Ancient Eden

Youyou also pushed through the crowd, visibly very excited, she kept screaming at Mu Qing, waving at her to come over. Fearing that she would be crushed by people inside the crowd, Mu Qing got up to try to pull her back. She walked up to her, and when she took hold of Youyou’s hand, out of curiosity, she took a look at the tiger corpse. And then she instantly stiffened.

On the tiger’s upper jaw, on both sides, there were two dagger-like huge fangs, all the way down to its chin.

Mu Qing felt like she was being strangled and could not breathe.

When she used to go to school, she wasn’t very serious in learning biology classes, but no matter how bad people were on this subject, everyone knew more or less that such a tiger, with long external protruding fangs like daggers, was long since extinct on Earth.

She had seen that cartoon movie “Ice World”, and so she knew what the bad-tempered saber-toothed tiger Diego looked like. And now, this dead animal corpse lying in front of her, if she wasn’t hallucinating right now, was a relative of Diego’s, the prehistoric beast that completely disappeared from Earth 10 000 years ago or so because of the lack of food and human interference.

There was an incessant variety of noises coming from the people around that entered Mu Qing’s ears, but everything seemed distant and empty. She just stared at the ground, at that tiger’s long fangs, as her mind replayed through all the strange happenings since her arrival here: that monster bird, those ridiculously large mosquitoes, the dense primitive jungle, and …… the people that lived here and still used stone tools, and from whom she was unable to find even the slightest sign of a tribe evolving in the modern civilization…

If this tiger was not a reversion made by genetic cloning, then here …… was the prehistoric era that she had vaguely doubted it was before. Fifteen days ago, she was transported back to the prehistoric era by that bizarre thunder ……

Mu Qing’s face turned white, her expression was stiff, and her gaze was empty as if she had been struck by a demonic force. When Youyou, who felt some pain because of her grip, looked up to see her face, she let out a scream of fear, and shook her hand repeatedly, which led other people to also look their way.

Mu Qing only then came back to her senses and let go of Youyou’s hand. She immediately looked up and saw Li Ming, looking at her with some concern in his expression. But very soon, people swarmed around him and together, they carried the tiger towards the middle of the settlement. He turned his head back several times until he saw Naduo come over to Mu Qing, holding her by the shoulders and patting her face, with some confusion.

Mu Qing forced herself to smile at her, and said “I’m fine”, and then she rubbed hard at her face.

Naduo laughed. She then let go of her and walked in the direction of the crowd. Her man and Li Mang were walking together.

Mu Qing felt her body breaking out in cold sweat uncontrollably, and her whole body was so wet that it looked like she had just been fished out of water. The sun was shining hot and blazing on her sweaty skin, but she felt wet and cold on her back. When she came back to her senses, she realized she had arrived at the stream outside the forest.

Last night, there was probably a heavy rain upstream, for the flow of water was more turbulent than usual.

After arriving here, she noticed that Naduo and the girls were drinking water directly from the upper reaches of this stream. Although the water looked crystal clear, she was used to boiling water before drinking it. She tried to make Youyou and the others drink the boiled water like her, but it was not very effective so after trying to make them drink a few times, she gave up.

Now she felt very thirsty, as if she did not drink water right now, she would really be like a fish in dry water, with the sun overhead, like she would die from the thirst and the dryness.

She leaned down on the side of the stream, put her face close to the murmuring flow of water, and gulped large mouthfuls of water, until her stomach was so full she could no longer bear it, she then buried her head completely into the water, and stopped moving.