Chapter 85 - Escaping from Burial Grounds (XVI)
Editor: Kitty
“Significance? Heh—” The old man laughed, and his facial features all scrunched up together, appearing extremely horrifying this way: “There’s no significance; it’s just a tomb used to imprison me.”
There was a secret hidden in the huge and imposing underground tomb.
However, when the old man talked about it, he was neither reminiscent nor nostalgic. He seemed to just be telling a story, and eventually, he slowly told the complete story to Specter and company.
Many, many, years ago, in a poor and closed-off area, there lived a group of people…… or rather, a clan.
This group of people had lived in the area for many years, living there for years after years and generation after generations. Their traditional garbs and customs were quite distinct, and they lived by a stream and the foot of a mountain. Thus, they made a living by hunting and farming. Besides that, they were extremely xenophobic. Foreigners would be ostracized when they came here. During the earlier years, if innocent foreigners had come to this place, the clan’s treatment of them was extremely cruel: they would straightforwardly kill them.
However, as time progressed, this closed-off clan made more contact with the outside world. They still kept a high degree of vigilance, clearly distinguished their clansmen from the others, and called themselves the Yan clan.
The Yan clansmen upheld a crazy belief.
Since the area where the Yan people lived was barren and remote with a poor harvest, they had to rely on the kindness of the heavens to survive. However, the nearby mountains and forests were particularly lush, and there was a prairie further north with many animals. Therefore, the Yan people made their living by hunting and pasturing as they gradually migrated further north. Even so, the number of Yan clansmen dwindled year by year, and their lives were spent full of hunger and cold.
They began to pray to the G.o.ds they believed in.
It was no longer known what kind of ‘G.o.d’ the Yan believed in, but all the clansmen fanatically trusted in the faith of their G.o.d. They believed that their G.o.d could help them out of their difficulties, and they felt that as long as they continued to believe in this G.o.d, all problems would be resolved.
According to the Yan’s customs, every few decades, they would choose a clan leader from a group of newly born children to be the ‘spokesperson’ of the G.o.d. The Yan clansmen believed that the G.o.d would attach themselves to their clan leader and lead them to glory.
Therefore, when the selection for the new clan head started, these poor children would receive various training; they would have the best food and accommodations, but they must undergo various inhumane training and tortures since they learned to walk. They would enter the forest to hunt alone in their teenage years, and they would have to stay there for more than half a year. IIf some amongst them unfortunately pa.s.sed away, it didn’t matter; there were a lot of subst.i.tutes. The surviving children were the ultimate winners.
“I was the last of those children to live.” The old man stuck in the tree sighed in pa.s.sing as he was telling the story. He paused momentarily and continued to speak: “Yes, when I became the final winner and the next clan head, it was also the beginning of…… the Yan clan’s extinction.”
From the start, they did not have a G.o.d at all. There were no terrifying or magical legends. No one cared for the Yan, and the clansmen were extremely pitiable. The existence of the clan head was just the beginning of a new tragedy.
Because of how low their population was, the clansmen paid much attention to their offspring, and every woman must give birth to many children. Men even regarded women as some kind of tool to continue their bloodline. Therefore, it was almost impossible for any of them to marry. Once a girl in the family reached the age of 14, any man in the clan had the right to enjoy her. When the women no longer had the ability and bodily capability to give birth, some of them were even cruelly abandoned.
Yes, it was at that time that there was such a woman who was abandoned. She was ill, and in this backward and closed-off clan, it was considered a terminal disease. There was no need to waste precious food on this seriously ill woman. Even though she was six months pregnant, in her weak state, she would not have enough strength to give birth to the baby. Premature babies were more likely to die, and the baby might even be infected with the mother’s illness later.
The Yan clansmen immediately decided to leave her behind because they were afraid that her strange disease would spread. They drove her into the forest, wanting the wild animals to eat her.
The desperate and extremely weak woman walked through the pitch-black woods, supporting her round stomach. She was extremely unlucky. No one would come to save her. She soon met a group of wolves in the woods that trapped and surrounded her. She thought she would die and be torn to pieces and eaten along with her poor, unborn child.
