At first, Top didn't understand why I was restricting their freedom, but after I demonstrated picking raisins to it, the clever monkey immediately understood what I meant.
In its mind, I was doing this to ask them to pick out the raisins and eat them themselves, leaving the stones for me.
Although it still doesn't quite understand the meaning of what I'm doing, does it mean I want to eat those stones?
At first, I was worried that the monkeys would get impatient and give up after a few tries. But it turned out that they seemed quite interested in this novel way of playing.
Later I realized that this pastime I had unintentionally come up with was similar to how monkeys like to search each other's fur for lice.
They often use this method to strengthen their bond, and this search can take several hours.
Some monkeys, once free of lice, will find lice from other monkeys and keep them on their own bodies so that other monkeys can help them find more.
What seems like a boring activity to humans is a fun pastime for monkeys.
So every day, a large group of monkeys with their necks tied up would sit on my wooden bridge, happily picking out raisins from a basket of pebbles.
These monkeys never get bored, keeping their eyes glued to the bamboo basket all day long.
It was as if they weren't doing something boring, but rather an exciting game of finding lice for their companions.
Every day when they wake up, they are accompanied by that big basket of stones, and they no longer make a fuss. Sometimes when I call them to eat, they still have to pick out all the stones before they will stop.
This dedication to his work left me both amused and exasperated.
They spent several days picking stones, and I used that time to set up traps for several days.
Finally, I used the refined nitric acid to make some nitroglycerin. I put some in small bamboo tubes around my dwelling and placed a piece of nitrocellulose sandwiched between two stones.
I buried them within 30 meters of my dwelling, marking their location with conspicuous red bark.
When needed, I only need to aim at the mangrove bark and strike the crossbow bolt into the stone that holds the nitrocellulose. The nitrocellulose, squeezed and exploded, then detonates the nitroglycerin below.
The violent explosion of nitroglycerin will shatter the stones on top, and these fragments will create a kill radius in the vicinity, much like shrapnel from a hand grenade.
I don't need to worry about my crossbow bolts missing the stones, because my explosives are distributed in a radial pattern, just like the third mechanism.
To increase the hit rate, I would set up three piles of stones clustered together on the same line, making it much easier for crossbow bolts to hit them.
Once one line is detonated, the surrounding lines will also detonate, creating a shrapnel-covered zone with no blind spots.
That's why I placed it 30 meters away; that's the closest distance to the safety standard for explosive fragments.
I used the remaining nitric acid to make guncotton propellant and primers for thirty gold-flecked shrapnel shells, as well as more than ten emergency torches made of nitrocellulose.
These torches don't need to be lit with an open flame. I just need to strike a piece of basalt against the back of my knife, and a spark will ignite the torch containing nitrocellulose.
I also soaked the torches in pine resin, so they can burn for more than an hour. After doing all this, I moved two vats of wine and two vats of water into my warehouse for later use.
With everything prepared, I began to quietly await the arrival of those mysterious creatures that even the local beasts here feared.
Time passed day by day, and now I never leave my dwelling. I eat and do everything in the trees.
With these reserves, I could easily last two or three months doing nothing and just hanging out with the monkeys.
Several times I heard ferocious beasts like tigers roaring outside my camp. Even the king of the mountains was forced to come down from the mountain. The newcomers looked no weaker than tigers.
Now I burn some bamboo every day in the camp, and the bamboo makes a popping sound. Wild animals like tigers are afraid of this sound, and it would be best if it could scare away that mysterious creature.
If that doesn't work, I can at least drive away the local beasts. Once I've dealt with those outsiders, the tigers and other wild animals will naturally return to their homeland.
It's not that I'm some kind of saint who's unwilling to kill those tigers and other ferocious beasts. Killing them is easy, but without a master in the mountains, who knows what powerful predators might come and claim the land as their own?
Rather than dealing with an unknown enemy, it is better to temporarily form an alliance with the current enemy. This will help me accurately assess the strength of the external enemy and make corresponding decisions.
As time went by, the monkeys became quiet. They were content to eat only one meal a day as long as there were pebbles to pick up.
But I couldn't sit still any longer. Were these wild beasts too scared to come, or had they already left for other places?
Just as I was lost in thought about whether or not to dismantle the trap I had set, I heard the tiger roar again, but this time it wasn't the powerful roar I had heard before.
It was a cry of utter despair, a wail born of utter hopelessness, for some animals had actually begun hunting tigers!
This really shocked my worldview. Tigers are among the strongest in the animal kingdom, and even cunning creatures like jackals fear the tiger's might.
The sound didn't seem very far away, so I climbed a tall poplar tree and stood at the top of the 25-meter-high canopy, looking in the direction from which the sound came.
At this moment, on a small hill more than 300 meters away, the first thing I saw was that familiar, colorful creature. It was an adult tiger, weighing at least 500 pounds.
Beside the tiger was a group of brownish-gray creatures, twice the size of wolves, with two long, upright black ears, which looked somewhat similar to wolves.
It was only slightly smaller than a tiger, and probably weighed over 300 pounds. Unfortunately, it was still quite far away, so I couldn't see it very clearly.
However, I don't think this thing is a wolf or any kind of animal, because its head doesn't seem to be the triangular shape of a wolf's head, and the faint howl it's making doesn't sound like a wolf's voice either.
I listened carefully, holding my breath. Its call was a loud, clear "ooh-ooh-ooh," like a bamboo flute.
What ferocious creatures! Even tigers are on their hunting menu. No wonder these wild animals have been coming down from the mountains to look for food lately.
It seems obvious that the culprit is these outsiders who have disrupted the ecological balance here.
Soon the tiger's roar faded into a loud, somewhat eerie groaning sound.
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