Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 12 The smarter a person is, the more they like to use the forces of nature.
Even though the roots of the tree had been burned, Yun Ce still carefully poked the ground with his wooden spear before gently placing his foot on the ground.

After bouncing around a couple of times, Yun Ce grabbed a handful of humus. The soil was very fertile, very similar to the real black soil of Northeast China. Based on this alone, Yun Ce felt it was necessary to occupy this place.

For Chinese officials, developing the economy is merely a means to advance their careers. Their most important task has remained unchanged for thousands of years: how to meet the basic needs of the people in their jurisdiction.

Actually, clothes aren't the most important thing. Food security is always the top priority. It's not a big deal if someone is running around naked in your jurisdiction, but it's a big deal if someone starves to death in your jurisdiction.

The most fertile land must be used to grow grain; this is a consensus among every official, and basically a consensus among the Chinese people as well.

The scorched earth still retained some warmth, so Yun Ce used his wooden spear to poke at the ground in front of him, slowly moving away from the giant tree that had given him some safety.

This land is not flat, especially after the fire, the topography was exposed. Although everything was charred, the large trees that had not yet burned out and were still smoking decorated this wasteland.

It wasn't just plants that were smoking; there were also quite a few animals. Along the way, Yun Ce saw many kinds of animals that had been burned to death. Although he couldn't make out the colors and fur of these animals, their appearances were still within Yun Ce's understanding. There was nothing beyond his knowledge; at least, none of the dead animals matched the aliens in the movies.

Some animals simply have two extra legs, while others have bones that protect their soft internal organs. Still others have evolved a particular part of their body in an exaggerated way, clearly for survival.

Two of the animals were burned to death while embracing each other; one was clearly male with exaggerated genitalia, and the other was clearly female with genitalia located in a very easily accessible position.

Such animals clearly possess extremely strong reproductive capabilities, using large populations to gain the right to reproduce in this world. After all, among the animals burned to death, the carcasses of these toad-like six-legged creatures were the most numerous.

Their bodies were remarkably intact, unlike some animal carcasses that had been gnawed and mutilated by birds. This suggests that the flesh of six-legged toads is either poisonous or unpalatable.

This is, of course, a result of evolution, and it is similar to species on Earth.

Having found undesirable similarities, Yun Ce naturally also found favorable ones.

There was also a beast in the ashes that smelled of roasted meat. After turning the beast over with a wooden spear, Yun Ce frowned.

It wasn't that this animal was strange, but rather that he was very familiar with it; he had killed several of them when he was hunting on Earth before.

There are significant differences in body size between domestic pigs and wild boars, the most obvious being the difference in their heads. Domestic pigs look more benign, while wild boars naturally have a more ferocious appearance.

Yun Ce tapped the wild boar's protruding tusks with his wooden spear, then pried open its nearly roasted leg to examine its genitals. Just as he had judged, it was a male wild boar, and no different from any other wild boar on Earth.

As a result, Yun Ce had more to consider and became more cautious when observing the animals in this world.

"It is common knowledge on Earth that a tree cannot bear the same fruit or grow two identical leaves."

Moreover, Yun Ce was certain that the current world could not be the same tree as Earth, so the species could not be exactly the same.

Now that similarities have appeared, there is only one possibility: this planet and Earth are like two fruits from the same tree.

Earth and the species on this planet share the same origin.

After leaving the wild boar that was almost roasted, Yun Ce recited his judgment into the recorder.

He spoke loudly, not only to the phone's recorder, but also hoping that the little robots in his stomach could hear him and bring back the news that he was alive.

Following the fire is actually following the wind. Land ravaged by fire is safe because there are no wild beasts or poisonous insects.

The dark earth stretched as far as the eye could see, and thick smoke rose straight into the sky in the distance. Even in broad daylight, Yun Ce could see the flames shooting into the sky in the distance.

The larger the fire, the greater its impact on the air. Then, fueled by the wind, and fueled by the fire, it spread rapidly, and as things stand, there is little hope of extinguishing it.

If it can't be put out, then it's not put out. This outcome is beneficial to Yun Ce, because the larger the area affected by the fire, the safer he is.

After walking for nearly four hours, Yun Ce arrived at the entrance of a Y-shaped valley. A bright stream once flowed through the valley, but now it was blocked by layers of wild animal carcasses, forcing it to flow downstream over the debris.

