Chapter 14: The Old Lady of Cocoa Village

  You must be wondering why the wolves suddenly appeared to attack Liu Yi and his group. Actually, if you pay close attention, you can find out that earlier, a black-robed wizard picked up the "Mysterious Veil Fragment" that Liu Yi had dropped on the ground.

  That black-robed wizard not only mastered the long-lost "Tongyao Technique", but also had a hand in "Nuyeshu Technique", which, as the name suggests, is a technique that uses special means to control animals for rescue, killing or other activities.

  After picking up the camouflage cloth, he summoned the wolf leader nearby and let it sniff the smell of the camouflage cloth. He ordered it to surround and attack people wearing camouflage clothes until they were dead or exhausted. So Liu Yi and others had a feeling that "the wolves are not hunting in groups, but are fighting for life and death", which is very correct.

  At this time, under the watchtower, either sitting or standing, were all wolf shadows. Moreover, several wolves seemed to be extremely angry about their own companions' deaths, jumping down from the altar and gnawing at the villagers' corpses to vent their inner resentment.

  Liu Yi and others saw the situation, knowing that they could not stop them, so they let them go. After a busy night, everyone was very tired, and Big Beard said to Liu Yi: "You all follow Kexi to rest first, I'll guard here!"

  Liu Yi then looked around at the interior of the watchtower, and they were standing on a platform where the watchtower's lookout was located. This platform was a "cross-section" that divided the entire main body of the watchtower into two parts.

  There is a square hole in the middle of the horizontal section, and there are spiral stairs leading out of the square hole, connecting the entire watchtower, estimated to be from the bottom layer all the way to the top of the watchtower.

  Inside this layer of the beacon tower, on the stone wall, there are murals depicting ancient people hunting and some prayer patterns. Liu Yi saw Professor Zhou Tao and Lin Xueyan standing under the light of the oil lamps on the four walls of the beacon tower, looking very serious, so he walked behind them and asked in a low voice: "Have you found any useful clues?"

  Professor Zhou smiled slightly: "Although no useful clues were found, the origin of the ancient Qiang people was discovered from the pictures!"

  "Oh!" Liu Yi felt curious, what could the messy paintings on the wall represent: "Tell me about it!"

  Before the birth of writing, ancient people generally recorded major events in the form of carving pictures on stone walls or other places. In ancient times, paintings were words and words were paintings. So the murals left by the ancients hide a lot of information! Professor Zhou Tao waved his flashlight and pointed to the first painting, continuing: "Look at the first painting, a group of people are holding a ceremony to pray for heaven and earth on the lake shore, and a man riding a Tibetan antelope is walking from afar. The person is hidden in the thick fog, looking vague and mysterious! If you were asked to 'look at the picture and talk', what would you think?

  Liu Yi scratched his head: "In ancient times, when people offered sacrifices, a guest came from afar?"

  "Haha!" Professor Zhou Tao chuckled and said: "In ancient times, sacrifices were a sacred ritual, such as worshiping ancestors and praying for blessings when major events occurred, or when the clan suffered a great disaster, praying to heaven for help. Look, in the first painting, these ancient people are depicted with yellow skin and a sickly appearance, some looking up at the sky with helpless expressions. This shows that they were suffering from some kind of hardship at the time, while the person riding on the Tibetan antelope is their savior! Don't believe me? Ask Kekesi!"

  Korksi, who had been standing by silently, was amazed at Professor Zhou's accurate inference and exclaimed: "Old man, you're a wise person!"

  He had great respect for Professor Zhou Tao in his heart. There were two kinds of people that their tribe admired, one was a strong and powerful person, the other was an intelligent and wise person.

  Liu Yi heard Kexi say this, and knew that Professor Zhou Tao's guess was completely correct. Then he browsed the picture again, as if looking at the picture and speaking, the basic idea should be:

  "In ancient times, a immortal came to offer sacrifices. The immortal held a sacred vase and poured holy medicine into the lake water. Villagers scooped it up and drank, their faces filled with joy. The immortal's robes fluttered as he departed, and the ancients knelt in reverence to bid him farewell... Then followed the scene of the ancients building a temple shaped like a deer by the lakeside..."

  But the last painting has traces of axe chopping, apparently it was deliberately destroyed by humans a long time ago. It seems that they and the Ma family army were not the first batch of people to come to this place, perhaps many people had arrived here before them.

  "If I'm not mistaken, at that time, a disaster like the plague was happening, and a shaman saved the ancient people. Then this group of people thought it was the 'Herdsmen God' coming down to save them, so they believed in the 'Sheep God' for generations and produced many tribes! As for the last painting that was destroyed, there should be some secret clue..." Professor Zhou Tao said with a affirmative expression.

  The words had barely fallen when someone behind him applauded and laughed, saying: "Indeed a wise man!"

  The voice was low and ancient, it was a woman's.

  Everyone was shocked, and it turned out that there were other people hiding inside the watchtower, who had not been discovered.

  Liu Yi turned around and took a defensive stance, only to see a little girl supporting an old woman walking towards him, and he let out a sigh of relief.

  "Murderer!" Kirksey shouted at the newcomer.

