Seeing this, I couldn't help but sigh, "Indeed, the natives of the natural world know better how to live in harmony with nature."
At this moment, I think that even if they encounter sand beasts, they should be able to handle the relationship well, which is much gentler than my direct killing.
After all this commotion, and with the already early darkness of the overcast day, the light is now becoming increasingly dim, and the distant woods are reduced to blurry silhouettes.
Pat returned to the basket to rest. He had just eaten some of the wildebeest's entrails and was now in a meditative state.
Top's condition has improved a lot. Now he can walk on his own without any problems, but his legs are a little sore, probably because the anesthesia has worn off, and he walks with a slight limp.
The locals saw me watching the dogs and assumed I was worried they would wake up.
He then gestured to me that the dog on the ground wouldn't wake up for a while, and that they had plenty of time to leave, so there was no need to worry about it.
I smiled and nodded at them. Actually, I wasn't worried about these dogs waking up at all. After all, the anesthetic that worked so quickly was comparable to modern anesthetics, so they wouldn't wake up so easily.
I was just a little moved by the sight of this dog.
We were walking on the road when it got completely dark.
However, these natives didn't seem worried at all. Instead, they calmly carried large pieces of meat, chatting and laughing in a language I couldn't understand.
I couldn't help but ask a question, so I tugged at the young native's arm.
Worried that they wouldn't see me, I deliberately stomped my foot on the ground and made a wrestling motion to indicate that it was dark and we couldn't see clearly, which was dangerous.
The young native quickly understood what I meant and let out a hearty laugh. He then spoke to the chief for a moment, and then came back to me with a long bamboo tube in his hand.
I found it a bit strange; I could roughly make out what a bamboo tube looked like. Why would they go and ask for a bamboo tube in the dark without lighting a torch?
This really hit a blind spot in my knowledge. I always thought that when there were no modern flashlights or similar tools available for lighting in the wild, the most practical thing to do was to use a torch.
But this time I was clearly wrong, and I underestimated the wisdom of these indigenous people. I soon found out what the young man was really holding.
The young local man smiled and slowly pulled the bamboo tube out from the joint, like drawing a sword. Then he seemed to evenly pour some liquid onto the pulled-out cylinder.
The young indigenous man seemed to be deliberately keeping me in suspense, handing me a bamboo tube-like object that looked like a stick.
At that moment, I was a little confused, thinking to myself, "Why did you give me this thing? It can't be used for lighting."
The young native seemed to have read my mind, and immediately waved his hand, signaling me to swing the stick in my hand.
I was a little suspicious of why they would do this; was it some kind of strange ritual or something?
Out of doubt and curiosity, I still swung the stick in my hand as the young native had instructed.
Just a few swings later, a miraculous scene unfolded. This sight astonished even a well-traveled modern person like myself, leaving me speechless.
Suddenly, a stick emitting a pale blue glow appeared in the night sky, which was originally pitch black and nothing could be seen.
Holy crap!
I was so shocked that I blurted out a national treasure: this is fluorescent light!
A group of natives actually managed to use fluorescent lights? This is mind-blowing! You know, even in modern times, synthesizing the materials inside glow sticks is not an easy task. How did these natives manage to do it?
The principle behind glow sticks' luminescence is the conversion of chemical energy into light energy. They primarily have three internal layers:
The innermost layer is a catalyst containing hydrogen peroxide solution.
The second layer, or middle layer, is a glass tube that serves as an insulator.
The outermost layer is mainly a mixture of ester compounds (such as bis(oxalate) and dibutyl phthalate) and fluorescent dyes.
When not in use, the hydrogen peroxide and ester compounds do not come into contact due to the isolation provided by the glass tube, so the glow stick does not emit light.
When the glass tube is broken by bending, hitting, or rubbing, hydrogen peroxide reacts chemically with ester compounds.
The reaction produces a series of intermediate products, such as ester peroxides. These intermediate products are unstable and will decompose and release energy.
The released energy is transferred to the fluorescent dye molecules. After absorbing the chemical energy, the electrons of the fluorescent dye molecules transition from the ground state to the excited state.
Electrons in the excited state are unstable and will quickly return to the ground state, releasing energy in the form of light during this process, thus making the glow stick glow.
But I don't think these natives who can't even make bows and arrows properly could possibly create something so complicated that even I find it a headache.
So there must be something unusual about this.
As I watched the soft blue fluorescence gradually brighten, it felt like a beautiful dream.
Soon I discovered some clues about the glowing stick. I touched the stick with my hand and found that my fingers also emitted a blue light, but the light on my hand quickly went out.
I see!
I know what's going on now; these indigenous people must be using a kind of bioluminescent fungus.
In nature, there are many fungi that can fluoresce in the dark or at night, but their luminescence color, intensity, and distribution vary depending on the species.
The fungus in front of me is called Armillaria mellea.
This is a bacterium that emits blue-green fluorescence. It usually parasitizes trees, using cellulose and lignin as its nutrient source, and emits fluorescence under the combined action of luciferase and oxygen.
The indigenous people had me swing the stick in my hand vigorously to make the luciferase in these bacteria react fully with the oxygen in the air to emit blue light.
I have to admire the imagination of these indigenous people. Judging from the structure of this stick, it must have been made of many dried palm fibers, which would have been conducive to the proliferation of bacteria inside.
The liquid that was splashed on was probably a nutrient solution containing starch, such as a cloudy solution left over from grinding plant tubers into powder.
The blue glow stick in my hand continued to glow, and the bacteria were like hungry beasts greedily absorbing the nutrient solution.
At this moment, the area within three meters in front of me was illuminated by bright blue fluorescence. Since fluorescence belongs to the category of cold light sources, its lighting efficiency is even higher than that of a torch.
At this moment, streaks of blue-green fluorescence lit up the night sky, like giant fireflies flickering in the dark forest.
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