Chapter 1 – Primaeval
Novel Title: 龙血 (Dragon Blood)
Author：水千丞 (Shui Qian Cheng)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 单鸣 (Shan Ming -MC), 沈长泽 (Shen Changze -ML)
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Shan Ming tried several times but still failed to light the cigarette in his hand. The humidity in the forest was too heavy. So, the matches were as if they’re soaked with water. They couldn’t start a fire at all. Angrily, he dropped the damp-soaked matchbox to the ground. But after thinking about it, he picked it back up again.
If he could get out of this wet swamp and see the sun soon, it might still be handy. After all, he didn’t want to eat raw meat for the next few days.
Two days ago, they were on a mission at the China-Myanmar border. The local drug lord offered 20 million US dollars to escort them for a drug deal with the Yankees. Facts have proved that this money was not worth it. After the deal failed, the Yankees raided and cost them to lose three people in the battle. This was already a heavy loss for the world-class mercenary organisation ‘Peregrine Falcon’. Of course, they did manage to save their employer. Thus, their reputation is still preserved.
In that battle, Shan Ming was first beaten with the butt of a gun. His face was covered with blood. And then his left arm was struck by a dagger. Although he broke the neck of the man who attacked him, it caused him a few minutes of delay. Thus, he and his teammates were separated. He fled alone into the primaeval forest on the China-Myanmar border, which was a real devil’s land. He couldn’t find a way out. He wanted to find a place where there were people as soon as possible so that he could contact the mercenary group and someone could come to pick him up.
The wound on his left arm started to become inflamed. The smell of blood would be the call of death here. He had to wrap the wound that had been treated with clothes heavily so, it was only natural that the wound had festered under the airtight condition. But it only made him even more uneasy. He dared not show his uneasiness. It won’t take long for his wound to become worse. He must find a way out as soon as possible to get proper treatment. Otherwise, even this kind of injury which he usually doesn’t pay attention to, may cause him to lose his valuable arm. Losing an arm is already an unwelcome situation. But in this kind of place with such injuries, it is like walking into a lion’s den with bare hands. Death may come at any time.
In addition to being careful of the swamp under his feet step by step, he also has to guard against predators in the forest.
There wasn’t enough food in this place. So, hungry predators are everywhere. Even ants the size of sesame seeds would be staring at his raw piece of meat. For the past two days, he dared not sleep nor rest in one place for more than an hour. He knew that as soon as he fell asleep, he would turn into a pile of bones.
The fatigue of his body multiplied. By this time, even the arrogant Shan Ming felt the threat of death.
He squatted down and observed the humidity of the soil. He began to compare it with the road he had travelled in the past two days. He knew that he was about to reach the end of the swamp.
If he managed to walk out of the swamp, he was sure that he was only 50% safer. Compared with small but deadly bugs, he would rather face large beasts such as wolves and pythons. At least, he could see the target.
That way, Shan Ming could pay attention to the target.
After walking cautiously for more than ten hours, the soil under his feet became harder and harder. The trees were tall here and the sun began to dim. He could gradually feel the sunlight disappearing from behind the leaves.
He is hungry now. He couldn’t find anything to eat during this journey. Instead, he had to guard himself against being eaten. He was already mentally and physically exhausted so his every step forward required great willpower.
Suddenly, he smelled the smell of blood. The smell of blood mixed with stench was so strong that it made him feel sick.
Such a strong smell of blood must be emitted by something that was killed by a large animal. Shan Ming no longer felt disgusted at this time. What he was thinking in his heart was whether the unlucky meal had been completely eaten or whether there were still some scraps left for him to eat due to his own hunger.
He tucked the Browning M1935 pistol in his hand into his waist and took out the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun from behind him. He held it in his hand, preparing to shoot a wolf or a tiger to death the moment he saw them.
Holding his breath, he followed the smell of blood and approached the shady bushes step by step.
He pricked up his ears to carefully identify any subtle sounds. His eagle-like sharp eyes fixedly looked to the front. He cautiously used the barrel of his gun to push aside the layers of the bushes in front of him and walked towards the where the smell of blood was the heaviest.
He was taken aback by what he saw.
Lying on the ground were the corpses of three wolves, all of which had their throats bitten off. Their intestines were dismembered as their stomachs were ripped open.
Shan Ming’s nerves suddenly jumped up. He slowly turned around on the spot. These wolves were obviously attacked by a larger beast. But only small parts of them were eaten by the beast. This is too bizarre. How could the beast that could kill three wolves have no appetite to stuff them all at once into his stomach? The only possibility Shan Ming could think of was that the beast was still nearby and wanted to share this meal with his companions or cubs.
Shan Ming didn’t dare to approach rashly. He chose a safe place to hide himself, intending to observe first.
He waited for more than two hours in this scene where it looked like the strong preyed on the weak. But no beast or whatsoever came back at all.
Shan Ming couldn’t bear it any longer. The corpses on the ground would be his food for today and he couldn’t stand his own hunger anymore. He wanted to eat meat.
Shan Ming walked out of the bush carefully. He drew out a dagger from the inside of his pants on his waist. He prepared to cut off a wolf’s leg and then left quickly. This scene was too weird and he didn’t want to stay longer.
However, when he managed to get close to one of the wolf’s carcasses, his doubts deepened.
He took a quick look at it just now and didn’t see everything carefully. But now that he got closer, he realised that the torn wounds of these wolves did not seem to be done by a large ferocious beast.
The wound is not deep and the degree of tearing is too small. If it is an animal like a tiger or a bear, the bite force of the jaws should be more than this level. A tiger can bite off the neck of a wolf with only one bite. To put it bluntly, their mouths are not so small. These wolves were bitten multiple times. It should be done by a small mouth that could almost be similar to a human. But the bite force of a human is only about 569 psi, which is not enough to kill three wolves with a few bites.
