Chapter 16
Chapter 16 – Winter is coming
Translated by Sunyancai
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 radians. 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.
Winter’s arrival made the life in the cave return to what it was long time ago; besides eating, they would only sleep. The temperature outside was very low, and they could not do anything anyway, so they had to go back to sleep, with an expectation that winter would be over the next time they woke up.
With enough food and thicker animal skin blankets they put on, they had a comfortable sleep. At least more comfortable and relaxed than that from their memories.
During wintertime, Ge came by everyday delivering food as usual, regardless of the heavy blizzards outside. Shao Xuan felt that Ge did not have to go through so much trouble. So during discussions, Shao Xuan proposed Ge to come and deliver food every three days, and he would bring three days’ food at a time. Anyways, there was less mess and chaos in the cave, and Ge knew that Shao Xuan could keep the situation in the cave under control. So he raised no objection, and he even left Shao Xuan a lighting stone spoon and some lighting powders, so that Shao Xuan could make a fire on his own.
However, in wintertime they did have something else to do. For example, someone would be sent here to teach them numbers and letters from the tribe. Like old times, the teacher would come here every twenty or thirty days. This winter was no exception.
A certain day, it was when the teacher came by. The day before, Ge had shared the news with Shao Xuan, and let him prepare ahead, or else they would miss the precious learning opportunity just because they slept over the day.
So, when the old hunter in animal skin clothes lifted the curtain while trembling, and went inside the cave, before he felt the warmth of the fire inside, he was very surprised to see all the kids who were supposed to be sleeping on the ground, sitting there spiritually with sparkling eyes staring at him.
He lived up in the mountain, and earlier he was held up for something, so if calculated correctly, he hadn’t been here in nearly forty days, so he barely knew what had happened down here. Yesterday he had consulted Ge about the situation in the cave. At first it was routine questions, but unexpectedly things had changed a lot within recent days.
When he heard that Ge appointed Shao Xuan, a less than ten years old boy, in charge of the cave, the old hunter was quite unpleased. He assumed that it was totally a bullying decision. Were the kids easy to deal with? In the past when he went to teach them, Shao Xuan was the only one that paid attention. So the old hunter had a nice memory about him.
He did not believe him when Ge explained, but seeing the situation in the cave for himself, he kind of believed what Ge said and it really seemed to be different.
Under two dozen kids’ quite excited and eager eyes, the old hunter went inside with stiff strides, and sat on the stone bench he used to sit on. He took out a piece of animal skin with numbers on it, and took a look at it closely by the fire. He cleared his throat after he made sure that it was the correct roll of animal skin.
“Ahem. Well, today, I plan to teach you numbers and how to count from one to ten. Listen up closely. I will say it first. Ahem. One, two, three, …”
After he had gone through it from one to ten, the old hunter felt that the atmosphere turned weird. He moved his sight from the animal skin roll and looked up, only to find out that the earlier eager eyes became impatient. And some of those were even full of despise obviously.
What? It was just the beginning and they were already bored? The old hunter was displeased and it reminded him of the old times when he came to teach them. They wanted to go back to sleep with endless yawns even when he just began to teach them.
As he was about to yell at them, the old hunter heard a boy complaining, “So I’m listening to this crap during wintertime, and that is why I give up on my sleep?”
“Only from one to ten? This old man is useless.”
“Exactly!”
“Hey, can you teach or not? Or is it that you can only count from one to ten?”
“Ah-Xuan, perhaps we should ask the old man to leave, and let others come and teach us.”
“Yes, I agree!”
“Change the teacher!”
“Change the teacher!”
“Make him go!”
Shao Xuan glimpsed at the old man holding a roll of animal skin, and he noticed that his veins were clearly throbbing on his forehead.