"No ideas, can't code, and I don't have a leave slip either, so I'm posting a placeholder chapter to maintain perfect attendance.
I'll revise it before tomorrow; just refresh this chapter then, no need to pay extra.
Chunks of earth were tossed aside and fell to the ground, the dry soil shaking off countless fine particles into the air, creating a thin haze of yellow dust.
Soon, a large pit had been excavated, and it was only then that everyone saw a surprisingly huge root stalk, flat and oval, resembling an oversized curling stone, hidden beneath the unremarkable small roots.
Once the layer of hard soil had been dug through, the soil underneath beca loose. Seeing this, Bi Fang plunged his dagger into the ground and started digging by hand until he finally pulled the entire root stalk out of the ground.
Harley, who had been watching, got up and walked over, sniffed it without detecting the scent he was expecting, called out a few tis, then continued to lie down on the ground, tilting his head to watch what Bi Fang was going to do next.
"This thing is pretty heavy; it takes a bit of effort."
Bi Fang lifted the large root stalk out, placed it on the ground, dusted his hands off, then pulled out his dagger and began to carve into the root stalk, the hard steel striking against the wood, emitting dull thuds.
Amidst the dull background noise, Bi Fang looked up at the drone and said,
"I don't know if you've heard of a place called Namibia."
"I've seen the legend of Namibia, the polar bear in it left a deep impression on (eating waterlon)"
"The Golden Compass, right?"
"Isn't there a possibility that the movie is called 'The Legend of Narnia'?"
"It's pretty normal to rember wrong; human mory isn't exactly reliable (pouting with confidence)"
"In my mory, the fa of Namibia should be on par with Kenya, part of the T1 tier, just like Egypt."
"Previously, from Nemo Point to South Arica, and then on a plane to the Sahara Desert, I looked down through the airplane window and was amazed by Namibia's stunning beauty."
"The desert there is not yellow, but a reddish color."
The beauty of Namibia can be described as "breathtaking."
The Namib Desert, one of the oldest and most beautiful deserts in the world,
Due to the iron-rich sand, which oxidizes, the surface of the desert turns red.
"Iron oxide red" changes dramatically with the angle of sunlight throughout the day,
Most magical are the mornings or evenings when the sun slants across, one side bright red and dripping, the other deep and ink-like.
The two distinct colors have a shocking impact, stirring both heart and soul, each curved shape and shadow sparkling with captivating flare.
Bi Fang flew over at dusk, sitting at the window, looking down on the narrow sand dune ridges casting shadows, half red half black, seductive in red and serene in black.
The red desert, sculpted over eighty million years, glowed under the sunlight with captivating colors and gentle curves.
Bi Fang always regretted that Namibia wasn't part of his route through the Sahara; however, the main point he wanted to discuss wasn't this.
"In the Mariental Region of Namibia, there lives a primitive tribe called the Bushn People, who have been living on that land for nearly twenty thousand years."
Twenty thousand years!
The audience was stunned to hear the number.
"Is there a mistake, twenty thousand years?"
"Did Master Fang misspeak? Are you sure it's not two thousand years?"
"There's no way I misspoke about sothing like this; it's precisely because of this that the Bushn People are considered to be the oldest indigenous inhabitants."
"The Bushn People are also known as 'San People.' The Central Nation Colonizers nad them Bushman. Bushman is the Chinese transliteration from that, originally aning people who live in the bushes. This describes the living conditions of the Bushn People and has now also beco a consensual na to address them."
"As a distinctive group, they are the most primitive ethnicities in Africa. Most live in Namibia, and a smaller portion resides in Botswana and Zimbabwe."
"Up until more than twenty years ago, the Bushn People were still in the prehistoric era, almost unknown to anyone."
"The first awareness of the Bushn People ca from an article published in a magazine of Ugly Country, probably in the 90s. A young female scholar ca to live with a tribe of the Bushn in Botswana for three months."
"In an academic paper, she pointed out that the survival conditions of the Bushn were dire, with a risk of extinction, and urged the political circles of Ugly Country to press the Botswana governnt to return the jungle they occupied back to the Bushn."
