Crossing to the Wild - Chapter 42

Posted on February 24, 2023by UntamedS

Early the next morning, they went downstairs.

Before leaving, Rong Yue intended to go to the chief, asking about the basic information of the herb to remove the magic qi. Yesterday, he asked Yue Dong but he only knew the shape of the grass.

But Rong Yue felt that the old chief could give more information.

When he got out of the small wooden building, he saw a bonfire burning in the open space behind the small wooden building, which scattered a lot of fog around.

There were dozens of people in this tribe. It seemed that they were all surrounded by each other and kept talking with their hands together.

As he got closer, he could hear them saying, “God, save us… God, there are monsters… God, monsters come and go at night and stab people’s eyes…”

Rong Yue was amused: “Don’t hit yourselves.”

Yue Dong and Bao Di packed things up, carrying a bag out: “What’s this?”

Before Rong Yue could answer, he saw the chief from yesterday standing on a half-high platform, raising his hands in a jerk-like arc, and others followed along, like a group of seaweed ……

Sang Lu replied: “It may be some kind of ritual to exorcise evil spirits. There are tribes near my hometown that have similar habits.”

At that moment, the extremely thin teenager from yesterday came running far away: “Chief–”

The chief of the seaweed dance stopped moving: “More people?”

“Two groups have come.”

Only then did the old chief notice Rong Yue and the others, and suddenly he raised his head, with an inscrutable look: “You’re leaving?”

Rong Yue thought for a moment: “There are people coming again? Let’s go and see.”

The old chief seemed to want them to stay a few more days, he nodded at his words: “Then come along.”

Rong Yue whispered something to Bao Di, the three people except Tian Yang stayed behind. The rest of the tribe was still dancing like seaweed, and the old chief asked, as if inadvertently, “Did you sleep well yesterday?”

“Very well.”

“Okay, that’s good. If you see something strange, don’t panic ……”

You guys are the ones, all panicked to the point of dancing.

The young man led the way, the wooden bells thumped, and soon they arrived at the wooden fence in front of the small wooden building.

The fog revealed the shapes of several new arrivals.

The two on the left look like father and son, surrounded by animal skins, but there were no bone ornaments hanging around their necks.

The three on the right, two men and one woman, were all in their prime, dressed in linen clothes that were not quite the same shape and wear as the nearby tribes, but clean and fresh.

Indeed, they were two distinct groups of people.

The wooden bell teenager repeated yesterday’s action, closing the mechanism on the ground, opening the railing, and guiding several people in with an expressionless face.

When seeing the mechanism on the ground, the expression of the woman in the group changed and looked like she wanted to say something but was afraid of it. But the eyes of the young men were a little dangerous. The two men didn’t say anything, but they looked confident and cocky.

But the downbeat father and son kept their heads down and followed at the back.

The chief, as usual, brought them to his tent, because of the crowd, the trio went first.

Rong Yue naturally sat next to the chief, who turned his head to look at him, but was silenced by a smile from Rong Yue and no longer bothered him.

“Are you sure you want to go to Xingye?” The old chief asked.

Woman: “Nonsense, what are we doing here if we won’t go to Xingye? I just talked to that brat, I want to exchange jerky with you guys, exchange it and we’ll go, where is everyone!?”

She looked around grumpily and stroked her hair.

The old chief was silent for a moment: “Many of those who went to Xingye have come and gone ……”

“……” the woman’s face sank: “Are you cursing us, don’t you understand human language?! Change the jerky and we will leave!”

“Xian Xian!” The fatter of the two men chided her: “Don’t be so hasty …… this chief, we are sure we want to go to Xingye, but we don’t have enough food with us, we found you to exchange some.”

This person seemed more polite, but his arrogance showed he wasn’t different from the woman.

Another person also said, “We’re in a hurry, we’ve been walking for half a year just to get here, one more day of delay is a waste of time.”

Rong Yue admired them. How far away did they come from? Half a year had passed and the clothes on his body were still in good condition and cleaned.

He didn’t know that this was the last set of new clothes the trio had brought ……

The old chief, as if he hadn’t heard the general, slowly said the last sentence: “You insist on going, I can’t help …… at least spend a night here, tomorrow you can go if you want to.”

“Playing tricks on me!?” The thin man who had not said a word suddenly burst: “It’s been a long time, and it’s so difficult to change some dried meat!?”

He grabbed the old leader’s collar and lifted him up. The wooden bell boy on the other side had sharp eyes, and quickly punched him. The man stepped back two times in amazement!

The old leader dusted his clothes, “… if you want to go, go.”

The movement inside had long been heard clearly. The tribesmen who were just dancing seaweed outside surrounded this small tent. The aggressive trio dared not get angry for a moment, and stared at the old leader in a subdued way.

“Hoo ……” the old chief sighed: “Forget it, you want to dry meat, how much?”

