Totem

Jiang Nan finally finished washing one hundred articles of clothing at 3:30 in the early morning, then pushed his aunt on the flat cart back to their dwelling place.

Alisa had accompanied him until 3:30 in the morning!

They lived in a shanty next to the pig pen that was around one meter high and highly susceptible to wind. It was also filled with the pungent smell of pig manure, but even so, this shanty had attracted many jealous gazes from other slaves.

This was because from the slaves’ perspective, the shanty was so close to the pig pen that there would be opportunities to secretly take some of the discarded pig meat from the slaughterhouse. It was simply the most perfect slave house!

“Auntie, even though Miss Weylin punished me, she didn’t hurt me, so next time could *you go to bed earlier next time?”
(*TL: respectful term)

Jiang Nan on one hand pushed the cart into the shanty, and on the other spoke in a soft voice to Alisa.

“How is that okay? How is that okay?” Alisa repeatedly shook her head, “You’ve toiled bitterly for a day, and are tired and hungry. If Auntie doesn’t make a bowl of golden porridge for you, you’ll go hungry. Not to mention…”

Her voice suddenly grew angry and fierce, “What if they come to kill you? If Auntie is not by your side, who’s going to protect you?!”

Auntie’s illness truly was getting much more serious.

Jiang Nan sighed bitterly. As a medical professor, it wasn’t that he had never thought about curing her illness, but…

He specialized in anatomy! In regards to psychiatric illnesses, he didn’t even understand one thing!

In his past life, a friend of his who specialized in psychiatry had said, “Illnesses of the heart require medicine of the heart. If you wish to remedy their spirit and the mental aspect of their illness, taking medicine is essential. But even more important is that you must find where the mental illness stems from, then cut it down from the root.”

Following these words, Jiang Nan had previously asked of his Aunt’s feelings and thoughts four or five times: exactly who did the ‘they’ that wanted to kill him refer to?

However, whenever Jiang Nan would ask these kinds of questions, his aunt’s eyes would abruptly open wide and she would begin to tear her hair out in grief, loudly yelling: “Don’t kill him, don’t kill him! Rodi is only a child! If you want to kill, then just kill me! I’m the one who’s done wrong… if we really have done wrong!”

There were many times that Alisa had even yelled herself hoa.r.s.e and immediately fainted on the spot!

After similar scenes occurred, Jiang Nan didn’t dare to ask anymore. Clearly, his aunt had extremely distressing memories buried deep inside her heart, and for the time being, she couldn’t mentally bear this type of inhuman pain.

However, Jiang Nan had gleaned a few pieces of information from the overseers.

According to what the overseer had said, Rodi and his Aunt were purchased ten years before. At that time, a slave trafficking caravan had pa.s.sed through Sun City, and one of the overseers had coincidentally wanted to buy a few slaves and thus went to take a look. It turned out, his first glance had landed on Alisa, and he had been shocked into a daze!

At that time, Alisa didn’t have that monstrous face, and although she had already contracted mental illness, when she was calm, her speech was dignified and elegant, her bearing graceful and poised. Even being a slave, she carried a clear air of n.o.bility! The overseer thought that if he bought such a beautiful woman, she would definitely catch the eyes of the lecherous master, so he took out two gold coins on the spot and purchased Alisa and the six-year-old Rodi.

Unexpectedly, one gold coin was returned because the seller had said that the two were bought from the black market, and didn’t have any proof of ident.i.ty. As such, they weren’t worth the high price of two gold coins.

No proof of ident.i.ty? No problem. Couldn’t that overseer just ask Alisa herself? Thus, he persisted and purchased the two. However, when he had returned to the farm, he was grieved to find out that every time he brought up the past, Alisa would go mad, and nothing would be answered!

As such, n.o.body in the farm knew of the two people’s pasts nor their names, so when registering the two, the overseer had simply picked random names for them.

“Rodi, go to sleep. Tomorrow we still have work to do!”

Jiang Nan was pulled back to reality by his aunt’s call, and taking a look, he suddenly realized that his nose began aching.

It was already November, (TL: if there even is a November) the latest stage of autumn. The shanty was basically like a small icehouse, but Auntie had actually curled up in a corner of the shanty, using her body to block the holes where wind could blow in!

And at the center of the shanty, the warmest place, was a scraggly blanket… left for Jiang Nan.

“Auntie, sleep here. The wind is strong over there.”

Jiang Nan wanted to shift his aunt over, but Alisa’s eyes suddenly opened wide and she rebuked him, “Out of the question, out of the question. These cracks are so big, what would we do if ‘they’ snuck in through here and killed you?!”

Ai…

Jiang Nan was left speechless, and could only spread the blanket over his aunt’s body.

Soon after, Alisa began to snore softly, but no matter how Jiang Nan tried, he couldn’t fall asleep.

He was dissatisfied with the fact that he had fallen to such a level, but he was further occupied in his mind with a small incident that had occurred several days in the past…

   ……

During the evening a week before, a slave who was in charge of taking care of the horses had died from illness, and the master overseer had instructed Jiang Nan while plugging his nose, “Rodi, go take this dead body and bury it under the farmland. Dammit, even if you’re dead, you should still contribute to the farm by at least serving as fertilizer!”

“As *you wish, master overseer!”

Although it appeared as though Jiang Nan was extremely reluctant to accept this task, once he turned around, he carried the corpse with a beaming smile to a remote grove.

This was a corpse, the human body that Jiang Nan most understood!

After he had been reincarnated, Jiang Nan had one big question that always dwelled in his mind: he wanted to know if the human body structure on the Yuanzhi Continent had any differences from the body structure on earth.

This was the natural curiosity of an anatomy expert!

