These words shocked most people present, with several unable to hold back their exclamations: “What do you mean?”
But given Lin Xirou’s character, it would have been strange if she’d given them a straight answer. Almost as soon as the questions were asked, she called to her companions and they spun around, darting into the darkness.
Yan Tuo took two futile steps in pursuit before giving up—he knew he couldn’t match that speed of movement.
Looking back, everyone still wore bewildered expressions. Datou cursed under his breath: “What the hell did she mean by that?”
Xing Shen ordered everyone to rest where they were while he climbed up to the high mound to look around, half for vigilance, half to try spotting Yu Rong’s team.
With Xing Shen keeping watch from above, everyone felt more at ease. They gathered in small groups, some worried about their scattered companions, some fearful of Bai Tong Gui’s return, and others whispering discussions about whether Lin Xirou’s words held deeper meaning.
Macha had also returned, darting up the high mound straight to Xing Shen, lying motionless at his feet as if seeking comfort.
Nie Jiuluo went to find Yan Tuo. After their “separation” from the clay figures, too much had happened, and much of it had been devastating for Yan Tuo. She should have comforted him but hadn’t had the chance.
Yan Tuo was sitting against an earthen mound, elbows on knees, hands clasped supporting his lowered head. People walked by occasionally, but he hadn’t noticed Nie Jiuluo’s approach.
Nie Jiuluo watched him for a while, struggling for several seconds between disturbing him and letting him stay quiet, before finally making up her mind.
She crouched down and said: “Hey.”
Yan Tuo awakened as if from a dream and looked up at her.
Nie Jiuluo smiled: “What are you thinking about? Lin Xirou’s words?”
Yan Tuo shook his head: “Thinking about my mother.”
Though Lin Xirou’s parting words were shocking, once the crisis and confrontation ended, the first thing that jumped into his mind was his mother.
—Lin Xirou called to her from the construction site’s upper floor, and she looked up with joy.
Then saw the cement slab falling from above.
He couldn’t help thinking about it—eyes open or closed, the scene remained. Even after twenty-some years, the grief was still overwhelming.
Nie Jiuluo didn’t know how to comfort him. When something deserves to hurt, why force someone to “not be sad”?
She crouched in front of him for a while, then suddenly blurted out: “Want to touch my hand?”
Yan Tuo: “Huh?”
Nie Jiuluo waggled her right hand in front of him like showing off a treasure: “I just gave her face a good slap, with this hand.”
Yan Tuo finally realized: “I was wondering why I heard a ‘pak’ sound during the fight—that was you slapping her?”
Nie Jiuluo: “Mm-hmm.”
She felt her hand had achieved something glorious: “I bet her face is swollen from it. Want to feel? It’s still warm—rounded up, it’s like you hit her yourself.”
What kind of logic was that?
The heavy atmosphere around Yan Tuo instantly broke, and he nearly laughed out loud.
He confirmed with her again: “You slapped her?”
Nie Jiuluo gave him a sideways glance: “How many times do I need to say it?”
Yan Tuo grabbed her hand: “I haven’t gotten to slap her yet, but you did it first. It’s great having such a capable wife.”
Nie Jiuluo found this odd: “Wife? What are you thinking? We’re far from that—right now, you’re just a boyfriend on probation.”
She tried to pull her hand back, but Yan Tuo held it firmly and pulled it back: “You art students are so particular, even having probation periods? How does one get officially approved? Can you give me a hint?”
Nie Jiuluo didn’t speak, looking down at their clasped hands. Yan Tuo’s hand was dry and warm, his knuckles strong, steadily enveloping hers.
She suddenly felt that Yan Tuo was quite good, truly quite good.
Yan Tuo also stayed quiet. He had been feeling quite awful earlier, but after talking with her, much of the depression had dissipated. He wanted to hug her, but there were too many people around.
Just holding hands like this, warm and comforting, was quite nice.
After a pause, he said: “What do you think about Lin Xirou’s final words?”
Before Nie Jiuluo could answer, Xing Shen’s voice came from above: “Datou, come up and replace me for a bit.”
Xing Shen came down from the high mound. Several people tried to speak with him, but he waved them all off, heading straight for Yan Tuo and Nie Jiuluo.
