Chapter 17: The Soul of the Emperor

Just after dinner, Han Bao came to me again, and when he came out of the hole, it was still pitch black. It turned out that it was almost dusk, and the canyon was naturally night. Looking at the sky from the bottom of the valley, there was an intermittent dark blue ribbon with a few white stars embedded in the band. Walking under such a night sky is like entering a time and space tunnel.

Yin Bao took my hand and walked through the night valley, no different than the day, maybe the long-term dark life made their retina different from normal people, or the perception of the environment more than normal people.

Led down to an open hall by Hampo, it is said to be an open hall because it is just a huge depression under the cliff. The hall was already packed with people, forming a semi-circle, with a dozen torches burning in the middle.

Seeing Han Bao and me, the crowd moved out of a narrow lane, and we entered the front of the crowd without any problems.

Under the inner wall of the hall is an earthen platform, on which a stone tiger is carved. King Ba sat on a stone chair in the center of the platform, and the priest knelt down with a short sword in his hand and recited words to the stone tiger, under which was a stone bed, in front of which knelt seven earthenmen, and in front of them was placed a coal fire, and in the coal fire were placed seven pebbles.

The eyes of the natives were fixed on the pebbles, cold sweat broke out, and there was silence all around. Suddenly, the pebbles burst, and the native kneeling in front of the pebble was terrified and fell to the ground, while several of the natives next to him breathed a sigh of relief and retreated in a hurry. Immediately, someone lifted the fallen native to the stone bed and poured a bowl of potion.

Seven naked men and women came out of the crowd, their bodies covered in black stripes, imitating the movements of tigers and dancing around the stone bed.

At this time, the shaman's mouth babbled, his voice was high and low, and he pointed the tip of his sword at the natives on the stone bed, and shouted, and two more stretchers came out of the crowd, and carried the sleeping natives on the stone bed onto the bamboo frame, and the crowd dodged the passage to see the bamboo frame pass.

Around the bamboo frame, there are dancing human tigers.

I asked Han Bao what was going on, Han Bao said, this is a monthly "White Tiger Sacrifice", the White Tiger is the soul of the Emperor after his death, in addition to the inner and outer palaces in the valley, there are seven large caves of dwellers, on the night of the full moon every month, one person must be drawn out of the seven holes to sacrifice the White Tiger, as for whose head it ultimately falls on, it has to be decided by public divination. Usually most of them are old, weak, sick and disabled, but the night of the full moon in the middle of the year is a big sacrifice, and you have to choose young and strong people, otherwise you will be angry.

I asked why we had to sacrifice the tiger with a living person, and Han Bao said that using a living person to sacrifice the tiger would show respect for the emperor, and it could also control the growth of the population, so that the population of the valley would be in a constant state for a long time, otherwise this small valley would not be able to support more than 10,000 people. In ancient times, the Ba of the Emperor originally lived outside the valley, and the sacrifice of the White Tiger was also to hunt the people of neighboring countries, so they often fought for this.

Then I remembered Uncle Qin's words, so to speak, although Uncle Qin's ancestors were also of the Ba tribe, they were not from the Dijun tribe, and there were often wars between them, and they were the enemies of the Dijun Ministry, so they hated the White Tiger.

In this way, the Ba of the Emperor is at most a large tribe of the Ba people, but why is it commensurate with the country?

"Is there really a white tiger in the valley?" I asked Han Bao.

"Of course, on the other side of the valley, you can see it on a full moon night. ”

"Can you go and take a look?" Hearing Yin Bao so sure, I think the mystery of the White Tiger is about to be solved.

"Normally you can't go and see it, but I want to see it. Looking at Han Bao's expression, it seems that the drunkard does not mean to be a tiger.

Han Bao took me to Longge first, and there were three other people in the coppersmith shop besides the dragon, that is, the two people who had seen Cai Lingji and the beautiful woman like Xiao Tang who had seen today. It seems that the four of them are Han Bao's henchmen. Han Bao introduced me to two Lingji named Namo and Zag, two Orions, and a beautiful woman named Liya, the daughter of a cave master.

I took out my ballpoint pen and drew a few modifications on a piece of linen, and I drew the drawings of several climbing devices that I had seen from the French, and explained how to use them. Han Bao was greatly admired, first took the ballpoint pen in his hand and looked at it carefully, then pressed my shoulder vigorously and said, "I know that you are a very special person, and I must listen to you talk about things outside the valley when I have time." ”

The six of us walked through the Night Valley, and the sky over the canyon had turned into a blue-black band, and the stars on the band were brighter, shining like diamonds.

After walking for a long time, about four or five kilometers, I came to an open area. When the moon is in the sky, a deep stream about ten meters wide is horizontally in front of you, and a single-plank bridge hangs between the deep streams. The six of us hid behind a few boulders. The natives who sacrificed the tiger were thrown on the other side, and at this moment they were waking up, looking at the full moon in the night sky in bewilderment. Far away from him, there were several white dots moving, one, two, three, four, getting closer and closer, four white tigers, two large and two small.

Sensing the imminent death and trying to struggle to the death, the natives crawled towards the drawbridge by the stream, but probably frightened, climbed a few steps and fell down. In the face of a suspended bridge, even if you climb it, what is the use? At most, you can jump off the deep stream and escape the tiger's mouth, but you can't escape the fate of being crushed.

The white tiger approached the target, and the native came to his senses again, sitting on his back with his hands on the ground, not daring to imagine the terrified face of the native at this moment. One of the white tiger's front paws had already landed on the native's chest, and the other three white tigers also surrounded him, and a terrible scream pierced the night sky......

I didn't dare to face this terrible scene, and buried my head deep between my legs, as if I smelled blood. After a long time, he raised his head again, and the white tiger had finished eating his food and was cleaning the blood stains on his body. A gust of cold wind blew from behind and pierced the heart like a steel knife.

Suddenly, a white tiger stood up, and in the moonlight, I saw a tall chief with a tiger skirt around his waist and a spear in his hand. Two cold rays of light in my eyes shot towards the other side, and when this light hit me, a murderous aura suddenly appeared, like the sword light in Longge's hand.

I am sure I saw him. ”