Section 2 Food

"If the weakest carnivorous bug appears at this time, I'm afraid it can easily drag me back to its lair to enjoy it slowly, right?" Tianxiang lay weakly on the wet ground and thought mockingly to himself, while holding another item at hand. A steel spear that was tightly grasped could not be relaxed. He needed to recover, a short recovery. As long as he had a little strength, he could slowly drag this rich prey back to the cave and have a delicious meal with Tianrou.

Fortunately, no other creatures appeared. This is an extremely rare phenomenon in a dark world without the sun. You know, no matter if there is a slight wound on the body of any animal or human being, the smell of blood flowing out of it will immediately attract those carnivorous insects that are very sensitive to the smell of blood. Of course, even if the injured person is a fellow insect, these crazy predators will not miss an opportunity to fill their stomachs with the corpses of the same kind.

Therefore, you must not stay here for too long. Only by returning to the hiding place as soon as possible and slowly washing away the liquid on the insect corpses with clean water can the smell of blood be covered up in the air. In this way, even though his physical strength had not recovered much at all, Tianxiang still forced himself to climb up from the ground with difficulty with a steel spear, and slowly moved step by step to the body of the grass-eater that had long since stopped moving.

I'm hungry! So hungry! The cramping pain in the stomach and the thunderous sound in the abdomen are always reminding Tianxiang of their most urgent needs like two life-seeking ghosts who have no idea of satisfaction. Tianxiang himself had nothing to do about this. If you don't have anything to eat, what can you do to satisfy yourself? You can't cut off your own flesh to satisfy the needs of your stomach, right? Of course, eating insect meat raw is also a pretty good choice. However, based on past experience, the flesh of any bug that does not have red blood cannot be eaten raw without being washed. Although insect corpses with blood of other colors are not necessarily poisonous, the consequences of eating them for no apparent reason are also quite serious. Such a situation often occurs among hunters: a very hungry person cannot help but catch the prey with his mouth and swallow the blood gushing from the wound just after it falls, which eventually leads to inexplicable death.

Tianxiang is not stupid. Although he is extremely hungry, he is not willing to exchange his life for a chance to satisfy his hunger immediately. What's more, there is a weak sister waiting for him to go back in the crypt. Therefore, although the churning acid water in the stomach surged up, the entire esophagus was cleaned without any obstruction. Tianxiang still forced himself to suppress the crazy idea of hugging the insect corpse and swallowing it. He carefully handled the huge insect corpse and slowly inspected his prey.

However, his luck was really good today. Tianxiang staggered slowly to the insect corpse, and when he struggled to lift up the cement fragments covering it, he unexpectedly discovered what he needed most at the moment.

Insect eggs! The size of two fists, yellow and tender, weed-eating insect eggs.

"Insect eggs are delicious, the most delicious thing!" This is a very classic sentiment spread among the survivors on Earth. According to those who have been lucky enough to taste insect eggs, the supreme delicacy can only be compared to the eggs of birds that once flourished on the earth hundreds of years ago. Therefore, hunting a female laying eggs is a blessing any hunter can hope for. This means that all the eggs in the belly of the obese female are kept for her own enjoyment. Because the nutritional value of this thing far exceeds the insect meat itself. On an earth where food and power are everything, obtaining an insect egg means that you will no longer have to fight to the death with terrifying insects for a long time.

With no time to think, Tianxiang pounced on the ground almost as fast as the most agile flying insect, hurriedly picked up two hard-won eggs and stuffed them into his mouth in a hurry. Not caring about the large amount of mucus on the surface, they also brought a lot of dirty soil into their stomachs. That kind of rude and crazy eating statue would probably make even the most ferocious sickle beetle shudder.

As soon as the insect eggs hit the stomach, the acid-filled stomach immediately changed the target of its ravages. Tianxiang was able to gain some temporary relief from the painful hunger. The most important thing is the rapid recovery of physical fitness brought about by this. He happily discovered that as the slightly sweet egg liquid entered, his tired body seemed to be rejuvenated with new vitality. The long-lost strength returned to him bit by bit.

"We can't stay here for long, we must leave immediately." Tian Xiangxuan, who had a clearer mind, straightened up from the ground, grabbed the handle of the steel spear stuck in the soil under the insect corpse, turned it hard, and suddenly pulled it out , the sharp spearhead immediately broke away from the tight restraint of the soil and appeared freely in the air with almost no light.

It is said to be a steel spear, but it is actually just a thick steel bar with the front end sharpened. Tianxiang has a total of six such weapons, two long and four short. The days spent huddled in a cave were lonely and meaningless. If he had not passed the time with the monotonous grinding of steel bars and the company of his sister, Tianxiang suspected that he would have turned into a useless person who only knew how to hunt insects to satisfy his appetite. Brain zombie. After all, living without hope is no different from being a living dead.

