Chapter 60: The Cause of the Flood
Chapter 60: The Cause of the Flood
Huang Ji went to sleep at midnight and woke up at nine the next morning. His brain required more rest due to its constant fatigue.
During his sleep, he had a vivid dream. In it, he saw an elephant trampling farmland and eating crops. The local farmers, furious, dug a trap nearby to lure the elephant in, capturing it when it fell into the pit. Eventually, the farmers killed the elephant, which turned out to be the last one in Henan Province. After that, wild elephants in central China became extinct.
Upon waking, Huang Ji practiced a complete set of Inner Canon exercises, from the first group to the fourth. He then brushed his teeth, washed his face, and walked to the suite’s living room.
There, Lin Li was sleeping on the carpet. Without asking, Huang Ji already knew that Lin Li had stayed up all night practicing until dawn. He had made minimal progress—succeeding only two more times—but at the cost of losing approximately 20 hours of lifespan due to overexertion.
Shaking his head, Huang Ji left Lin Li undisturbed and went out to buy breakfast. Returning to the sofa, he sipped on congee and ate boiled eggs while continuing his reading.
“I dreamed about central China’s elephants... Of course, it’s because the last thing I read last night was a historical account of their extinction,” Huang Ji mused.
In the past, Henan Province had been abundant with elephants—so much so that they roamed freely. Before sleeping, he had come across a historical record from the early Northern Song Dynasty about farmers hunting elephants, which turned out to be the last recorded wild elephant in the region. For over a thousand years since then, wild elephants have not existed in northern China.
“Why did the central China elephants go extinct?” Huang Ji turned to his books, determined to deduce the reason.