Qin Bing'er saw my awkward expression and quickly pressed me down into a chair, whispering, "So what if you're a 'Niu' (Ox/Awesome)? What's wrong with being a Niu? When others see it, they'll think, 'Whoa, an awesome person is here! An awesome person is here!'"

Though Qin Bing'er was trying to console me, what I heard didn't sit right. Before I could figure out how to respond, Man Niaoniao chimed in, fanning the flames, "Exactly! Others see him and say, 'Hey, the Cowherd, when are you meeting the Weaver Girl? Give us a shout when you go, I'll bring some baba (cakes) for her!'"

Qin Bing'er burst into a laugh, but seeing me glare at her, she quickly rolled her eyes and shot a glance at Man Niaoniao, saying, "If he goes to meet the Weaver Girl, then what about me? Don't just spout nonsense!" I should have been happy, as this was the first time Qin Bing'er had openly expressed her feelings for me in public. However, recalling the description of her true origins in the silk manuscript, a thread of worry unexpectedly tightened in my chest.

"That’s easy! If he’s the Cowherd, you just be the Weaver Girl!" Man Niaoniao shook his head, swaying back and forth.

Qin Bing'er's expression instantly soured, her smile vanishing in a flash. Everyone knew that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl only managed to reunite after countless hardships, a loving couple forcibly separated, able to meet only once a year. Was Man Niaoniao's comparison of Qin Bing'er and me to the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl an innocent slip or did it carry a hidden meaning? Was he still holding a grudge against me for stealing his beloved? Recalling the faint sigh I heard from him the first time I visited Qin Bing'er's room late at night, my own face instantly clouded over!

Man Niaoniao also sensed the shift in atmosphere and quickly clamped shut his "Broken-Shit-Pot," chuckling sheepishly after a moment, "Don't blame me, don't blame me. I wasn't cursing you two to be separated. You can just think of it this way: it's better to believe ghosts exist than to believe this broken mouth of mine!"

With the words already spoken, I couldn't maintain my stern facade. I forced a wry smile and ignored him, turning back to look at Ji Ye, only to find the old fellow looking solemn, head bowed in deep thought, seemingly deaf to our earlier banter.

Seeing Ji Ye's face, the memory struck me sharply: the stray stroke that turned the character for 'Earth' into 'Ox' on my forehead was courtesy of this very old man! Back in the Underground Imperial City, when he was summoning my soul, didn't he slash my forehead with that worn-out Si Dao (Divination Knife)? That scar must have been left then. No wonder he was so serious now; perhaps he was worried I was about to settle old scores?

Qin Bing'er and Man Niaoniao, seeing me staring intently at Ji Ye, immediately grasped the origin of that scar. Smiles began to bloom across their faces again.

Ji Ye, completely oblivious, had been quietly puffing on his grass pipe for a long time. Hearing the room fall silent, he seemed to wake from a daze. He looked up to see three pairs of eyes fixed on him, paused slightly, and quickly said, "Ying Ying, don't blame me, that was an unintentional mistake on my part. Besides, I never expected that one cut would land so precisely, so perfectly. It was destiny, destiny!"

Destiny my foot!—I felt a familiar surge of frustration!

After sulking for a while, I remembered that Ji Ye was now a Tujia Tima (Shaman/Priest) and had inherited his master's transmitted silk manuscript. I wondered how his practice was progressing, so I asked, "What... what level have you reached now?" I hadn't read the contents of his manuscript, nor did I know the terminology used to describe the proficiency levels of Xiu Shu (Shamanistic arts). In the end, I just assumed it might be like martial arts training, measured in levels. For some unknown reason, I now found Ji Ye very mysterious; he was no longer the Ji Ye whose every scheme I could read at a glance.

"That... we'll talk about that later!" Ji Ye completely ignored my question. "Continue telling us what's in your book!"

The topic returned to the main issue.

As Man Niaoniao pointed out, both Qin Bing'er and I were intimately connected to this mission. I was linked because of the character for 'Earth' on my forehead, and Qin Bing'er because of the green-haired map on her back. These were clearly stated in the book. But the book never mentioned that the 'Earth' character on my forehead would transform into the 'Ox' character—what was the logic behind that? Perhaps I wasn't the person Qin Bing'er was looking for, nor the person described in the book with the 'Earth' character on their forehead. Was I just a coincidence in the entire affair?

Of course, besides Qin Bing'er and me, the book also mentioned that the help of one other person was necessary to complete this mission. This person was unnamed in the book, but his position held significant importance throughout the long history of the Tujia people's development. This person was called the "Tima"! In other words, I figured this person had to be Ji Ye, sitting right in front of me.

As for Man Niaoniao, aside from his bulging muscles, he had no particularly distinctive features, and the book never mentioned anyone like him.

If my assumptions were correct, the three of us—myself, Qin Bing'er, and Ji Ye—must complete three tasks: finding that Suoluo tree, obtaining those two ceramic seals, and then merging the seals with the Blood Soul Stele before placing the combination on the Suoluo tree. Although the book didn't name us specifically, the unfolding of events allowed none of us any room for refusal. When detailing these three tasks, the book used an unquestionable tone, specifically emphasizing that completing them was essential for the continuation of Tujia history and the flourishing of Tujia culture. Look at that—they even brought up the safety of an entire ethnic group; this couldn't be a joke!

