Mountains and seas can be flat

The woman was holding a heavy stone basin soaked in blood-stained sackcloth. Yesterday when she was chopping firewood, a broken branch cut her calf. This kind of minor injury could not be given medicine by the elders, but it made the woman very weak, even if she chewed the stalk—— A kind of cool grass that can be seen everywhere, still can't dissipate the heat, and it is difficult to walk around.

This is how her child died, a thin wound, obviously not bleeding much, why did she die in a few days?

But the woman dare not rest, she needs to sew a hundred skins in the whole summer, if she can't finish, she will be punished when the envoys come to collect the tribute after autumn.

She is called "Ji Liu", "Ji" means weaving, and she is responsible for sewing animal skins in the tribe, which is a relatively easy division of labor for women who have raised children.

But she was still tired, hungry, and groggy, hoping to satisfy her hunger by catching a short-eyed catfish in the laundry, a dirty, grayish little fish with sticky flesh and many spines.But for her, it's better than wild vegetables.When she moved to the stream with the stone basin in her arms, she was surprised to find a blood-stained young man with a long and narrow stature unconscious on the bank.

The woman's pupils suddenly narrowed—how did this boy enter the stream territory?There are nets in the upper reaches of the stream and traps in the water.It is even more impossible to come by land. There are stone walls around the tribe, and there are special guards. Did he fly in with wings?

Although the "mysterious bird" with a human body and bird wings is only a legend in the east, who knows the truth of the ghosts?Even the elders dare not speak.

She was about to report to the elders immediately, the boy's clothes were very strange, she couldn't help but look at them carefully - he was not wearing a long cloak, but like the "through clothes" on the east side.But the style is much more complicated than "Guanyi".This material is not hemp, not wool, not even wild silk... What's more strange is the shoes on his feet. The woman thought in confusion: If you want to tan the fur like this, let alone use isinglass, I'm afraid it must be in tannin oil. Soak for three to five years?

Isinglass and tannin oil are good things to make the leather soft and tough. Only the elders store a little of the suzerain country's distribution every year, and they are used on the smoothest and most precious animal hides.

How did the unknown material of the boy's body be woven?The tribes use bone needles with large holes, but the fine lines on the clothes...what can be ground into such fine needles?

The woman swallowed, she didn't have the brains to think about the things that are only available in those distant and rich places, she just wanted to know if there was food on him?

The woman's hand turned the boy over, and she was surprised to find that his noble-looking clothes were torn to pieces, and there were various sharp wounds on his body, which were still bleeding.The woman was shocked. These scars were all caused by sharp weapons, and it was impossible for her tribe to make such weapons.In addition, the juvenile's body was also burned in many places.

The woman felt frightened and hurriedly informed the elders, and a tall and strong "female hunter" came and dragged the boy with her.

Female hunting is a collective term for female hunters and female warriors.There are no males in this tribe except for three elders.Women need to divide and undertake all the productive labor of the tribe: female warriors, female hunters, female gatherers, female washers, female skinners, female skin sewers...

All the men were either killed or taken away as war slaves. Only the women were kept in the tribe to search for furs, collect herbs, sew clothes for the suzerain, and——pregnant every autumn.

Every autumn, when the suzerain came to collect tribute, the envoys would rape every woman.And take away the newborn male babies of the previous year, leaving only female babies for them.

The envoys consisted of male warriors and hunters from the suzerain, all armed.

The risk of abortion is too high, and I dare not strangle the baby, because before winter, the envoy of the suzerain country will come again to confirm how many women are pregnant, record it with bark, and order them to take care of them to survive.

Jiliu's baby was also recorded last winter, and now she died halfway, and she will be punished at that time, and she is filled with fear when she thinks about it.Every day I work, I am out of my mind, and today I came to Shuimei only to find such a big person.

This is what happened to the defeated tribes. The defeated tribes became their suzerains and forced the defeated tribes to worship them.If they resist, it will be more tragic than death.

There are seven or eight production tribes like them in the surrounding area, defending the suzerain country.They are like domesticated animals. In addition to working hard, they also have to contribute their bodies and use their own blood to breed the next generation of slaves: male babies are future eunuch slaves, and female babies are future laborers. slave.

The tall "female hunter" is called Tengmao. Fortunately, she has not conceived for three consecutive years, but she is responsible for the dangerous hunting work.

There is a ration of furs that are tributed to the suzerain. If only small animals such as foxes and rabbits are caught, at least a few thousand will be caught.They had to organize the occasional capture of large game.

In order to prevent the tribe from rebelling, the suzerain country only allowed them to keep simple weapons, which made hunting very dangerous, and the death rate was almost equal to that of giving birth.

Teng Mao stared at the young man's clothes in amazement, with a dignified expression.

"The suzerain country is not this kind of clothes."

