"Run, Yezi, run!"
"Listen to Mom, Yezi, the Mandala is blooming, and the era of glory is about to begin. That is the glory of the clan masters, but it is the doomsday of us rats. We are not qualified to fight for any glory. The only thing we can do is to survive, even if we are like real rats!"
"Yezi, my good brother, you are the smartest and most agile child in the village. When the storm comes, you can climb up the tallest Mandala tree to pick the fruit, and then, like a real leaf, you can ride the wind and jump to the ground unscathed. If there is any rat who can survive in the era of glory, it is you. You must carry everyone's hope and live!"
"Yezi, look, the Mandala tree is blooming. All the Mandala trees in the valley are blooming. It's so fragrant, so beautiful. I have never smelled such a wonderful smell, nor seen such a gorgeous scene. Yezi, can you take me to the highest point of the Mandala tree, and let's go swimming in the sea of flowers?"
"Yezi … Yezi … Yezi …"
Accompanied by the call.
In the almost frozen mind of the youth, a blurry light and shadow appeared.
First, it was Mom.
His mother was the best cook in the village. She baked Mandala fruit bread, fried Mandala fruit strips, stewed Mandala fruit with minced meat soup, and mixed fermented wild goat yogurt with Mandala fruit kernels … The dishes his mother made with Mandala fruit could not be finished in three days and three nights.
Yezi himself was the best at picking Mandala fruit in the village. Every day, he could pick the freshest and sweetest fruits that grew at the highest point of the cliff.
And Mom could cook these fruits into delicacies that even the clan masters had never tasted before. The fragrance could spread throughout the small mountain village!
Then, it was Brother.
Brother was the strongest youth in the village.
His body was at least twice the size of an ordinary rat person, his bronze-colored skin as if it was directly covered in a layer of metal absorbed by the datura roots. When he released a clear and bright laugh, it was as if thunder rumbled within his chest.
Once, when Yezi was picking Mandala fruit on the cliff, he met a group of clan masters who entered the mountain to look for totem beasts.
As a rat, of course, he didn't dare to face the masters. Instead, he curled up in the depths of the mandala tree's branches in fear.
However, he peeked through the gaps in the branches and felt that a few of the awe-inspiring Blood Hoof Clan masters were not as strong as his brother!
The last one was An Jia.
The prettiest girl in the village.
No, she was the prettiest of all the rat people.
No, she was probably the most beautiful of all the Turanians.
That day, Leaf and An Jia sat together on the tallest Devil's Snare Tree in their "secret base". They watched hundreds of Devil's Snare Trees blossom at the same time, near and far, as if a colorful and gorgeous sea of flowers were surging out of the cracks in the void and blooming especially for the two of them.
The spores that spewed out from the corolla were as beautiful as a dream.
Ye remembered that she and An Jia seemed to be drunk.
He was drunk in the fairy tale brewed by the juice of Datura.
She did a lot of things that she didn't dare to do when she was sober.
At that time, they were still too young.
He didn't know what the Datura Tree's blooming signified.
And he didn't know the truth of the so-called "Glory Era".
Leaf greedily captured the familiar sounds and beautiful images.
He wanted to sleep in his mother's warm arms for a while.
Or he could sleep forever.
But the piercing pain soon tore the voices and images lingering in his mind to pieces.
The sound of burning, shouting, screaming, and wild laughter entered his ears like iron claws deeply embedded in his bones, dragging him back to the cruel reality.
Leaf had a splitting headache.
He felt that someone had dug a hole in his forehead and set it on fire.
His whole skull swelled up, squeezing his eyes into two slits.
Something hot and sticky kept gushing out of the corners of his eyes, nostrils, ear canals, and throat. He couldn't and didn't dare to tell whether it was blood or something else.
"Leaf! Leaf! Leaf! "
Someone seemed to be calling him.
It was not an auditory hallucination. It was real and particularly harsh. An Jia's voice!
Leaf's eyes widened all of a sudden.
Ignoring the pain in his spine, which felt as if it had been broken by iron hooves, he straightened his back with difficulty.
Shaking his dizzy head hard, he looked around through the blood on his face, looking for An Jia's figure.
In the world soaked in blood, the familiar home of the past had disappeared.
What replaced it was a scene like a sea of fire from hell.
Yezi saw that every conical hut built with mandala trees in the village was burning.
Hundreds of pitch-black pillars of smoke soared into the sky, forming a huge cage like an iron fence, trapping everyone inside.
His own hut on the outskirts of the village was the first victim set on fire by the invaders.
The beams and pillars had long collapsed due to the fire.
Even his mother, who was best at making roasted Datura fruit, fried Datura fruit, stewed Datura fruit, and mixed Datura fruit.
All of them had been burned into black smoke and ashes.
