Chapter 26: Brothers, what are you excited about?

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This is the first time Yan Mo is leaving the tribe, and also the first time he really looks at the surrounding world.

The firsttimeheopenedhiseyesdoesn’tcount,heonlyknowsthatstaying therewasdangerous,inordertosurvivehestruggledtocrawlupthegrassyshore.Getting there alreadyusedup allhisenergy,howcanhehave thespareenergytoobserve hissurroundings? 

He looks back to the location of the tribe. Sure enough, it’s on a small mountain, flatter on front and steeper on the back. The hill itself is not that big, about one hundred meters tall.

There’s an open space at the hill foot, some slaves are doing work, grinding a piece of stone, or sharpening the wooden lances. Some others are breaking beast bones.

These slaves are all males, the age looks between 30 to 50, of course, this guess may not necesarily be accurate.

The slaves has a lazy exprression, no one puts effort into their work and there is no one coming to manage their progress.

To the side, there’s an pit on the ground, probably naturally occurring or manmade. They put a huge rock on the hole’s opening, inside are many living herbivores.

Yan Mo pokes at Yuan Zhan who carries him, quietly asks, “What do you do during heavy rains? Won’t the beasts inside drown?”

“No beast there in summer.”

“You’re saying that it only rains heavily in summer, other seasons have little rain?”

“En.”

Yan Mo notices someone’s gaze on him. He turns his head to see that it is Bing, who is also carrying a slave with him on this journey.

He finally remembers why this name felt to familiar, before, to complete his act, he asked Cao Ting about the slave who peeked at them, and Cao Ting told him that he is Yang She, the slave of third level warrior Bing. That slave offended her master and Da Shan, so he was killed.

Cao Ting also repeatedly warned him to not talk about it outside, to just keep it buried in his stomach.

Who knows what this Bing Daren thought when he came back and couldn’t find his slave? Did he think Yang She ran away? Offended someone and was killed? slaughtered by other slaves and eaten?

They say a third level warrior can have two slaves, then is the one with him his other slave?

That slave is also secretly watching him. He seems to wonder how can his master be willing to carry him, instead of dragging him along by his leg.

Yan Mo ignores the pair of master-slave, he also doesn’t specially look back at them. Right now their group haven’t completely left the tribe ne.

They keep walking until a large stone wall is in sight. The stone wall isn’t exactly laid in a tight fit, but the gaps between the boulders are not big. The largest gap is only as big as a palm’s width. Judging from the grasses below the stone wall, the boulders had been there for a long time and no one had disturbed it for a long time.

On top of the wall, there are warrirors crouching and standing, they look like guards of the wall.

Yan Mo guesses that the stone wall should be the tribe’s gate, bt this gate is not like gates as you understand it, without fences on either side, the only meaning to this gate is to tell others, the territory after this gate is occupied already.

And sure enough Lie doesn’t take them towards the stone wall, but going around the wall’s left side. There’s thin dirt roads on both sides of the wall, it looks like people often walked through it.

The warriors on the wall had already noticed them from before, when they got closer to the wall, everyone on the wall stood, greeting them by beating their chest with right hand.

Lie and everyone pauses a bit, but because the luggages on hand are more than usual, they don’t return the greting.

Yan Mo is being carried by Yuan Zhan and is in a relatively relaxed mood up until they are on the other side of the wall. Yan Mo looks around and is faced with cruel barbaric reality of this world.

Yan Mo’s whole body suddenly stifen.

Next to him, below the wall, is heaping pile of human skulls! There’s four long spears stuck to the ground next to skull pile, each piercing through a dried corpse!

There are at least a thousand skulls! The dried corpses still had its face and hair, though its skin is shrivelled, you can still see that they were in pain before death.

Yan Mo has a hunch that the four corpses is most probably impaled alive, then left here to dry over time.

Those who had never came face to face with this scene can’t understand how he feels at this moment.

Yan Mo might be scummy in certain aspects, but he is not from a chaotic war period. He is just a doctor, born in the era of peace, grew up during an time of abundance. Even if he is used to seeing death, even if he can dissect a corpse while eating braised pork, doesn’t mean that he can maintain his calm when seeing so many skulls and mummies.

Who were these skulls and mummies? Invaders? Are they put here as a threat and deterrent? 

Other people may not be able to tell, but Yan Mo can tell from the skulls’ color and level of decay that the skulls are relatively new bones. It seems like they were accumulatod in large scale killing during these few years. At the same time he notices that most of the skulls are not intact, the heads have clear signs of smashed and pierced cracks. The worst thing is, some of the skull surfaces, either back or front, have bite marks.

From beasts? Or… Yan Mo doesn’t dare to continue his line of thought, and doesn’t want to continue his observation. 

