Chapter 114: Extra Story #7
Just as Chu Jiu’s small boat was heading towards “Green Island.”
On the island. In the jungle.
“Green Puni, Green Puni, I want another bowl of mango mush!” A Gray Puni, half the size of Blue Puni, held up a small wooden bowl, trying hard to tiptoe.
“Mango mush?” Green Puni, holding a large spoon, stood in front of a large pot made of coconut shell, frowning in difficulty. “Ah Qi, there’s no mango mush today. Can you eat banana mush?”
“Ah…” The Gray Puni called Ah Qi bit its thin little finger and looked down at its already clean empty bowl.
Another Gray Puni nearby, seeing Ah Qi constantly licking its bowl, poured the remaining mango mush in its own bowl into Ah Qi’s bowl. “I can eat banana mush. I’ll give you my mango mush.”
Ah Qi was immediately overjoyed, holding the half-bowl of yellow mango mush and sitting on a tree stump, slurping it down.
Green Puni scooped a large spoonful of banana mush into the bowl in front of this Puni and said softly, “Ah Liu is such a good Puni.”
Green Puni paused and then whispered, “I know you like mango mush too, but there are really too few mangoes lately.”
“I’ll look again tomorrow to see if there are any new mangoes.”
The Gray Puni called Ah Liu, holding a full bowl of banana mush, also nodded happily.
After all the Gray Puni had finished their mush, Green Puni had them sit down neatly in a row of seven, putting on a very serious face.
“Gray Puni, I have something very, very important to tell you—”
“Starting today, a group of ‘outsiders’ will come to our island.”
“They may not look scary, but they are actually very fierce and sinister. They only want to destroy our island, destroy our Tara.”
The seven Gray Puni below all made surprised “Puni!” sounds upon hearing this.
Green Puni: “But everyone, don’t be afraid! Our Tara has the ability to eliminate these outsiders!”
“Everyone just needs to wait quietly for Tara to kick them away!”
“During this time, everyone must avoid these outsiders and not come into contact with them!”
“Even if you really encounter them, you must not believe what they say!”
“Gray Puni, do you understand?”
The seven small Puni all raised their little arms: “Understood! Understood!”
Green Puni nodded in satisfaction: Good.
Don’t worry, little Gray Puni. These outsiders will definitely be driven away by Tara and won’t hurt you!
As soon as they set foot on this island, they will be scared out of their wits by the terrifying plants on the island and then reveal their true colors!
*
“Gulu-gulu, gulu-gulu, so many, many green plants…” Glup-Glup floated above the mast, excitedly looking at the “Green Island” ahead.
“Yeah.” Chu Jiu held the mast, also smiling as he looked ahead. “This island must have plenty of fruits and vegetables…”
Maybe they could even find wheat or corn!
To be honest, after eating seafood barbecue for seven consecutive days, Chu Jiu really missed staple foods.
Rawr Rawr Rabbit also came over: “Roar roar roar, will there be rabbit meat? Rawr Rawr Rabbit wants to eat rabbit meat a bit, Roar roar roar…”
“Especially the stir-fried rock rabbit meat that Chu Jiu made in Bean Village before was so good, Roar roar roar!”
Chu Jiu laughed: “Okay, we’ll go hunt rabbits on the island.”
Rawr Rawr Rabbit: “Roar roar roar, yay!”
While speaking, the small boat was already approaching the shore.
Chu Jiu and the spirit beast babies jumped into the water one after another, those who tied the mooring ropes tied the mooring ropes, those who dropped anchor dropped anchor, and soon the small boat was tied to a rock on the shore.
Chu Jiu waded through the seawater, startling groups of silvery small fish, and stepped onto the small island step by step.
“Wow…”
The spirit beast babies all exclaimed in surprise.
Even Little Can, who was usually very calm, couldn’t help but blink its eyes.
This island was too beautiful.