Yun Ce glanced at the mountain of wild animal carcasses but didn't take it to heart. He felt that instead of mourning the fate of these beasts, it would be better to assess how dangerous they were to humans.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the wild animals that died here were probably herbivores. This conclusion is based entirely on their horns, shovel-like teeth, and armored hooves.

These herbivores weren't very big, about the size of a wolfhound on Earth. It seemed they were trying to hide in the water to escape the fire. In the end, the stream saved their bodies, but the raging fire took away the air they needed to survive...

The herbivores died, and the ferocious beasts fared no better. In short, for the time being, Yun Ce was probably the most ferocious beast in this land.

With the threat on the ground gone, there were more birds in the sky. These birds were quite different from the ones Yun Ce had seen yesterday. Not only were they much larger, but their wingspans also surpassed all the birds of prey Yun Ce had ever seen before.

They showed no fear of Yun Ce, a living person, and went straight to devour some dead wild beasts. While eating, they would always keep their eyes on Yun Ce, as if he were their backup food.

Faced with a raptor with a face as large as a basin, bulging leopard eyes, and a mouthful of fangs, which suddenly descended from the sky, Yun Ce would naturally have to give way. However, with food plentiful now, there was no need to hide.

Many birds of different kinds came to devour the carcasses of wild beasts. Yesterday, he saw birds fighting each other, but now they were able to eat together peacefully. Yun Ce felt that he should be in no danger.

Moreover, these birds of prey seemed to prefer the charred, half-cooked carcasses of wild beasts, showing little interest in this lump of fresh meat.

He was naturally unwilling to miss the opportunity to observe these birds up close. Soon, he discovered that most of the birds here did not have hard beaks, and the larger and more ferocious the birds were, the less likely they were to have beaks. Conversely, the smaller the birds, the more prominent their beaks were.

The sight of the birds of prey pinning down animal carcasses with their claws and devouring them was cruel and gruesome. After watching for a while, Yun Ce leaned on his wooden spear and walked step by step downstream along the water.

Streams eventually flow into rivers, rivers eventually flow into the sea, and rivers can give birth to civilizations. This seems to be a theorem. If one travels along a great river to the sea and has not yet encountered a civilized world, Yun Ce would judge this planet as a barbaric one.

Yun Ce walked for a long time, but the sun in the sky did not move much. He habitually identified the direction of the rising sun as the east, but it was difficult to identify the south, west, and north directions based on the sun.

He discovered that the sun here does not follow a smooth arc, nor does it rise in the east and set in the west; rather, it forms a more rounded circle. This could be due to planetary rotation, or the sun's rotation may differ from his previous understanding.

Before he knew it, the pale full moon on the horizon became even paler, while the originally blurry crescent moon gradually appeared in the sky. As for the crescent moon, it was almost invisible unless he deliberately looked for it.

As we all know, the moon, which is next to the Earth, is a satellite of the Earth. It revolves around the Earth, and the Earth revolves around the sun. Therefore, the Earth blocks the sunlight from reaching the moon as it moves. In addition, the trajectories of both are regular. Therefore, although there is only one moon next to the Earth, it can appear in many different forms.

Unlike the moons here, which, although there are three, are not as vibrant as the moons on Earth.

The moon here revolves in sync with this planet, yet the three moons appear in turn. There must be a profound reason behind this, and he plans to find out more after encountering a civilization.

The sun keeps moving, but the three moons remain motionless. Yun Ce felt that using the moons as a location here was more appropriate.

The direction where the sun rises without the moon is correctly called east. The position of the full moon is called south, the half moon is called west, and the crescent moon can be called north.

With a direction, Yun Ce felt that his life also had a direction, and he walked more lively.

He didn't remember how long he had been walking, but the crescent moon in the west was getting brighter and brighter, and the heat radiating from the sun was getting less and less. Yun Ce knew that night was coming soon.

When the crescent moon is full, the night is extremely cold, while when the full moon is full, the night is warm as spring. Based on this pattern, the night should be somewhat chilly when the moon is half full.

After the stream meanders through the hilly area, the view suddenly opens up, and the land scorched by smoke and fire comes to an abrupt end. The stream, less than ten meters wide, finally cuts off the flames, preserving the lush green vegetation on the opposite bank.

When vast grasslands appear in hilly areas, the feminine characteristics of Mother Earth become very obvious. The gentle curves of the slopes covered in green flowers can calm even the most ferocious person.

(End of this chapter)