Shan Ming continued to check and found that their stomachs were cut open by sharp objects. He looked around the wounds in the wolf’s stomachs but he didn’t find any other animal hairs around the wounds.
Shan Ming has been dazzled by all this weirdness. According to his judgement, these wolves are extremely powerful in their attack. The beast that killed them seemed to have the size of a mouth similar to humans, but their bite force is at least three times stronger than that of humans. It can be assumed that it was a large beast with sharp claws. But there is no animal fur around the beast’s claws. This beast also only ate a little bit of their meat after killing them. Then, this beast’s stomach should not be big enough.
What on earth is this? Shan Ming racked his brain thinking. He felt that this stuff was totally out of his scope of knowledge.
Although he felt chills down his spine, his curiosity overcame his vigilance. He stood up from the ground and was about to take a look around. The place where the wolf died was covered with leaves, leaving no footprints or traces of fighting. He needed to find the clues left by this beast.
As he walked only seven or eight metres away, he found something that pushed the whole hunting scene in his head to its climax. He found what appeared to be a foot in the bushes! To be precise, it was a human foot. And according to the foot’s size, this is only a child!
Sweat dripped from Shan Ming’s forehead. What the hell is this all about? A wolf killed by an unknown beast and he found a human child’s foot not far away?
Shan Ming lowered his body and pushed aside the bushes. He looked up at the dirty little foot and to no surprise, he found a child. What Shan Ming never expected was that even though the child was covered in blood and mud and the original appearance couldn’t be properly seen anymore, he saw the weak but steady rise and fall of the child’s chest.
This child is alive!
If it wasn’t for Shan Ming’s strong willpower, he really would have suspected that this was all just a dream. He must have fallen asleep somewhere due to excessive fatigue and pain and started dreaming about everything in front of him.
An experienced top mercenary like him has been tortured into a mess by this forest, but a child of only five or six years old can sleep here peacefully and is still alive. Everything that happened today was beyond Shan Ming’s imagination. But he was too lazy to think about why this was all happening.
He grabbed the child’s feet and dragged him out of the bushes. The child was naked. It was as if he had been fished out of a pile of carcasses. His body was covered with blood and minced meat. He was dirty and smelly.
Shan Ming wiped off the dirt on the child’s face with his dirty hands and found that it was a boy with an Asian appearance. But he was very thin and there was still a part of the wolf’s intestines hanging on his body. It looked disgusting and scary. He checked the child’s breathing and it was true that his breathing was stable but he was not conscious. He then touched the child’s body but found no serious injuries.
Shan Ming was almost envious of him.
This shabby place lacked everything, except water. Shan Ming carried the child by his legs and walked for a while to find a big puddle of water. He threw the child into it with only a flick of his hand.
The child sank quickly. Shan Ming stepped into the puddle and fished the child out of it again.
“Kaff! Kaff!” The child woke up and coughed violently.
Shan Ming violently picked up some water and rubbed the child’s face with it. After coughing, the child began to flap his hands and feet desperately. He kicked Shan Ming’s thigh while slapping on the water. He was screaming hysterically.
Shan Ming was so annoyed and afraid that the boy would attract the attention of the unknown beast with such noise. So, he slapped the child on the face with his hands.
The child froze for a moment before slowly raising his head and stared at Shan Ming with his eyes widened.
Shan Ming looked at the little boy expressionlessly, “Can you understand Chinese?”
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*Author’s Note: I’m starting a new story~~ Hey hey hey hey, I’m so happy. I’ve finished five novels so far and I’m very satisfied with the characters. So, hurry up and bookmark them!
This book is a story about a foster father who raised a little wolf cub and was eaten by this wolf cub himself. The background of this story involves mercenaries and the government’s biological weapon plans. It is passionate and also affectionate. I hope you will like it.
PS: Those who have read ‘In Love with an Idiot’ and came here, there has been a plan to write about Jian Suiying cousin’s Young Master Bai. But I am not familiar with military life, and I don’t know how to write about it yet. The plot should be cute and if I have an understanding of military life, maybe I will write about it in the future. But for now, please support this new story~ -SQC
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*Translator’s Note: I think this book should be related to ‘My Little Poplar’ but correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve read ‘My Little Poplar’ a long time ago so I’ve forgotten a lot of things but I think Shan Ming and Shen Changze did make an appearance in that story, didn’t they? I need help to confirm this info, please. This book is one of SCQ’s earlier works. I was late to read it and regret it because I like this one so much! It was recommended to me by my Chinese friend. She also gave me the smutty censored chapters haha. Smut chapters will only come later into the story when the kid has grown up… The ML is not as scummy as SCQ’s usual gongs since of course, this is not part of the 188 gongs. The MC is quite a badass instead which makes everything so exciting. This time, I’m translating two works at the same time. They carry the same theme where MC is strong, older than ML, and treated ML like his adopted son. So, the waiting for the ML to grow up and overthrow his adoptive father was worth it! I personally like this kind of theme. The other novel is ‘Across Thousands of Stars’ by Yu Xiaofan. Check it out too if you guys are interested. I’ll be updating both stories weekly. -K
★ If you missed reading this in the description, do note that the chapter title with (M) at the beginning means it’s a mature/smut chapter.
*GLOSSARY:
- psi (pounds per square inch): human’s bite force is only around 659 psi. So let’s compare… A tiger’s bite force is 1,051psi and a crocodile is 3,700 psi. You get the gist of the difference here.
Next update: 2023.04.24
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