Chapter 773: Baobab Tree
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The centipede dragged the lizard toward the beach, presumably trying to get down to the ground to eat the lizard. On the beach, it couldn’t get in the sand with the lizard.
It twisted its colorful body and soon crawled to the nearest rock.
Just then, in a puddle behind the reef, a big frog popped up. The frog was as big as a child’s bicycle tire.
After it jumped, the frog opened its mouth and shot out its tongue towards the large centipede. The centipede and lizard were rolled up into its mouth for a quick snack. The frog returned to its puddle and hid. Only the frog’s rough brown back was showing as it pretended to be a rock.
Right then, Li Du felt like he wanted to say, “Mom, I want to go home!”
He called Brother Wolf and the others, pointed to the puddle, and cried, “Look, there is a frog over there. D*mn it, he is a frog spirit!”
Hans said, “Calm down, Li, calm down. What’s so terrible about frogs? Did you see a poison frog?”
Li Du picked up a rock and threw it into the water.
The group watched, and when the frog jumped up, they had to keep looking up, as the frog could bounce three or four meters at a time.
Hans was stunned and said, “What kind of frog is this? Is this a bullfrog? No, no, it’s an elephant frog, isn’t it?”
Brother Wolf shook his head. “It’s a giant African frog. I didn’t expect to find this species living on this island.”
Li Du asked, “How did the African frog get here from halfway around the world?”
“As far as I know, in the 1980s, Australia was importing giant frogs from Africa in large quantities in order to get them to compete in the high jump,” Brother Wolf explained.
“It does jump very well,” Hans interrupted.
Brother Wolf said, “Yes, this frog is very good at jumping and can jump more than five meters. It was later added to the Red List of the Washington Treaty that prohibits international trade in endangered species. It is rarely seen.”
With snakes and centipedes and African giant frogs, Li Du hesitated. He remembered the comments of the people on the island last night. They said the island was dangerous, and it was better to stay away.
However, they had stayed too long on the boat. They had to move around, and they needed fresh water and fruit. The scenery here was beautiful, and it was a suitable place to rest.
After some consideration, Li Du let Brother Wolf drive a speedboat to pick them up.
Meanwhile, he had Sophie, Hannah, and Big Quinn’s wife, Rosalind, to take care of the children, and had the rest of them to make this place an open space to rest.
African giant frogs fed on insects, scorpions, crustaceans, and other frogs, and Brother Wolf said they did not attack larger creatures.
However, Li Du watched the giant frog munch on the centipede and feared it would be poisonous, so he asked everyone to be careful about it.
Behind the camp there were patches of black raisins, so Sophie and others went to pick some. Brother Wolf and Hans climbed baobab trees to pick the fruit and the leaves.
The baobab tree’s trunk had a lot of space inside. The wood was the best for water storage. During the rainy season, it used its thick body and soft wood to replace the root system, and absorb and store water in large quantities. Its xylem was like a porous sponge that contained a lot of water. When the dry season came, it quickly stripped off all the leaves on its body to reduce the evaporation of water.
Once it filled with water again, it grew leaves and large white flowers.
The baobabs all had long, broad leaves, but the branches were few and often very short. They looked interesting in combination with their thick trunk.
The boat needed fresh water, so Brother Wolf picked some baobab fruit and leaves, and came down with a bucket of water. Then he dug a hole in the trunk with a saber.
Some of the clean water came out, and soon there was more and more water coming out, just like a tap.
Brother Wolf dug several more holes. The trunk kept producing water, and two big buckets were filled. He also used the cooking pot to store water.
Seeing that Li Du was interested, he said, “If you have baobabs, you have fresh water. The water is safe.”
“They are so capable of storing water. It’s amazing that they have so much,” Li Du said.
Brother Wolf replied, “A tree can store thousands of kilograms of water. The trees here do not lack water.”
The baobabs had an amazing ability to grow leaves based on how much water was stored in its body. When they were thirsty, they went bald.
Sophie and others brought raisins back and said to Li Du, “Be careful when you enter the island. There are many snakes here, and most of them are poisonous.”
“Did you meet one again?” asked Li Du.
Sophie said, “Yeah, well, luckily we brought Ah Meow, who went in and drove the snakes away. Otherwise, there would have been an incident.”
The island was not in very good condition.
However, there was also a large number of black gold abalone in the sea. At noon when the sea was warm, Li Du put on his diving suit and jumped into the water to look for the black gold abalone.
It was unlikely that anyone else would come there to catch black gold abalone, and the fishing and hunting bureau did not notice, so there were no bureau officers, and the surrounding area was quiet and desolate.
Within an hour of entering the water, Li Du had harvested more than 30 large black gold abalone.
There was a lot of abalone in the shallow water, and he could get one in less than two minutes on average.
It was lunchtime, and Sophie beckoned him to eat.
The black gold abalone harvest was good. They could eat black gold abalone for lunch, in addition to baked breadfruit and breadfruit leaf stew. They drank raisin juice.
After drinking a mouthful of juice, a sweet and sour taste with a pleasant fragrance filled the mouth. Li Du said, “Tasty. This juice is much better than the supermarket raisin juice.”
“Of course,” said Hannah triumphantly. “The black raisins here are excellent in texture, and we used the water stored in the breadfruit tree, which Brother Wolf said is purified by the breadfruit and healthier than pure water.”
“How about we go back and plant some baobab around the yard? It’s a natural water purifier,” said Li Du.
Brother Wolf, who was serving his daughter a drink, shook his head and said, “You’ll have to wait years unless it is meant for your next generation.”
Considering how baobabs could be thousands of years old, Li Du decided to give up.
They continued drinking the black raisin juice. Although there were many poisonous snakes on the island, there were no beasts on the island. Ah Meow and Ah Ow laid on the ground and slept, and did not show any signs of concern.
