Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 197 The Beauty of Evolution
The next day, Yun Ce got up very early. While he was washing up by the river, he suddenly felt warm all over. When he turned around, he found that Shehuo had run out on his own.

The dog's voice immediately echoed in his mind.

"This time, it's the folk performance that's looking for you, not me."

Yun Ce looked at the constantly jumping folk performance and said, "I haven't had breakfast yet."

After hearing this, Shehuo flew leisurely northward.

Yun Ce sighed, packed up, and mounted his chestnut horse to follow the folk performance.

The firework flew through the air for a while before landing on the top of the chestnut horse's head, using the method of roasting the chestnut horse's left and right ears to direct its advance.

I thought the proud chestnut horse would put up a fight, but to my surprise, this guy not only pricked up his ears in a very obsequious manner, but also deliberately moved closer so that it would be easier to roast him over the fire.

Ever since the firework landed on the chestnut horse's head, the horse has been continuously farting, with gray fart mist swirling around its hind legs. To avoid getting it covered in the farts, Yun Ce had to urge the chestnut horse to run faster.

The gray, damp mist lands on the grass, causing it to quickly turn black and dry. When it lands on flowers, the flowers wither immediately. Sometimes it also lands on insects that have just survived hibernation, killing them instantly.

Yun Ce guessed that the performance of the folk dance had greatly benefited the chestnut horse; otherwise, it wouldn't have been so quiet and obedient. This was also the first time Yun Ce had ridden on the chestnut horse without feeling any bumps.

The chestnut horse farted for a full hour, and just as the farting was about to stop, it started having diarrhea again. The contents of its stomach could jump out a meter away, which shows how fierce the internal pressure was.

If Shehuo hadn't been perched on the chestnut horse's head, Yun Ce wouldn't have wanted this filthy horse at all.

The chestnut horse was overjoyed, raising its tail high as it galloped wildly, leaping and urinating for a full half hour. Yun Ce was also surprised to learn that nearly half of the chestnut horse's weight was actually horse manure and water.

Unable to bear it any longer, Yun Ce jumped off his horse and led the chestnut horse to the Clear Water River to wash its rear end and hind legs. Just after rinsing it with clean water, the horse started defecating again.

This time, it not only started to defecate, but also opened its mouth and started to vomit, vomiting out thick white mucus. Perhaps knowing that it didn't look good, it simply knelt in the shallow water, vomiting and defecating at the same time, and then let the flowing water clean its body.

Many fish in the shallow water were upside down, a large expanse of white fish floating on the surface, looking like they wouldn't survive.

At first, Yun Ce just found it funny, but gradually he couldn't laugh anymore. Just an hour and a half ago, the chestnut horse was an extremely handsome and magnificent steed, but now it had become thin and bony, and even its once bright eyes had become dull and lifeless.

Yun Ce wanted to stop She Huo from continuing to modify the chestnut horse, so he picked She Huo up with his hands. However, after staying in Yun Ce's palm for a while, She Huo jumped back onto the head of the skinny chestnut horse.

It wasn't until the chestnut horse let out a loud neigh and slammed its head heavily into the water that Yun Ce rushed over, pulled it out of the water, and placed it on a dry sandy area.

Touching the chestnut horse's nose, Yun Ce found that the fellow had fallen into a deep sleep. He then relaxed and prepared to light a fire nearby to wait for the chestnut horse to wake up.

As a result, Shehuo wasn't satisfied and jumped onto the back of Yun Ce's head, relentlessly burning Yun Ce's left ear.

Yun Ce covered his ears and shouted, "Tell me where you want to go, and I'll take you. But we can't just leave the chestnut horse behind, can we?"

The firework, of course, wouldn't listen and continued to burn Yun Ce's left ear, making it hurt more and more. Helpless, Yun Ce had to tie up the four hooves of the chestnut horse, carry it on his shoulder, and move forward step by step in the direction indicated by the firework.

As Yun Ce hoisted the folded and bound chestnut horse onto his shoulder, his heart ached. Not long ago, the chestnut horse weighed a full 2,500 jin (1,250 kg), and when it lay down, its head could cover Yun Ce's figure. Now, however, it only weighed a little over 1,000 jin (500 kg), most of which was the weight of its bones.

After walking for four hours following the directions provided by the folk performance, a somewhat exhausted Yun Ce saw a strange bird without any feathers. He kicked a flat pebble, which flew towards the bird's neck with a whooshing sound.

Yun Ce just wanted to kill this strange bird. There was no other reason. The bird was too ugly. Any normal creature would want to kill it if it saw it. It was just because the bird was too ugly.

The flat pebble cut precisely into the strange bird's neck, but instead of severing it, the stone fragment kicked out by Yun Ce shattered into powder upon contact with the bird's neck.

Just as Yun Ce was about to kill the bird, he heard Gouzi barking wildly in his head.

"Radiation source, radiation source, run, run!"

Hearing the dog bark, Yun Ce turned and ran with his chestnut horse on his back, running as fast as lightning.

