Chapter 175 – The man wearing a mask
Translated by Joycelyn
Once again setting out, the team had expanded. Other than the people from the Pu tribe, there were members of other travel teams from the other tribes joining in.
It became more lively after the expansion of the travel team. Shao Xuan could also listen in to quite a lot of gossip and rumours from the other tribes, and during break time, he would also go around asking for information about certain stuff.
A few days later, Shao Xuan had a rough, but greater understanding of the situation on this side of the river.
Shao Xuan had also started drafting a new map of the area. The one that the ancestors had left behind could not be used anymore. After thousands of years, towering mountains became flat plains, while flat plains became rivers; the changes from time were too huge. The territories and spreading of the tribes had also gone through enormous changes as well. Shao Xuan would take the updated map back to his tribe so that they would not struggle when the time came for them to cross the river.
At this moment, a traveller with expansive experiences was talking with Shao Xuan, telling him about all the knowledge he had gained from what he had seen and heard during his life.
“At first, we weren’t using this path, but used another. But then, one year, a tribal war happened over there, and it has still not settled, therefore we are temporarily taking this route now. The other path is a lot wider than this one, and it even has two colours! There is a tribe beside that river, the rafts they make are amazing, their rafts are the most durable ones that I have ever seen! If we could have such rafts, how nice would it be.” That person reminisced, his eyes filled with the colour of envy.
Seeing Shao Xuan’s doubtful face, the person gestured a shape like a ￠, specifically explaining what he had determined as the ‘best and most durable raft ever’ .
After listening to the other’s description, Shao Xuan paused and then asked, “Isn’t that a boat?”
“Right right, there they are called boat.”
That person continued reminiscing, talking about his past experiences. But many years had passed now, a lot of his memories were now a bit fuzzy.
Shao Xuan took note of everything. If there is time, he would like to go over to check them out too. At the time when his tribe members will be crossing the river, they would also need a boat too. At that time, they would also not have any metal materials, so how would they be able to build a ship huge enough. Shao Xuan still did not have the confidence to create such a boat, if he could learn some skills from them then it would be the best.
“I remember that there are also quite a few wanderers there too.” Another traveller not wanting to be alone came over and chatted with them.
“It seems like it, but they are only there to cut trees and chop timber. Hey, i heard that that slavemaster has also been there before, and when he left, he brought along quite a few slaves too.” The person before spoke up.
Slavemasters, in order to increase their slave numbers under them, will always go to different places to recruit them. Those who had lost the war and their flame was extinguished, wanderers whose tribes were wiped out.
To get more slaves, slavemasters will travel around; and the slavemaster Shao Xuan had seen before was the same. When Shao Xuan listened to what these two said, he took note of the places Shi Shu often went.
Shao Xuan silently noted these place down in his head, he suspected Shi Shu had met people like Yan Shuo before or had at least seen the totem of the Flaming Horns before. He did not know if the time he saw the totem was when he was looking for slaves as well.
But no matter, Shao Xuan still planned to visit all these places to look around. After all, according to what Yan Shuo’s ancestors had passed down, there should be a lot more wanderers who wandered away and went to separate places. After all these years, if the generations had passed on to the next and the next, there could be quite a few of them left behind.
The Flaming Horns tribe on the other side of the river did not have a big population, therefore, if they wanted to expand, first they would have to find back the wandering members of the Flaming Horns tribe.
“Other than these places, the plains we will be going to have a lot of wanderers as well. Frequently, there will be slavemasters going there too.” A traveller chirped in.
Shao Xuan looked at the unfinished area drawn on his map, there was a grass plain there. The travel team will not travel through that area, but will instead go around its borders. There were quite a few tribes on the grasslands, the people there are very sturdy too, therefore usually the travel team will not go in too deep.
Midst their talk, Yu at the side spoke up: “Quick, look at the front!”
Shao Xuan’s sight moved from his map towards the water in front.
On the water surface, there were a few people floating around. Each of them with fatal injuries.
“Did a battle start in front?” Someone asked.
“Looks like the scale of this is not small either.”
The surrounding people started discussing about it, and some of the travel team leaders got together and debated for a while before deciding to temporarily rest at the bank.
“Let’s rest for a while, send some people to investigate; if there are tribes battling it out, let’s just avoid them, or maybe we could wait till they finish before moving out again.” Said a person at the front.
The guys on the side of the raft began to row the oars; when the rafts reached the river bank, Shao Xuan and the others spontaneously got off the rafts and tied them to a nearby tree or rock, then took their own luggage and beast skin bags. Nobody left anything in the rafts, nobody would know if they would have to abandon the rafts at any time and escape. After all, this place was not their own tribe. Especially if this was a place where a battle took place too. Everywhere was danger and could easily bring disaster.
The leaders each sent out around ten people to scout the situation in front.
“Shao Xuan, let’s go and check around if there are any wild beasts, let’s hunt and eat them.” Yu said.