As for those four dried corpses, they were hanged there for a year at most.

At this time, Yuan Zhan speaks next to his ears ill-intentionally, “Do you know what those bones are? They were other tribe’s warriors. They attacked because they couldn’t find enough food in winter. They wanted to rob the tribe’s food, prey on us, but in the end they were killed and eaten by us! So you have to behave, or I’ll eat you.”

Bro, how old are you? Using that threat is so juvenile, alright? Yan Mo’s thoughts are interrupted by Yuan Zhan, he doesn’t continue thinking about the horrors of this world. In any case he’s already here, so no matter how scary, what can he do? He can’t go back even if he dies!

Lie, Yuan Zhan, and everyone stops again when they’re about a hundred steps from the stone wal. They stand there, looking back to where they came from, not at the pile of bones, they’re looking at the tribe’s territory behind that wall. 

Yan Mo retracts his eyes from the pile of bones, and sweeps a glance through the faces of Da Shan, Diao, and others.

These people have a slightly complex expression.

They know that what’s waiting on the other side can only be death, nearly everyone is prepared to die, including Yan Mo.

Yan Mo doesn’t know if he can die, but he is bound to be in many dangerous situation on this trip. How can surviving in the wilderness be easy? Even if it’s the special forces with modern gadgets who trained in the wild all year round, not all of them would survive in every type of land and weather.

Not to mention that in comparison to his last life, this world has who-knows-how-many several times vicious beasts, poisonous insects, poisonous plants and cannibals!

Before, to experience living in wild you have to spend some money, but here wilderness is just outside of your door. No, if you’re talking about culture, material and morals, even the places where people resides is uncivilised!

He is more curious about what they were thinking, why did they agree to set out with Yuan Zhan? Lie even brought his whole family with him, he brought his little bother Meng and his only female slave with him.

If Lie and Meng has to support Yuan Zhan because they’re all Xi Rang clan, then what about Shan and Diao? What about Bing, who was forced into this suicide mission bunch by the chief, what is he thinking?

“We have to figure out a direction to head to.” Lie looks at Yuan Zhan.

YuanZhanhaven’tspokenyet,Bingalreadyspeaksfirst,“LordPriest alreadytolduswhichwaytogo.Can’theadnorth,there’sheavysnow.Large fireinthewest,canonlygotoeastand south. Butthere’sGod Hasa’s mountainto thesouth. ShanYitribewasseen atthemountainfootand theirpeopleareveryfertile,rightnowwedon’tknowif theyhadsettledon theHasaplains,or ifthey’reonlypassingby to hunt.Ifthefirst,wecan’tgo to thatdirection.Thoseshort Shanyipeopleareasannoyingasants,they attackwithalloftheircolony!”

Que Ya nods, agreeing with Bing’s words, “Lord Priest’s god’s eye had never been wrong. We can’t go to north, west and south, only east is left. Lord priest also saw Bai Ying people are watching Tulong fighting with Yaopeng at east. Though he didn’t say how far they are from us, but I think when we get there the fight should have ended. Bai Ying would have picked what they want and return home, it should be safest to go east.”

Yuan Zhan glances at Yan Mo.

Yan Mo is also hesitating, he doesn’t know which way to go in order to find salt in the first place. He can only go with the most obvious reasoning for normal people — to get salt, you have to find the ocean. Moreover food in sea is abundant, in this age where human population is not as many as the dinosaurs, the food in the ocean should be ample enough. Even if it’s only settling near the ocean, it won’t be a problem to provide for a tribe.

But which way is the sea? From his body’s memory, the people here doesn’t even have the concept of ‘sea’, so they should be living in a deeper part of the land, if they want to reach the sea, they have to go through long arduous journey.

Yan Mo doesn’t know this planet’s continents terrain, so there’s no way he can tell where they should go from Yuan Ji tribe to find sea the fastest.

God knows exaclty how big the continents on this planet, whether this continent is whole or separated, or even how big is the ocean area. Choose the wrong direction and he might cross to another continent. If so, it’s better to find a place with water and mountain with rich lands to stay.

And so, Yan mo chooses to head south. 

Becaue of the weather in the south, the amount of beast, plants and water source are guaranteed. If you go further south, maybe you won’t even need to worry about the biting winter. Though the benefit comes with more dangers, but for a traditional chinese doctor, south means having a rich storage of medicinal herbs. There’s also more food available in south.

If they can’t find the sea then they should head to south. If they can find sea in south, that’s even better. If they can’t, they have bigger chance of survival than living in north. This is the basic reasoning in Yan Mo’s mind.

As for whether the southern part had a tropical forest with more or less same dangers as the other places, he won’t think that far first.