"I guess Old Ugly refused (Dog's head)"
"There's no oil underground, so why would they care if you can survive or not?"
Seeing the comnts, Bi Fang shook his head, "No, Old Ugly actually got involved, he directly wrote a detailed advisory paper."
"After which the governnt of Botswana heard what Old Ugly had said, they imdiately made a plan to return the jungle to the Bushn People."
"But not long after the Bushn joyfully relocated to their original territory, geologists declared that they had found world-shocking diamond mines in the jungle they had just vacated."
"!!!"
"So it wasn't oil, but diamonds!"
"My goodness, that move was too damaging."
"I can't clarify if there was any foul play involved, but one of the most concerning topics among travelers in Africa is definitely about the Bushn People."
While cutting with a dagger, a lot of fragnts fell from the rhizos, exposing the white rhizo tissue, and at the sa ti, everyone also saw the milky sap oozing out, indicating it was full of moisture.
"They live in the most barren and desolate desert areas, as the earliest overlords of this land. Like in the Old Stone Age, they subsisted by hunting and gathering the roots, stems, and wild fruits of plants, without fixed dwellings, often moving their residences according to where they could hunt ga."
"In order to obtain the water and food necessary for survival, the Bushn often gather in tribes during the sumr, and in the winter, when water and food can't et their needs, they start to migrate in different directions as families, searching for food and water sources everywhere. However, so Bushn are forced to gather around the only water source during the driest season of winter."
"Since they live by hunting, in terms of hunting, they naturally have skills that other ethnicities do not possess. Similarly, in terms of survival, they also have many unique techniques."
"Like the Sherpa people and the Bajau people, the Bushn themselves are very drought-resistant, to an almost peculiar extent, and they know exactly which plants are edible and can replenish moisture."
"Like this rhizo I am digging up now, it actually cos from their survival skills; otherwise, no one could possibly know from a small root erging from the ground that there is a moisture-replenishing plant below."
"The Bushn People would cut the rhizo into pieces and then squeeze out the juice to drink."
"What you need to do is use a stone, or a dagger to scrape off shavings, then grab a handful, squeeze hard, hold your thumb towards your mouth and wait."
"A walking human encyclopedia, terrifying indeed!"
"I often wonder if a person's brain capacity is really limited."
[This sense of profound knowledge is truly fascinating]
[I've always felt that knowledgeable boys are particularly charming (shouting)]
Bi Fang wiped his hands and held the newly severed scraps in his palms. He tilted his head back, squeezing them lightly, allowing a thin stream of water to flow down his thumb and directly into his mouth.
Cool and refreshing, it brought a sense of invigoration.
"This tastes much better than the groundwater we just had, carrying a distinctive refreshing fragrance."
"In fact, not only humans know about plants rich in water content; so animals are aware too. Therefore, after digging them out, the Bushn find an Acacia Tree nearby, pull its branches out, and cover the dug-out roots. Afterwards, they rebury the roots and after so ti, when they regrow, they reuse them."
Bi Fang looked around and successfully found an Acacia Tree nearby.
Using his dagger, he cut off so branches and dragged them to the roots, carefully burying them above the roots.
"Acacias are very common in Africa; in fact, it belongs to the legu family. We have so of their relatives back ho, like the Albizia Trees we often see in parks. We frequently encounter them in botanical gardens and along streets."
"Furthermore, Mimosa pudica and wild mountain black locusts are also part of the Acacia family."
"In the southern part of our country, there's a bushy variety of Acacia plants. Locals also eat their young leaves as wild vegetables. Rember the slly vegetable I ate in the Banna Rainforest? That was from the Acacia family too."
"Of course, in Africa it's completely different."
"To survive in the harsh local environnt. Acting as food for herbivores, over millions of years, they've coexisted amidst struggles with herbivores."
"Being one of the most common trees in the savannah, the strategy of Acacia trees is to grow thorns, and different kinds of Acacias have various types of thorns."
"Look at this one, the leaves are not fully grown yet, but the thorns are already quite long. The thorns protect the tender leaves first, preventing so animals from climbing the tree. Their trunks also grow many thorns, making it difficult for animals to climb."