Under the azure sky, the seawater was clear to almost transparent, the fine sand was as white as flour, the deep green staghorn trees swayed in the wind, and milky white frangipani flowers were scattered on the ground…
It really made you want to lie directly on the beach, comfortably enjoying the sea breeze, and then have a refreshing coconut juice.
The spirit beast babies jumped onto the beach one after another, leaving a string of paw prints.
Chu Jiu also walked around on the beach for a while and picked up the coconut fruits he had been longing for.
Complete, plump, and juicy coconut fruits.
Besides the coconut fruits, he also found two very small bananas, a slightly wilted mango, and a not-so-plump mangosteen.
…Compared to the lushness of the trees here, there weren’t many fruits.
Chu Jiu muttered in his heart.
Most of the delicious fruits were probably deeper inland.
Just right, coincidentally. Anyway, they also needed to go to a more central location to establish a spiritual connection and obtain the island’s “information prompts.”
Chu Jiu led the spirit beast babies towards a place where the trees were relatively sparse and walked inland.
However, they hadn’t walked far into the jungle when the surrounding scenery became somewhat strange.
Especially the trees.
When they had just landed on the island, all the lush green staghorn trees with lovely flowers were gone, and coconut trees and mango trees were nowhere to be seen.
In their place were some trees that Chu Jiu didn’t recognize, and no matter how he looked at them, they seemed suspicious.
Like the one in the front right now.
The patterns on this tree were twisted together to form a hideous human face.
And what was even more terrifying was that as Chu Jiu and the others moved forward, the “eyeballs” on this “human face” would follow them!
When Chu Jiu walked directly in front of the tree, the “mouth” on the “human face” began to open and close, the row of teeth in the dark mouth constantly grinding against each other, making a sound even hoarser and more unpleasant than sawing wood!
Chu Jiu stopped.
Green Puni, hidden among the leaves in the distance: Hmph. I knew you’d be scared.
Chu Jiu stared at the tree in front of him and sighed softly.
Little Can: “Meow?”
Chu Jiu: “Seeing this tree… I kind of miss the [Totem Tree] and [Screaming Mushrooms] in the Forgotten Forest…”
That very eerie-looking totem tree could produce very delicious sweet grapes; and the screaming mushrooms, needless to say, were such a good food source in the early days.
Human-face tree: …?
Green Puni, observing the situation from a distance: …?
Chu Jiu walked around the tree and saw the prompt given by the little hamster system:
[Human-face Tree: A tree with a large face growing on its trunk. Although the human face on the trunk looks scary, it actually poses no threat.
For small animals, the roots of this tree are very suitable for grinding teeth. So, small burrowing animals like rabbits and field mice often vigorously grind their teeth on its roots.
Every time this happens, the “teeth” of the human-face tree will also rub back and forth, making a very terrifying sound.]
Chu Jiu looked at the human-face tree that was grunt grunt grinding its teeth, patted Little Can on the shoulder, and whispered, “There might be prey near the roots of this tree—but be careful not to scratch the roots of this tree.”
Keeping the roots of this tree might continue to attract other prey as a trap.
Little Can “meowed” once and immediately swung its claws twice at the base of the big tree root!
Scratch scratch complete.
Several fat rabbits appeared on the ground.
Chu Jiu happily collected [Fresh Rabbit Meat X20].
Alright, Rawr Rawr Rabbit has the rabbit meat it wanted!
But they still needed to find plants like ginger and garlic to make even more delicious rabbit meat.
Just as he was thinking this, Chu Jiu noticed that the grimacing human-face tree in front of him slowly changed the shape of its dark mouth, finally turning into a “big smile”!
At the same time, “thump,” something fell from the tree branch and landed on the ground.
Picking it up, he saw:
[Haha Fruit: The patterns on the peel make it look like it’s laughing heartily.
This is a fruit that cannot be actively collected and can only be obtained as a gift from a happy human-face tree.
The flesh of the haha fruit is juicy and sweet, and eating it makes one feel refreshed and happy! It is an extremely rare high-quality fruit!