Not to mention the clothes of their tribe and other nearby tribes. The level of detail of the clothes is beyond their imagination.

The boy was carried to the commune, and only three old male elders remained in the tribe, who used herbs to take care of pregnant women, saw doctors, and presided over sacrifices.

The commune was the residence of three elders in order of seniority.The first elder went out, and only the second and third elders remained in the commune.They all know herbal medicine and the knowledge of delivering women, but it is still not enough for this tribe of a hundred people.Dozens of women become pregnant every fall.Dystocia died one third, and the born child died another third.According to this rate of wear and tear, all the women here will be destroyed to death in another seven or eight years.But for the suzerain country, a new batch of slave children has also grown up.

Sixth, Teng Mao and the others grew up like this.

The babies in the commune were crying loudly. These twenty or so children cried day and night every day.The two elders have smoked mugwort leaves all year round to refresh themselves, and the commune has a strong medicinal smell.

Ji Liu and Teng Mao moved the boy in, and the two elders squatted down to check, showing serious expressions.These two elders are fat and thin, the fat one is called Wuxu, and the thin one is called Xuansi.Wu Xu ranked third, and Xuan Si ranked second.The Great Elder went out and did not return.

"It's a bit like oriental clothes." Elder Wu Xu took a deep breath, trembling.

There are many tribes in the east, but everyone present knows that the elder refers to the most powerful republic in the east. It is famous for its complicated clothes and has weapons made of the terrible "red gold".They are hostile to their overlord.

"How to deal with it?" Fujimao asked for instructions.

Elder Wu Xu made a "cut" gesture: "The suzerain will not let the people in the east go, of course they will kill them! And he is almost dead."

Teng Mao raised a bone fork and was about to strike, but was stopped by another Elder Xuansi, "Instead of killing him like this, it's better to leave him on the sacrificial offering to kill."

Ji Liu was terrified by the word "sacrifice", but then he was relieved - if it was this outsider this year, they would not have to worry about being drawn.

Sacrifice, as the name suggests, is to use life to sacrifice, and to sacrifice to the beast worshiped by the suzerain - the snake.

Most of the candidates for the sacrificial offering are those who are seriously ill or incapable of working. If not, they will be decided by lottery, and everyone is at risk.

But you can’t do it without smoking. The sacrificial offering is the first item in the ceremony when the envoys who receive the tribute in autumn come to hold the ceremony. They are monitored by the people of the suzerain country throughout the whole process, and they can’t escape even if they want to.

Elder Wu Xu disagreed with the other elder's opinion, "Are we going to waste medicinal herbs to revive him?"

There are still about ten days before the sacrificial offering. This young man is seriously injured and must be treated.But wasting the commune's precious medicinal materials for a mortal person is not worthwhile.

Elder Xuan Si had a deep meaning: "You don't need to revive him, just keep him from dying."

Elder Wu Xu nodded suddenly.

Ji Liu felt a chill in his heart, and couldn't help but glanced at the direction of the baby's upbringing—there were two groups of boys and girls.The baby boy kept silent, and the crying and fuss were all from the baby girl.

Commune babies can't die.But for the baby boys who were destined to be taken away as war slaves, the elders used a kind of herbal medicine to keep them from crying. consume.The side effects are weakness, dementia, and dullness, but it will take a few years to send it away... At that time, it will be the suzerain's concern.Anyway, the war slaves who were sent away were all mixed together, and they couldn't tell which tribe they came from, and they wouldn't be held accountable.

Elders have many ways to make people "undead".

Elder Wu Xu took a small airtight jar from the pile of stone jars on the shelf, and as long as he stuffed a little of this yellow powder into the boy's nose, his brain would be permanently and irreversibly damaged, and his "immortality" would be even more severe. Easy, save their herbs and food.

Elder Wu Xu was about to flick the yellow powder down, when the injured young man suddenly opened his eyes!

He seemed to wake up from a deep dream, with a pair of dark eyes staring straight at the elder.Because of the recovery of the pain sensation, new beads of sweat gathered on the frown, and he clenched his lower lip tightly without grunting.

The elders stopped and exchanged glances. Since this person is awake, it is worth torture.

"Are you from the East?"

The young man seemed to be struggling to understand what he said, and nodded slightly hesitatingly for a while.

"How did you get here?"

"I don't know." The boy's accent was different from theirs, but he could barely understand it.

The elders sneered, and didn't expect him to tell the truth all at once. Elder Xuansi picked out a white, soft and sticky worm from another jar, and hung it a few inches above the boy's mouth: "If you don't tell the truth, the The worms swim right up to your mouth and eat your guts bit by bit, and you're still alive in the process."

The young man didn't expect to be frightened into screaming or turning pale. He looked at the worm coldly, and seemed to be thinking hard in his mind. There were more and more beads of sweat on his forehead. After a long silence, he said something to tell the elders No words that don't change color.