What troubled me even more was that this mission had a time limit: it had to be completed exactly at noon on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month to be effective. It was already mid-June, leaving less than twenty days until the Double Seventh Festival. I didn't know if the Suoluo tree still existed in the world, and if it did, where it was. Furthermore, I had no idea where those two small ceramic seals were hidden. How could we possibly accomplish this mission in such a short time?

Turning back, I considered the credibility of the entire affair. The book stated that the purpose of this endeavor was twofold: first, to restore vitality to the Suoluo tree, and second, to resolve the centuries-old grievances and grudges between two tribes. Both objectives seemed utterly unbelievable. A tree is a plant; watering and fertilizing it should suffice to make it thrive. How could two seals made of clay and a stele made of mud achieve such a result? As for resolving tribal enmity, that was even more baffling. To achieve that end, one tribe would have to slaughter the other and eradicate them entirely, or they would have to practice mutual forbearance and build a harmonious society. Logically, there were no other paths.

After I laid out this analysis, the three of them fell silent. Ji Ye, considering things more broadly, said, "This matter does indeed seem quite incomprehensible. Ah well, let's set that aside for now. Did the book say anything about the origins of these two ceramic seals?"

"It did, but that gets very complicated!"

"Tell us."

In truth, the silk manuscript didn't clearly state the function of the two ceramic seals either. I had only inferred from the text that they seemed to be sacred objects belonging to the ancestors of the Tujia people from a very, very distant past. This "very long time" could be traced back to the era before Lin Jun Ba Wuxiang became the tribal leader. It wasn't unusual for many tribes in history to regard a certain object as their sacred relic, much like a totem.

But these two ceramic seals did not belong to a single tribe; they belonged to two separate tribes that, a long, long time ago, were actually one single entity. This situation was fundamentally similar to human propagation—to put it plainly, they were "one family five hundred years ago." However, these two tribes definitely split later. One was the 'Yan Tribe' (), to which Lin Jun Ba Wuxiang belonged. The book contained a line: "The ancestor of Lin Jun originally came from Wu Yan" (), where 'Wu' seemed to be a place name, and 'Yan' was the tribal name. The other was the 'Cong Tribe' (), to which the soul in the Anle Cave belonged. That female soul, Zun Hun, had an eminent origin; she was the "Goddess of Salty Water," the leader of a matriarchal clan. The ancestor of the Goddess of Salty Water was the 'Cong Tribe,' also known as the 'Banzhuan Barbarians' (), who delighted in hunting white tigers, thus earning them another name, the 'White Tiger Fuyi' (). In contrast, Lin Jun's 'Yan Tribe' revered the white tiger and worshipped it. The reason the book offered was almost mythical: the progenitor of the 'Yan Tribe' was named 'Hu Wa' (Tiger Cub), a being half-human and half-tiger. After death, his soul transformed into a white tiger, protecting his tribe for generations.

See? One tribe hunted the white tiger, while the other revered it. Wasn't that a direct confrontation? In those ancient times without legal constraints, it would be ghostly if the two tribes didn't end up fighting tooth and nail!

In fact, even today among the Tujia people, there are distinctions in how the white tiger is viewed: "Xingtang White Tiger" () and "Zuotang White Tiger" (). The former is considered an evil spirit, while the latter is a household deity. Some regions revere the white tiger, while others detest it—the reason might stem from this ancient split.

Not only that, the Tujia tiger totem also originated from this. Before this, I was always puzzled why the tiger totem depicted two white tigers, one above the other, facing head-to-tail. The book provided the answer: these two white tigers represented the two different tribes. The arrangement of one above the other, facing in opposite directions, actually concealed the two different attitudes the later Tujia people would hold toward the white tiger. Even if the tiger design were flipped, the overhead-below appearance would remain unchanged.

The reason for this design was that these two distinct tribes shared a common root in history. Perhaps if one traced back far enough, they would eventually arrive at that Suoluo tree. The Tujia people have always practiced ancestor worship, and at some point, this totem pattern of two head-to-tail facing white tigers was passed down.

The book offered little description of the history between the Suoluo tree and the era of Lin Jun. It only briefly recorded the historical reason for the formation of the Tujia tiger totem pattern, incidentally pointing out the origins of the ancestors of Lin Jun Ba Wuxiang and the Goddess of Salty Water, but it said absolutely nothing about why conflict arose between these two tribes.

Let's return to those two ceramic seals. Before Lin Jun, several tribes existed in the southwest, including the Pu, Cong, Ju, Gong, Nu, Zai, Yi, and Yan—eight ethnic groups, all belonging to the Ba region's Bai Pu ethnic system of that time. This is easy to understand: when a family grows large, brothers and sisters must split off to develop independently. What would the elders do? They would certainly divide their possessions among these siblings. Slightly different from reality, what these eight tribes each received was one ceramic seal. What purpose those seals served remains unknown.

Therefore, a more accurate description of the task laid out in the silk manuscript is: Find the ceramic seals of the Cong and Yan tribes, place them within the Blood Soul Stele, and then place them on the Suoluo tree, which symbolizes the origin of the Tujia people.

Initially, when I read this part of the book, I truly thought it was just another myth. No matter how deep the hatred or how profound the resentment, they all stemmed from the same root. And after such a long time had passed, what couldn't be resolved? Moreover, we live in a harmonious society now; we are all descendants of Huaxia. Where could there be an irreconcilable knot between tribes? For a few mere juniors like us to undertake such a glorious task—wasn't that like a joke on the international stage?

But the deep-seated enmity between Lin Jun Ba Wuxiang and the Goddess of Salty Water was vividly detailed in the book, and it was somehow connected to us!

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