By the way, there might also be a “wawa fruit.” Presumably, that kind of wawa fruit would have a bitter and unpleasant taste…]
…So it was a gift from the human-face tree.
As for why the human-face tree would be happy, it was probably because they had helped it get rid of the rabbits that came to gnaw on its roots.
Not bad, not bad.
Chu Jiu happily put the haha fruit into his backpack.
Human-face tree: (^o^)
Green Puni, hidden in the distance: …Huh? No? Human-face tree, why did you defect so quickly?! You, you, you’re useless! But it doesn’t matter, there are other terrifying plants waiting for them next!
Outsiders, just you wait!
*
Chu Jiu continued to walk deeper into the jungle.
As they walked, Rawr Rawr Rabbit suddenly poked its head out of the pocket in the backpack, its long ears pointing forward like road signs: “Roar roar roar, there are more rabbits ahead, but they’re so ugly and big!”
Ugly and big rabbits?
Chu Jiu looked in the direction of Rawr Rawr Rabbit’s ears:
Wow, they really were!
So ugly! So big! Rabbits that looked fierce at first glance!
To be precise, rabbit heads!
One after another, rabbit heads with fierce eyes floated around on a tree!
A gust of wind blew past, and the rabbit heads opened their bright red three-lobed mouths one after another, revealing flat, reflective big teeth. The teeth clicked together up and down, as if saying: Eat, you, oh…
Chu Jiu let out an “aiya” sound.
Little Can also “meowed.”
Green Puni, hidden in the distance: Hmph hmph, you’re scared this time, right? Never seen it before, fierce animals growing on trees!
Chu Jiu exclaimed, “I didn’t expect there to be animals growing on trees here…”
So nostalgic, so nostalgic…
Green Puni: A-also??? What exactly did you outsiders experience before!
Little Can: “Meow?” – “Want to scratch them down and take a look?”
Chu Jiu: “Scratch.”
“Spicy Rabbit Heads” were a famous dish! Perfect for a late-night snack!
Little Can leaped up.
With a few swift “shua lie shua,” all the rabbit heads with fierce eyes fell to the ground.
After Chu Jiu picked up these rabbit heads, he realized that they weren’t real animals, nor were they real rabbit heads.
They were just tree fruits shaped like rabbits.
[Rabbit Tree: A tree that grows its fruits as fiercely as possible to scare away enemies.
As for why it deliberately tries to scare people, perhaps it’s because its fruits are so sweet?
If these fruits are chopped up and boiled in water, perhaps useful materials can be obtained?]
Chu Jiu held a rabbit head up to his nose and sniffed: it did have a clear sweet fragrance.
Chu Jiu happily collected all the rabbit heads on the ground into his backpack.
Rabbit tree: (0~0)
Green Puni: !!! A-another failure?
How could this be!
*
Chu Jiu continued to walk towards the interior of the small island.
After walking a bit further, Chu Jiu found that the surrounding plants had changed again.
The ring of trees on the beach at the beginning were the most common tropical plants.
Later, they turned into strange plants somewhat similar to the monsters in the “Forgotten Forest.”
And now, the trees beside them had become lifeless, emitting a decaying aura.
Correspondingly, the chirping of birds and the chirping of insects that had been noisy before had gradually become smaller and almost inaudible.
Even the bright sunlight was blocked by the overly lush vines, and the surroundings became dark.
It was hard to imagine that this place and the bright beach just now were on the same island.
Chu Jiu took a few more steps and frowned—
Not far away, there was an unpleasant smell. This smell reminded him of leaves that hadn’t seen sunlight for years, slowly rotting at the bottom of a dark lake.
The spirit beast babies had obviously smelled it too.
Kakaba raised its paw first: “Dang-dang-dang! I guess we probably can’t go any further!”
Little Can also “meowed”: “Chu Jiu, you wait here, Kakaba and I will go take a look first.”
Before long, the two little ones returned.
Kakaba: “Dang-dang-dang! It really is a swamp! Bigger and deeper than the swamp in the Forgotten Forest!”
