Chapter 87 – The Shaman’s blessing (1/2)

Translated by Sunyancai

Going up the mountain the following day, Shao Xuan took the animal skin bag. He thought it would be better to inform the Shaman about him keeping the bird.

The animal skin bag contained Chacha. That little one had been contained in the animal skin bag for so many times, that he had already gotten used to being carried like that. In fact, he remained silent inside.

Residents up in the mountaintop were quite familiar with Shao Xuan, and some of them would even greet Shao Xuan once they saw him. Shao Xuan greeted them back one by one with a smile, no matter whether they were from Ta’s hunting team, or from the other one.

“You came.”

The Shaman was sitting inside the stone room, waiting for Shao Xuan. His smile grew bigger as he saw Shao Xuan enter. The wrinkles on his old face stretched all over his face.

Actually, not everyone could receive the Shaman’s nice attitude, let alone the fact that Shao Xuan was still pretty young. He was pretty much the only one of his peers who could be treated by the Shaman like that.

There was no need to say more, and Shao Xuan walked in directly before sitting on a straw mattress.

“Chirp!”

As Shao Xuan sat down, Chacha chirped inside the animal skin bag. Perhaps he had sensed the alien environment in the surroundings. When the animal skin bag touched the straw mattress, Chacha shouted out uneasily.

Ever since Shao Xuan went inside, the Shaman had made quite a few glimpses at the animal skin bag that he carried. Now with the sound, the smile got replaced by a puzzled expression on the Shaman’s face.

Shao Xuan reached inside and took Chacha out from the animal skin bag.

Compared with the time when it was newly born, Chacha had grown much bigger now, and Shao Xuan could barely hold him with one hand.

“Tthis is…?” the Shaman stared at the baby bird that Shao Xuan held in his hand.

“It’s from a bird egg that I brought back last time.” Shao Xuan explained the whole story briefly, “So I guess I can train him as an experiment. I can train Caesar, so I assume that I can do the same with Chacha.”

The Shaman remained silent, “…”

Seeing that the Shaman remained to be puzzled, Shao Xuan hurriedly added, “I mean, I can train Caesar into a hound, so perhaps I can train Chacha into a falcon. Old Ke had said that Chacha might be some aggressive predator, hence I would like to try training him. It may probably be useful while we hunt. Even if not for hunting, it can be an observer in our tribe, and warn us from the sky if danger approaches.”

The Shaman looked down, with no other facial expression. He asked as calmly as ever, “What if you fail to do that?”

“Then I’ll kill it.” Shao Xuan had no hesitation about that, for he had lived long enough to know the rules in here.

“Good.” The Shaman smiled again, and this time, it was a more delightful smile than the first one when Shao Xuan entered the room. He seemed to be quite joyful.

“Let me take a look more closely.” Said the Shaman.

Shao Xuan stretched his arm out and held Chacha below the Shaman’s nose, so that he might have a closer look at the bird. Meanwhile, Shao Xuan prepared his other hand to defend in case that Chacha should want to peck on the person in front of him. The Shaman was one of the two people of the highest position among the whole tribe, and in fact, he had somehow a higher status than the Chief. There’s no way that Shao Xuan would allow Chacha to offend the Shaman. If he really hurted the Shaman, he would definitely be skinned alive by other people in the tribe.

However, to Shao Xuan’s surprise, Chacha behaved pretty well today. Except for the sudden scream he had made at first, he remained quiet, and nor was he about to peck on anything, or anyone.

The Shaman stared at the baby bird as it was covered in fluff quietly, while Chacha stared at the man in front of him in silence.

After a while, the Shaman lifted his dead-bark-like hand, and took out a palm-sized stone plate from a short desk beside him. The stone plate contained some black powders. He reached out the other hand and soaked his index finger as well as his middle finger into the powders. After doing that, he used his thumb to twist on the index finger and middle finger, with the black powders in between. Then, he made a half-fist without his thumb, and reached his half fist in front of Chacha.

The Shaman tapped on Chacha’s head with his thumb. It was a light tap, but a visible stain of black quickly inked on Chacha’s brown gray hair. However, Chacha did not dodge at all, he kept staring at the Shaman, very quiet, which surprised Shao Xuan a lot. That thing hadn’t been so quiet ever since the day it hatched.

No matter why the Shaman did what he did, Shao Xuan knew that the Shaman had permitted his deeds. In other words, the Shaman had given his permission on Shao Xuan keeping the bird in the tribe. Moreover, after being “blessed” by the Shaman, no one would harm him even if he could not be tolerated in the tribe. No one would ever dare to kill him, and the worst case would be to abandon it.

However, the Shaman did not stop after placing the stone plate down. Instead, he took out a patterned plate and passed it to Shao Xuan. It was the same patterned plate that he gave Caesar earlier. Clearly it was for Chacha.