Chapter 187: Shehuo Is A Spirit Totem
Elephant Pigs under the moonlight were as black as clumps of ink, their sadness completely unmasked, raising their noses to the sky and calling out ‘du du’, as if accusing the world’s injustice.
Before that fish could fall, Shehuo abandoned it, letting it drop into the water. In the next instant, Shehuo landed on an Elephant Pig’s body, but upon contact, it bounced off the Elephant Pig, then flew like a meteor across the vast wasteland, plunging into the candle flame at Yun Ce’s fingertip, and never moved again.
Shehuo was unhappy, extremely unhappy.
“There are very strange things at Eddy Bay, things with attributes completely different from Shehuo. You need to take this matter seriously.” Doggy’s voice rang in his mind.
“I don’t really want to touch anything too dangerous right now, something that even makes Shehuo avoid it. We’d better not touch it.”
“Avoiding it isn’t just about fear, but also filth and pollution.”
“Fire is of light attribute, inherently capable of cleansing worldly filth. Things that are too dark shouldn’t be for us to touch; that’s High Priest Liu Changsheng’s business.”
When words don’t match, half a sentence is too much. Doggy’s recent evolution direction might have issues; it has become aggressive.
Yun Ce knew well that his career had just started, and at this time, ‘build high walls, accumulate vast grain, slowly claim the king’ was the pragmatic approach.
If greedily wanting everything and getting everything, in the end, one might get nothing at all.
1 From the first moment discovering something wrong at Eddy Bay, Yun Ce had weighed the strength gap between himself and the Elephant Pigs. He felt that an existence capable of influencing and controlling such a colossus absolutely could threaten him.
1 If not because Eddy Bay was too close to his camp, he wouldn’t even want to pay attention to it.
1 To reform this world, assimilate this world, one must first be alive to do it. Dead things can’t change anything.
1 From the moment faint light appeared in the sky, the Shehuo Festival had already begun.
1 This ancient priest had started long, long ago and continued without interruption to this day, so much so that there was no need for Yun Ce to command; the people in the camp had spontaneously begun following the process.
1 Women carried plates on their heads, the plates filled with all the food they could find, lining up and slowly climbing along the hillside toward a small mountain already selected in advance.
1 E Ji walked at the front. Not only did the plate on her head hold the most food, but there was also a pool of candle flame. The reason for using the term “pool of candle flame” was that what E Ji carried on her head was truly a bowl of fat, which, after being lit by Shehuo, became a ball of fire rolling in the fat.
1 Their speed up the mountain was neither fast nor slow, timed so that the moment sunlight reached the peak of this small mountain, E Ji would arrive at the summit, holding that pool of fire to greet the rising sun.
1 This was the first meeting of light and light, also Shehuo proving to the sun that even without seeing the sun, it could continue to protect the people here.
1 It seemed like Shehuo issuing a warning to the sun, somewhat arrogant, but thinking back, the sun overhead was merely the only sun left after being shot by Hou Yi, so Shehuo’s actions were reasonable.
2 This ritual also allows imagining how tough the ancient Human King was when facing the natural ground.
2 You can protect me, I respect you; you can’t protect me, I will be self-reliant.
2 Yun Ce was drumming, Cao Kun was drumming, all the nobles who came were drumming, the drum sound shook the sky, everyone drumming very seriously, even the most scoundrel dandy didn’t dare miss a drum beat at this time.
2 Women lined up to go up the mountain to hand over to the sun, children painted their faces white, wore bizarre head crowns made of various tree branches on their heads, crawled on all fours like puppies at the foot of the mountain, jumping, occasionally standing up, pounding their little chests, emitting bursts of crisp shouts.
2 When E Ji, walking at the front, was about to appear on the mountaintop already emerging with sunlight, several strong men puffed their cheeks and blew long horns.
2 “Woo du du—”
2 “Woo du du—”
2 Normally, blowing such a horn a full ten feet long alone sounds dull and unpleasant, but now, mixed into the drum sound, the horn’s voice faintly revealed an indescribable boldness amid the drums.
2 The sun seemed to be held by E Ji on her high-raised wooden plate, emitting infinite light. It was at this moment that the sun fused with Shehuo as one.
2 Yun Ce drummed even more vigorously, Cao Kun long forgot his fine young gentleman image, roaring chaotically while jumping to drum, as if pouring all strength and hope into the drum sound.
3 It was at this moment that a group of strong men wearing only underpants and shoes jumped out from the dark forest while dancing and pounding waist drums at their waists. Just as they left the forest, sunlight fell on them. The waist drums’ sound wasn’t loud originally, but under the fierce pounding of these hundreds of men, the drum sound faintly rivaled the big drums Yun Ce and others were beating.