Little Can added, “And it’s full of sewage and rotten mud.”
Chu Jiu stood in place and nodded.
Although the scenery and smell here were the most unpleasant compared to all the places before, his intuition as a “top-level healer” told him that this place was the most suitable for establishing a connection.
He summoned the golden hamster, knelt down on one knee, pressed his palm onto the wet and soft fallen leaves, and closed his eyes.
[Ding!]
[The system has completed further scanning.]
[Host has triggered the second task.] [Second Task: Please use the existing resources of “Green Island” and its surroundings to build a “livable small house.”]
[Precautions: If there is always a “swamp full of miasma” on the island, then no matter how hard you try, this environment will be “unsuitable for living.” Please be sure to pay attention to this point! In addition, still do not eat foreign food or drink foreign water!]
It seemed that the focus of this task was to transform the swamp.
Chu Jiu stood up, deciding to go take a look at the swamp ahead first.
Before he had taken a few steps, Little Can “meowed”: “There’s crying on the other side of the swamp.”
Crying?
Little Can’s voice changed slightly:
“It’s ‘Puni Puni’ crying!”
“I’m going over! You guys wait!”
As soon as the words fell, the little guy crossed the swamp with lightning speed, its figure disappearing into the dense forest.
The remaining spirit beast babies all stretched their necks worriedly, trying to peer over:
“‘Puni Puni’ crying?”
“Could it be Blue Puni?”
“Did little Blue secretly follow us over?”
Chu Jiu: “…Don’t worry. Let’s wait and see.”
Perhaps it really was a Puni, but not Blue Puni.
A moment later, Little Can returned.
It carried a small, grayish creature in its mouth.
Little Can gently placed this grayish little thing on a cleaner leaf.
Judging by its appearance, it was indeed a “Puni.”
Except it was gray and even smaller than Blue Puni.
The little Gray Puni kept its eyes tightly closed, large tears constantly falling, and muttered softly, “Puni Puni…”
Chu Jiu said, “Kakaba, what is it saying?”
Kakaba listened for a while, scratching its head as it translated, “It says, ‘Damn outsiders, “can’t trust outsiders” wuwuwu, will the outsiders eat me?’ But after I fell into the swamp, the outsiders rescued me?”
Chu Jiu looked at Little Can.
Little Can: “Mmm, when I found it, it was indeed stuck in the swamp. I don’t know why something so light and small would get stuck in the swamp.”
The Gray Puni heard Little Can’s words, stopped crying, and opened its eyes, as if trying to discern, “I, I wanted to scoop up mangoes!”
“I saw something that looked like a mango fall in, so I wanted to scoop it up, but while scooping, I don’t know what happened, I just got stuck…”
So that’s how it was.
Chu Jiu didn’t speak immediately but took a cotton handkerchief from his backpack and wiped the Gray Puni’s tear-stained and snotty face.
The Gray Puni hiccuped once and said softly, “Thank you.”
Such a polite little Puni.
Chu Jiu softened his voice: “You’re welcome.”
“You wanted to pick mangoes? Mangoes should only be in the woods by the sea, right?”
The Gray Puni hiccuped again: “Not that many…”
“The mangoes in that woods aren’t enough to eat… they’re gone in no time…”
“I, I ate Ah Liu’s mango mush, and I wanted to give it back a mango…”
Chu Jiu took out the withered mango from his backpack: “Just right, we picked one up on the beach—here, for you.”
The Gray Puni’s eyes lit up at first, then a look of extreme struggle appeared on its small face, and it began to mutter, “No, they’re outsiders, can’t trust them, can’t trust them…”
Finally, the Gray Puni’s eyes became extremely wary, and its small, gray, translucent jellyfish-like body shrank back: “I don’t want it.”
“I don’t want to accept gifts from outsiders!”
“You, don’t try to buy me off!”
Chu Jiu smiled: “Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.”