After running only a hundred meters or so, Yun Ce abruptly stopped, because he suddenly realized that the Shehuo (a type of folk performance) hadn't followed. Then, to his horror, he discovered that the Shehuo was burning fiercely on the head of the strange bird. The Shehuo was indeed burning fiercely; it had almost grown to the same size as the strange bird, and the flames engulfed the bird, showing a tendency to burn even more intensely.

As we all know, radiation sources have the property of polluting everything. If they fall on the soil, the soil becomes polluted; if they fall into the water, the water becomes polluted; if they fall on iron, or even lead, they will almost always cause pollution.

I just don't know if the characteristics of Shehuo (a traditional folk performance) will also be contaminated by the radioactive source.

"No radiation detected." The dog's words put Yun Ce at ease. He put the chestnut horse down, untied its four hooves, and moved them one by one to make sure that not moving them for a long time would affect its running in the future.

Yun Ce had already recognized the strange bird; it was the eagle that Yu Sang had ridden. Not only was it now completely featherless, but its strong and menacing beak also seemed to have been torn off.

The folk performance continued to roast the featherless eagle, and it seemed like it wouldn't be finished anytime soon. In the middle of the performance, the chestnut horse even opened its eyes and glanced at Yun Ce. Of course, Yun Ce knew that this guy was saying that it was hungry.

Although he didn't know what to feed this extremely weak guy at this time, Yun Ce still thought he should treat him like the Yue Po Zi was on Earth.

He took out the millet that he usually wouldn't drink, put it in the boiling water, and said that this would make it easier to extract oil. He also took out two large eggs stored in the Dragon Ball, and after thinking for a moment, took out two more, and put them in another pot to cook.

Once the millet porridge was cooked, Yun Ce peeled off the shell of a large, cooked egg and put it into the porridge, then added a lot of green icing sugar.

After stirring it well, I took a bite and found that it tasted really good. So I put half of the pot into the water and waited for the rice porridge to become warm before serving it to Zao Hongma.

The chestnut horse had no strength left; it couldn't even lift its head. So Yun Ce lifted its head and put its long face into the pot.

Fortunately, the chestnut horse still had the strength to eat, though it was a bit greedy. Yun Ce was also hungry at this time, so he took a boiled egg from the pot to fill his stomach. After being given a resentful look by the chestnut horse, Yun Ce broke the egg open and fed it to the chestnut horse.

After finishing a large pot of porridge, the red horse's belly showed no change. Looking at the red horse, which had fallen asleep weakly again, Yun Ce sniffed, washed the pot, and continued cooking porridge.

Yun Ce cooked pot after pot of rice porridge, and the jujube-red horse drank pot after pot of rice porridge. In the end, Yun Ce didn't even know how much porridge he had cooked.

All I remember is that whenever he put the porridge in the river to warm it up, the chestnut horse would wake up, bury its head in the pot, drink all the porridge, and then go back to sleep. However, its belly remained unchanged, with its ribs clearly visible, making it impossible to tell where the porridge had gone.

The only good thing is that the chestnut horse is gradually gaining strength; at least, he no longer has to lift its head to drink porridge.

As darkness fell, the firework used to roast the eagle turned a ghastly green, resembling will-o'-the-wisps from a distance. Yun Ce and his chestnut horse were now only ten meters away from the firework and the ugly bird, a safe distance determined by Gouzi.

The chestnut horse finally stopped urging Yun Ce to cook porridge for it, and Yun Ce had already filled his belly while cooking porridge for the chestnut horse. At this moment, the man and the horse lay on the still slightly warm beach watching the folk performance burn the ugly bird.

The dog stretched its tentacles out to the distance, seemingly sensing the changes in radiation over there; however, this guy hadn't spoken for a very long time.

Since there was nothing to say, it proved that everything was under control. Yun Ce wasn't too worried. Until midnight, the folk performance was still going on, so Yun Ce simply set up a tent on the sand and moved the chestnut horse inside. The horse was still weak and powerless, and Yun Ce didn't want it to catch a cold.

When it was broad daylight, Yun Ce opened his eyes and found that Shehuo had returned to the Dragon Ball by itself sometime during the night. All that remained of the place where it had been burned the night before was an ugly ball of flesh.

The dog said in Yun Ce's head, "In just one night, Shehuo cleared all the radiation from the eagle's body. Now, we just don't know what changes will occur in the eagle, or what kind of evolution it will become due to the radiation."

Yun Ce laughed and said, "It's definitely a good direction. Otherwise, given Shehuo's benevolent nature, they wouldn't put so much effort into something so unimportant."

The dog said, "The chestnut horse was the first to undergo the modification."

Yun Ce looked back at the chestnut horse that was still lying weakly on the ground and said disdainfully, "Still as stupid as before."

Just as the sunlight fell on that ugly ball of flesh, several cracks appeared on it, and then the ball of flesh turned black.

Then, a powerful wing emerged from the ball of flesh, flapped forcefully a few times, and the ball of flesh shattered. A black and yellow fledgling eagle, facing the rising sun, spread its wings and began to flap them vigorously.

Yun Ce glanced at the tuft of yellow feathers on the fledgling eagle's head and couldn't help but say, "The eagle tests its wings, stirring up dust and wind!"

(End of this chapter)