  Liu Yi heard Koxi's loud shout and pointed his pistol at him again, shouting: "Halt!"

  The old lady indeed stopped in her tracks: "Cough, cough, I'm just a frail old woman in the twilight of my years..."

  Big Beard also turned his head to look at the old lady, seeing that it was "Koko Village informant Kork's mother", and said to Liu Yi: "She is not a bad person, by generation, Kork should call her grandma!"

  Liu Yi looked at Kexi with a puzzled expression, as if waiting for him to explain.

  "His son didn't follow the family rules, he insisted on leaving the village to have fun in the outside world. He was imprisoned by my father, but unexpectedly he colluded with Huang Baozi of the Ma family army, lured and captured my father, and killed so many villagers. He is the murderer, his whole family are murderers!"

  The little girl beside the old woman is Kork's daughter, named Kork Yue. Her big eyes are crystal clear, with beautiful long eyelashes, and she has a natural and innocent look. Judging from her age, she should be around the same age as Kork Xi. Upon hearing Kork Xi's words, she looked a bit wronged and explained in a low voice: "I didn't kill anyone, I'm not the murderer..."

  Professor Zhou Tao seemed to understand Keke Xi very well, walked over and patted him on the shoulder: "Injustice has a head and debt has a master, you are the future Shibi, the wisest person in the village, this truth you should understand, these two people are your relatives, not enemies..."

  Kekesi naturally understood this truth, but she couldn't get over the hurdle in her heart. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, turned her head to one side, and refused to look at the old lady and her granddaughter, with a puffed-up face and an attitude that said "out of sight, out of mind".

  ……

  The old lady, supported by her granddaughter Keke, walked to the watchtower and found a large group of wolves below. "Huh?" she exclaimed, looking at the white wolf standing proudly in the moonlight: "Isn't that Little White?", seemingly familiar with the wolf.

  "It's strange, this wolf has a contract with our clan and usually roams twenty miles outside the village. Why did it suddenly run into the village today?" She muttered to herself as she took out a horn made from a goat horn, with six rows of twelve holes on top, resembling an ancient qiang flute.

  She put the horn of the antelope to her mouth and blew it softly. At first, a low, mournful sound like the wind blowing through a cave came out, as if she was silently communicating with someone. Then a sharp, shrill sound followed, as if she was scolding someone.

  The white wolf, after hearing the sound, first tilted its head to look at the lookout mouth for a long time, as if carefully sizing up who this old woman was. When the sharp voice came out, the white wolf seemed to be startled by the sound and shook its head, then walked two steps forward, raised its head again, and let out a series of "woos" towards the old woman.

  The old lady blew the horn in her hand, and a low hum came out, as if she was talking to it. They went back and forth like this for half a day. The white wolf seemed to have made some decision, turned around, let out two long howls to the pack of wolves, then took the lead and jumped off the altar, followed by all the gray wolves, retreating like a tide.

  Everyone upstairs was stunned by the old lady's special communication method. Liu Yi asked, "Old lady, can you communicate with wolves?"

  The old lady looked at him and said: "Let's go down and talk!"

  She said, bending down to pick up the rope from the ground and tying it around her waist, letting Big Beard put her on the altar, after which everyone in the watchtower came down from the tower.

  The old lady said, "Our ancestors in the clan learned to communicate with wolves a long time ago. This ram's horn is a tool for communicating with wolves. Xiaobai told me that it was driven by someone to attack people wearing camouflage clothes. I guess it should be the sorcerer who raided our village."

  She said as she glanced at Liu Yi, then asked Professor Zhou Tao: "Are you a scholar who studies ancient Qiang culture?"

  Professor Zhou said: "I don't dare to, may I ask if you are descendants of the ancient Qiang people?"

  "Hmph!" The old lady snorted: "If we are the descendants of the ancient Qiang people, can't we be bullied by a small witch from another country? Our ancient shamanism should be said to be the ancestor of all the world's shamanism and Taoism!"

  The old lady's words were astonishing, and everyone was puzzled. Liu Yi asked: "Is that wizard a foreigner?"

  "Ah!" said the old lady, "Not only is she a foreigner, but also a woman. I was seriously injured when I fought against her, and unexpectedly, despite her young age, her understanding and control of witchcraft have reached an extremely high level. Moreover, she even knows our tribe's long-lost 'Tongyao Technique'!"

  "Is the art of Tongyou yours, from the ancient Qiang tribe?" Professor Zhou Tao was greatly surprised, because he knew that this technique originated in ancient Greece and Egypt.

  "To be honest, we can't be considered the orthodox descendants of the ancient Qiang people, at most just a collateral branch. Let's put it this way, if the ancient Qiang people were the mother, then we might be the daughter who separated from her. The real ancient Qiang people were extremely powerful, not only did the Yellow Emperor ask for their help in fighting Chi You, but according to legend, the art of communicating with spirits was just a small part of the ancient Qiang shamanic rituals, and there was even an art of reviving the dead that defied heaven! I'll tell you about the legends that have been passed down orally within our tribe!"

  Everyone saw that she was going to talk a lot, so they supported her and walked down from the altar, surrounded by the bonfire heap, eating things while listening to the old lady tell some ancient stories.