During the traveling from their tribe, they had rushed for five days and only took short breaks halfway. They also found two caves that could be used as bases. Sure enough, there were fierce beasts in caves, so they surrounded and killed these beasts, then ate them as their dinner.
Everyone had experienced bloody battles before. When deeper in the forest they marched, the old-familiar feeling of hunting came back again – stimulating, dangerous and blood boiling. They liked the old haunt very much and were very satisfied with this mountain and forest.
If other tribes knew the Flaming Horn people’s attitude toward this mountain and forest, they would definitely consider all them madmen. Who liked to be neighbors with and abused by the beasts?
However, the Flaming Horn people who had come from the other side of the river were exposed to such an environment from their childhood, therefore, facing the environment, they were more likely to adapt to it.
Sometimes the two team leaders thought, was there a plain just like the green forest where grew dangerous but precious plants?
In just five days, everyone was like a slayer out of a sea of blood, with a great murderous look. As for the beasts they brought, they looked even more fierce. But their eye expression was a little soft when looking at the Flaming Horn people. Except for that, they looked the same as the wild beasts in the mountain at first sight.
“It’s there.”
Shao Xuan pointed to a place on the mountain and said.
Although they didn’t walk there yet, Ta and Gui He looked at the direction Shao Xuan indicated. They could see clearly the place where was blocked by a large stone. Behind the stone, it must be the cave Shao Xuan referred, in which their ancestors had lived.
Taking a deep breath, all people tidied up their hide dressing, dust off grass clippings stuck on their hide clothing, and then they came to a clear spring to wash their faces and rub off the dried blood stain on their arms and legs.
In the face of their ancestors, they would take it seriously.
After careful tidy-up, the party went over there.
In the cave, the guardian power Shao Xuan encountered last time had gone, it looked as common as other caves.
Moving the stone blocking the entrance away, keeping the ferocious beasts guarding outside, Shao Xuan guided the two team leaders and others to enter into the cave.
The anti-insect herbs being scattered in the cave were still there, but the smell fainted.
Last time when Shao Xuan left, he had set the trap and scattered some anti-insect herbs. However, as the guardian power in the cave had gone, Shao Xuan worried that the remains of ancestors would rot, so he took off the bone ornaments from his neck and put it on the body of the person who was hunkering on the ground, whose dressing looked like the Shaman very much. Another six bodies of ancestors were also moved together by Shao Xuan. Since the bone ornament was able to protect the remains of ancestors in the King Stone Worm’s cave, it should also be useful now.
After they entered the cave, Shao Xuan took a closer look. Just like what he had seen last time, the seven remains of ancestors didn’t rot quickly, which eased Shao Xuan a lot.
Every time they saw the remains of ancestors, the people of the Flame Horn tribe were always excited. Especially when they heard what Shao Xuan had seen in the cave last time, Ta, Gui He, and others were very anxious to show their worship.
Carrying the firebrand, Ta followed Shao Xuan cautiously and approached the depth of the cave.
“It’s history.” Said Shao Xuan, pointing to those boxes.
Either the ancestors or those boxes containing the history of the Flame Horn, they would take them back at all costs.
After seeing the ancestors and “history”, the two team leaders took some people out of the cave and went down to cut wood to make sedan chairs. In fact, what they made were not sedan chairs, but just three carriages and each would be carried by four people, others guarding around.
Shao Xuan and the team rested in the cave for two days. In these two days, they also finished the three sedan chairs for their ancestors. They carefully placed the remains of the seven ancestors into a sedan chair, and the boxes containing the “history” were placed in two other sedan chairs respectively.
The things left in the cave were limited, and many had lost their original appearance. If they found these things in the tribe, they would definitely throw them away as garbage. But these things in the cave were what their ancestors left which were of great significance. They took all important things away, and as for the rest, they left them in the cave.
“Since the route has been discovered, we’ll come over again,” said Gui He.
The speed of going back was much slower. After all, it was necessary to take the ancestors and “history” and protect them from being destroyed by other beasts, which naturally took more time.
At this time, several ferocious beasts taken from the tribe behaved excellently. When the team encountered wild animals, the ferocious beasts would attract these animals away from the team and then killed them, instead of fighting around those sedan chairs.
Eight days later, the team returned to the tribe. When they were some distance from the tribe, they met people sent by the Shaman and the Chief to help them, which reduced burdens on everyone.
Everyone in the team had got injuries, so did the beasts, but they felt excited. People of the tribe were excited because they brought back the ancestor and “history”, which was considered a great honor. For the beasts, they were very happy to go out although they got many injuries and almost died several times.
