The Fall of the Golden Empire (Novel) (Volume 1) "Bloody Sunset" by Zhang Baotong
After eating the meat, the night was getting late, and Tashiguye was about to say goodbye and lead the soldiers back to the camp.
Early the next morning, Tashi Guye came out of the barracks and entered the stronghold. He knew that the men were all out hunting at this time, and he wanted to see how they hunted, so he asked Gavo to call two soldiers to follow them up the mountain. They walked along a path toward the mountains. The path was winding and steep. The roadside was covered with flowers and green grass, as well as patches of bright red bayberry. This kind of bayberry is sour and sweet, and is actually very delicious, but the savage and ignorant mountain people here do not eat this kind of thing. Walking along the path towards the mountain, you can see venomous snakes hurriedly passing by on the road from time to time, which makes people really feel a little scared.
Climb to the top of a mountain several hundred meters high. The top of the mountain is a dense forest that never sees the sun. The forest was dense and eerie, silent. The path suddenly became blurred, dividing into several different directions and extending deeper into the forest.
After hesitating for a moment at the fork in the road, Tashiguye led the three people behind him towards a relatively clear path heading west. The path was already covered with grass, so as I walked, I couldn't see the path clearly. At this time, Gawo said to Tashiguye, "Sir, don't go inside anymore. It's easy to lose your way."
After hearing this, Tashi Guye stopped and prepared to take everyone back. However, at this moment, an animal roar sounded not far away, making the entire forest tremble. You can tell it's the sound of a tiger. So, Tashiguye took out the short knife from his waist, waved his hand, and ran towards the place where the tiger roared with the three of them.
Not running far, he saw a big spotted tiger roaring and chasing a hunter holding a bow and arrow. The big tiger was very big, with its tail almost five or six meters long. Compared with the big tiger, the hunter seemed so weak. But the strange thing is that the hunter didn't know to turn around and run quickly, or to climb up the tree quickly. For these hunters who have lived in the mountains and forests for generations, climbing trees should be a very easy task for them.
Maybe he was frightened and fainted, maybe his legs were weak. Instead of running away or climbing the tree, he fell to the ground and knelt down to salute the tiger, as if begging for the tiger's favor. mercy. However, he did not know that the tiger had been hungry for a long time, so it would go to the forest so close to the village to look for food.
The tiger opened its mouth wide and roared while approaching the hunter step by step. He walked about two or three meters in front of the hunter and suddenly stopped. While roaring tentatively, he was making final preparations to kill.
Because they were too far away to save him, Tashiguye and the others shouted loudly to the man, "Hurry and hide behind the big tree." In fact, the big tree was right behind him, and he could just turn around and run there. Behind a big tree, this can at least buy you some time for rescue. However, he didn't seem to hear it, or he didn't want to run behind the big tree at all, but continued to kneel down and beg for mercy to the tiger.
After several trials and sufficient preparation, the tiger roared, suddenly lunged forward like an arrow, and pounced the hunter under him. After hearing the hunter's scream, there was no more sound.
A few minutes later, Tashiguye and the others chased after him with daggers and spears. The tiger then let go of the hunter and licked the blood from his mouth while pointing his bloody mouth towards the soldiers who were coming towards him. While roaring loudly to embolden itself, it tried to scare these people away with its ferocious anger.
However, the soldiers moved their shining weapons towards it, getting closer and closer, leaving no chance for it to be lucky or relax. So, it roared up to the sky a few times, then left angrily, and soon disappeared into the dense forest. By the time they drove the tiger away, half of the hunter's head was gone. The blood dyed a large area of grass in the forest red.
Tashiguye asked Gawo and two soldiers to carry the man's body and walk out of the forest. As soon as they walked to the path outside the forest, they saw a hunter carrying a bow and arrow and holding a pointed stick in his hand running from the opposite mountain and happened to bump into them. When they saw someone dying, they made a sharp cry towards the top of the mountain. Then, the same echo echoed in the distance. After a while, I saw men in twos and threes running towards this side from different directions. It didn't take long for more than twenty men to gather here. They lifted the dead man, carried it on their shoulders, sang a very sad song, and walked towards a higher mountain on the opposite side.
Tashiguye thought they were going to carry the dead man to the mountain and bury him. However, to their horror and surprise, the locals carried the man deeper into the dense forest. There is a small, low-lying puddle in the dense forest. Surrounding the puddle are pieces of dried bones.
Those people placed the dead man beside the puddle, and then sat on the grass beside the puddle and kept singing an ancient song composed of shouts and shouts. Slowly, many more men came, and the leader and his son also rushed over.
