When he opened his eyes, his consciousness was still a little blurry. It took him a while to focus.
The Shaman and the Chief appeared above him.
"Xuan, how are you?" Ao asked.
Shao Xuan struggled to sit up. He took a glass of water from the Shaman and drank it. After a while, he said, "I'm fine."
You don't look like you're 'alright'. Ao thought.
After drinking a few more glasses of water, Shao Xuan felt that his strength had recovered a little. He told the Shaman about what he found in the wooden house. He didn't mention his special ability, just his intuition.
Ao was relieved. It was good that he wasn't attacked.
"That's it?" The Shaman took the wooden plate and the wooden cylinder with the gold powder.
"Yes. And the leaf? "Shao Xuan asked.
The Shaman and Ao looked at each other and shook their heads.
"I'll call Guigou and ask him. No, I'll go to the wooden house myself." Ao said. Guigou wouldn't lie. If there was a leaf with a pattern drawn with gold powder, he would have brought it. But there wasn't.
"I'll go and have a look." Shao Xuan got up. He was a little weak, but he could walk.
"I'll go with you." The Shaman said.
The three people with the highest status in the Yanjiao tribe went out at the same time. Ta and Guigou called some people to guard them nervously. They were afraid that an assassin would appear. Recently, the tribe was really unsafe. They had been guarding against ferocious beasts, but now they found that humans were more troublesome than ferocious beasts.
When they came to the wooden house again, Shao Xuan pointed to the place where he had the leaf. There was no leaf around.
"Did anyone else come in?" Ao asked.
Guigou shook his head. "I don't think so." Recently, the people living around were busy drawing a line with the two people. How could they come in? As for the people who followed him, he believed that no one would hide anything.
The Shaman walked around the house, then stopped at the place where Shao Xuan had fainted. He squatted down and stretched out his arm, brushing the ground.
The air generated by his palm blew the dust on the ground, but there was some dust that wasn't blown away.
"The leaf is gone." The Shaman said.
"Gone? When I took it out, the leaves looked like they had just been picked. They were green. "Shao Xuan was very surprised. But the Shaman said it was gone, so it was gone.
When they returned to the stone house, the Shaman asked Shao Xuan to stay alone.
"Do you know the movements of your fingers before you woke up?" The shaman asked.
"I don't. Shao Xuan shook his head. At that time, even if someone beat him to a pulp, he wouldn't feel it, much less the movement of a finger.
"You're tying a rope." The shaman's gaze was meaningful.
"Knot?"
"Yes." The Shaman told Shao Xuan about the history of knots and knots. These were all mentioned in the precious records left by the ancestors. Although the Shaman didn't know it very well, he could roughly guess it from those records.
"And the leaf you're holding is probably the 'longevity leaf'. It's said that it will never rot even after being buried." The Shaman said.
"Is there really a longevity leaf?" Shao Xuan was doubtful.
"It's not a rumor." The Shaman dipped his finger into the remaining gold powder on the wooden plate and said to Shao Xuan, "These are also powder made by the longevity tree where the longevity leaf is."
Shao Xuan didn't say anything. The Shaman didn't care whether he believed it or not. He continued, "It's said that a long time ago, leaves and shells were also tools used by the ancestors to pass down their legacies. Precious plants such as the longevity leaf were the messengers to record important legacies. Shao Xuan, do you know that in the past, the Shaman's legacies only had language and no words?
Even if words and pictures are popular now, there are still many legacies that don't use words and pictures. For example, I'll pass on some of the abilities to Gui Ze in the future. Such legacies, even if recorded with words and pictures, will be destroyed. They only exist once. When the receiver absorbs them, there will be no words for others to read in the world. Naturally, there won't be a second person who can obtain such legacies. "
"You mean that the longevity leaf is the legacy of a certain Shaman?" Shao Xuan asked.
"Yes."
"Between different tribes, because of totems and fire seeds, legacies should be isolated and rejected. But why wasn't I rejected?" Shao Xuan asked. He took a look at the leaf and fell down. And the one who completed his messenger's mission, the leaf that people said would never rot even after being buried, had already dispersed.
The Shaman couldn't answer. He didn't know many things and couldn't give an answer.
"So, I inherited the legacy of that leaf? I don't know what it was. I only saw a pair of hands holding a rope and tying knots. But they kept going around and never completed a knot. " Shao Xuan described the scene in his sea of consciousness, hoping to get some hints from the Shaman.
The Shaman stroked his beard. He had already pulled out two strands, but he still couldn't figure out what it was.
"Tomorrow, go to Gui Ze's place and ask her to teach you the knots." The Shaman said, "Before the appearance of words, knots were used to record things. After the appearance of words, stone bones and wood skin, the method of inheritance has always been changing. The ancient knots, in my opinion, are very mysterious. In ancient times, divination, contracts, memorials, and other things were all done using the knot method. "
"How can a few knots represent so many things?" Shao Xuan asked. But as soon as he said this, he wanted to slap himself.
