Chapter 422 - Domestication
Shao Xuan did not touch the old man. He just took the stuff and left.
What goes around comes around. If they killed and robbed, they had to be prepared to be robbed themselves.
When he got down the tree, Shao Xuan did not see the fat duck. There was a piece of rope tied to the tree and the other end had been pecked off.
Shao Xuan had no interest in where the duck went either. He went back to the robbers. The person who had collapsed on the ground had his features blurred like melting wax. It was very eerie.
Shao Xuan attempted to dig up some of the poisonous grass but they withered immediately. He still brought away a few withered plants but after using them on prey, he realised the toxin in this plant poisonous enough to kill an advanced totemic warrior greatly decreased as it withered. The worse it withered, the weaker its toxins were. In the end, it could not even poison an ant.
Then it was no use carrying it around. Shao Xuan gave up. Perhaps this peculiar plant could only grow here.
Shao Xuan continued walking in the planned direction. When he passed the treehouse, he heard a loud thud, like a huge wooden plank was smashed on the ground. Then he heard the old man’s furious curses and the duck’s quacks. It sounded like they were fighting.
The duck, who was still pecking among the bushes, dropped what it was doing and chased after Shao Xuan as he left. This time, it followed closer than before although it struggled to keep up with his speed.
When he passed through the monkey forest, Shao Xuan was once again before the large river. He looked around but he couldn’t see that giant crocodile. He was now going to take the risk though, he had no plans to build a raft.
Shao Xuan fished out a wooden whistle. Gongjia Heng had whittled it out of a tree branch from Gongjia Valley and taught him how to blow it. However, Heng could not guarantee if Hammer the Bird would obey Shao Xuan.
Shao Xuan blew into the whistle according to Heng’s instructions.
Soon, a bird flew over from the opposite bank. However, when it saw Shao Xuan, Hammer did not land immediately. It was only when he spoke a little and offered it a prey when the bird finally relented.
When Hammer was eating, the fat duck landed from the sky. It hid not far behind Shao Xuan, watching it cautiously. The duck was guarded around a bird so much larger than it.
After a full meal, Hammer was in a good enough mood to bring Shao Xuan across the river. The duck continued following behind. Hammer did not even look twice at it. It was just a tiny dot not worth its attention.
When he crossed, Shao Xuan did not see the giant crocodile.
Shao Xuan stayed for two days at Gongjia Heng’s place before setting off again. He did not enter Heng’s stone house, merely resting in the treehouse.
The fat duck rested outside nearby.
It understood very well that following Shao Xuan could mean it was going to be eaten but it followed him anyway. This was because it was not capable of surviving in the forest. After it was domesticated by the old man, it had lost all sense of survival. It was very reliant on humans. Everyone was dead and it had vented its anger on the old man already. Since it could not continue living in the forest, it decided to follow Shao Xuan. However, the places they passed through were even more dangerous. It kept seeing all these birds in the sky that could kill it with one swipe so it lived in terror every day. This duck grew thinner as time went on.
Even Shao Xuan wondered if the duck suffered from Stockholm syndrome– or in the tribesmen’s words, it was an early sign of domestication.