Chapter 376 (1/2)

One Day, We Shall Return

Shao Xuan studied the roll of records made of animal hide in his hands. It was already the tenth roll today.

The shamaness had placed food for him nearby but he did not touch it. Since he sat down and started his first scroll, he did not look at anything else.

Previously, when he described the history of his part of the tribe to the chief and the shamaness, the two felt like they had led very difficult lives. However, as he read the records, he realised this part of the tribe had suffered too. They had to pay a large price to come here, less than a tenth of them had survived the journey here. They suffered huge losses, most of them arrived with severe injuries too.

The records told of how someone had already realised the weakening of the Flame/fire seed a thousand years ago. They did not find a solution but found an opportunity with the emergence of the slave masters.

The slave masters were able to cross from this piece of land to the other side due to a huge change in terrain a thousand years ago. Tall mountains became lowlands, vast oceans became dry land. The underwater tunnel Shao Xuan encountered was due to that change. After that, a group of slave masters crossed over using that ‘bridge’.

Near the ‘bridge’ was the arid lands that Shao Xuan had encountered in the beginning. There was where the slave masters released the criminals. It was a difficult environment to live in, not a single tribe lived there during those times. It was still a piece of dead land now, not many of the criminals survived.

A thousand years ago, there were several prodigies and geniuses among the group of slave masters who crossed over from this to the other side. The scrolls mentioned a few of them, a person named ‘Mu Han’ was mentioned the most. The slave masters were able to rise on the other side all thanks to this Mu Han.

The Flaming Horn Tribe’s ancestors seemed to have come into contact with this Mu Han quite often. The chief that led his tribesmen out to avoid trouble had once fought Mu Han. While they weren’t enemies in the end, they were not friends either. Just people who knew each other well after a long time.

Then, the Flaming Horn Tribe’s chief won in an encounter against Mu Han another time and got some secret information about the slave masters from Mu Han. At that point, the ‘bridge’ was already unstable. The Flaming Horn’s shaman and the divination masters with Mu Han all said the ‘bridge’ would not last long.

However, this prodigy, in the end, decided to take the chief’s side. With the chief, he brought half the tribesmen and half the fire seed over to cross the bridge that parted the ocean. They arrived at this piece of land and lived a difficult life of being shunned and laughed at until they arrived at the forest.

There were ten full scrolls after this detailing what methods Zhi used to look for a way to curb the weakening of the fire seed. The riddle was finally solved when this prodigy was well into old age.

“The Flame did not disappear, it has always been there, in the blood of the Flaming Horn people. And it will continue to live on with the people.:

When he read this, Shao Xuan wondered if the other half of the fire seed had already merged into the Flaming Horn people’s physical bodies.

On the back of a scroll written by Zhi, there was a simple drawing. It was the last time they knelt in respect to the shaman before he and the chief came over to this side.

Did he regret his decision? From the writings and drawings he wrote in his later years, it was evident he did not regret it. However, he did think it was a pity and felt guilt. He missed his homelands but he knew the bridge had sunk. He did not know when it would surface once again, and if it did, he would not live to see it. However, Zhi believed that when the ‘bridge’ appeared again, the tribesmen would be able to return with his answer back to the Flaming Horn Tribe.

“One day, we shall return.”

This was what he wrote in the end. It was similar to what Shao Xuan saw in the stone chamber written by Zhan years ago.

However, they did not know that the other part of the Flaming Horn tribe that remained did not have great luck either. They travelled and travelled, only for the lands to separate and a huge river emerged. It completely cut off their path to ever return. They then lived a life of ‘primitives’ for the next thousand years.