The Horqin steppe at night is as beautiful as a dream, on the horizon, a team of fast horses galloped, shuttling on the grassland, leaving the black shadow of horses on the green grassland. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Rack!" Wushuang shouted as he twitched the reins. For a Han man, it is rare to have peerless riding skills like him.

The horse team galloped on the Horqin steppe all night, the dawn broke in the east, and the horizon in front of it gradually revealed the whiteness of the fish's belly. The brothers had dew on their faces. None of them shouted tired, they knew they couldn't rest.

"Huh......" Wushuang tightened the reins.

"Master, what's wrong?" Yun Qiang asked him.

"How far is it?"

"From here, about a hundred miles to the east, you can see the Bayan Ula Mountain. Yun Qiang said, after running all night, Wushuang's cloak was full of water droplets and was already soaked, so Yun Qiang hurriedly brought him a new one to change into.

"After a night's journey, everyone is thirsty and hungry, so let's rest for a while. Wushuang turned over and jumped off the horse, but he was already sitting stiff, and he fell down carelessly, but fortunately Yun Qiang caught him. He's so tired, and the iron-beaten man can't help it!

He sat on the wet grass and stretched out his arms, the pain in his back was still unbearable, he frowned, his forehead was full of cold sweat, he didn't dare to shout out, for fear that his subordinates would worry.

"You guys, hurry up, hurry up and find something to eat for the master!" Yun Qiang commanded.

Don't look at the vast scenery on this prairie, there are a lot of things to eat, the brothers grew up on the grassland since childhood, and soon found a rabbit hole, put the wet grass on the mouth of the hole to smoke, the poor little white rabbit was smoked and couldn't stand the smoke and fire and ran out of the hole directly into everyone's food.

The warm sun shone down, and Wushuang looked to the east under the dazzling sun, although the legendary Bayan Ula Mountain was not seen, but not far away I saw a platform made of gravel, and the platform was surrounded by colorful flags, and the colorful flags fluttered in the wind. Not only that, but around them, there were such piles of stones in every direction that were no more than a few hundred meters away.

"Hadron, what are those platforms made of stones?" asked Wushuang, who didn't understand the customs of the Mongols.

"Master, that's the heavenly burial platform. ”

"Is that the place where you Mongolians cut meat and feed the eagles after they die?" Wushuang found it difficult to accept when he thought about that scene. It is also said that not every deceased person can practice sky burial, which is the highest rite, and only those who are highly respected are qualified to sacrifice their flesh and blood to the heavens and to eagles and birds.

Sky burial is also a real part of the day, and it is a funeral ritual that has always been practiced by Mongolians and Tibetans. The corpse was carried to the burial platform by the relatives, and the whole body was stripped naked and lying naked, and the eagles and birds in the sky liked to eat scavengers, and when they smelled the smell of the dead, they would hover in the air. Relatives and friends gathered around the funeral platform to watch the ceremony, and they watched the eagles and birds in the sky peck at the flesh and blood of the corpses, and it is said that the cleaner the food, the more blessed they are.

This custom is similar to some of the funeral culture of the Han people, paying attention to the gold and silver things that are not brought to life and not brought to death, of course, the Mongolian people are more pious. Which of our Han people can really let go?

"Ah, when a person dies, he will be carried to the heavenly burial platform by his relatives and stripped naked, waiting for the eagle to come down and peck at it. Yun Qiang didn't think there was anything wrong with the sky burial. On the contrary, the Mongols believed that burials were reserved for sinners who had been abandoned by the Immortal Heavens. The corpse has to keep the hidden pain under the soil, endure the pain of being pecked by thousands of maggots, and finally rot into a white bone, and the soul is also bound under the soil for eternity.

"How can there be four heavenly burial platforms? Could it be that four people died in their family at the same time?"

Yun Qiang said that he didn't know, usually the sky burial platform is not built casually, and no one is qualified to carry out sky burial after death. They must have a wise root, and if they are devout believers in the Immortal Heaven, they must have the promise of a local shaman, and they will never know in advance whether they are qualified to perform a celestial burial. Although the funeral customs of Mongolians are different from those of the Han Chinese, the Oriental people pay attention to a feng shui, and this burial platform is generally built at the foot of the mountain, because the soul of the deceased can climb to the top of the mountain and approach the sky. And in general, goshawks are only found near large mountains.

"Strange, this place is flat, and it is not a treasure of feng shui, how can there be a heavenly burial platform? ”

"Master, the heavenly burial platform is a place to see off the dead, and people who have no relatives and no reason can't go to see it casually!" Yun Qiang stopped him.

"Don't grind!" Wushuang pushed him away.

On this day, the funeral platform was very high, a pile of troubled times were piled together more than two meters high, and there was a mat on it, and the straw mat had already been stained red by bloodstains, because of the angle, Wushuang couldn't see whether there were corpses on the funeral platform at all. It's just that as soon as he got closer, the colored flags around the funeral platform didn't move.

Wushuang raised his nose and sniffed, as if it wasn't the smell of human blood, but more like some kind of animal. He twisted his hand through the blood on the straw mat, which was close to dryness, probably a week earlier. But if it is not a human being, what animal can afford to be buried in the sky? And if four animals die together?

Musou kicked under the burial platform, which was made up of countless stones of uneven size, so the force imbalance would collapse if there was a slight external force. With a bang, the rubble slid down, and the entire burial platform was kicked down by him.

Several pieces of white bones slipped from the burial platform, and he caught it with his hand, and found that this bone was very large, definitely larger than the bones of ordinary humans, and the largest human bone was the backbone of the back, and this bone was obviously much thicker than the backbone.

Yun Qiang was a devout believer in the Immortal Heaven, and he said to Wushuang: "Master, it's not okay for us to do this? It's disrespectful to the dead! It's to be cursed by the Immortal Heaven!"

"Look, is this a human bone?" Wushuang threw it at him, the bone was so heavy that Yun Qiang almost didn't catch it.

"This ...... What is this?" he didn't recognize.

"You ask me? Isn't this the custom of your Mongols? Doesn't it say that the sky burial is for the virtuous and respectable? Why is it that even the animals have to be buried in the sky now?" "Usually the dead lie on the burial platform waiting for the eagles and birds to peck and bite, and maybe after a few days, the corpses on the altar will not even have a hair left, because in addition to the goshawks, there are other carnivores on the grassland, such as foxes and wolves. Although it is said that the big bone eagle can't eat it, the fox wolf still likes it very much. But the bones are too big for wolves to eat.