Chapter 103 – It’s not about the appearance
Translated by Sunyancai
Shao Xuan spent the whole morning drawing that complete circle, and he was exhausted. If in the past, he would never believe something like that would ever happen. However, now he experienced it himself. It could be so exhausting doing a painting, especially the spirit.
When coming out of the stone house, Shao Xuan looked around and felt that all the houses in his sight were spinning around.
He kept staring at the sky for some time, and finally the dizziness wore off. He only picked up the stone box that the Shaman gave him after he could finally stand steady on his feet. Shao Xuan headed to the medicine house to help Gui Ze process those herbs and plants.
Shao Xuan did not know what the Shaman had told Gui Ze, but when he taught her about the ways to process plants, she did not question it, and kept learning earnestly to better her ways in processing the herbs.
Compared with drawing a Shaman Volume, processing medicinal plants was so much easier. When the sun came down and he stepped out of the medicine house to head back home, he was not that tired at all.
Inside the stone box given by the Shaman, there were two animal skin rolls, some special Shaman pigments, and a brush pen. The Shaman did not have all day to teach Shao Xuan, so he had to practice by himself for most of the time.
The stone box was covered in a grass net, and it swung around in the air when Shao Xuan brought it back.
“This is…?” Old Ke asked seeing Shao Xuan having brought back a stone box.
“It’s a task given by the Shaman.” Although the Shaman told Shao Xuan to practice by himself and provided the necessary materials, they were not meant for Shao Xuan to waste. The scripts of the practice must be presented to the Shaman later. So it should be counted as a task.
At those words, Old Ke became serious and full of respect immediately. He was even looking at the box with sincere respect. He did not dare to open the box, and stopped all his question once he heard that Shao Xuan was about to do the painting. In his mind, whatever comes out from the Shaman’s mouth was absolutely a right and meaningful thing.
“You should never let the Shaman down!” Old Ke said in a serious tone.
Entering his own room, Shao Xuan took out the animal skin rolls. There were two of them in the stone box, one was a completely blank one, and the other was the one he used in the morning, and now it had a circle on it.
Shao Xuan unfolded the animal skin roll and took out the pigment, as well as the brush pen. On second thought, Shao Xuan took out a carbonated pen that he made himself, and intended to try to start with that.
When Shao Xuan began to stimulate the power of inheritance, he quickly moved his waist in a sharp angle before he could write anything on the animal skin roll.
With a light crack, the carbonated pen broke into small pieces and fell on the stone desk. If Shao Xuan had been slower earlier, those small pieces would’ve directly fallen on the animal skin roll.
As expected, not any random pen could be used to make a Shaman Volume.
The brush pen that the Shaman gave Shao Xuan was made from the furs of ferocious beast and some special timber.
Giving up on other kinds of pens, Shao Xuan obediently picked up the brush pen given by the Shaman, and started painting.
Since it was copy practice, of course he would continue with the circle that he had drawn this morning. After the first attempt, he was more practiced in the second time.
He was not drawing fast. When Shao Xuan finished with that circle and returned to reality, he noticed that it was already dark, it took him at least an hour to finish,
Compared with his first try in the morning, the second time took no less time. But the good thing was, this time, Shao Xuan was not as exhausted as the last time, and he was not feeling so dizzy.
It was progress.
In the following days, Shao Xuan would take the stone box to the Shaman’s place every morning. However, the Shaman was busy with errands, so Shao Xuan would sit in a smaller room in the back of the stone house to practice his drawing. When there was a question or a problem, he would go to the Shaman when the Shaman was free. On the other hand, the Shaman was so busy these days, that he had no spare energy or time to pay attention to Shao Xuan’s work.
After five days, the winter officially came.
The temperature dropped sharply overnight.
Shao Xuan opened his door in the morning, and all he could see was white.
In the giant bird nest on the roof, Chacha was looking down with his neck stretched. Seeing Shao Xuan, he flapped his wings to shake off the snow, and flew up.
Shao Xuan did not force Chacha to sleep outside. When it was almost winter, Chacha still had no intention of coming inside the cabin. Now with the heavy snow, he still didn’t change his mind to avoid the coldness. Since he could bear it, Shao Xuan chose not to meddle with Chacha’s lifestyle. He was not some pet bird after all, and he would need to eventually learn to survive the coldness once he grow big enough and returned to the woods. He could not spoil Chacha.
Caesar and Chacha followed Shao Xuan up to the mountaintop, and when Shao Xuan arrived, Caesar went down the mountain by himself, while Chacha flew to other places to hunt for food. Seeing this, they were well trained.