Under the auspices of the leader, everyone began to offer sacrifices to the dead. They knelt together before the dead man and continued to sing the shouting, but sad-sounding song. The leader used a knife to cut open the deceased's chest and abdomen, took out the bleeding heart, picked up a dead man's skull from the ground, collected the bleeding blood, and placed it next to the deceased. Then, he walked with everyone. Singing a sad song, he retreated to a place thirty or forty meters away.
After a while, I saw three or four tigers coming to the water hole from nowhere. They looked at the people as they walked. Seeing that the people had retreated farther away, they rushed to grab the heart of the deceased. , drank the flesh of the deceased, and then gathered around and began to tear the flesh of the deceased. Watching this scene is really frightening and terrifying. At this time, the leader and the tribesmen bowed to the ground with great respect, bowing to the tiger that devoured the deceased. Only then did Tashi Guye think that the tiger was the idol they worshiped and sacrificed.
Tashiguye couldn't stand it any longer, so he led Jiawo and the others away from the top of the mountain and began to walk down the mountain. At this time, the sun had unknowingly passed over the head, shining brightly on the mountains fresh and bright. The morning fog has dispersed, the wind is calm, the trees are quiet, the birds are returning to the forest, and the cicadas are chirping continuously, making the entire mountain seem even more empty and quiet. They walked down the mountain while looking at the scenery around them. However, they still took the wrong path.
When Colonel Tashi Guye, his translator Gawo, and two soldiers were walking down the hillside, they actually walked to the other side of the valley. When they reached the bottom of the mountain, they felt that they were in a strange place. They saw neither houses nor streams. At this time, they realized that they had lost their way. Fortunately, they saw a man carrying a bow and arrows and a pheasant walking on a path not far away. They followed the man and climbed over a mountain. After descending from the top of the mountain to the bottom, we found the path we took when we went up the mountain again in the morning. After finding the path, they walked along it towards the leader's house. Because they have been starving for a long time.
Arriving at the leader's home, the leader's family was eating around a fire. Their food is raw meat dried in the sun. However, they already know that raw meat should be cooked before eating because it tastes better this way.
The leader asked Tashiguye and Gawo to sit down and eat with them. Tashiguye asked the soldiers to be on guard outside. He and Jiawo sat next to them, picked up a piece of raw meat and grilled it.
But the headman asked the girl Mama to sit next to Tashiguye and barbecue raw meat for him. And the young woman Maoli was sitting next to Gawo, grilling meat for Gawo. The girl was very attentive and sensible. She grilled the meat and handed it to Tashi Guye. But Tashi Guye felt that the meat she grilled was half-cooked, so he taught her to tear the meat into smaller pieces and bake it in the fire until it was brown and delicious.
The girl was very smart, so she imitated his appearance and method, tearing the meat into thin strips, holding it with a branch and roasting it slowly over a small fire until the raw meat was browned before giving it to him.
While eating barbecue, Tashiguye asked the leader how many meals they eat a day. The leader said to eat only one meal a day. Tashiguye asked again why he only eats one meal a day. The leader said that the men went out hunting early in the morning and would not come back until the afternoon, so they stopped going hunting after eating in the afternoon. So, just eat one meal a day. Gawo told Tashiguye that the people of this tribe only lived by hunting every day, and the men did not hunt much prey. If they hunted prey, they would have food. If they could not hunt the prey, they would be hungry. Therefore, for It is not easy for them to have just one meal a day.
Tashiguye asked the leader why he didn't plant corn beside the mountain and stream. When the leader heard about corn, he shook his head. So Tashiguye took out some corn cakes that the soldiers had brought last night and gave each of them a large piece for them to eat.
The leader and his family members kept saying how delicious they were while eating the tortillas. So, Tashi Guye told them that corn can be grown two or three times a year, and the corn produced every year will be enough for the people in the village to eat. But the leader said that they had never seen corn and could not grow it. Tashiguye said that as long as you surrender to King Quito, King Quito will send people to help them plant corn. The leader said happily, "If this is the case, we can eat such delicious food several times a day."
After eating, it was already afternoon. People no longer went out to hunt or work. The men began to go out to find women for fun. Therefore, the women stayed in the house and waited for the men to arrive. And those men who go out to have fun have to take a piece of food with them as a gift to the woman.
The leader and his son were no exception. His son Pitika brought two quite large dead rats. What the leader brought was the tortilla that Tashiguye had just distributed. When the tortilla was given to him, he just broke off a small piece, tasted it, and then put it under the furs on the bed. Tashi Guye thought, to which woman would the leader give this piece of food that he was reluctant to eat?