Seeing him approach, Yan Tuo pushed himself up to stand.
Upon reaching them, Xing Shen asked directly: “Yan Tuo, you’ve interacted with Lin Xirou—do you think she was lying with those last words?”
Yan Tuo thought for a moment: “I’m not sure if it was true, but I feel she had no reason to lie.”
Xing Shen was silent for a while, then said: “I think so too.”
He continued: “Up there just now, I kept thinking about her words. Everyone always thought Que Die captured Macha, but actually, that scene could have another interpretation—Lin Xirou was hunting Que Die.”
“Que Die was a Ba Shan hunter, and Ba Shan hunters emphasized cooperation. Alone, he wouldn’t likely try to capture an adult Di Xiao—too dangerous. Unless what he saw was small and weak, something he thought he could handle. In other words, bait.”
Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help looking at Macha, still lying on the high mound: “Macha was the bait, Lin Xirou the hunter, two against one—they had the advantage. But then, when Uncle Jiang’s group arrived, the advantage shifted, and Lin Xirou’s hunt failed, so she abandoned Macha?”
Yan Tuo made a sound of agreement: “This would explain why Lin Xirou’s feelings toward Macha have always been so strange. He is indeed her son, and she was looking for him, wanting to exchange him back, but not particularly urgently. Because she always carried some guilt about Macha and knew he might turn against her.”
Nie Jiuluo continued: “A son she had already abandoned once—if he came back, great; if not, she’d accepted it. Besides, with Lin Xirou’s habit of blaming everything on others, she probably felt it was all someone else’s fault.”
Just like…
—Yan Tuo’s parents’ fate—it was their fault, wasn’t it? If they had just obediently complied, nothing would have happened. They chose their death.
—Why was Macha lost? Wasn’t it the Chan Tou Jun’s doing?
Xing Shen sighed: “No wonder Macha suddenly attacked her. Though it’s just a beast that can’t speak, it still remembers some grudges.”
Then he added, puzzled: “But what did she mean by saying from the very beginning, they were hunting us? Does this overturn everything we know about Chan Tou Jun’s past?”
Yan Tuo pondered for a moment: “It doesn’t need to be overturned. From my outsider’s perspective, everything about Chan Tou Jun seems fine, except that your understanding of the Di Xiao is too superficial.”
Xing Shen’s heart jumped—it was hard to think calmly about matters concerning oneself. At times like this, an outsider’s opinion would be more objective: “What do you mean?”
Yan Tuo said: “Aluo told me the history of the Chan Tou Jun, and I listened to it as a story. In this story, Chan Tou Jun’s side is very rich in content—there’s Qin Shi Huang, the three families of blade, whip, and dog, inheritance, and secrets. But when it comes to the Di Xiao, it’s extremely simple. You only say they’re beasts with two characteristics: ‘treasure seeking’ and longevity.”
“In your eyes, the Di Xiao are like ginseng from Changbai Mountain or treasures in treasure-hunting stories—just props, standing there to complement your story.”
“But when I was near Lin Xirou, I learned they call themselves ‘descendants of Kua Fu, pursuers of the sun lineage,’ and say they were originally human. You’ve all seen Lin Xirou’s cunning and methods—they can’t be mere props, and perhaps… they’re not supporting characters either.”
Nie Jiuluo’s heart stirred: “You mean… they’re the protagonists?”
Yan Tuo answered indirectly: “Now, I want to ask a question: why did Qin Shi Huang send Chan Tou Jun to find the Di Xiao?”
Xing Shen answered hesitantly: “Because he wanted… to seek the secret of immortality?”
“Then how did Qin Shi Huang know the Di Xiao could live forever?”
Xing Shen: “Because of the Nine Cauldrons. Qin obtained them, and the Liangzhou Cauldron recorded information about the Di Xiao, ‘the owl rises from the blue soil.'”
Yan Tuo pursued: “Why was this recorded on the Liangzhou Cauldron?”
Xing Shen was becoming confused by his questions: “Wasn’t it recorded by Yu the Great during his tours inspecting the country and recording local conditions?”