"There are also so Acacias without such long thorns, but they grow curved hook-like thorns which are also quite formidable."
Bi Fang stuck the branches into the ground, then adjusted their direction, finally wrapping the whole rootstock.
"This is roughly how it's done."
After completing all this, Bi Fang clapped his hands, "In fact, we can't co back here, so let's leave this here. Maybe soday tourists will see it and make use of it."
[Animal: You're amazing, you're so lofty]
[What about my huge chunk of rootstock, where did it go?]
[Old Fang: My treasure, huh? If you want it, I can give you everything. Go find it, everything in this world is there!]
[From now on, the era of the great plains begins!]
Bi Fang continued walking north across the plains with Harley.
As they delved deeper into their walk, the entire plains seed to beco livelier.
Various hunters appeared, from insects to venomous snakes, from wild beasts to birds, providing an eye-opening experience.
Stones slid down.
A puffy hissing krait rapidly fled from the rustling of leaves caused by the stick, startling Harley nearby, who almost jumped into mid-air; however, Bi Fang only glanced at it and didn't pay much attention, as he had noticed the venomous snake hiding among the rocks three ters away and had deliberately poked the stones to scare it off.
At that mont, Bi Fang's attention was more on the big tree in front of him, looking rather surprised.
"Myrrh Tree."
[Myrrh Tree? What's that?]
[I guess, it must be poisonous, with particularly strong venom, and no dicine available to treat it, that's why it's called a Myrrh Tree!]
[Damn, feels like the truth]
"No, it's not like that, the Myrrh Tree itself is non-toxic; instead, its resin has dicinal properties, particularly good for alleviating toothache."
As he explained, Bi Fang walked around the large tree, bending over to scan the ground, occasionally squatting down to dig in the soil, seemingly looking for sothing.
"The word 'myrrh' in Myrrh Tree, from its English na Myrrh, cos from the Hebrew word Murr, aning 'bitter'. It has significant religious historical importance."
"In the Bible, when the Three Wise n from the East were guided by a cot and found the 6-month-old Jesus, they brought three gifts for Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
[So Old Fang has a toothache? Or is he just preparing in case?]
[Then what are you looking for?]
"Not really."
Bi Fang shook his head again; he had no actual need for this particular tree.
"The Myrrh Tree is non-toxic, but there's a type of beetle that likes to live inside it, and these beetles are very useful to us... found it, right here!"
With the horrifying experience of a Wilderness Traveler, Bi Fang quickly discovered what he was looking for near the Myrrh Tree underground — the cocoon of a Chrysolidae beetle!
[What is that?]
[Holy shit, that's a big bug]
"A poisonous insect."
Bi Fang's explanation was concise.
Bushn Hunters in various African countries usually use lightweight bows and arrows for hunting, aning that if faced with larger prey, the arrows' killing power is often not sufficient to fatally wound the prey.
However, the creator endowed the Bushn with another lethal weapon available in the vast jungles — arrow poisons.
The most commonly used arrow poison by Bushn Hunters cos from a unique insect — the Chrysolidae beetle.
And Chrysolidae beetles usually parasitize inside the Myrrh Tree!
That's why Bi Fang felt surprise and excitent upon seeing it.
"These cocoons are generally hidden about 0.5 to 1 ter deep underground. Each cocoon usually contains one beetle larva in a bound state prior to pupation, and these larvae can remain dormant inside the cocoon for several years."
"Upon obtaining the larvae or pupae of the Chrysolidae beetle, Bushn Hunters can quickly locate the lymph locations in their blood systems, then squeeze the blood and lymph onto the arrowheads."
"Sotis, to poison an arrowhead, blood and lymph from up to 10 larvae are needed."
Bi Fang raised the cocoon in his hand; this cocoon was very large, almost covering half of his palm. Through the sunlight, the corpulent insect inside was clearly visible.
"Importantly, hunters only apply this toxic liquid on the front part of the arrow shaft, not the arrow tip, to prevent the tip from accidentally scratching their own bodies and causing poisoning."
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