During the break, people in the team can hunt in the surrounding area, but just not too far off. If the people sent out to scout do not find anybody, they would not wait.
“Alright.” Shao Xuan informed the guys beside him, that if the team decides to set off to inform him about it.
After going on this journey away from his tribe, Shao Xuan had eaten less beast meat. The beasts he normally hunts and where these beasts usually are are places where people don’t usually go.
He had quite missed the taste of beast meat.
Who knows where Chacha went to hunt too, that brat’s taste towards meat is higher; a normal beast can’t even enter his eyes. However, Chacha had never lost the team. Even if he had to leave for awhile, he would always catch up to the team again. Therefore, Shao Xuan was not worried for it.
“Quick, look! There’s a deer there!” Yu pointed towards a direction and happily spoke up. He then quickly took out his blow dart, inserted in poisoned darts, and carefully tread closer.
He had to hurry though, if not, others from the travel team will snatch it away. Then they would not have anything to eat.
Yu sneaked closer, followed by Shao Xuan. However, Shao Xuan had this feeling there was something wrong in the surroundings, not sure what danger lied ahead, but it seemed like something happened there. Thereupon, he was even more alert and careful when he closed in.
When they were not far from the deer, Yu faced the mouth of the blow dart towards that direction, the other end holding it between his lips; when blowing, Yu’s cheeks boated up.
Whiz!
The dart flew out swiftly and accurately shot straight at the deer.
The poison on the dart wasn’t deadly, it was a very powerful paralysis drug. The deer that got shot, the dart directly pierced through into its hide, the poison spreading.
After feeling that it had been attacked, that deer wanted to flee, but after running for just two steps, it started to stagger, and multiple steps later, it collasped onto the ground.
“Hey! It’s done!”
Excited, Yu got ready to pick up his prey, but he was held back by Shao Xuan.
“What’s wrong?” Yu questioned Shao Xuan uncertainly.
Shao Xuan did not reply and only just lifted his chin towards a direction.
Yu looked over.
In the forest, not too far away from the deer, some birds flew out. Probably due to the deer’s run and collapse having startled them.
“What’s wrong with those birds?“ Yu did not quite understand, he thought it over, then helplessly said: “You’re not thinking of eating those birds? Although those birds are considered very small, but they are not easy to catch. With this deer, why would you still want to eat those birds for?”
Shao Xuan silently looked at Yu for a few seconds, and said: ”Those are scavenging birds.”
“Scavenging birds?”
“They eat corpses.” Shao Xuan pointed over to that side. “The amount is not litle.”
Those birds were startled over the actions of the deer, but Shao Xuan believed that was only part of the reason, there were a lot more that did not take off. And those that became startled had quickly returned as well.
If there weren’t any food luring them, why else would they stay on the ground?
Yu showed a face of realisation and quickly held his blow dart. He couldn’t bother about the deer anymore, he only cared about his little life. Eating can be left for later.
Due to the change of direction of the wind, when they arrived here, they had not smelled anything weird. Added to the fact that there were many flowers blooming near the river bank, thus the scent of flowers was overflowing, disrupting their sense of smell, therefore they did not realise anything wrong.
“Go over and check it out?” Yu asked.
Yu didn’t wait for Shao Xuan’s reply and took out his stone knife he had on him and walked over.
Shao Xuan scanned the surroundings, temporarily not seeing anybody, then followed on.
Closing in to that area, due to the dense trees, they still could not see the situation upfront. But with every step closer, Shao Xuan could smell something bad in the air.
Other than that, there was the movements of the scavenging birds. Probably because there were too many snatching for food, they would most likely start fighting among each other.
Carefully pulling apart the branches blocking their way, Shao Xuan could then see the origin of the strange smell.
Dead people, many of them. Compared to the ones floating on the river, there were a lot more here. And with no river to wash it away, the ground was overflowing with blood red stains.
What they were wearing was similar to what the poeple in the river were wearing, they were apparently from the same tribe. With this type of scene, obviously it could be seen that they were slaughtered.
“These people…”
Yu was about to say something, but then he saw an arm moving within the pile of corpses.
“There’s still someone alive!?”
Hearing Yu’s voice, the person squashed under the human pile pushed the dead bodies above him aside, revealing a blood smeared face, his body only had one wound, but it was still fatal. The others also had similar scars that killed them.
The birds having a meal on the ground, due to sensing that there was someone alive, called out and flew away. But there were also some who were greedy and decided to remain on the ground.
“Save….save me!” That person did not bother about the surrounding birds’ pecks and crawled towards Yu and Shao Xuan
Yu creased his eyebrows and took a step back. One, he did not recognise these people; two, he did not want to involve himself in a tribe battle. He was only a traveller, not here to find trouble.
“Let’s leave…..”Yu had not finished talking, before he heard a whizzing sound.
Puchi!
The person crawling over to Shao Xuan was pierced through with a spear, which immediately broke his breath.
Shao Xuan’s sight turned in a certain direction. There, on a tree, was someone standing.
A man wearing a mask.