Yan Tuo smiled slightly: “That’s where the problem lies. Yu the Great inspected local conditions and recorded them, but who first spread the word about Di Xiao’s ability to seek treasures and achieve immortality, until it was passed on and reached Yu the Great’s ears?”
Xing Shen didn’t understand: “It must have been the earliest people who encountered the Di Xiao.”
Nie Jiuluo sighed, reminding him: “It could have been the Di Xiao themselves who spread it.”
Xing Shen was puzzled: “The Di Xiao… spread it themselves? Why would they do that?”
Yan Tuo said: “Looking at it this way, doesn’t Lin Xirou’s statement become easier to understand? She said from the very beginning, it was the owls hunting ‘humans.'”
Holy shit!
In an instant, it was as if Xing Shen’s meridians had been unblocked—suddenly everything made sense.
—You bunch of fools, from over two thousand years ago until now.
—From the very beginning, it was us hunting you.
He mumbled: “The Di Xiao used ‘treasure seeking’ and ‘immortality’ as bait to hunt us?”
Nie Jiuluo felt somewhat rueful: “These two things, in ancient times… well, even in modern times, who wouldn’t fall for them? As that song goes, ‘People rush about just for a few pieces of silver.’ The poor want to be rich, and the rich, naturally, want immortality.”
Yan Tuo crouched down, picked up a stone, and drew a horizontal line on the ground: “Let’s assume this is the Black and White Rapids. Humans are above, the so-called descendants of Kua Fu below. Theoretically, humans can’t go down, and they can’t come up.”
He wrote “human” above the line and “Kua Fu” below it.
Nie Jiuluo and Xing Shen also crouched down.
Nie Jiuluo pointed at the characters for “Kua Fu”: “But they want to come up—Kua Fu chasing the sun, right? They call themselves the ‘sun-pursuing lineage.’ It seems the desire for the sun is ingrained in their bones.”
Yan Tuo nodded: “But to come up, they first have to cross the Black and White Rapids. ‘Enter the Black and White Rapids, and owls become demon-people’—they become monsters. Then continuing upward, under the sun, they become deformed and decay faster.”
Xing Shen understood now: “They needed a reliable way to maintain human form while living long lives. To transform into humans, they need blood sacs, and it has to be done underground, so… they need to hunt ‘humans,’ lure them down?”
Understanding dawned—the Di Xiao lived in extremely remote mountains and forests, places where even hunters rarely ventured. Without real treasure, who would trek through mountains to go there?
Moreover, even today Lin Xirou’s transformation of Di Xiao had a failure rate of nearly one-third; it must have been worse back then, requiring even more people.
So there needed to be benefits, huge benefits, to attract wave after wave of people to come voluntarily.
Xing Shen smiled bitterly: “No wonder Lin Xirou said we’ve been foolish for two thousand years. The Chan Tou Jun were tricked—thinking they were hunting when they were being hunted.”
Nie Jiuluo suddenly interjected: “Not necessarily. I think the Chan Tou Jun move, though unintentional, turned out to be the right one.”
Xing Shen didn’t understand: “How was it right?”
Nie Jiuluo asked him back: “Isn’t it obvious?”
“We should thank our Qin Shi Huang—he did everything on a grand scale. Building border walls became the Great Wall, building a tomb meant hollowing out a mountain, and searching for Di Xiao meant sending the Chan Tou Jun.”
“The Chan Tou Jun might not seem like much now, but back then, weren’t they the empire’s highest military force? And with such numbers—enough to melt gold and forge the Golden Gates. Do you think those so-called sun-pursuing descendants could have resisted them?”
Yan Tuo suddenly understood.
It was like a group of bandits preparing to hijack some travelers, only to encounter a regiment of regular army.
Xing Shen also had a revelation: “So the Chan Tou Jun essentially disrupted their plans?”
Nie Jiuluo said: “Of course! Think about it—the Chan Tou Jun came in and set up four Golden Gates, basically isolating the Di Xiao from the outside world. If it weren’t for the Black and White Rapids severely damaging the Chan Tou Jun, they might have completely wiped out the Di Xiao. That’s why I say it was an accidental success—’ The Owl Rises from the Blue Soil’ was directly blocked by the Chan Tou Jun and the Golden Gates. They never got to rise.”