Chapter 27: Pendant
Within two minutes, Langpi swaggered back from the woods, bared his teeth in a smug grin at Chen Jian, and sat down beside him. He deliberately showed off a fresh green stain on his animal skin wrap, rubbed there by grass blades, boasting about how wild the woman had been—like fighting a wild animal. He even displayed his blood-stained arm as proof.
Chen Jian was in no mood to talk. He patted Langpi on the shoulder, signaling for him to rest. But Langpi, after squatting for only a moment and stretching his legs, grabbed his bow and wandered off again.
Chen Jian walked over to the old grandmother to ask about the customs of the tribal gathering.
Each of the dozen tribes had a territory spanning a hundred miles. Combined, their lands covered an area comparable to a two-hundred-mile feudal city-state, though with a much smaller population. The various tribes were scattered across this barren land like stars. One might start raising pigs, another might begin planting millet, and eventually, these disparate sparks of innovation would converge into a common civilization, lighting up the dark wilderness.
But national integration has always been a bloody and brutal process. Backward civilizations eventually disappeared, their bloodlines lost, reduced to a few lines in the history books. The only exception seemed to be those with blond hair and blue eyes. Originally, the recessive genes for these traits were rare, but due to sexual selection, their numbers grew—a miracle in the history of human evolution.
Since Chen Jian didn't want his tribe to be absorbed simply because other groups found them physically attractive, he had only one path forward: strength. His current clansmen were the future foundation of the tribe, but if too many outsiders joined at once, it would become uncontrollable. He couldn't even manage a sudden influx of people who shared his own surname. As it stood, the old grandmother's descendants accounted for half the tribe, while the people brought by Song and Huaihua made up the other half. This was an acceptable ratio. His own clan was exactly twice the size of the other, allowing him to maintain a clear advantage.
He didn't have to worry about future generations. He recalled how Australian colonists had forced Aboriginal children into church schools and foster care with white families, making them forget their own parents. This was a real and bloody lesson, paid for by the demise of a civilization and a people.
Although the old grandmother didn't understand all the intricacies, she instinctively warned Chen Jian not to let other tribes join them. Chen Jian naturally agreed. He finished his preparations and waited for Langpi to exhaust himself in the grove before they continued their journey to the mountaintop.
After walking for a full day, they began to see more and more tribes. The old grandmother led Chen Jian to greet other tribal leaders and helped mediate several small disputes. Finally, they reached the summit.
Their group of 300 stood out. The other tribes looked at them with strange eyes, pointing at their combed-up hair, their expressions full of puzzlement. Chen Jian and his people gradually grew accustomed to the stares. Far from being bothered, they began to show off their hairstyles with pride.
When he finally reached the top of the mountain, Chen Jian understood why this place was chosen for the gathering. There was a huge lava cave at the summit, seven or eight meters high. It was dark and cool inside, with enough space to accommodate thousands of people. However, it was too large to serve as a permanent residence for a single tribe; a cavern this big would be impossible to defend from wild beasts. It was likely a lava tube left by an extinct volcano, and it branched into many different passages. The ancestors of the various tribes must have migrated here together before eventually splitting off. The tradition of gathering here every year had been maintained ever since.
No wonder the terrain was so strange. Chen Jian sniffed the air but detected no trace of sulfur. Looking at the trees at the foot of the mountain, some several meters thick, he concluded the volcano must have been extinct for a very long time.
A bustling crowd had gathered near the cave entrance, people chattering with one another. Most were discussing the strange hairstyles of Chen Jian's tribe, touching their own sticky, matted hair with a hint of self-consciousness.
Chen Jian scanned the groups of people coming and going. Several women approached to greet him but noticed his gaze was fixed on a man in the distance. They gave him an odd look and hurried away.
"Grandma," he asked, "where does that person's tribe live?"
He pointed to a young man. The old grandmother looked at the people around him and recalled, "It seems they're from the upper reaches of the Caohe River, which is also far from our new home."
The man, bare-chested, held a bark rope and was bragging to a group of women, eliciting bursts of screams. Chen Jian vaguely heard him talking about hitting some prey with a stone as he cracked the rope in his hand.
It was obviously a sling. A stone was held between two lengths of rope folded in half. When he swung it and released one end, the stone would fly out along a tangent, far more accurately than if thrown by hand.
Of course, it wasn't the simple sling that caught Chen Jian's attention, but the pendant on the man's neck. A length of rope held a stone of flashing green.
Just then, the man put on a performance. He vigorously swung the sling and launched a stone that struck a slab of rock about ten meters away. The women beside him cheered wildly, and several were already looking at him with burning eyes.
Langpi watched from the sidelines, gritting his teeth. Chen Jian had told his people not to discuss their own affairs and not to show off their bows and arrows.
"What's the big deal? I can do that," Langpi muttered. He touched the bow on his back, eager to try. A ten-meter shot was attracting so much admiration. He had his eye on one of the women surrounding the man, but unfortunately, she was completely captivated by the sling.
Chen Jian took a round clay pot from a wicker basket, placed a few pieces of maple syrup inside, and handed it to Langpi. "Go and compete with him. Trade this for the pendant on his neck."
"Trade? How? That's his pendant. He won't trade it," Langpi said, shaking his head. He knew how important a personal amulet was.
Chen Jian asked, "What's your accurate range?"
"Fifty or sixty paces."
"Follow me."
Langpi followed Chen Jian toward the man. Chen Jian greeted the women and offered them the maple syrup. They curiously took a piece of the yellow candy, and their faces immediately lit up with approval. The mix of sweetness and the fresh fragrance of spring was delightful, as if they had a whole maple-birch forest in their mouths. The women then stared at the clay pot in Chen Jian's hand, wanting to reach out and touch the round vessel. It was bright red and engraved with a few fish patterns—truly a lovely object.
