Translated by Sunyancai
In the afternoon, when Shao Xuan left the medicine house to go back home, it was not dark yet. The herbs were almost done, and recently, there was not that much work to do. So, Shao Xuan planned to go back home earlier to practice drawing.
However, not long after Shao Xuan left the medicine house, he stopped and listened carefully, as some noise entered his ears. Without hesitation, he took a turn and walked towards the source of the noise.
Somewhere between the mountain side and the mountaintop, there was a special place. It was a training place especially built by the warriors. However, it was not a place for the warriors to train themselves, instead, it was designed for the non-awakened kids living at or above the mountain side district.
Kids living up in the mountain would start training real early, and here was their main training place. However, due to limited space, when someone was practicing tossing, the others must be cleared out of the place, so they don’t get hurt by the tossed wooden or stone tools. All the kids here hadn’t awakened their totem power yet, so they’re strength was limited.
Most of the children that could train here were from the
powerful families
that lived up in the mountain, with their parents or grandparents holding essential positions in the tribe. They should be at least families of the group leaders of the small hunting groups, or else he or she could not find a place in here, and would probably be excluded sooner or later.
The class inequality existed in every society.
Shao Xuan had never trained himself in that place as a kid. Later on, when his totem power awakened, he had watched the other kids train in there for some time when he was coming up the mountain once.
Now it was winter and snowing heavily. Under such conditions, the training place was still very crowded and noisy. It seemed that there were a lot of people over there.
As Shao Xuan walked nearer, the noise became clearer.
Compared with the mountain foot area, the roads and paths in the upper half of the mountain were all cleared up, even with the heavy snow in the winter. Some non-awakened kids would come outside with thick clothes made from animal skin. Most of them did not lack food back at home, and the animal skins they wore were all of good quality. Even if it was freezing cold outside, the coldness would not threaten their lives.
Along the cleared-out path, Shao Xuan came to this training ground for kids. There were almost a hundred people in this place, and they varied from 5-6 year olds to teens.
Since none of them could fight against the coldness as totem warriors, the kids in the training place were wrapped like chinese rice dumplings.
Right then, there were three kids in the middle of the crowd, and Shao Xuan knew two of them.
They were the twins of Mai and Qiao named Yang and Guang.
Yangguang meant sunshine in the local language, however, it was separated in two words to name the twins. Mai and Qiao were their parents. Ah-Yang was the boy, and he was born one step ahead of his sister Ah-Guang.
Twins rarely existed in the tribe. For now, Yang and Guang were the only twins in the tribe. The Shaman personally checked in on them when they were born.
Yang and Guang were one year younger than Shao Xuan, and they had not awakened their totem power. However, they were quite talented and had good physiques. By the end of this winter, Mai planned to send his twins into the pre-selection group to present them in front of the Shaman.
Ah-Guang was noted for her strength by many people in the tribe ever since she was born. Everyone thinks that she will be awakened for sure once she reaches the age. She was just not going to be easy to deal with. Compared with Ah-Guang, Ah-Yang as the brother, was not that extraordinary. However, he was much gentler and would not argue with anyone. When Ah-Guang was in a fight with the others, he would even come forward and separate her away. They had quite opposite characters.
[Don’t you dare pick up those pink-glasses, it’s not a flag.]
Of course, that was only the story that went around.
Being one of the close friends with Mai and Qiao, naturally, Shao Xuan knew that the real situation was not like that.
It was true that Ah-Guang was born with strength, and she could fight against two kids of her age. However, when it comes to her impulsive temper, irritability and her love towards fighting…they were all not true.
People in the tribe had different attitudes towards boys and girls. If a boy got punched by a girl, people would say,
Well, it’s not like you are going to lose anything by being punched once.
But if the two parties were switched around?
That would be total darned! How absurd was that! Without even other people saying anything, the parents of the boy would teach him a lesson by beating him even harder.
This had nothing to do with the gentlemanly manner or anything similar. That was all bullshit in the minds of the people of the tribe. In here, every Shaman valued the protection of the girls, for it mattered a lot with the future and reproduction of the tribe. The proportion of men and women of the tribe was not equal, and there were less girls born annually. Therefore, many Shamans over the generations were all very worried about that.
If there were some other tribes nearby, then the young fellows could just lure in some brides from the other tribes. However, their own tribe seemed to be the only tribe in the region. If you excluded those young people related to each other by blood, there were even fewer who could be couples. Now, there were quite a lot of eternal bachelors in the tribe. If Old Ke hadn’t been injured back then, perhaps he would have had grandkids.
That was also the reason why the young warriors would show off like peacocks flaunting their tails, when they walked on the Path of Glory every time. They needed to show off their hunt and thus their ability.
Just because of the different attitudes people had for different genders, every time when violence was needed to deal with the situation, or when there was someone that messed with them, Ah-Guang would be the one to fight in the front, while her brother, Ah-Yang, acted as the one holding his sister back. He would constantly tell her to
stop it
and
let it go
, together with
sorry for that
and
she is just a little hot-tempered
.
[If you don’t get it, they’re cunning.]
Just like now, the twins were having problems with the other party. Ah-Guang was using both her legs and arms to fight, and she wanted to fight them brutally. However, her brother was holding her back, as she tried several times but failed kicking the others.
However, she did succeed a few times, if not, where did all the footprints on the boy’s body come from?
Ah-Yang was holding his sister back, seeming to calm her down. However, just when a kid from the other party stepped out of the crowd, he got kicked at by Ah-Guang. She missed him by inches, but still left a footprint on his animal skin clothes. That one stepped back again.
Was it true that Ah-Yang was not able to hold his sister back?
Even a ghost would not buy it!
These two kids were equal on strength, if he really wanted to stop his sister, then it wouldn’t be too difficult.
The twins were still very young, and they were not as simple and unpretentious as their parents. Instead, they had quite a wicked sense of humor. If they had learnt some simple traps from Shao Xuan today, then they would use them to trick others tomorrow.
Seeing that there was someone whose totem power was awakened was about to step out, Shao Xuan called on her first,
Guang, Guang!
Everyone looked at him following the voice.
Seeing that it was Shao Xuan, Ah-Guang immediately smiled, even though she was angry one moment before. She
got rid of
the hold of her brother, and ran towards Shao Xuan. She was wearing a lot, with a clock on her back. When running, she looked like a moving dumpling.
Ah-Guang stared at Shao Xuan as if he could be her backer. Pulling Shao Xuan’s arm, she said,
They are bullying me, brother Ah-Xuan!
The few people who just got kicked by Ah-Guang were totally stunned at her accusation. What the Fuck! That’s total bullshit! Anyone with eyes could see clearly who were the victims!
People were looking at Shao Xuan with different expressions on their faces.
Some young kids had no idea of who Shao Xuan was, and they did not care much either. But the relatively older ones were different, especially those who had awakened together with Shao Xuan. Let alone the fact that Shao Xuan made great contributions to the tribe, and had joined the advance group, he was now learning from the Shaman! It was like a shining halo above his head.
Because of that, even though Shao Xuan was someone with no background, and once lived in the orphan cave, no one in here dared to exclude him and ask him to leave.
Ku was standing behind the crowd, and he was having more complicated emotions. Being one of the kids from the orphan cave, he was one of the more admired ones last year during this time. However, now, everyone was talking about Shao Xuan. And everyone had kept doing so for a long time.
It had only been one year, and now things had changed that much.