And now, the farm overseer had given Jiang Nan an opportunity…

Click, Jiang Nan opened up his dissecting cane to begin dissecting the corpse in preparation to a.n.a.lyze the physiological structure of the humans on the Yuanzhi Continent.

But right at this moment…

“Rodi, don’t do it!”

Like a ferocious lion, Auntie Alisa had jumped out from who knows where and clamped down on Jiang Nan’s wrist with her teeth.

She spoke vaguely: “You want to dissect this corpse? You cannot, absolutely not! Rodi, Auntie is already a disabled person, and death will not begrudge me, but you can’t die! You absolutely must take revenge, you must live and take back all that is rightfully yours from ‘them’!”

I’m screwed! Auntie saw the dissecting cane! Jiang Nan’s thoughts were in a flurried mess, and therefore didn’t clearly hear what his aunt had said.

Only after a full three minutes later did he resume his normal expression and ask: “Auntie, why can’t I dissect this body?”

Gritting her teeth, Alisa’s demonic face was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with hatred and rancor, “Rodi, you remember what Auntie is about to tell you. Hundreds and thousands of years ago, all the powerful nations on the continent, all the totem masters, and all the totem aristocracy all jointly issued three death declarations!”
“Any person who dissects and studies a corpse will be regarded as revolting against nature, kill three generations!”
“Any clan who produces a clans member that dissects corpses will be regarded as revolting against nature, kill the whole clan!”
“Any nation that shelters a person or clan that dissects corpses will be regarded as revolting against nature, kill the whole nation!”

After saying these three death declarations, the knife scars on Alisa’s face distorted into a sinister look, as if she was discussing multiple incidents of large-scale ma.s.sacres, eras and eras of history dripping with blood!

Jiang Nan was stunned to the point that he was speechless. Only after a long, long while did he roar in a hoa.r.s.e voice: “These f***ing death declarations! Why are there three such death declarations!

“This…”

Alisa had an odd look on her face, “Auntie can’t say for sure either. In any case, it’s prohibited to dissect corpses. Come, we’re going back!”

At this, Alisa dragged Jiang Nan back to the shanty.

Maybe it was because of Auntie’s mental illness, but she never brought up this incident again. Naturally, she didn’t inquire about the matter of Jiang Nan’s dissecting cane either.

And naturally n.o.body paid any attention to that corpse, and it slowly rotted and decayed in the wilderness…

But just three days before, a fool discovered the dead body, and maybe he had been starving to death or had mistaken the putrid flesh as dog meat, but the fool began howling, then took numerous bites of the flesh.

Of course, the corpse was subsequently torn to pieces by him.

And yesterday when Jiang Nan had entered the city to buy pigs, he had seen the fool at the entrance of Sun City.

At that time, the fool and his whole family had been hung on the city gate, and a number of executioners had been sharpening their blades in preparation to execute them by *death of a thousand cuts!
(*TL: old form of capital punishment)

There was even a sign hung on the fool’s chest, and on it was written: “This man illegally dissected a corpse, kill without pardon!”

It was exactly that first death declaration: any person who dissected a corpse would be regarded as revolting against nature, kill three generations!

   ……

Because of this matter, Jiang Nan couldn’t get a good sleep for the past several days. He felt a bit apologetic to that fool, and further felt… Isn’t this world seriously too f***ing insane!

Calm down, calm down, to be a good model, one mustn’t speak vulgar language…

But, why was it prohibited to dissect corpses?!

Was it that Yuanzhi Continent didn’t know? If human anatomy, the foundation of medicine, didn’t involve any dissections, it would be impossible to reach such a high degree of modern medicine!

Was it that those who issued the declaration didn’t know? Even though dissecting human corpses looked gory, horrifying, and scared people at the very sound of it, it was the top academic discipline in studying and researching the mystery of the human body! How many mysteries of the human race had been uncovered due to medical dissections?!

Jiang Nan suddenly felt that being a slave wasn’t unbearable. It was mainly just getting whipped and drinking wild herb soup.

But as a person who had once been a scholarly authority in human anatomy in the modern era, to be reborn into a world that prohibited dissecting, one could only wait to die of illness then be buried in the ground and turn to dust. How tragic was this!?

d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n it. Jiang Nan couldn’t help but sit up straight, fiercely cursing: “F***ing d.a.m.n it!”

“Rodi, that you haven’t slept for the majority of the night, who are you cursing? Don’t you know, you almost scared me to death!”

Suddenly, a voice of complaint transmitted from the outside, scaring Jiang Nan out of his wits.

But once he heard that familiar ‘don’t you know’, he let out a sigh of relief, then stealthily crept out of the shanty, “My dear Mister Tom, it’s already three in the morning. It should be you that’s frightened me!”

“Three in the morning? Good heavens, have you lost it?”

Tom exaggeratedly pointed at the sky where the three moons had already nearly set. It was at least five in the morning already.

Jiang Nan had tossed about in bed, unable to sleep, for two hours!

But Tom didn’t inquire further, and grabbing hold of Jiang Nan’s arm, he simultaneously ran and told him: “Hurry, hurry up and go to the threshing floor with me. Don’t you know? Miss Weylin has ordered all of the male slaves to a.s.semble at the threshing floor. If we’re late, we’re going to get whipped to death.”

“Don’t tell me something big happened?”

“Something big, big enough to shock you to death!”

Tom exaggerated his expression, “Don’t you know? We’ve ran into an opportunity, an opportunity to switch from a slave to an ordinary person!”

From a slave to an ordinary person…

Jiang Nan’s heart contracted, and he felt as if all the blood had rushed to his head in a flash. But, he still kept that model face of indifference and pa.s.siveness, “En, that’s very good news. Please do continue.”