Leaf saw that the masters of the Bloody Hoof Clan — the Taurens, the Mammoth Men, the Wild Boar Men, and the Centaurs — were all wearing armor and holding weapons openly. They burned, killed, and looted the village as if there was no one there.
At such a close distance, Leaf could even smell the unique smell of oxen from the Tauren Warriors. The smell made his chest churn and he wanted to vomit.
Only then did he realize what was going on.
It turned out that the masters of the clan were so huge, had such exaggerated muscles, and had such strong killing intent. They were completely different from what he had seen from a distance in the deep mountains.
For the weak rat people, these masters of the clan who were born with the glorious bloodline were unstoppable gods and demons who had descended to the world.
Looking at their ease and leisurely strolling, it seemed that this was not a real slaughter at all, but just a boring game.
And all the rat people in the village were no match for them in the game.
They were just props in the game.
Leaf saw countless "props" lying on the ground in disorder.
They fell into a pool of their own blood.
Some of them died with their eyes wide open.
In their gradually dimming eyes, there was still a strong sense of confusion. Even in death, they did not understand what mistake they had made.
Didn't they always know their place and pay the Mandala tax to the Bloody Hoof Clan every year? Didn't they always know their place? Didn't they pay the Mandala tax to the Bloody Hoof Clan every year? Even if they wanted to collect the highest grade Holy Fruit, countless people would fall from the cliffs and die every year, and countless people would be swallowed by the forest and totem beasts. Even so, faced with the increasing tax every year, they never complained and did their best to complete it?
Why did the Blood Hoof Clan want to annihilate their harmless and obedient little village for no reason?
"Because the 'Glorious Era' is here."
When the Mandala flower bloomed, the old people in the village said worriedly.
But this "Era of Prosperity" lasted for too long.
According to Leaf's mother, this Prosperous Era lasted for ten handprints, which was a whole fifty years!
The last Glorious Era was already fifty years ago.
The rat people had always lived a precarious and unpredictable life. Few people could live for thirty or forty years in heavy and dangerous labor.
Even the oldest person in the village didn't have any impression of the last Glorious Era.
He was too old, so old that all his teeth had fallen out. He could only use a stone roller to grind the Mandala fruit into mud and lick it to eat.
A few years ago, he was stung by a poisonous bee and became a crazy old fool.
"The Glorious Era is here!
"The Glorious Era is here!
"The old masters of the clan will step on the piles of corpses of the rat people to obtain the supreme glory for the sacred ancestors!"
After the Mandala tree bloomed, the old fool danced at the entrance of the village all day long, laughing, jumping, and singing songs that no one could understand, and no one wanted to understand.
Leaf saw the old fool in the pile of corpses.
His face that was split in half still had a silly smile, as if he was destined to die.
There was also Tutu, his best friend.
He was also the strongest opponent.
Whether it was going into the river to catch Haloxylon, or climbing up the tallest Mandala tree to see who could pick the biggest Mandala fruit when the storm came.
Tutu was always a little bit away from Leaf.
"I'm too weak now, so I can only eat three Mandala fruits in one go.
"But wait and see. Next year, I'll definitely be able to eat five in one go.
"By then, I'll definitely become stronger than you!"
Tutu once said that to Leaf.
But now, his chest was deeply sunken, as if it had become the largest, deepest, and darkest cave in the "secret base" they had built together.
Tutu could no longer eat the Mandala fruit.
Finally, Leaf saw An Jia.
She was carried on the shoulder of a Bull-Headed Warrior, who was so huge that he couldn't even fit his armor. His upper body was bare, revealing his bulging muscles and hideous tattoos.
The Bull-Headed Warrior swaggered toward the pile of young and strong rat people who had been knocked out and tied up beside the raging flames.
Compared with the Bull-Headed Warrior of the Bloody Hoof Clan, An Jia, a rat person, was really like a little rat.
The Bull-Headed Warrior stretched out two fingers and gently pinched her. Her face turned pale, and she was almost suffocated, unable to struggle.
Even so, she summoned up the last bit of her strength and shouted at the top of her lungs,
"Run! Leaf! Run quickly! "
An Jia's cry made Ye's head buzz and let out a roar.
He felt as if he had been stung by 10,000 poisonous bees. His brain was on fire, and he couldn't think at all.
Since the Mandala flower bloomed, countless people had told him to run away.
"Run, Leaf, run quickly!" His mother said.
"Run, Leaf, run quickly!" His brother said.
"Run, Yezi, run quickly!" the crazy old fool said.
Now, even An Jia said so.
But where could he run to?
Looking around, he saw a sea of fire, pools of blood, corpses of rat people, and laughing Bloody Hoof Clan people everywhere.
The Glory Era had come.
He was like a rat crossing the street, with nowhere to run.
And he didn't want to run away at all!
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