But no, the wolves that surrounded her did not eat her. Yes, it was a miracle. Maybe the women’s huge belly made the alpha wolf realize something. Instead, they drove her into their own nest and found wild fruits and water for her everyday, and sometimes, they would even give her the b.l.o.o.d.y meat of animals to eat.
The woman survived. Every night, a lot of female wolves would surround her to sleep together and provide warmth. As her stomach grew larger and larger, she knew that not only was she soon going to give birth, but she was also going to die. The serious illness had slowly begun to hollow out her body. She did not know whether she could give birth to the child smoothly. Therefore, she hugged a female wolf from the wolf pack, which happened to be the companion of the alpha wolf. She begged it:
“When I die, please let my child live to see the world.”
G.o.d must have heard the voice of this n.o.ble mother.
The woman’s eyes were closed forever during the process of the childbirth, so the female wolf lunged at her and ripped open the woman’s stomach. She took the b.l.o.o.d.y fetus out, and luckily, the child was alive!
The child had survived, healthy and whole.
The wolves raised the child like their own. Wolves are extremely protective of their cubs, and although human babies develop slowly and have low mobility, they never abandoned the child. They patiently and slowly taught this child everything they could. The child raised by wolves was totally different from ordinary children. He was fiercer and crueler, full of animality, and could not converse in the human language. He could only howl to the moon like a wolf, and although he could not walk on two feet, he had extraordinary mobility. His nails and teeth were very sharp as well.
But after all, he was still a human. Even if he was raised by wolves, this child was extremely intelligent, and he soon realized that he was different from the wolves. Sometimes he saw the Yan hunters in the forest, and he knew that he and those humans were truly of the same species.
However, the wolf child had never thought of returning to his own clan. His feelings for the wolves were deep. Wolves had a special perception of their own kind, and this also extended to the wolf child.
Therefore, the wolf child merely looked at the human beings from afar, peeping at them, studying, and imitating them in the dark. After observing them for a long time, he could occasionally understand some human words and learn from them, but the child was not willing to study any more than that.
The wolf child was curious about human beings but also fearful towards them. Human beings could skillfully use fire and various weapons. Even though their reactions, physical strength, and the make of their body were not as good as wolves’, they could still successfully hunt wolves. They were powerful, and sometimes the wolf child would find that they were crueler toward their kind than toward their prey.
When the selection of Yan clan head started, more than ten helpless human children were driven into the huge forest. The wolf child had temporarily separated from the wolves and was also full of curiosity about them, so he chose one of the human children and followed him carefully. This was the first time in his life that he tried to get close to a human.
The human youth chosen by the wolf child was the last surviving clan head and was regarded as the so-called ‘G.o.d.’
After that, it was easy to guess what happened next. The youth who had gotten help from the wolf child survived successfully. He and the wolf child became friends. For half a year in the forest, he and the wolf child lived together every day, snuggling together at night and sleeping together. They helped each other during the day to catch the prey. The human youth would teach the wolf child human language and all kinds of knowledge while the wolf child taught the youth how to survive in the forest.
Half a year pa.s.sed quickly. When it was time to return to his clan, the youth did not bring the wolf child back to the human settlement. He knew that all kinds of both open and covert turmoil and struggles were brewing and occurring in his clan, and these were all beyond the understanding of the simple wolf child. Therefore, he was very smart and soon learned how to protect his friends. It was just that since he was a juvenile, he was also immature. Because of the wolf child, the youth was very familiar with the forest. His help enabled the Yan clansmen to hunt prey faster and better!
Therefore, the young man was soon regarded as the clan head. Way after that, when the hunger season came, the greedy Yan clansmen decided to kill all the wolves in the forest in order to get more prey. Although the patriarch strongly opposed it, the clansmen had already formed groups to head out to hunt. The clan head did not want to betray his own clan, but he also did not want to hurt his friend. After weighing his interests, he acquiesced in the behavior of his people.