3 At this time, the only sound between heaven and earth was the drum sound.
3 Until the sun detached from E Ji’s sacrificial plate, when E Ji could no longer hold the sun on her plate, even with a large group of women lying on the ground as foot pads, E Ji finally released the sun, letting it rise higher and higher.
3 The women who completed the priest task happily came down the mountain and ran into a large group of children chasing and intercepting them; their target was the offerings in the women’s plates.
3 Cao Kun, who had stopped drumming, looked regretfully at the meager offerings in the women’s plates, turned to Yun Ce and said: “On Shehuo Festival day, there should be a piece of cloud, a little rainwater. The cloud cover doesn’t exceed ten li, the rain falls just to wet the ground, this is called ‘moisten light dust’.”
3 “Pity your family has no Shehuo; otherwise, this would be a good omen representing favorable weather for the year.”
3 Yun Ce pointed at a mass of dark clouds surging from behind the small mountain: “Dark clouds have come; light rain won’t be missing.”
3 Cao Kun scratched the back of his head and said with difficulty: “This is impossible.”
3 Just as the words fell, the first rainwater of spring fell in fine threads from the sky. No one dodged the rain; everyone with a mouth opened wide, hoping more spring rain would fall into the mouth, to ensure a year without illness or disaster. Even Cao Kun was no exception.
3 The rainwater from falling to dissipating took at most five minutes, indeed as Cao Kun said, the ground was just wetted. However, the clouds didn’t linger here, scattering light rain all the way westward.
4 “When my family holds Shehuo Festival, the clouds drop a little rainwater and stop, forming a cloud canopy right over people’s heads, blocking the sunlight, so people can continue singing and dancing.”
4 “Yun Ce, your family’s Shehuo isn’t up to it; it drops some rain and runs off…”
4 “Yeah, yeah, the ‘form canopy’ good omen didn’t form. This shows Yun Clan has no Shehuo. Oh, I get it, Yun Clan’s Shehuo Festival was heard by Ancestral Fire. Ancestral Fire gave Yun Clan a little good omen, but still has to go elsewhere to give good omens to others, so it left.”
4 The dandies’ words sounded like myths and fairy tales, but no one thought what they said was absurd or ridiculous; instead, they showed utmost agreement.
4 Cao Kun brought many dandies, only four had Shehuo at home. Families without Shehuo who still hold Shehuo Festival are actually quite foolish. After Shehuo accepts the priest and grows strong, the benefits aren’t just for them; the greatest beneficiary is absolutely the one who owns Shehuo.
4 That Yun Clan’s Shehuo Festival received feedback from Ancestral Fire was already extremely rare. This scene had already made many noble dandies envious.
4 “Shehuo likes it very much; it likes everyone being lively and joyful, doesn’t like nights like the dead, especially the deathly aura in Eddy Bay.”
4 Doggy’s voice rang again in Yun Ce’s head.
4 “When could you communicate with Shehuo again?”
4 “I’m guessing. You should come in and see Shehuo; it’s grown quite a bit, also much livelier. Now, it’s gnawing on your horse spear.”
5 Doggy’s words couldn’t be trusted now; this guy had been too subjective lately in speaking, idly projecting his own thoughts onto Shehuo, or Dragon Pearl, or that star map floating in the void.
5 People unhesitatingly threw the one jin of grain they received into the large pot. The cook controlling the large pot would smilingly add some meat powder. If many brought grain, she would carefully scoop a spoonful of pure white fat from a pottery jar into the grain, then stir vigorously.
5 Dumping everything into the pot, the resulting meal naturally couldn’t be called tasty, but this was already one of the few good days in the recent two months where everyone could access fat. Everyone loaded lots of food, either gathering together or enjoying alone silently.
5 Huo Liao was one enjoying alone.
5 Feng An also got a plate of meal from the large pot. Seeing Huo Liao alone, he came to his side and picked out a piece of fried residue from his own plate to put in Huo Liao’s plate.
5 Huo Liao, eating depressedly, glanced at the golden fried residue before him and said softly: “I’m not like those refugees and slaves here; I’ve seen good things and eaten good things.”
5 Feng An scooped a spoonful of meal into his mouth, and after swallowing, pointed with the spoon at the hot spring manor not far away: “Your enemy is now in the manor. Don’t you plan to kill in and chop off the enemy’s head?”
5 Huo Liao sneered: “I remember your lord seems to look down on my Fire Tribe’s treasury. Since he looks down on it, why come?”
5 Feng An said: “The lord naturally looks down on it. To be honest, your Fire Tribe’s bit of technology isn’t much in Yun Clan terms. The indestructible armor and weapons collected by Fire Tribe aren’t much to Yun Clan either. Given time, forging armor and weapons ten times better than your Fire Tribe’s isn’t hard.”
5 One more chapter. If everyone has monthly tickets, give them to Jiong 2.