Two overturned steel spears were carried diagonally on the shoulders, with the plump body of the weed-eater tightly inserted into the spear tips. Compared with when he came, Tianxiang, who had recovered some of his physical strength, was walking very quickly. "People are like iron, food is like steel" This saying from ancient books is really quite accurate. In less than five minutes, Tianxiang, who had returned home with a full load, had returned to a steel wreckage not far from the crypt.

"This is a car". Every time he came back from an outing, Tianxiang would involuntarily stop in front of this pile of strange-looking steel. There were several tall iron cabinets in the cave where he was hiding, and Tianxiang also found a lot of useful things in them. A small learning machine that runs on solar energy has become his and his sister's favorite. With the few simple words his father taught him during his lifetime, Tianxiang managed to figure out how to use this machine that was about to be scrapped. It was precisely because of the existence of this thing that he was able to gain knowledge of certain antiquities from the well-preserved ancient books in the cabinet. Cars are the one that Tianxiang is most interested in.

However, now Tianxiang has no time to take another look at this skeleton-shaped "car". Tianrou is starving, the insect corpses are exuding the smell of blood, and everything is waiting for him to return to the crypt.

The rich harvest brought back by her brother made Tianrou very excited, and the few intact eggs that Tianxiang found from the belly of the cut open weedworm also made Tianrou, who had been tortured by hunger for a long time, smile. The psychology of a child is actually very simple. In Tianrou's view, his brother is his protector, the brother who dotes on him the most, and the supervisor who can provide him with warmth and food. I really have no reason to leave my brother. Just like that, Tianrou, who was sucking the tender yellow insect eggs carefully, suddenly flashed a pair of beautiful big eyes, happily watching her brother clean the fat insect corpses with the water deep in the cave, and then peeled them off bit by bit. Empty the entrails, then carefully remove the limbs and tender flesh from the worm's body. A few pieces of hard steel scrap were passed through it, and finally it was placed on a pile of wood-lit fire and slowly heated up.

After a while, the entire crypt was filled with an exciting aroma of barbecue. With a smile on his face, Tianxiang also used a sharp dagger ground from a piece of iron to cut off a piece of white, tender insect meat that was bubbling with oil and overflowing with rich fragrance from the rack full of insect meat. Then he took out a wisp of white salt grains from an open iron can at hand, lightly shook it and sprinkled it on the barbecue, then carefully brought it to his mouth and blew on it. After making sure that the temperature was no longer scalding, he smiled with a smile. Passed it in front of Tianrou.

It was only now that the brother and sister, who had not seen food for a long time, had a chance to have a full meal. Compared with other insect meat, the taste of grasshoppers is really delicious. Especially the pieces of tender white soft meat taken from the waist and abdomen are covered with a thick layer of grease. As soon as the meat is grilled, it is immediately soaked into the meat. Although the condiment only had the necessary salt, the fresh and sweet taste made the brother and sister eat it happily. Not to mention Tianrou, who had been hungry for several days, even Tianxiang, who had always been restrained in eating, gnawed all six insect limbs without much flesh in just a few minutes. Then he wiped his greasy lips with satisfaction, and after telling Tianrou a few old-fashioned words, he once again picked up two hard steel spears and crawled out of the cave.

The sun has shown its long-lost red face, and now is the best time for hunting. Once you miss it, you have to wait another hundred hours. Although a fat weed-eater has been obtained, such good things do not come to the door every day. Only by seizing every opportunity to obtain more food can we ensure the future needs of ourselves and Tianrou. Therefore, such an opportunity must not be missed.

Maybe it's because good luck continues to follow! Today's hunting performance was unexpectedly good. More than an hour later, Tianxiang returned to the crypt again with five chubby aphids hanging on his body. These things, plus the delicious weedworm, were enough for the brother and sister to eat until the fourth solar day. Coupled with the fixed hunting time in the meantime, Tianxiang believes that at the very least, the situation like today without any food storage will never happen again. There is water and food here, and you can maintain sufficient physical strength. As long as nothing unexpected happens, he will wait here until Tianrou grows up.

Hunger is the most difficult enemy for human beings to deal with, and it is also the easiest enemy to satisfy. Once the enemy's demands are met, human desires will immediately shift to other aspects. The same is true for Tianxiang. After obtaining the same abundant prey for two consecutive solar days and ensuring an adequate food supply, his scope of thinking returned to the yellowed books in the iron cabinet.

