Volume I

At noon in the middle of summer, the sky that should have been sunny was dark all day. Under the hexagonal altar nine miles outside Fengjing City, an old woman wearing a black bearskin smock and holding a flower-colored feather spirit crown slowly opened her eyes. The old woman whispered something to no one heard. After a long time, the old woman turned her head and nodded to a young woman behind her who was also dressed in the same attire, but in a bearskin coat of crimson. The young woman turned to a small group of knights on horseback and dogskin hats on the periphery of the altar and said, "The hour is right. ”

The cavalry turned and barge their horses and left in the direction of Fengjing. After a while, a brocade-clad two-horse carriage slowly drove in, followed by four middle-aged servants in front and behind, and the cavalry squad escorted the left and right. The old woman turned to the girl beside her and said, "Carry the princess to the center of the altar and lie down." The girl bit her lower lip and got into the carriage, and the servant woman grabbed the corner of the sheepskin quilt with a look of confusion and hatred, and walked half-lifted to the altar. The princess's lower abdomen in the sheepskin quilt was raised high, and she clenched her teeth under the sweat rain, but she still couldn't help moaning from her mouth and nose. On this dreary, silent afternoon, the rustling breeze swept far, far away.

Before taking the stage, the princess, who was already in pain, struggled to straighten up halfway, and a trace of sickly rosy appeared on her pale cheeks: "Mother-in-law, can you tell the truth, is my son still alive?" The old woman sighed and said, "A few days ago, I ordered someone to prepare for the opening of this shaman's altar. Toast water and fire with wine, toast mountains and forests with meat, and toast wind, rain, thunder and lightning, sun, moon and stars with livestock wine. If the gods don't bless me this time, I have no other way. After saying that, he straightened the feather crown in his hand, his eyes slowly swept across the gray sky, and a hoarse voice soared into the sky: "Please use the magic weapon." ”

The red-clad girl lifted several large and small boxes from the carriage and reached out to open them. The chest contained a Mani wheel, a parchment scroll, a wooden bird, a legal codex, and a brass scale. She placed the five objects on each of the five corners of the hexagonal altar, then took a necklace from her neck and placed it in the empty corner. The necklace is made of a number of colorful pebbles, with an oval stone the size of a pigeon's egg in the middle. This stone is black all over, and the skin is smooth and shiny, which is not ordinary. When he was done, he turned his head to look at the princess lying in the center of the altar. After a long time, he looked back and resolutely walked down the altar.

One of the thirteen cavalry members under the altar stepped out and glanced at the oncoming girl. The girl nodded. The man drew a shiny curved saber from the leather sheath at his waist and raised it to form a circle in the air. The other twelve horsemen scattered with their horses' heads dismissed, and did not see a minute of panic guarding the circle under the altar, during which there was not a sound, only the clattering of horseshoe. The man himself turned over and dismounted, and stood at the foot of the altar staircase with his rough right hand on the hilt of the sword, and shouted a song with his head up. The man's voice was rough and hoarse, absurd but fierce, swept up by the wind, and flew I don't know how far.

"I have chosen the morning light, and the clean offering is offered."

"The strong soju is mellow and fragrant, and the sweet rice wine is fragrant."

"The tree is fragrant with cotyledons, and a pair of rows are burned in front of the altar."

"Come out to the gods, and listen to my drum ring."

After singing a ballad, he held a knife flower in his right hand, and the saber that was originally carried upside down was flipped in an instant, and the blade rushed downward. He raised his hands in the air, and in his left hand, he grasped the graceful curve of the blade and swiped forward, the bright red liquid dripping and connecting into a downward line of blood, dotted in front of the steps of the altar.

The strong man completed his mission and retreated, and the old woman in the black bear skin cover took a cup and drank it all, wiped the corners of her mouth with her hand, pulled out a bloody streak, and then her eyes narrowed and she laughed loudly: "Rattle the bell and drum to open the way for all grandparents." Raising his hands and putting on the mask of the flower crown, he hunched his waist and lifted his hips, and walked towards the altar in a jumping posture. There wasn't a single bone on her body that wasn't wowling, and from behind, she looked like a living beast out of the forest. The girl also arranged her clothes and accessories, took the mask in her hand, turned her head and told the guard behind her: "For twelve hours from now on, no one or any living creature will be allowed to run up no matter what happens." Wait for my drums. ”

After speaking, his voice instantly changed from gloomy to joyful: "Come ~~~~ Hey."

The girl shook the string of bells tied around her limbs, held a bone drumstick in her left hand, and held a single drum in donkey skin with her right hand, dancing and laughing, and walked to the old woman in rhythm. The old woman took a round bronze mirror in her bosom, hummed a mantra in her mouth, turned the bronze mirror in her hand, and danced strangely and undisorderedly at her feet, pacing in a large circle around the pregnant woman lying flat in the center of the altar. The girl turns in a small circle centered on the old woman, although the activity space is smaller than that of the old woman, and there are strange dance steps on her feet, but the two cooperate perfectly and do not disturb each other's activity routes in the slightest. There is a hint of harmony in the absurdity.

One old and one young, jumped from noon to night. Each of the twelve guards around him raised a torch and illuminated the entire altar as bright as day. The chief of the guard stood on his own black bloodstains, his eyes fixed on the three shamans and princess-to-be on the stage. I saw that although the old woman had been dancing for nearly six hours, her movements were not chaotic and her breathing was steady, thinking that a glass of tiger blood wine before going on stage had a role. And the girl's footsteps staggered slightly, and the drum beat of the donkey skin in her hand and the single thunder drum sometimes mixed with a small half beat. As midnight drew near, the sky was pitchy black, and a cloud in the sky was slowly drifting towards the crescent moon.

