Chapter 50 Playing the Rope Game

After the game of bumping into each other with crutches ended, the drowsiness on the faces of each member of the primitive tribe seemed to have vanished.

In the past, after lunch everyone would be drowsy and look like they were about to die, with absolutely no desire to move.

The atmosphere was completely different after we played games together!

"Let's go! Let's go logging!" With a shout from Ha Gang and Ping Yao, everyone followed one after another towards the lumberyard deep in the primeval forest.

Xu Que remained in the tribe as before, waiting to drill holes and insert mortises into the wood needed for the wooden house.

Hou continued to work with Xu Que, keeping an eye on things in his spare time to see which pieces of wood used for building wooden houses had not been drilled or had tenons inserted.

Ha Gang and Ping Yao worked together, one in front of the other, carrying a large bundle of timber toward Xu Que's location.

Xu Que took the pieces of wood that Ha Gang had just laid out on the ground, one by one, and carefully drilled holes in each one.

The primitive man beside him, who was responsible for assembling the pieces, quickly assembled the pieces of wood that he had punched holes in.

In their spare time, they started a cockfight on the spot.

Watching others having a great time with cockfighting, Hou walked over to Xu Que, who was squatting on the ground waiting to drill holes in the wood, and poked him: "I want to bump into you with a crutch!"

Xu Que looked at him with some surprise and shouted, "Why are you so naughty? What's so great about bumping into things? That's for boys, girls can't play with it!"

"I can play! I can play! Who says I can't play? Are you going to play with me or not? If not, I'll go find someone else to play with!" Hou grabbed Xu Que's hand and pulled him up from the ground while saying this.

Xu Que was so frustrated by the yelling and urging that he had no choice but to reluctantly reply, "We'll only play one game, win or lose!"

"Whether it's one round or two! Get up first and let's play! Anyway, the wood for drilling holes hasn't arrived yet!" After saying that, Hou bent one of his legs into a triangle, grabbed his ankle with one hand and held his knee with the other, and charged towards Xu Que with a lightning bolt.

Xu Que couldn't dodge in time. While preparing his defensive stance, he used a knee strike to knock down the charging beast that was pressing down on him at full speed.

He pouted and slowly got up from the ground, brushing the dirt off his body as he said unhappily, "This isn't fun at all! All you do is bully me!"

"I told you! Playing with a crutch is for boys! It's not suitable for girls! But you insisted on playing it!" Xu Que patiently explained to Hou.

"No way! We have to play again! This last time doesn't count! If you don't play well this time, I'll never play with you again in my life! Humph!" Hou said to Xu Que, a little angry.

Xu Que stood up, assumed a fighting stance, and roared as he charged forward again.

Xu Que retreated slightly, putting up a well-measured and just-right resistance for a while, and finally took the opportunity to cleverly lose to Hou.

Finally, he was satisfied, and a smile appeared on his face!

Another batch of timber from Hagang and his group was delivered to the wooden houses that the tribe was building.

Xu Que picked up the multi-functional power drill and, with Hou's help, started drilling holes with her.

Xu Que was only focused on making a fool of himself. In the spare moment after he finished making the fool of himself, the village woman, as if she were prying into someone's privacy, poked him and asked, "Do you have any other fun games that are suitable for girls to play?"

"Yes! Rope skipping, shuttlecock kicking, hopscotch, leapfrog, hide-and-seek, and many more..."

"Open the rope? I have a rope here, how do you open it?" Hou held a ball of thin cowhide strips twisted into a cowhide rope in his hand, and repeatedly pulled Xu Que, making her demonstrate it on the spot.

Xu Que took the rope from Hou's hand and tied the two ends together to form a loop.

Use your left and right hands to open the circle, and wrap the rope around the fingers of each hand a few times to form a circle. A beautiful pattern is now complete.

"This is called a lamp! Here! Take it!" Xu Que said, extending it in front of Hou.

Looking at the beautiful pattern Xu Que had spread out in his hands, Hou was at a loss for what to do! He didn't know how to catch it!

"Here! Just follow the pattern I'm pointing at and transfer the thread from my hand to yours exactly!" Xu Que shouted as he gave instructions.

Following Xu Que's example, he moved the rope that was hanging on Xu Que's fingers to his own hands exactly as it was!

"Watch my fingers! I'll flip them down from your hand, then up, then down again, and then take them back! And a blooming peony will appear!" Xu Que flipped the lamp he took from Hou's hand up, down, left, and right a few times, and it turned into a peony.

"Wow! This is so much fun! It's much more fun than cockfighting! I love it! You truly are my heavenly brother! Did you bring all of this from the Heavenly Palace?" Hou looked at Xu Que with great admiration, appearing to love him to no end!

Xu Que continued to explain: "The 'open rope' is made by tying a three-foot-long rope into a loop. Then, you use your fingers to twist the rope a few times to stretch it into a pattern. Another person also inserts their fingers into the rope pattern and flips it left and right, up and down. Most people can only play three or five patterns before they get confused. Skilled people can make more than ten patterns, which means they can play it 'unbreakably'."

"Open rope can be played solo, in pairs, or in groups. When playing open rope solo, you use your hands to wrap, loop, thread, or pick the rope between your fingers to create various patterns such as double crosses, handkerchiefs, noodles, wine cups, goldfish, bridges, trumpets, swings, and parachutes."

"Playing open rope in pairs requires a lot of cooperation and coordination. One person uses their fingers to create a pattern, and then the other person takes it with their fingers and creates another pattern. They take turns changing the patterns. When multiple people play open rope, a rope is wrapped up and down between the fingers of different people, flipping from one person's hand to another's hand. They take turns flipping and changing the patterns, and while playing, they say the name of the pattern they create."

"I can do more than twenty different tricks in a row when I'm doing a rope skipping game!"

"Here! Take my peony! I'll change it for you!" Xu Que said as he instructed, finally transferring the very complicated pattern to Hou's hands.

"Now it's a peony, I'll turn it into an oil bottle for you! Watch my hand gestures as they rise and fall! I'll flip it like this first, then like this, and finally turn it! The oil bottle is done!" Xu Que skillfully moved the rope from Hou's hand to his own!

Hou was stunned by Xu Que's amazing skills: "Wow! This is so much fun! I want to learn this! I want to learn this! We'll play this every night from now on! Try your best to teach me this during this time! Then we'll play together!"