“Head south first.” Yuan Zhan sees that Yan Mo doesn’t say anything and thinks that the boy doesn’t want to reveal anything because the tribe is still close to where they’re standing. He makes the decision on the spot.

“Why go South? Lord Priest had told us east is the best choice.” Bing immediately refutes.

“Lord Priest didn’t say that we will find salt in east.” Yuan Zhan says coldly.

“And we’ll find it in south?” it’s unclear if Bing is purely because unable to accept Yuan Zhan arbitrary decision or if he would reject anything as long as it was Yuan Zhan who said it.

Seeing Bing on the verge of fighting Yuan Zhan to determine who’ll be followed, Lie beat the ground with his spear, saying with faint anger, “Go!” and takes big steps toward the south.

Lie has moved, Que Ya doesn’t hesitate anymore and quickly follows after him, other people has even less scruples. Bing is left behind the group. He is stunned for a while before following behind everyone.

Slowly, the tribe behind them can no longer be seen.

As they walk, there are more and more wild vegetations around them. After they crossed a sandy meadow and found a small river, the group stops again.

Yan Mo suspects that this river is the one she saw from the back of the tribe’s mountain. 

The river extends to a long distance, winding here and there, the beginning and end of the stream can’t be seen. But the river capacity is not much, not only narrow, it’s also shallow. The riverbed has traces of erosion, telling Yan Mo that this was once a big river.

“This is one of the biggest water source for the tribe. I heard that when Yuan Ji tribe just decided to settle here the river was wide and deep, but later it became smaller and smaller, until one day it was gone. Even a drop of water can’t be seen. Lord Priest said that when the new slaves we exchanged crossed the river they offended the river god. So every slaves we got back that year was brought to river and killed. The blood was spilled to the dried bottom, meat and bones chopped and buried in the dried soil at the bottom of the river.”

That’s really… not even on the level of being barbaric. At the same time, Yan Mo has a sense of how scary a priest’s influence can be. 

Yuan Zhan continues to scare his little slave, “Not few days later, the river water really came back, from then on Lord priest doesn’t allow the tribe’s slave to draw water here, and even more for them to touch the water. But even then, this river would still run dry from time to time. We only don’t lack water in winter, because of the snow.”

Yan Mo really wants to tell Yuan Zhan, this is not caused by some angry river god, but river’s natural change. Under this grass plain there should be a complex underground waterway. Sometimes when thousand years old river suddenly disappear it’s because it entered the waterway underground. It’s no use fretting about this kind of thing, you can only wait until it resurfaces by itself. Some of them will come back, others will disappear.

But Yan Mo doesn’t understand a lot about hydrology nor geography. If Yuan Zhan asks him what to do to make the water come back like the original big river, he definitely won’t be able to do it. Then this guy will 100% look down on him. Since it’s like this, it’s still better to say nothing, just let him believe there is a river god.

“Then when Cao Ting and others draw water they go to the other water source? Where?”

“Behind the mountain, in the middle of the wet grassland. It’s closer, usually everyone goes there to get water. But the water there is weird, sometimes it becomes muddy out of nowhere, we need to use Lord Priest’s holy dust to purify before drinking.”

“Have you drunk the purified water?” 

What natural phenomenons that can make water naturally become muddy? Yan Mo can think of several possibilities after thinking about it, but for now he can’t decide which is the case for Yuan Ji tribe’s water.

“Haven’t. There’s only so much holy dust, Lord Priest doesn’t easily take it out. Don’t step on the water, sit here and wait for me.” Yuan Zhan puts down Yan Mo and the big roll of animal skin on his back to the ground.

Other warriors also does the same, they quickly put down their luggages and make their slaves stay put, then runs towards the river. From Yuan Ji tribe to this river is still relatively safe area. After crossing this river, the road ahead won’t be as uneventful.

It’s only the routine drinking and washing for the warriors who are leaving the tribe, but the sharp Bing notices the clear excitement and eagerness on the faces of Da Shan and others.

Yan Mo stares at the river in front, he really wants to jump into the water and bathes like those warriors!

Though he would snitch some of that precious water to wipe himself everyday, he doesn’t dare to make it too obvious. So right now if you scoop out the layers of dirt on his body, you can make a bowl of sweet dirt dumpling.* Only primitive men won’t mind it and can still bed a ball of dirt. If it were modern men who sees him being this dirty, even if it’s a pervert who likes little boys, Yan Mo thinks before their perverse ideas can be aroused their appetite will fall to the ground first.

Yuan Zhan and the rest of the warriors have already untied their skin skirts and rushed into the river. It’s cold as ice, but it doesn’t affect them the slightest.

The young men laugh loudly and make splashes everywhere in the shallow water.