"It's a slug, a close relative of the snail. It's not poisonous, and it can't eat my internal organs. It's used to cure cramps and seizures."

Elder Wu Xu suddenly changed color, took out another jar, and picked up a small piece of crimson grass.

"Then how about feeding you this?"

The young man squinted his eyes and looked at it for a while: "Ghost Qingcao is very poisonous, but are you willing to feed it to me? It only grows one piece a year."

With fear in Wu Xu's eyes, he instructed Teng Mao: "Kill him!"

Xuansi hurriedly stopped him: "Maybe it's a descendant of the witch doctor from the East! It's useful, so don't kill him."

The boy sneered inwardly, as long as there are more than two people present.After the value is revealed, there will always be people who are not in danger, and there will always be people who want to keep the sharp edge.At the juncture of life and death, it is useless to hide your strength and bide your time, and act low-key.Simply and rudely telling the other party the information "I am very useful", as long as a person has a greedy heart, it may save his life.

Using the selfishness of human nature has been tried and tested repeatedly, even if the times are changing drastically, he still wins the bet.

His name is Fang Zheng, and he comes from the new China after liberation.

He came through time.

When he woke up, scattered information from this era entered his mind.

There used to be three emperors in this era, Fuxi, Nuwa, and Shennong, but their deeds have been in the past for a long time.

There are a few great leaders who have "existed" "famous deeds" in their minds for hundreds of years. They are very similar to the legendary "Yao, Shun and Yu", but their pronunciation and names are different. It may be an ancient language, or The reason for the change of names.

He can understand most languages, not because ancient and modern languages ​​have similar pronunciations, but because when he was unconscious, some fragmentary information about the world was poured into his mind, which also changed his language.Although he still spoke a little strangely, he no longer felt like he was speaking another language when communicating.

If this is a real dynasty in history, then judging from the original productivity of this tribe and the fact that although there are deeds of the Three Emperors, there is no word of mouth for the Five Emperors, it is about 4000 years ago, that is, around 2000 BC. It has been confirmed by more and more archaeological results in the early days of "Xia".

A lot of knowledge about humanities, geography, water patterns, animals and plants in this period was written into the ancient "geography" book "Shan Hai Jing".Due to a certain origin, he happened to memorize the full text of "Shan Hai Jing", pictures and comments, and proofreadings by some famous masters.Although those were mostly imagined by later generations, the paintings of "Pu Lei Chong" and "Ghost Qing Grass" were quite realistic. When he saw the real objects just now, he remembered the relevant records in a blink of an eye and recognized those plants. With the mentality of giving it a try, he successfully bluffed the elder.

However, the information in his mind was not complete, and the amount of information he obtained seemed to be limited to the simplest cognition level of the tribe he saw when he opened his eyes for the first time.All he could tell him was that the small defeated slave tribe he was in now had lost its name and was vassalized by a republic in the south called "Bardian".The suzerain state is very powerful and has lasted for 100 years. The founder a hundred years ago was called "Wu Xiang", and the leader who is now on the throne is called "Shan Cong".

These are names I've never heard of.But it's normal, the archaeological achievements in early "Xia" are limited, and the cultural origins of many surrounding ethnic minorities are even more difficult to find. Without literature, future generations will naturally have no way of knowing.

The "Eastern" in the elder's dialogue sounds like it should be the seat of another republic, but there is no information about its name, and it is referred to simply and rudely as "Eastern".All they know is that they are formidable enemies, with fearsome weapons and medicine stones made of "red gold".

"Red gold" in "Shan Hai Jing"...is copper, does it have the same meaning in this era?Fang Zheng was not sure.

Right now, the two elders had a disagreement on whether to kill him immediately. No matter what the result is, it is death, but the difference between early death and late death.

Fang Zheng thought coldly, even if he didn't know why he traveled here, and he didn't know the whole picture of this era, but he knew one thing very clearly - he wanted to live.

Once again, at all costs, desperately trying to live.

Again, in order to survive, think of all methods, use all knowledge, use all means, and do anything.

Even this time, only him.

From the information he had already obtained, he knew that this tribe had to "pay tribute" every year, and that except for the three elders, all of the tribe were women, who were forced to become pregnant and had to give birth to the suzerain country.

The information is very shallow, but for him now, it is enough...

He continued to spin in his mind—in this way, the dark side and contradictions of this tribe became very clear, and combined with a certain knowledge he had memorized, it could be used.

He frowned, and continued to listen to the conversation between the two elders who were fighting among themselves.

Wu Xu stared: "What do you want?"

Xuan Si said: "Keep it for now, wait for Qiu Gong, and wait for the people from Badian to come."

Qiugong is held every year, and Badian is the name of their suzerain country.

Fang Zheng interjected at the right time: "Don't fool me, otherwise I won't be able to accept inquiries from your suzerain country."