Chen Jian offered a piece of maple syrup to the man. "You have some too."
Seeing the women's attention stolen by Chen Jian's pot, the man snorted unhappily and pushed the syrup aside.
Chen Jian laughed. "You're very accurate with that sling."
The man lifted his head proudly. "Very accurate. I can knock a flying bird out of the sky."
Langpi curled his lip in disdain. "I can shoot down falcons."
A woman walked up to Langpi, patted his chest, and squeezed his arm, a look of disbelief on her face.
Chen Jian pointed to a tree more than fifty meters from the cave entrance. "My brother can hit that tree with this," he said, indicating Langpi's bow. "Can you?"
Langpi immediately launched into a boast. The ordinary falcon he had shot down became a great eagle with a wingspan as long as he was tall. He exaggerated so much that the group of women howled with excitement, reaching out to touch and pinch his chest.
Several others were asking Chen Jian about the clay pot. The man with the sling grew even angrier. He felt his spotlight had been stolen by a pot and a lie. He grabbed Langpi and shouted, "Let's compete! If you can't do it, that proves you're a liar, and you have to give me this pot!"
His angry voice echoed in the cave, attracting a crowd. Seeing the strange rope and the bow, people gave them a wide berth.
Chen Jian saw that they had an audience. He gave Langpi a subtle look and said loudly, "And what if you lose? If you lose, you give me your pendant. Deal?"
A pendant was a personal amulet and not easily given away, but the man, feeling the eyes of the crowd, thrust out his chin. "If I lose, it's yours! Grandma! Grandma, come here!" he called out. Then he looked at Chen Jian. "You, call your grandmother!"
An old woman from his tribe came forward, and Chen Jian's grandmother came as well, sitting beside them to witness the wager. Chen Jian placed the pot in his opponent's hands, and the man took off his pendant and gave it to his own grandmother for safekeeping. Several other leaders gathered around to serve as witnesses.
Langpi flexed his bow, and the man loosened his shoulders as his clansmen handed him several round pebbles.
The man glanced at the tree fifty or sixty meters away and felt a pang of unease. He had never thrown at a target so distant. He might hit it once if he was lucky. But then he looked at the simple bent piece of wood Langpi was holding and regained his confidence. "I'll go first!" he shouted.
He swung his arm, whirling the sling, and suddenly let go. The stone flew toward the tree with a whoosh but missed, falling wide to the side. His clansmen groaned. Handed another stone, he tried again, and this time he hit the mark. He shot a provocative look at Langpi.
For each of his eight attempts, a stone was placed beside the man's grandmother to keep score. In the end, he hit the target only twice. Still, this drew a round of cheers. From such a distance, a hand-thrown stone would have no force, but his two successful shots struck the tree with a loud thwack. It was a magical thing. If he were closer, couldn't he knock a bird right out of the air? He roared like a hero as the crowd chanted his name.
"Hua! Hua!"
Immediately, women from other tribes gathered around him, chattering excitedly and ignoring Langpi completely.
"Your turn!" Hua yelled.
Langpi snorted and turned to his clansman. "Bring me eight arrows!"
The clansman ran over with eight feathered arrows. They were the best in the tribe, tipped with triangular pottery arrowheads and fletched with falcon tail feathers. The other tribes didn't understand the number eight, so they compared the stones and arrows before nodding in agreement.
Langpi gave Hua one last look of disdain, the way one might look at a deer that had fallen into a pit trap.
He nocked an arrow, drew the bowstring, and released. The feathered arrow flew out with a sharp thwip, sinking into the tree with a solid thud. Its tail feathers quivered, making it particularly eye-catching.
All the shouting stopped. Those who had never seen a bow and arrow stared, forgetting to breathe. Langpi's own people were used to it, so they didn't bother to applaud.
In the strange silence, Langpi shot the remaining seven arrows. Then, imitating a gesture he'd seen Chen Jian use, he spread his hands toward Hua, shrugged, and said, "I'm better than you."
Boom!
Stunned shouts echoed through the cave. Langpi's indifferent expression was a stark, almost alien sight in that boisterous crowd. After he spoke, he slung his bow over his back and immediately turned to brag to the women, who were now staring at him, dumbfounded. The two-person falcon he had mentioned before was now as big as a room, but since the women didn't know what a "room" was, the comparison was lost on them.
Hua ran to the tree in amazement. He stared at the arrows embedded in the trunk, then ran back and helplessly handed the pendant to Chen Jian. "It's yours."
Chen Jian took it with a smile and handed the pot to Hua. "You are also a warrior. This is yours."
Hua scratched his head but didn't take the pot. Instead, he joined the crowd around Langpi, asking questions about the bow and arrow. Langpi was now surrounded by a large group of people. The demonstration had been the perfect advertisement, and it was far too shocking to ignore. He glanced at Chen Jian, who nodded. Langpi then declared presumptuously that the bow was a gift from his ancestors.
While hundreds gathered around Langpi, even more were drawn to the ingeniously crafted pottery pot. Chen Jian whispered a few words in the old grandmother's ear, then retreated to a fire. By its light, he examined the emerald-green pendant in his hand.
The color was like the forehead of a waterfowl swimming in the Caohe River. It was opaque but had natural patterns, with a groove carved in the middle for the rope. It was very beautiful.
Chen Jian stroked it a few times, then placed it on the ground. He lifted a heavy stone and smashed it vigorously, shattering the pendant into pieces, which he then threw into the fire.
After a while, the original emerald-green color turned black. The fragments broke down into a fine powder. He pulled them from the flames with a wooden stick, pinched the powder between his fingers, and nodded with satisfaction.
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