The knowledge of the ancients has always been what Tianxiang is most interested in. Even though he had never seen most of the objects in person, Tianxiang still got some concepts of ancient objects from the descriptions in the book. Among them, apart from weird objects such as TVs or cars that can automatically project stories and move people around, what interests Tianxiang the most are those things called "guns".

According to the records in the book, this kind of thing has the same function as a bow and arrow. It's just that the things called "bullets" they can shoot are more terrifying than any arrows. But Tianxiang himself doesn't know exactly how terrible it is. After all, he has never seen what a "gun" looks like, nor has he seen how effective a "bullet" can be against the most terrifying sickle beetle.

It is precisely because of this that Tianxiang desperately wants more secrets from the ancients. It's a pity that all the things in the iron cabinet in the crypt seem to be able to tell him only this little.

"If you want to know more, you have to explore greater mysteries."

This is a sentence mentioned in one of Tianxiang's favorite books. According to the preface of the book, it seems to be an imaginary fantasy book. The protagonist is also one of Tianxiang's favorite characters. According to the content of the book, it seems that the protagonist bravely fights various monsters in a world that transcends time and space, and finally achieves a frivolous life. Although Tianxiang understands that in the language structure, the meaning of the word "fantasy" is simply unrealistic. But in his opinion, this book is simply a turning point in the current life of himself and his sister. Therefore, on the third solar day after hunting the weed-worms, he decided to go out once and go to other ruins in the city to explore more secrets of the ancients.

There were more than twenty pieces of aphid dried meat, and six weedworm eggs that had been reluctant to eat and had changed slightly. All these are food left for Tianrou. The location of the crypt is quite hidden, and the narrow entrance can only accommodate one person crawling through. Therefore, as long as there is a hard steel spear, it is enough to protect the young Tianrou from being threatened by other creatures. Years of hunting have turned the young girl into a semi-qualified warrior. In this way, after briefly telling his sister a few words, Tianxiang picked up two spears, one long and one short, and a piece of dried aphid meat, and quietly left the crypt when the fourth solar day came. .

There is something called a "map" in the iron cabinet, and Tianxiang has never been able to figure out what the tiles filled with various colors on it mean. However, being able to read text, he still clearly understood the place names marked on the map. The one that attracted him the most was "library".

From the solar-powered learning machine, Tianxiang obtained a term that was mentioned repeatedly - "air raid shelter". Although he didn't quite understand the meaning, he still figured out one thing from repeated comparisons over a long period of time: the cave where he and his sister were currently living was actually a place that the ancients called a "air raid shelter." And according to the name marked on the inexplicable and weird "map", this place is actually not far from the "library". With a hunter's natural keen intuition, Tianxiang concluded that the two locations marked on this map were probably exactly the same as reality. Just like that, after walking out of the crypt, he followed the direction marked on the map and walked straight towards the "library" based on his own judgment.

Ruins made of reinforced concrete are everywhere along the way, and there are also many small carnivorous insects rummaging in the darkness looking for things that suit their appetites. With sufficient nutrition supply, Tianxiang can now kill it at will, but he doesn't want to do so. Firstly, I don't need much food at the moment. The second reason is that once a certain insect is killed, the blood that cannot be dealt with in time will inevitably attract more predatory insects. I'm afraid it will be difficult for me to escape smoothly by then. After a few comparisons, it's better not to provoke them. In this way, Tianxiang nimbly moved quickly between the ruins. And those weak carnivorous insects didn't seem to want to hunt this creature that looked much more powerful than themselves. They still lazily used their sharp mouthparts to rummage through the ruins indifferently to find what they were interested in. thing.

"The library should be far away from me, at least it will take more than fifty hours to walk." This is not something Tianxiang can predict, but the result he obtained from that "map". Although he didn't know whether it was right or wrong to do so, Tianxiang still found a relatively safe place in a dilapidated cement building after the number on the timer skipped twenty hours, and wrapped himself tightly in his clothes. clothes and lay down.

This timer is also one of the most useful items to find in the iron cabinet. For a long time, Tianxiang didn't know that there was such a thing as "time" in the world. He knew how to count the hunting days according to each sunrise. If his father hadn't taught him some ancient writings before he died, he probably still wouldn't have known what the things in the iron cabinet were for, let alone relying on a solar-powered learning machine to acquire new knowledge.

Rest is one of the necessary activities for hunters, and it is also the best way to gain physical energy other than relying on food. However, not long after Tianxiang lay down and was confused, he was suddenly awakened by the sound of rushing from his ears. It was obviously the footsteps of a creature moving on two feet. Within the scope of his knowledge, the only ones who could do this were humans.