The two elders looked at each other gloomyly for a moment, and finally Elder Wu Xu said: "I won't let you die, and I won't make you stupid, but there are many ways to make your life difficult."

He twisted a bone needle and pierced Fang Zheng's fingertips hard.With ten fingers connected to his heart, Fang Zheng immediately let out a scream of pain. He was seriously injured, but he passed out from the pain.

Elder Xuan Si gave Elder Wu Xu a hard look: "What if I kill you!"

Elder Wu Xu said quietly: "I can't die, you save me."

Elder Xuansi cursed and took out a piece of light yellow ointment in pain, and glared at Jiliu: "Why are you standing there, clean up his injuries - take off his clothes first, don't mess them up clumsily !"

Ji Liu stripped off the boy's clothes. The front of the clothes was almost torn, exposing a large part of his burned body.The pieces of clothes were still stuck to his wound, Ji Liu didn't dare to tear it off, and turned his head to ask the elder for instructions.

Elder Xuan Si rolled up his sleeves, took out a small bone knife and gently cut off the clothing that stuck to the flesh, then applied the ointment to the wound, and then sprinkled a layer of green powder.

"Jiarong fan," Elder Wu Xu curled his lips, "You are really willing."

Although it was not bestowed by the suzerain, Jiarong is also an uncommon herb, and its quantity is not large.

After smearing the sharp-edged wound, Elder Xuan Si looked at the burns on the young man's body. His herbal medicine did not specifically target burns, and generally burnt people would not survive.This time it can only depend on God's will.He sighed, and told Ji Liu: "Stay here." Then he dragged Elder Wu Xu out.

Before Elder Wu Xu left, he showed a gloomy look.

Fang Zheng lay quietly on the stone bed, and everyone else left.Ji Liu poured some water on his forehead as instructed, and sprinkled insect repellent powder around the stone bed.At this moment, Fujimao opened the curtain.Take the initiative to say hello to Jiliu:

"You stay here, what about the fur?"

Ji Liu was about to cry, "I don't know, the elder wants me to stay here..." She dared not walk away.

Teng Mao smiled at her and said, "I'll help you watch for a while, you go and bring the fur here, if you can make a little bit."

Ji Liu felt that he was saved, and thanked him with relief: "Thank you."

"Small things, thank you." Teng Mao watched Ji Liu walk out of the commune room. At the moment, there were only babies waiting to be fed on the other side of the commune. The women who fed them all had their own other ways of life just like Ji Liu. They were forced to come one day at the request of the elders. After feeding three times, it is impossible to stay here all the time.

Only the comatose Fang Zheng was left in the commune. Tengmao took out a small bone knife from the rope at his waist. This is a small and sharp tool used to cut off the prey's eyes, horns, claws, etc. after hunting.

Elder Wu Xu told her in private that she only needed to stick the knife into the young man's burnt wound, a place that was so dark that it couldn't be seen in depth—there was no herbal medicine applied there—and then gently stir it.Don't move too much, and don't leave obvious marks, just wipe the dirt on the blade.

In a few days, the boy will be "dead from serious injuries". As for whether Elder Xuansi will punish Ji Liu for his ineffective guarding, and whether he will drop to third in the ranking because of this, it is not a matter of Tengmao's concern.

Tengmao approached the young man and hung the knife over his wound. She only cared about it, after it was done...

The young man opened his eyes and said, "So hard? Did the elder promise to give you the herbal medicine for contraception? It's called Rong Rong?"

Seeing Teng Mao's blank expression of horror but not denying it, Fang Zheng thought to himself, there really is this kind of herb, which is consistent with the records in "Shan Hai Jing", and he won the bet again.It seems that I have traveled to a place where the records in "Shan Hai Jing" are true.Whether the real era in history coincides with the knowledge in Shan Hai Jing, or whether it is the era purely in the book, he still can't confirm, but no matter which one--the literature and textual research of "Shan Hai Jing" engraved in his mind Supplementary knowledge is very useful.

Those words that he once regarded as the most boring, useless, insignificant compared to boxing skills, but he was forced to recite helplessly, have become his amulets today.

If you knew all this...

Fang Zheng smiled bitterly in his heart, sad and warm feelings welled up in his heart.

Unexpectedly, after dying in that way, he could travel to this kind of place.

In the dark, retribution.

The author has something to say:

I hope you have not forgotten me.Originally, it took more than a month to write the article, but it was delayed halfway because of busy work.This is my second article. It is a fictional story drawn from traditional ancient books such as "Shan Hai Jing", and I refer to some documents.But this is a novel, and students of related majors should not take it too seriously.The protagonist has a complicated life experience, so start from the second chapter.The manuscripts are very fat.But everyone, don’t fatten me just because of the fat deposits, okay? I’ve been giving out red envelopes for comments these days~