The outsiders had already left, and people in the tribe had stopped everything in their hands, following the Shaman and the Chief to the border to welcome the team back.
Some people didn’t know what happened at the beginning. After they talked to each other, they couldn’t help but get excited.
“They are ancestors!”
“What do ancestors look?”
“They must be strong and talented!”
“I heard that people who have worshipped the ancestors can get the blessing from the ancestors! A soldier I know has worshipped before, and then ancestors helped him change danger into safety several times when he was hunting.”
“Have ancestors been found before?”
“Yes, it’s Shao Xuan who found ancestors that time.”
“How about this time?”
“It’s also Shao Xuan who found ancestors.”
“...He is indeed the Elder...”
...
For the Flaming Horn tribe, even if the ancestors’ remains were rotten, they were still significant and inviolable.
It was a pity that they did not see the ancestors and only saw three big “boxes”, which were carried by a dozen of people.
“Welcome the ancestors back!”
The Shaman and the Chief took the lead to kneel down.
Thousands of people at the border all kneeled down. Even children who didn’t understand anything followed the adults. Without being mischievous, they had a very strange feeling – somewhat heavy and a little excited.
When Shao Xuan brought back the remains of the ancestors from the King Stone Worm cave, a ceremony was held in the tribe to cremate the ancestors. This time the ceremony would be similar to the previous one, but it would not be held immediately.
Being protected by the bone ornament, the seven ancestors’ bodies would not rot quickly. The Shaman placed them in a room of the stone house, and he did not leave the house for several days. He was not focusing on the ancestors, but was studying the “history” that was brought back.
Ao would go there every day and have a look. Gui Ze who was appointed as the successor of the Shaman, also looked through the “history” every day.
There was too much information in the “history” they need to master. Shao Xuan and Gui Ze worked together and comprehensively classified those records selected by the Shaman, including the records of celestial phenomena, farming, animal husbandry, handicrafts and so on. Although a thousand years had passed, these records were still very helpful to some extent.
With limited records, neither the Shaman nor Chief Ao had any concrete perception of how prosperous the Flaming Horn tribe was. But through the “history”, they deeply felt the prosperity of their tribe in those years.
Thinking of the arrogant expression of other tribes and the powerful Flaming Horn tribe in the past, Ao only felt that there was a long way for the Flaming Horn tribe to develop and restore its previous state. While it needed time to do.
“Who are the ancestors?” Shao Xuan asked the Shaman in spare time.
The Shaman kept silent for a while and said slowly, “When that disaster happened, one shaman of the Flaming Horn tribe asked his successor to leave here, together with a chief and others, while that shaman and another 100 people hid the valuable “history” in the mountain and protected it from natural or man-made disasters. Then those 100 people, including that shaman, kept the “history” until the end of their lives.”
“More than one hundred people?” Shao Xuan was confused. When he found the cave, there were only seven people, including that old shaman.
“Others... were dead...even no remains!” The Shaman gently stroked a small roll of animal skin in his hands. This was the last mournful record of that shaman, which made people depressed.
In those years when natural disasters occurred, due to the sudden change of the environment, the ferocious beasts in the forest were also frightened and became agitated. Encountering such mad-like ferocious beasts, every day, people went out to hunt would be killed and even left no remains. In the end, only seven of them remained, and they never waited for the clansman to come until they died.
“If one day, the same situation happened to me, I will do the same.” Said the Shaman.
“When are you going to hold the sacrifice?” asked Shao Xuan.
The Shaman didn’t reply, but asked Shao Xuan, “Could you re-carve the patterns on the stone columns?”
“No problem,” said Shao Xuan.
During the period when they went to the forest for the ferocious beast, Ao had led more than a thousand people to hump several huge stone columns here. Shao Xuan understood what the Shaman meant, he hoped that the stone columns could be done before the cremation of the ancestors.
It’s impossible for Shao Xuan to carve all stone columns, they were too huge. So the Shaman and the Chief asked some stone-technical people to polish the stone columns smooth. After the primary polish, Shao Xuan would carve out the patterns in his memory.
In the past, Shao Xuan only remembered the patterns on the stone column, but he couldn’t understand what it meant. After reading more ancient and detailed records left by the ancestors, however, he found that many patterns on the stone column had special meanings. And the patterns carved on different position and different stone columns were different as well. In addition to being used as a sundial, the patterns also had a meaning of sacrifice.
It’s no wonder that the Shaman hoped to, according to the legacy left by the ancestor, make completion of the ruined and missing things around before the cremation. That would be the most orthodox sacrifice ritual of the Flaming Horn tribe.