Chapter 109: The Indigenous Village

In the early morning, under the glow of the clear sun, Yan Luo once again surveyed the distant village from a high vantage point.

The architecture of this village was peculiar. The main bodies of the houses were circular, likely constructed with a framework of branches, then plastered layer by layer with mud and straw. The final result resembled eggshells pressed into the ground. In places where the yellow earth had peeled away, the supporting branches beneath were exposed, appearing quite decayed and dilapidated.

Inside the village, the houses were spaced far apart. In such a place, there was naturally no concern for the "every inch of land is worth an ounce of gold" mentality found in metropolises, where one might wish to stack countless floors on a single plot. Land was cheap, and the dwellings were built with a sense of sparse, scattered isolation.

At the center of the village, a large, plaza-like clearing had been left intentionally empty, featuring a tall, wooden totem.

The totem’s shape was bizarre, resembling a man in agony with a ferocious expression. Straw had been used to craft the outline of its arms, and the structure was adorned with bones, stones, and feathers. At the very top, a complete human skull was embedded.

Beyond the trees at the edge of the village flowed a rushing river. In many primitive regions, living by a river is common sense for survival; after all, a river provides not only fish but, more importantly, a vital source of water.

It was morning, and people had already begun their daily activities.

Several local men wandered through the village, while many women wearing nose rings headed to the river to fetch water, much like the monks of the Shaolin Temple in movies. The only difference was that these women did not carry wooden buckets, but ceramic jars, balancing the dark or brownish vessels atop their heads.

After being filled with water, these jars must have weighed at least ten or twenty pounds. Heaven only knows how these women managed to keep them so perfectly steady on their heads.

"It doesn't seem all that supernatural, does it?"

Except for that skull-embedded totem, the village looked just like any ordinary primitive African settlement. But Yan Luo knew it was not that simple—much like the two men who had perished together in the graveyard the night before.

They had gone to dig up graves in the dead of night. One man’s belt could transform into a snake, while the other clutched a grotesque puppet. As for the bucket the short man had been carrying, Yan Luo had inspected it later and found a pungent liquid, much like the formalin used in hospitals to preserve corpses—though this was clearly a homemade concoction.

Yan Luo simply walked toward the village. He encountered several men on the way, and whether they were children, middle-aged men, or women, they all nodded and smiled at him, appearing quite friendly. This made it even harder for him to fathom: even if these natives knew him, having seen him buried only to crawl back out of the grave, they should at least show some surprise, right?

Upon entering the village, he saw even more details. It was breakfast time, and some of the locals were busy preparing meals. For people in some primitive African tribes, there was no need to work or study; their daily routine revolved entirely around the three meals of the day.

Bamboo poles were stuck into the ground throughout the village. Yan Luo saw several skinned monkeys hanging from them, drying in the sun and emitting a fishy stench, with flies crawling over the carcasses. Some poles held entire monkey pelts, still covered in fur and stained with large patches of dried blood.

This was "bushmeat," a common sight in sub-Saharan Africa. Bushmeat refers to wild animals—monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, wild boars, and the like—that live in the forests and serve as a common source of protein.

Although the hunting and sale of primates are illegal in many places, people could not afford chicken or beef, and one could hardly expect them to go without meat. Monkey meat was simply "the poor man's protein."

Of course, there were other sources of protein. Yan Luo saw a stout, elderly man sitting by a fire, roasting small bats skewered on branches—much like grilled squabs. The bats were roasted until their limbs curled, and their flesh quickly turned charred black.

Nearby, a few other men looked on with envy as they ate nuts gathered from the jungle—cashews, avocados... these were considered food for the poor, and eating them was looked down upon.

As for the middle class, one man was taking a small package he had collected the day before. He opened it to reveal a pouch of mosquitoes, which he sprinkled onto a paste made of cassava and potatoes, spread out on a hot iron plate. As the paste fried into a pancake, the mosquitoes embedded themselves into the surface, appearing as black dots like sesame seeds on a flatbread.

The man rolled the pancake into a tube, opened his mouth to reveal snow-white teeth, bit off half of it, and chewed with a look of pure satisfaction.

Even the smallest mosquito is still meat, after all.

The man prepared another mosquito pancake and, as Yan Luo passed by, even offered him a friendly invitation to eat.

Yan Luo declined.

The man was speaking French.

Additionally, some of the locals were conversing in a language he could not understand, likely a unique indigenous dialect—it is said there are over a thousand such languages in Africa. Moreover, this time, the system had not loaded a language module.

As Yan Luo pondered where to find an entry point to trigger the mission, three people suddenly emerged from a tall mud house.

These three were completely out of place in this village.

"A place full of African tribesmen, and out come three Europeans? Are they looking to be skewered by spears?"

Yan Luo saw that the three were all young white women, and each was strikingly beautiful: one blonde, one redhead, and one with flaxen hair. They were all model-tier, each over 1.7 meters tall, with slender figures and long, elegant legs.

The blonde woman was the standard Hollywood-style sweet girl with a round face; the redhead had a high nose bridge and a haughty, icy expression with sharp features; the woman with flaxen hair had skin tanned to a wheat-colored glow and wore a thin shirt that revealed a great deal of fair skin, appearing very sexy.

"No, these three *are* models!"

Compared to ordinary young women, the unique aura possessed by models was impossible to mask.

"Could it be that the character I'm playing is some sort of winner in life, bringing three models to Africa to experience the local culture?"

As Yan Luo mused to himself, the three women noticed him. The cold, red-haired woman looked shocked, even slightly fearful; the sweet blonde’s mouth hung open, her eyes filled with pleasant surprise; and the sun-kissed woman with flaxen hair tilted her head, looking thoughtful.

You have sensed strong emotions:
Terror +1
Joy +1
Confusion +1
...

"Jerry, you’re not dead?" the sweet blonde exclaimed in surprise.

"Oh, so the name of this body is Jerry? A good name. At least better than Tom, and it doesn't carry the aura of a jinx like the name Jack."