The Rise of a Primitive Civilization

A figure with long hair flutters in the breeze, wearing a piece of animal skin around his waist, holding a wooden stick in his left hand and a stone knife in his right. Spotting an old cat ahead, he throws both the stick and knife, hitting the cat and causing blood to splatter wildly…

A desolate autumn wind sweeps past as Luo Chong, sitting at the entrance of a cave, watches the primitive hunting scene before him, feeling a profound sadness—do not ask why. If you were bare-bottomed in autumn, you would feel the same, bitterly cold with the wind blowing fiercely.

"Damn it, I'm really poor. I finally get a chance to be reborn like a novel's protagonist, and it's in the Stone Age, with not even a stitch of clothing to wear. Could this be the ultimate irony of fate, the end of my good luck from a previous life?"

Luo Chong's heart roars with frustration, yet he feels powerless to change his reality. Observing his calloused feet and dirt-clogged fingernails, he resigns himself to his fate, having truly arrived in a strange, primitive era, and transformed into a small primitive person who had been 'poisoned to death'.

Sitting naked on basalt at the cave entrance, Luo Chong holds half a palm-sized stone knife—actually, just a shard he had just smashed. He studies how to deal with the cursed thing responsible for his transportation—the two bloody holes on his ankle made by a snake bite.

Several pregnant women wrapped in animal skins stare at him curiously, then witness this unfortunate child start to mutilate himself, using the stone shard to slice open the snake-bitten wound, letting the dark poison blood slowly seep out, yet Luo Chong feels little pain.

"Shit, it doesn't even hurt; am I going to be paralyzed, not feeling even when I'm about to die again right after arriving?"

Luo Chong hastily grabs his leg and furiously rubs it, squeezing out little poison. Afterward, he begins to suck on the wound. Several similarly unclothed peers watch in stunned silence, thinking he has gone mad before dying.

Luo Chong ignores them. After all, they don't understand his Mandarin and can't help him anyway.

Hobbling back to the cave, he pulls out a red-hot tree branch from the fire pit and presses the burning charcoal fiercely against the wound.

"Sss—Ahh!"

After a scream, Luo Chong collapses, muttering prayers for healing. "Instructor, this is the first time I've been bitten by a snake. You said high temperatures could kill snake venom proteins; it better work, or my life is done."

Naked Luo Chong lies there, nostalgically recalling his military days.

In a previous life, Luo Chong, born into a martial arts family, learned martial arts in childhood, attended military college, and was considered elite in the army.

Surviving in the wild, assassination, demolition, proficient with light and heavy weapons, his mission success rate was impeccable. However, since the mission last week—perhaps due to stepping in dog shit—Luo Chong's luck had turned.

The mission was in the northern deserts of Africa. After successfully assassinating a spy and heading back, he encountered a severe sandstorm and accidentally fell into quicksand, never managing to climb out again.

Below the quicksand was a natural cavern, long but without an exit. Filled with hope, Luo Chong walked towards the deeper parts of the cave, hoping to see the sun again.

In a signal-less, light-less, food-less, and water-less cave, Luo Chong survived on his bodily fluids for five days. The cave grew hotter as he walked, his hopes diminishing until a bright light made him believe he could go on.

However, reaching the light, Luo Chong was dumbfounded—the rising hope instantly turned to despair. There was no exit; just a pool of bubbling lava.

He had unknowingly walked deep underground…

With a face of despair, Luo Chong no longer thought about returning to the surface. Even knowing where the exit was, he didn't have the strength to reach it. With his current physical condition, even if he returned the same way, it would be impossible…

Heh… Looking around, Luo Chong chuckled self-deprecatingly. Such was fate; even the gods had prepared a tomb for him.

But it wasn't too bad; even in death, he would have a place to rest, not so bad as dying without a burial place.

Luo Chong comforted himself, leaning against the rock wall and closing his eyes.

His stomach acids endlessly churned as if digesting himself. Hunger gnawed at him, keeping him half-conscious but restless with the sensation of starvation. Even though he wanted to sleep forever, he couldn't fall asleep…

Angrily, Luo Chong cursed in his heart: "This damn Africa is no good place. Not becoming a chief is also unlucky. This time, it's really back to grandma's house."

He thought it was all over, but then Luo Chong opened his eyes to this bizarre place.

Surrounded by wild grass and bushes, a group of primitive people, bare-chested and wearing only animal skins around their waists, carried him back to the cave. His ankle still oozed black blood, and a giant snake with a smashed head was wrapped around his leg.

The tribe members initially thought the child bitten by the snake wouldn't survive, but after a series of bloodletting and burning treatments—akin to self-mutilation—Luo Chong stood up the next day.

The next morning, after a night of life-or-death struggle, Luo Chong rose like a cockroach from the hand of a woman who handed him a piece of dried, unidentified meat the size of a goose egg, which he devoured hungrily.

Luo Chong didn't care what it was; he only knew the misery of dying from hunger in a past life. The fear of starvation deeply affected his psyche. Since joining the military, he had imagined countless ways to die but never starvation. Now, as long as it wasn't deadly, he dared to cram anything into his mouth.

The woman, seeing Luo Chong could continue eating, also smiled, hooting to the other women to grab their animal skins and head out.

But then, someone couldn't sit still. Just as Luo Chong had stuffed the roasted meat into his mouth, he hurriedly stopped the woman, desperately gesturing while saying, "Is there any more food? I'm hungry."

It was a joke. Although his new body was only about ten years old, he was growing fast. Moreover, after recently experiencing the tragedy of starving to death, Luo Chong now wished to keep his stomach almost bursting at all times.

People often say those who eat quickly and a lot are like starving ghosts reincarnated. What is a real starving ghost reincarnated? Just look at Luo Chong.

This bit of meat could not satisfy his stomach, or rather, fulfill his desire to stuff himself.

But the woman's reply, of course, was impossible.

In this small tribe of just over fifty people, the daily available food was limited. Moreover, it was the season before winter when food was being stored. Letting a child eat more, without even reducing his portion, was already fortunate.

That piece of goose egg-sized roasted meat, given because he was injured, was already a special treatment. Other children did not receive this privilege.

Half-fed Luo Chong sat helplessly at the cave entrance, passively absorbing the memories of another person in his head, contemplating his miserable situation.

Returning to the past was impossible. Luo Chong himself wanted to return, but if he ended up back in that lava cave, he might as well stay here as a primitive person, living in another way.

But surviving here was also not easy.

In the memories of the original owner of this body, the winter here was very long. Humans hibernated in caves all winter, conserving food sparingly. During the hardest times, they might eat only once every two days.

This eating method certainly couldn't satisfy hunger, merely keeping people alive. Moreover, according to tribal customs, food was first given to adult males, then to adult females, followed by children like himself, and lastly to the elderly and disabled.

But in such harsh living conditions, where were the elderly and disabled? Those who were sick or injured usually died right away. So, in the real food shortages of winter, he would be among the first to be abandoned. It was common for several people in the tribe to freeze or starve to death each year.

Thinking this, Luo Chong couldn't just sit around doing nothing. Seeing that it was already autumn and getting colder each day, the adult primitives were busy gathering fruits and hunting animals to store food for winter. As a newcomer, Luo Chong certainly couldn't just idle around.

Thus, starvation would not be a concern for him; he would not willingly be listed first to be abandoned.