bad seeds - Chapter 6
When it was Ye Tong's turn, she suddenly threw a handful of sand into the cup, and the water in the cup immediately overflowed.
Grandma walked ahead, carrying the shrine box, without saying a word.
Ye Tong and I followed Grandma into the dimly lit basement of the old house. Ye Tong had a strange smile on her face—every time I saw that smile, she would do something crazy that defied common sense.
The moment the water overflowed from the cup, the crowd cheered, and I noticed that Grandma's face turned somewhat pale.
In the remote Gobi Desert, in a mysterious tribe, far from civilization, to become a hero who vanquishes demons—nothing could be more insane. Anyone could hear the ominous warning in Grandma's words; heaven knows what awaited us.
However, Ye Tong was extremely pleased with himself.
"Why did you do this? Do you know how dangerous this could be?" I asked, somewhat agitated.
"This is the real adventure!" Ye Tong looked just like a determined warrior.
"You're really something!" Her irresponsible attitude infuriated me.
"If you value your life, then you can go back to Shanghai by yourself. I'll go by myself!" Ye Tong said casually.
“You know perfectly well that’s impossible,” I said.
basement.
There are no electric lights here; the only illumination comes from four candles.
Grandma placed the shrine box into the niche embedded in the wall, which allowed me to observe the box up close.
This is indeed a wonderful box.
The lower half of the box had no luster, and in this dim environment, it was impossible to tell what material it was made of. The upper half, however, seemed to be transparent glass, allowing me to clearly see that what they called "the devil's finger" was actually a rusty iron pipe submerged in a transparent liquid.
"Don't touch that magic box, it won't bring you good luck." Grandma's voice had returned to the same aged tone I had when I first met her. She was wiping the dust off a wooden box in the corner.
"What should we do?" Ye Tong asked.
Grandma opened the wooden chest, took out a cloth bag, opened the bag, and inside were two rolls of sheepskin. She took out one of the rolls and said with some regret:
"Even if you are my granddaughter, you cannot break the ancestral rules. Once you become the demon slayers chosen by the gods, you must forever..."
"No matter what happens after you leave the tribe, you can never return, and the tribe will never see you again. So starting tomorrow, Grandma will never see you again."
"Why?" Ye Tong was stunned by this sudden answer.
"This is the rule set by our ancestors."
"Grandma, why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"This is also a rule passed down from our ancestors."
"Grandma..." Ye Tong suddenly threw herself into the old woman's arms, sobbing like a child, "I'm sorry, Grandma..."
"It's all fate!"
"Take this parchment scroll; it will guide you on the path to defeating the demon." Grandma placed the parchment scroll in Ye Tong's hand. "I feel much more at ease now that someone is helping you subdue the demon." The old woman glanced at me. "I hope you two can safely get through this ordeal." As she said this, tears suddenly streamed down her face, which was usually so composed.
That night, Ye Tong was in a terrible mood. She tossed and turned in bed, constantly crying, reverting to her fragile self—even though just hours before she had been a fearless demon-slaying warrior. I didn't know how to comfort her. It was an exceptionally depressing night in Qinghai, and I fell into a deep sleep under the dim light.
We all woke up very early the next day, and the bluish sunlight shone into the room without any obstruction. Beyond this village lay an endless expanse of Gobi Desert.
Ye Tong suddenly said to me, "Na Duo, I was wrong this time. I was wrong to bring you along from the beginning. I've thought it over. This is a matter between our clan and has nothing to do with you. You should go back to Shanghai alone."
After a night of emotional ups and downs, I had become quite calm, and even the fear I had felt before had become insignificant dust in my heart: "From the moment you dragged me into this, I never thought of going back alone," I said calmly, looking at her.
"But this is a matter for my tribe, and it could be very dangerous!"
"Heh, you know it's dangerous? Wouldn't it be even more dangerous for you to go alone?"
"Danger?" I smiled, trying to make my smile sound relaxed. "Remember what Grandma said? I've already been dragged into this."
Ye Tong looked at me for three seconds and smiled slightly. She hadn't changed out of her ethnic costume yet. In the morning light, confidence and willpower seemed to have returned to her, and she had once again become the daughter of that mysterious nomadic people, the demon-slaying warrior.
"Alright then." She shrugged, rubbing her dark circles. "I need to change my clothes, grab something to eat, and rest a bit. We'll leave this afternoon."
Before setting off, we carefully studied the parchment scroll.
The five parchment scrolls were quite dry, yellowed, and brittle, requiring extreme care to avoid damage. They appeared to be artifacts passed down from hundreds of years ago.
The first document contained a “divine oracle” written in hasty handwriting:
“I descended from heaven to earth with a holy heart, only to see the ghost trees running rampant and their branches covered in blood, the fertile soil decaying and the people weeping. I wish to teach you, my descendants, the way to regain a hundred years of peaceful life.”
...
“You are a brave warrior. You should take my map and retrieve the sacred stone, then throw it into the demon mountain to cure the ghost tree. This is a divine duty you must fulfill. You must be righteous and, after throwing the sacred stone, flee to a distant land and never see your clan again. If you do not do so, great calamity will befall your clan, and that will be your sin.”
“Your descendants must obey this edict. If you disobey it, the land will no longer be land, the family will be destroyed, and you will wander aimlessly with no place to settle down.”
If the article were written hundreds of years ago, it would be considered quite straightforward, and Ye Tong and I had no difficulty understanding it.
The drawings on the second sheepskin were completely baffling.
On the upper left of the sheepskin is a circle with a dot next to it. A line is drawn from the dot in the opposite direction to the center of the circle. On the upper right circle, there are irregularly long and short line segments. The line segments on the lower half of the circle are sparser than those on the upper right, but there are many small dots around the circle, and each dot has a line drawn from it pointing to the center.
We were completely baffled, so we decided to skip this one for now.
The pattern on the third sheepskin contains a crucial revelation.
The design features two irregular shapes at the top and bottom, with six dots arranged in a plum blossom pattern between them. Next to the central dot is a small, delicate spider image, along with a line of text: