned more cheerful than before, and more communicative.

“Okay, I got it.” Shao Xuan nodded.

Probably someone in the tribe attempted to go fishing, and perhaps they were here for Shao Xuan after they failed for a few times and finally realized the use and importance of the black floats.

At night, the moons hanging on both sides of the sky grew darker. The crescent moons were thin, and one could barely see their not-so-bright radiance. If you looked through the vent, you would find the sky filled with darkness, and only the sound of wind and flying night swallows could be heard. Winter was coming and even night swallows had lost their spirits. They created much louder sounds than before because they could not try too much to hide their tracks.

A few days after that, both, kids in the cave and residents in the mountain foot district, would rush to go to the riverside before sunset. They all wanted to pull out more fish before the water froze.

Perhaps in the past few years, people in the tribe had never thought about capturing those fish, so there were so many fish in the river, that even many people here pulling out fish every day did not cause its quantity to drop. Those fish were extremely ferocious but were stupid at the same time. So they took the bait easily and one could get more fish every day as long as they mastered the tricks in fishing. Fortunately, the fishing went pretty well for days, and those odd creatures with long tentacles never showed up again.

Until one morning, Shao Xuan noticed that there were fewer stone worms when he took Caesar to the gravel yard. For the whole morning they only got three stone worms.

Also, out of blue the fish seemed to disappear in the river. After they tossed the bait, they waited for a long time before they dragged out a mid-sized fish.

The situation seemed to be a sign to both the kids in the cave, and other people in the tribe.

“Ah-Xuan, why is this happening?” All kids in the cave were quite upset, and they behaved like heart-broken fellows as they stared at the straw ropes in their hands.

“Because winter is coming.” Said an older kid. He had heard from others that when winter came, many game would hide itself and no one could ever find them before winter was over, and they would only show up again afterwards. Just because of that, people in the tribe were no fans of winter, for winter was full of different kinds of obstacles and that led to deep depression.

Seeing that the other kids were still staring at him, Shao Xuan sighed, “Indeed, perhaps that’s the reason. Because in wintertime, stone worms would not appear on the surface, as they chose to stay deep down underneath to survive the cold. Deep down in the ground, it is much warmer than on the surface. While, the piranhas near riversides would also swim to the deeper section of the river and leave the shallows, because the water near the bank would freeze during wintertime. So, we can’t catch stone worms and we can hardly capture any fish as well.”

Just as Shao Xuan finished his words, the cave suddenly got filled with a gloomy atmosphere of depression.

In the memories of many kids in the cave, winter was cold and dark. Sometimes they didn’t realize that they were ill because of their drowsiness. They would just keep sleeping like whelps. When it was time for food, they would be woken up by people and got to fill something into their bellies, and then fall asleep again. They had no sense of time and they spent their lives like walking corpses. In the past that was the normal case, but compared with the days they spent on fishing and working, how could they feel the same when they recalled the dark times?