Stupid! Of course, things related to the Shaman profession couldn't be explained by common sense. Even if they drew an egg, you couldn't think that it was really an egg, let alone a few knots.
Originally, he thought that what he saw now was already ancient. He didn't expect that there was something even more ancient.
However, Shao Xuan was really interested in knots. He wanted to understand what kind of message the leaf was trying to convey. The letters were all made of longevity leaves. How precious were the things that were sent on them?
The next day, Shao Xuan went to Gui Ze's medicine house.
The Shaman had already told Gui Ze about it. When she saw Shao Xuan, Gui Ze put down what she was doing and pointed to some animal skin rolls on the wooden table next to her. "That's what the Shaman gave you."
Shao Xuan opened the animal skin roll and looked at it. There were some pictures of ropes and knots on it, and there were some annotations in the current text next to them. The animal skin roll was still new. It was only a few years ago when it was made. It should have been copied from the ancient books of the ancestors when Gui Ze was learning the epilogue.
Gui Ze brought some straw ropes over. "I made these last winter. You can try it with these. It's more convenient."
"Thanks. When you make more straw ropes, let me know. I'll help." Shao Xuan took out a straw rope and looked at it. These straw ropes were smooth and didn't have so many burrs. Each one was about the same length, about the size of a baby's little finger. The toughness was also very suitable.
Gui Ze sat down and also took out a straw rope. Then, according to each picture on the animal skin roll, he told Shao Xuan how to make a knot and what kind of knot meant. Sometimes, knots that looked very similar had very different meanings. This was probably the knotting method used to transmit hidden messages.
Gui Ze taught Shao Xuan some very simple knots, which were the same as the ones drawn on the animal skin roll. When he finished learning all the knots on the animal skin roll, Shao Xuan could even type out a sentence with the rope.
Because it wasn't very difficult, and Shao Xuan had a good memory, after learning some skills, he let Gui Ze do her work. There were still a lot of herbs in the medicine house that needed to be dealt with. He just had to look at it slowly and try it step by step.
Gui Ze saw that Shao Xuan's work was going well, so he went back to continue pounding the herbs.
The alligator snapping turtle lying at the door moved its heavy body to another place. It closed its eyes and continued to bask in the sun.
Time passed little by little, and the animal skin roll on the left side of Shao Xuan's hand was getting fewer and fewer. When he finally tried everything recorded in it, Shao Xuan could roughly understand some simple conclusions. As for more complicated knots, the Shaman didn't give him any. Perhaps there were not many records about knots passed down in the tribe, so what the Shaman could tell him was limited.
There were still a lot of straw ropes brought by Gui Ze. Shao Xuan thought for a while and observed the line drawing in his mind. Soon, he entered that state again and looked at the knots that appeared on his hands.
Last time, he didn't understand anything. This time, Shao Xuan at least had some foundation. However, gradually, Shao Xuan realized that this was different from the conclusions he had just learned. Perhaps, it wanted to express another meaning.
According to the Shaman, knots were used in many aspects in ancient times. If one method didn't work, there were other methods. There were knots for divination, knots for contracts, and so on. Since it didn't look like an ordinary record, could it be a divination or something else?
Shao Xuan continued to observe the movements of the hands. When he got out of that state, he weakly moved his neck and felt that something was wrong with his hands. He looked down and found that his fingers were tied by the straw ropes.
He didn't know how the ropes were tied, but all ten of his fingers were tied by the straw ropes. Shao Xuan wanted to untie them, but he didn't know where to start. He could only slowly remove the straw ropes from his fingers.
When all the straw ropes in his hands were removed, the straw ropes had been twisted into a ball and couldn't be untied. Shao Xuan tied the straw ropes into a big knot and threw it to the alligator snapping turtle.
The alligator snapping turtle, who was basking in the sun, slowly opened its eyes and saw the straw rope next to it. It opened its mouth and bit it, slowly chewing.
Shao Xuan paused and recalled the movements of the hands he had just seen. He took another straw rope and continued.
Failure!
Failure again!
Failure again!
…
The straw ropes were twisted into messy straw balls that couldn't be untied and thrown to the alligator snapping turtle. No matter how fast Shao Xuan tied the rope, the turtle still maintained its original slow speed of chewing the straw ropes. Therefore, as Shao Xuan's speed became faster and faster, the messy straw balls next to the alligator snapping turtle also became more and more.
Gui Ze, who was grinding medicine, glanced at Shao Xuan from time to time and thought, "Isn't Shao Xuan very smart? How can he tie all his fingers with a knot? "
Shao Xuan only stopped when there were only about ten straw ropes left.
Wiping the sweat on his face, Shao Xuan walked out of the medicine house, exhausted. He would continue tomorrow. He didn't believe that the message sent by the bansui leaf could only produce a messy straw ball!
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