His behavior was beyond reproach. After all, he was the head of a clan and must consider his clan. From his birth, this was his fate. He was the patron saint of the whole clan. From his infancy to adulthood, the education that he had received had clearly told him this. Destiny could not be reversed by a child raised by a wolf.
The clan head had allowed the people to go, and this decision placed the wolves into a desperate situation. The wolf pack that the child lived amongst had been destroyed, and the wolf parents who raised him died. However, the clansmen seized the poor wolf child and brought him back to human territory.
People were afraid of the wolf child because of his distinctive animal nature and terrible violent tendencies. The people felt that he must be a devil that had committed many evils! The superst.i.tious Yan clansmen thought that as long as the ghost was eliminated, the G.o.d would once again care for the Yan clan and bring them unparalleled glory.
Everything was on the right track, but everything was also wrong.
The wolf child was blinded by hatred. He could not imagine his only friend, whom he had trusted, betraying him. However, the clan head was also very soft hearted and secretly released the wolf child, which brought unimaginable disaster to his race.
When he reached this point in the story, the old man stuck in the tree stopped speaking. He lowered his head to gaze at Specter and said, “In fact, you can roughly imagine what happened next. The child…… hehe, furiously took revenge on me. When he returned to the forest, he gathered all the wolf packs in the forest and even went to places beyond the forest to desperately gather strength, and afterwards, he led a huge team to fight against the Yan clan.”
Specter bit his lips and narrowed his eyes, and just when he wanted to say something, Ah Lan had already taken the lead in asking, “Were you both defeated? Or did you win? Or did the wolves win? But why build this tomb?”
“Actually, the battle ended with the victory of mankind.” The old man lowered his head, and his voice was full of sadness: “Yes, I won, but I regret it because…… the person I value most died together with the demise of the wolves.”
“You love him?” Specter questioned.
“I love him,” the old man said, “When I saw him for the first time in the forest, I was amazed by his bearing. It was the happiest moment in my life. There was nothing better than those moments.
“That’s why I regret it. I regret it very much. It fills me with hatred. I began to hate my clansmen, my people, and I hate them!” When the old man said that, his face was gradually twisted, strands of his silver hair began to shiver and sway everywhere, and at the same time, the roots and vines under the feet of Specter and company began to twist violently.
The old man’s eyes appeared extremely dreadful and his voice became fierce, but he burst into laughter: “So on the night of the full moon, I pretended to be possessed by their so-called ‘G.o.d.’ I told them that the ghosts of evil would not leave their souls, and at any time, they would attach themselves to others to destroy our clan. So I gave them the instruction to build a sacred tomb to worship and bury me with him and told them that they had to pay tribute to us by sending a clansman to be buried with us every year. The clansmen and the clan head were all our funeral accompaniments. I wanted to slowly and completely bring an end to this d.a.m.ned clan, and I wanted them to disappear from the river of history! I wanted to destroy them along with their ridiculous G.o.d!”
“It turned out that…… this is the truth behind the joint tomb?” Duan Li spoke. It was not known when he replaced the fox mask he was wearing on his face with the devil’s mask. The implied significance of the mask seemed to mean something. The truth was always lamentable.
The old man looked at Duan Li and suddenly smiled: “I have finished telling my story. I know why you came here. I also know that your ultimate goal is to escape from this tomb, right?”
“Will you help us?” Specter paused. He still carried a glimmer of hope and could not help but grasp on to its tail as he carefully asked.
The old man coldly snorted. He continued to sneer and began to roar, “Help? How ridiculous! Don’t you understand me? No one can escape from here since the moment the tomb was sealed! Everything here will always belong to me! Everyone in this tomb! Everything and everyone can only serve as funeral accompaniments for me and him! Don’t any of you dare think of escaping!”
“What if I want to escape?”
After the old man howled the last sentence, a cool voice suddenly sounded. While Specter and company were fascinated by the story, no one noticed that there were two more people present in the tomb. Luo Jian and Xing Yan stood beside Specter and the others. Luo Jian took a deep breath, looked up at the old man on the tree trunk, and raised his voice again:
“If I want to leave here, will you let me go?”
The old man suddenly shut up and looked at him in a daze.