Shao Xuan arrived at the stone house, and found that both of the team leaders of the hunting teams, Ta and Gui He, were here.
He made a salute and walked inside with the stone box, without disturbing them. He headed to the smaller room to continue practicing.
Those two team leaders only knew that Shao Xuan was learning something about herbs from the Shaman, and they thought him a lucky boy. What a great honor to learn from the Shaman himself! Everyone in the tribe had the same thought.
They would never have guessed what Shao Xuan was truly learning right now.
With the animal skin roll unfolded, Shao Xuan did not start practicing just yet. Before, when he entered the room, he heard the two team leaders apologizing.
In the past year, they had found quite a lot of herbs, but among them, there was a considerable percentage of wrong ones. A lot of plants looked alike, and they were difficult to identify correctly. Even though they had animal skin rolls with the pictures of the plants, but it was unavoidable that they brought back some wrong ones every time. For example, the plants and herbs brought back by Gui He were not all the right ones, and some of them needed to be picked out.
It was a gap during the communication.
The Shaman could not specifically tell all hunting warriors the things that he needed. Simple verbal description was far from enough. There was no actual picture, no real processing. So the accuracy remained to be improved during the communication.
It was no one’s fault, for after all, not everybody could understand the content of the Shaman Volumes like Shao Xuan did.
What if someday in the future, when everyone could read the Shaman Volumes!
Thinking about that, Shao Xuan looked at the stone desk in front of him.
There was an incomplete Shaman Volume on the desk. Shao Xuan began to read it, but the content surprised him somehow.
It was telling the things about agriculture. However, sadly, the images emitted by the volume were not clear enough.
It was a copy of some ancient Shaman Volume. No one knew how many times it had been copied, and the original consciousness was already blurred.
When copying an ancient Shaman Volume, it was like relaying or forwarding someone else’s thought, for the copier could not see the actual scene. And making a second copy was like rephrasing someone else’s rephrase. Personal feelings and comments were unavoidable.
For example, when one person relayed another one’s words, the meaning would be almost the same. However, with more people doing so, would the sentence be all the same as the original one?
It was highly likely to change a little.
Compared with the original Shaman Volumes, the copies of ancient Shaman Volumes still had the content, but the content was blurred, and not as clear as the original. Such as the copy laying in front of Shao Xuan.
The Shaman had no personal experience in agriculture and farming, of course he could not copy the exact intention of the original author.
The one on the desk should be made by the Shaman, copying something passed down by his predecessors. Since the Shaman left it in here, he obviously did not intend to hide it from Shao Xuan.
Shao Xuan spent some time reading the Shaman’s animal skin roll. Although it was not clear, he was positive that the scene drawn on the animal skin was not happening in the tribe. The place in the painting was more like somewhere on a flatland. There were vast farmlands with fertile soil. Some things were planted in the ground, and some people were busy caring for those plants in the fields.
It was a shame that nowadays, the tribe was located in somewhere not suitable for farming. Also, people in the tribe had no intentions of doing any kinds of similar activities. It was enough for them to find some edible plants in the training grounds and nearby mountains.
The Shaman probably would never personally see the scene described in that animal skin roll…Perhaps he wanted Shao Xuan to experience the same dream for the tribe, so he left this animal skin roll in here. Indeed, for every person in the tribe, seeing something like that would be totally breathtaking.
However, even the Shaman was not aware of Shao Xuan’s unique background.
Putting the animal skin roll aside, Shao Xuan continued on his own practice. Now, he was not copying the Shaman’s work. Instead, he was making his own drawing.
The thing he wanted to draw now was something he saw in the grassland. After pondering for some time, and then a hard time finishing the picture, Shao Xuan looked at the stroke he made. If you looked at the symbolic stroke alone, you would hardly connect it with the plants on the grass land, for the stroke was like a curvy earthworm.
However, it was not about the appearance. The important thing was whether one could portray the picture in one’s mind.
For Shao Xuan, he already succeeded in doing that.
A classmate majoring in archaeology from Shao Xuan’s former life once said, “Prehistoric art is the existence of prehistoric ideology, rather than the existence of aesthetic sense or the existence of aesthetic ideology.”
Back then, Shao Xuan did not understand what he was saying. But now, he understood.
The creator of the Shaman Volumes all lived in his current era. They were only using the method of art to preserve their thoughts and knowledge, with the help of the power of inheritance. That’s all, and it had nothing to do with the appearance.
Thinking about that, Shao Xuan felt calmer.
Looking at the picture he made moments ago, Shao Xuan thought: If this thing were shown to the archaeologists in his previous life, they would never have guessed what these messy strokes described.