Chapter Thirty-Four: The Place of Birth

  That evening, Longtan was still quiet, but downstream of the small river, something big happened.

  Late at night.

  The moon is big and round tonight, like a plate, the moonlight spills into the forest, looking very beautiful, but the lower reaches of the river are not so.

  The river water flowing out of the spring eye of Longtan is winding and curved, with some sections still being relatively wide. About thirty miles away from Longtan, there is a section of the river where the terrain in front is slightly higher, so the river water here is more urgent. Under this section of the river, due to years of flushing by the river water, a long stretch of alluvial plain has formed, which is mud and sand. These mud and sand are accumulated here, with reeds growing on top. Although it's autumn, these reeds don't show any signs of withering, but instead have an unusual vitality.

  This muddy beach is usually a paradise for many birds, as there are plenty of small fish and shrimp here, and the insects in the mud are not few. Birds build their nests here, and if they encounter beasts attacking, they will fly into the sky to escape. Now all the birds have flown into the sky because this place has been occupied by a group of wild boars.

  Wild boars love this kind of place, with mud and sand, digging up is quite refreshing, occasionally they can dig out small crabs or tender shoots of reeds, which are delicious food, they won't bother those little birds.

  The entire muddy waterway was unusually messy due to the presence of a group of wild boars, who were not environmentalists. Just as they were having fun digging up the riverbank, the water in the small river began to move.

  The pond formed by the river water is not small, and it's not much different from Longtan. The animals won't notice that there's a big hole on the side, and now something is coming out of the big hole, stirring up the water.

  First, a head poked out, which was the head of a turtle, but this head looked very big and was grayish white in color. Then, this large turtle exerted great force to push against the opening of the hole, its strength seeming quite formidable, and actually managed to widen the opening even further. After that, its entire body squeezed out and fell into the pond, and this turtle was so huge that it seemed as if the water level in the river had risen a bit.

  This giant turtle is grayish-white all over, including the shell, and its limbs are exceptionally sturdy. The diameter of the shell is at least over one meter. If Lin Bei were here, he would definitely be surprised. This should be a giant tortoise called an elephant turtle.

  The name "tortoise" was coined later, around 1600 AD, during the Ming dynasty's Wanli era. The Spanish discovered this giant turtle on a deserted island and named it after its massive legs, which resembled those of an elephant.

  Why are giant tortoises so big? Scientists have made guesses, and the most plausible one is that at that time on the isolated island, because there were no natural enemies of turtles and food was abundant, they grew larger without worries. Of course, this process of growing larger may take tens or thousands of years of continuous evolution. However, it can be confirmed that giant tortoises have been quite large since ancient times. From the Three Kingdoms period to the Ming dynasty is only about 1,500 years, and the size of giant tortoises would not have been small.

  After the turtle appeared, more and more turtles emerged from the hole, as if endless. These turtles were surprisingly large, with even the smallest shell over 50 cm in length. Soon, they filled up the entire river.

  This movement, of course, did not escape the wild boars that were eating nearby, but these silly guys just took a glance and then looked away, because they were already very familiar with this big guy, which would appear every few years, but it was not food for the wild boars, so they didn't care.

  However, the wild boars didn't care, but the tortoises seemed to be angry. They gathered together and headed towards the muddy sandy area, looking like they were going to have a big fight with the wild boars. The wild boars naturally didn't know that this was actually the tortoises' chosen nesting site, where they would bury their eggs in the mud and sand, which only existed in this section of the small river.

  There were over a hundred tortoises, and they gathered together in large numbers to crawl. The wild boars seemed to be frightened too, and they retreated while making loud cries.

  A young wild boar, full of vigor and energy, lowered its head and charged at a tortoise. The force of the boar was considerable, but the tortoise withdrew its head into its shell. The boar rammed into the shell, but couldn't budge the tortoise an inch, for the tortoise's strength was equally great.

  The strength of the giant tortoise is absolutely the strongest among all turtles, they can even carry two or three adults on their backs and crawl as if nothing happened. Although they lack attacking means, when they want to defend themselves, except for elephants, almost no land animal can push them away.

  A lone tortoise crawled onto the muddy beach, but the wild boar group had no way to deal with it and could only retreat step by step, giving up the muddy beach to this big guy. Then a thunderous howl came from the wild boar group, after which they slowly retreated, preparing to leave.

  At two or three o'clock in the morning, it was already very late. The muddy beach here was covered with a layer of moonlight shining down.

  The tortoises didn't delay, starting to dig the mud with their hind legs, preparing to lay eggs here. They came from a distant place and would lay eggs purely out of tradition. Every few years, several groups of tortoises would come, but as time passed, fewer and fewer tortoise groups arrived. If an old man had been watching this place for some time, he would know that after a while, the tortoise group would completely abandon this spawning ground because too few baby turtles were born alive here. Sometimes, not even one intact turtle egg was left by the time the eggs hatched, as the animals in the forest had eaten all the turtle eggs during the long period from laying to hatching.

  The birds perched on the branches also stopped chirping, all staring intently at the group of large turtles with a sharp glint in their eyes, eager to discover food. Once the turtle group left, many birds would fly down, dig open the mud and sand, and peck at the turtle eggs inside. They were the first batch to enjoy this delicious meal. Later, what followed were mice, snakes, foxes, and even wild boars, all coming one after another, urgently needing food energy as they were about to hibernate for the winter.

  At 5 o'clock in the morning, the moon began to slide down from the open sky. The turtles had almost finished laying their eggs. These turtles laid a huge number of eggs, with over 100 turtle eggs at a time, each one slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball. One nest was definitely not enough, so they would often dig several nests and then carefully cover them with mud and sand. They did everything they could, but this was clearly a useless effort.

  After laying eggs, the turtles begin to leave. The last turtle enters the hole in the pond, which will be sealed by the mud and sand brought by the river water.

  The river water has not yet calmed down, and countless birds have flown to the muddy beach, starting to dig open the mud with their claws, pecking at the turtle eggshells with their sharp beaks, and these birds do not have any dining etiquette, they often peck open several turtle eggs but only eat a small amount of egg liquid.

  Squeaks came from all directions, the cries of rats. The forest was full of mountain rats, and the smell of egg liquid drove them a bit crazy. They started to rob birds of this rare big meal. Some mountain rats were exceptionally clever, they would push the whole turtle egg away from its original place, and if lucky, they could push it into their burrows. After all, mice also need to spend the winter.

  The sky gradually brightened, and some early-rising beasts began to drink water in the river. A group of horses ran leisurely on the muddy beach, where the turtle egg nests were once again ravaged. But this was not the end. Only the luckiest turtle eggs could remain intact before hatching. However, would this disaster come to an end? Nature is not so kind. Even if they were born lucky, they still had to undergo the test of nature. They needed to live independently in this small river until they grew to a certain size before leaving. But during this time, fewer and fewer could survive, until none were left. Then, when the old tortoises slowly died out, this spawning ground would cease to exist, for there would be no more tortoises that remembered this place.

  PS: Once again, thank you to Brother Qiqingliuyi for the reward. Also, thanks to Wanglingzunzhong and **u brother for their generosity. This indicates that more and more friends like this book, which makes me very happy.