The woman reluctantly pulled out a handful of things from the bag she was carrying: “For fifty bars.”

Rong Yue curiously looked, the woman grabbed a handful of pearls!

The Xingyue Era also had pearls, Rong Yue knew that it was gotten from the sea, but it was basically store bought.

The pearls could be used to enchant, and for fashion, each one were exactly the same, bright and shiny and emitting a soft glow.

The pearl in the hand of the woman in front of him was different, not every single one of them was round, and the particles were small, not to mention glowing. But it did look like a pearl.

The old chief didn’t recognize this thing: “What is this, what does it do?”

“Heh, you don’t even know the pearl? Look how beautiful it is, this is a precious treasure! In our place, one pearl can be exchanged for ten strips of dried meat, so it’s a bargain to give it to you now.”

The old chief said disappointedly, “Can’t you eat it? No exchange.”

The woman’s eyes widened in shock: “What did you say!?”

“What do you want to look good for, our tribe just need to eat, if you have salt, sugar, other useful things …… can give you in exchange.” The old chief sighed: “The thing that looks good is not for food.”

The woman still wanted to argue, but was stopped by the thin man.

His face was gloomy and he said directly, “Let’s go.”

There were only three of them, so they couldn’t get into a conflict and couldn’t grab it hard, so they could only go out and make plans.

Rong Yue watched the old chief take a slow sip of water, and when the three went out, the father and son came in.

“Do you have to go to Xingye?” The old chief asked again.

Rong Yue suspected that this one had to repeat this question ten times a day.

The father and son in front of him had normal human reactions, and told the purpose of coming to Xingye forest.

Rong Yue was no stranger to the tribe of the father and son. It was the Sentie tribe that nearly took the Gangshan tribe. A year ago, his father’s wife was possessed by an evil spirit for unknown reasons, and became weak.

The father and son valued their family very much. They took good care of her despite their sadness. But one morning, his wife suddenly disappeared.

After asking the people in the tribe, they told them that his wife said that winter was coming, and she left for fear of affecting her family.

The father had told the story many times, but at this time, he still cried.

He choked up and said, “Little Frog and I miss her day and night, we’re just afraid that she is starving and freezing outside, but what to do, we can’t find her ……”

The son, who wasn’t young, a head taller than the wooden bell boy, explained calmly, “After A-Ma left, we searched around for two days, and winter came. It was too cold for us to keep looking, and when spring started, the tribe told us she was dead, but Abba and I both felt that Ama was not dead.”

“We were going to go out and look for it, but ……”

The father laughed bitterly, “But I was also suddenly with hit magic qi.”

The old chief was shocked, and the wooden bell teenager’s eyes widened.

Magic Qi wasn’t contagious, what Rong Yue heard was that there was no other way of poisoning except for direct bites from magical beasts.

But what happened to this father?

People in the tribe began to feel that they were ominous, the father and son wanted to find their family member, and finally packed to leave their hometown and began a long road to find her.

Because of the legend of the Xingye forest, they put their hopes here.

Rong Yue lamented.

Savage wilderness was cruel, death was like a shadow, but this pair of father and son were very persistent.

The old chief sighed, as usual, asked the latter words, the two fathers and sons hesitated for a moment then promised to stay one more night.

“What about you guys, do you want to change anything?”

“No, we don’t have anything, we’ll go out hunting later.”

The old chief said, “It’s dangerous nearby, so don’t go. We will give you some dried meat, and if you come out of the Xingye wilderness, repay us with herbs.”

The father and son were grateful and were about to go out when they heard Rong Yue interject, “What is the herb that can cure the magic qi?”

The father and son had thought that Rong Yue was from this tribe, now they couldn’t help but look at him in surprise.

The old chief responded: “Your companion should know. That is a kind of grass that only grows in the wilderness, no name, pink half-moon flowers, it’s always blooming and very conspicuous. Whenever you see it, you are bound not to miss it.”

The father said, “That’s what we’ve heard, but no one has ever seen it.”

The nameless flower. Pink. Always in bloom.

Rong Yue suddenly asked, “If it is said that people who enter the star wilderness come out forgetting, then how did this rumor of the nameless flower come about? How do you know it’s very well recognized? And it often bloom undefeated and is very conspicuous, these descriptions, is it true?”

The old chief’s face changed.

Both father and son were shocked and looked at each other: “What do you mean will forget? We only heard about the danger ……”

This place was too difficult to disseminate information, people were used to not getting information and gambling on life, but Rong Yue felt that a tribe that was specially built outside the Xingye wilderness must not be simple.

Why was it specially built here? Which person of high standing was the one who built the small two-story building? Why ask each traveler if they were sure they want to enter the forest? And why did he play god in the night to scare him?

Besides, if everyone who wanted to enter the Xingye would pass through this tribe, then how many people from the north and south entered and how many people came out, they couldn’t really know nothing about Xingye forest!

There must be some reason that made them choose, to stay here!