The slaves can only watch in envy. They’ve received their masters’ orders, so each slave is opening the roll of luggages and rearranging them neatly.

Yuan Zhan is standing in the water, shouting to Yan Mo to get a wooden dipper in the luggage and throw it to him. 

After getting the item, Yuan Zhan fills it full of water before walking out of the river.

“For you, drink.” He gave the ladle to Yan Mo.

You’re making me drink your bath water? …Fortunately it’s from a flowing water. Yan Mo’s eyes are about same height as the other’s little brothers, that are reinvigorated because of the cold water, but he doesn’t look at them. Yan Mo took the ladle, the water inside can be described as clear enough. He turned his gaze to the warriors who are now directly putting their heads into the water to drink, then cupped the ladle to his mouth, slowly drinking.

The other men also asked to be thrown ladles, and brought the water to their own slaves.

Yan Mo thinks that they were in such a rush, otherwise he would’ve made containers for water no matter what. They’ll be alright for some time even if they don’t have food, but if there’s no water, that’ll be the worst tragedy. But thinking that Yuan Zhan and others are not worried about drinking water, Yan Mo thinks that at least for these men who often go out hunting, finding a water source within the range of 50 km radius is not an issue.

“How many more days until your legs are good? I’ll check how it’s healing.” Yuan Zhan says this as his hands are taking off the support plank hanging loosely on little slave’s legs.

Yan Mo hurried to stop him and said in low voice, “Don’t do it in front of everyone, It-it’s all healed, more or less.”

Yuan Zhan’s hands immediately stopped, not only that, he also crouched and tied the loose straw rope tighter for Yan Mo.

“You’re really good to your slave. Is this little one legged boy good in bed?” Bing walked over, asking derisively while tying his skin skirt back on.

Yuan Zhan patted Yan Mo’s good left leg, got up and bet over to take the battle skirt that was on the largest piece of skin, then wrapped it around himself slowly.

Bing still wouldn’t let go of him, taunting, “Hey, Zhan. Bringing him along will only drag our hindlegs. Look, take advantage of water and salt we still have. Cut him up and cure the meat, you can keep all of it!”

Yuan Zhan doesn’t reply, only sneers.

Lie frowns, letting out a low shout, “Bing, don’t pick fights.”

“…Yes.” At Lie’s words, Bing turns a lot more restrained.

To be honest, he doesn’t dare to offend Lie who had been third level for so long and had a bit of prestige among the tribespeople. Moreover he only dislike Zhan, not all of Zi Rang clan. He’s not a brainless fool, only he is from Hei Yuan clan in this team and he’s not on good terms with most of them. Only by obediently following Lie’s orders will he have a better chance of staying alive.

Bing knew that the priest probably had given up on him. Old priest insisted on pushing Zhan out in winter to look for salt, and he was the price old priest had to pay.

The chief probably sent him out to give old priest a warning. Although the chief had put it in this way: no matter if the salt mine was found or not, the task can’t only be given to Xi Rang and Fei Sha people. Yuan Bing, as one of the leaders of young warriors like Zhan, had to show his skills. Otherwise the other young leaders, even Hei Yuan people won’t follow him.

Lie’s stance eases when he sees that Bing is behaving himself. He pauses, then decides to make it clear, “That kid is a Yan Shan, whether we can find new salt mine or not depends on him, anyone can die, but not him.”

This startles Bing, “That little slave is a Yan Shan clansman?”

“En, and he had heard about new salt source from their priest before.”

“What?! Really? Then he knows where the salt is? Why not tell chief and priest about this?” Bing’s eyes lights up, eagerly pressing for the details.

Lie doesn’t answer right away.

Bing’s attention is diverted a bit because then the warriors have all come up to the shore, but then Bing sees that Shan, Diao, and others are bending over their big bundles, busily looking for something, and he bursts into anger.

What’s wrong with these guys? How can they be so unconcerned about such an important thing? Didn’t they hear what he and Lie said? Or did they already know about the slave’s identity? No, firstly, what is so important in their bundles?

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*sweet rice dumpling:

*xi rang = breaths earth
*fei sha = flying sand
*hei yuan = black origin
*shan yi = mountain ants
*bai ying = white eagle
*tu long = earth dragon/reptile, yao peng = skate/ray, roc bird
*yan shan = salt mountain

Padam: Hello, I’m back from refreshing long break, my studies are starting
soon, so I picked a finished TL project to idly translate in my free time,
just for fun. I like this novel and Jade had probably stopped updating,
BAW’s sentences are easier for me than my last projects. No schedule.
I know the priest is typical of the era, but fork him
i hope one day he steps into the river and it disappear
what kind of snowflake arsehole stops people from playing with water?