“My name is Chu Jiu. The one who just saved you is Little Can. The one over there who can understand you is Kakaba. The one with long ears behind is Rawr Rawr Rabbit, and the one that flies is Glup-Glup.”
“We are ‘pioneers’ who have just arrived here. We… want to make this island healthier.”
“When this island becomes healthy, maybe even the mangoes will become more plentiful!”
The Gray Puni widened its eyes and looked at Chu Jiu: “Really?”
Chu Jiu nodded: “Really.”
He held out the small mango in his hand again: “This mango might have fallen there when you were picking mangoes before. Here, we’re giving it back to you.”
The Gray Puni hesitated this time, then reached out its small arms and hugged the mango, which was about the same size as itself.
It said softly, “Thank you, pioneers.”
Chu Jiu: “You’re wel—”
Before he could finish speaking, an angry and high-pitched “Puni Puni” sound came from the jungle!
Turning his head, he saw a green Puni slightly larger than Blue Puni, panting heavily, looking at them with an angry expression.
“Let go of the Gray Puni!” the green Puni shouted, “If you don’t let go, I’ll use the ‘Puni Puni Special Effect Big Attack’!”
Chu Jiu quickly stood up, fearing that this green Puni, like Blue Puni, would turn itself into Puni jerky after releasing its “special effect big technique.”
Green Puni: “You despicable outsiders! You actually ambushed our Gray Puni!”
Before Chu Jiu could explain, the Gray Puni tried hard to amplify its voice: “No, no, they didn’t ambush me.”
“I came out by myself to find mangoes, and then I fell into the swamp…”
“They were the ones who scooped me out…”
Speaking of this, the Gray Puni’s eyes lit up: “Green Puni, Green Puni!”
It held up the small mango it was holding like a treasure:
“Look, this is the mango we left on the beach, and they picked it up and gave it back to us!”
“We have new mangoes!”
Green Puni’s face became even more unpleasant. It wanted to scold the Gray Puni for being so easily deceived, hadn’t it been told not to trust outsiders?
However, the Gray Puni floated a big smile on its face, its voice sounding extremely happy:
“This way, Green Puni won’t have to walk so far in the middle of the night to pick mangoes. Last time you went to find mangoes, you broke your leg in two and soaked it in water for a long time before it stuck back together!”
Green Puni: ……
Chu Jiu looked at this scene and said softly, “This mango was indeed picked up on the beach.”
“You probably need it more than we do.”
Green Puni’s mouth was tightly pursed into a wavy line. After a long while, it beckoned to the Gray Puni: “Come here.”
The Gray Puni obediently and happily hugged the mango and moved to Green Puni’s side.
Green Puni glared fiercely at the Gray Puni: “You’re not allowed to come to the swamp by yourself in the future!”
It then looked up at Chu Jiu: “You outsiders, what are you trying to do to harm our island this time?!”
Chu Jiu said calmly, “We didn’t come here to ‘harm’ this island.”
“In fact, this island, and perhaps the planet ‘Tara,’ are sick.”
“We want to find the cause of the illness and help Tara recover.”
At this moment, the little Gray Puni tugged on Green Puni’s arm, its eyes shining: “They said that if the island recovers, maybe even the mangoes will become more plentiful!”
Green Puni sneered—although because its face was too round and cute, this sneer wasn’t cold at all and had no intimidating effect.
It said slowly, “Isn’t the cause of Tara’s illness you?”
“Why is there such a large area of poisonous swamp on this island, and why are the fruits so scarce? Shouldn’t we be asking you that?”
Chu Jiu: …?
What does this mean…?
Green Puni snorted again, leaving behind the words, “The greatest help you can give Tara is to leave it as soon as possible!”, and with its little arms around the round Gray Puni, it “peng peng peng” hopped away.
Chu Jiu frowned and thought for a while, sighed, and continued walking towards the swamp.
The Puni seemed to have a big misunderstanding about their work.
At this stage, instead of wasting words explaining, it was better to produce something practical as soon as possible.