At the same time that this cloud covered the moon, the old woman immediately stopped all the movements on her body, turned her head to look at the chief of the guard under the stage, and said urgently: "Go back and tell the second old lady that she will inherit the spirit name of the great shaman, but you thirteen shaman guards must follow the spirit smoke." After saying that, he pointed to the girl who was concentrating on rattling the bell and drum, and then raised his head, but saw that the clouds were already faintly showing a trace of dusk. The old woman immediately propped herself on the ground on all fours, crawled to the pregnant woman in the center of the altar like a big spider, raised the bronze mirror in her hand and threw it back to the girl's feet. The girl's body stiffened, put down the divine bone in her hand, and bent down to pick up the bronze mirror. She turned the protruding mirror outward, and the back of the bronze mirror was clasped in her hand, and the whole person stood still. The old woman squinted her eyes in her direction, then turned her head upwards and shouted with joy, "Grandma Moon is here!" The girl's wrist moved, and she rounded her arm and drew it towards the old woman's heavenly spirit cover, and there was a slight sound in the empty night, like a broken cocoon. The bronze mirror shattered silently, and the old woman lay motionless on the altar, lying side by side with the pregnant woman who had already fallen into a coma beside her. Strangely, there was not a trace of blood on her head.

The girl picked up her thunder drum and played it gently. As soon as the drum sounded, the old woman on the ground sat up straight, without the slightest bend of her body. The stiffness of the expression of the movement, after only a few breaths, turned back to natural, sat up cross-legged, and then reached out to take off the mask. The girl hurriedly knelt down a few steps and fell in front of the old woman's crossed legs, bowing her head and saying nothing. The old woman stroked the girl's green satin hair with her wrinkled and cracked right hand, and whispered something to the girl, sometimes laughing and sometimes scolding, sometimes with a look of love and pity, sometimes slapping and throwing the bow from side to side. Listening carefully, the old and the young were actually communicating in an extremely unfamiliar language.

After half a pillar of incense, the old woman no longer whispered, but looked at the person facing her with anticipation, and finally the girl had to nod her head vigorously. The old woman sighed softly, looked back at the pregnant woman who was still lying flat in the center of the altar, reached out and grabbed it in the void, then rounded her arm and slapped it the pregnant woman's high bulging belly. "Smack!" The pregnant woman, who had been unconscious, suddenly opened her eyes and opened her mouth wide, as if she was shouting, but no sound came from her throat, and her eyes quickly turned left and right a few times before she swallowed. The twelve guards in the audience, who were originally facing the outward station, turned around in unison, and the chief guard also clenched his cut left hand. The girl's eyes widened and she was about to speak, when the old woman reached out and brought out a baby boy from under the pregnant woman, who was no longer silent!

The baby boy was not noisy or noisy when he was born, and he looked at something left and right with a pair of big eyes, and his face was alert. The girl hurriedly rushed forward to take the baby and slapped the buttocks three times, and the baby boy only stretched out his small arms towards the buttocks, and found that he couldn't touch it, so he stopped. Then he looked back at the girl who beat him and spoke: "You...."As soon as the baby boy said the word 'you', the girl slapped the baby boy's little face: "Don't speak." ”

The girl heard a voice behind her and turned her head to see that it was the great shaman behind her. It turned out that when the baby boy in the hands of the great shaman was just picked up, she herself had already fainted on the ground. At this time, the great shaman actually stood up straight with trembling! Seeing that she had walked behind her, the girl quickly grabbed the baby boy with a surprised expression, wrapped it in the red bear skin cover on her body, and held the baby boy high above the top with both hands. Da Saman's face was full of love, and the wrinkles on his face were filled with joy one by one, and he murmured, "You, finally here." After saying that, a drop of scarlet blood dripped down the old woman's corolla and fell on the baby's mouth, and the big shaman reached out to pick up the baby, but he staggered a few steps weakly, and the corolla on his head also fell off, and his silver hair was dyed black and red. The blood quickly turned from a trickle to a trickling stream, and the great sa was covered with blood, and slapped it straight on the ground, and the blood meandered along the lines on the altar.

"Crackling", several hares on the firewood were burnt with brown skin, and a few drops of grease dripped down the rabbit's legs on the firewood. The two gods on the shaman's altar, the Lingyan Girl, wearing a Nankang Lin'an City Azure Picky Luo robe, sat on the grass with her knees crossed, looked at the rabbit on the firewood, and whispered to the chief of the guard beside her: "In fact, the cup of tiger blood wine of the great shaman's mother-in-law has already doomed the end of human death. The eldest mother-in-law knew the destiny of heaven early, so she would use her body as a matchmaker, and use the shaman bronze mirror she had raised all her life to open the spiritual platform and invite the gods into the palace. The head of the guard, Zigeqi, picked up the firewood and asked, "It was supposed to be the second old lady who was in charge of the two gods, why did she change to a young lady in the battle?" Qi Lingyan charmingly pulled a wisp of green silk hanging down her chin, and replied with a wry smile: "Dabao, Dabao, this one is, the second old lady is going to succeed the shaman and lead the clan; On both sides, the great shaman wants us to get out of here. After Lingyan finished speaking, he turned his head and looked at the little baby who was hanging vertically in the saddle side, and made a few grimaces with his tongue.

"Then let's go back and hand over the child to the second old lady and leave, I can protect you wherever you go anyway." Zigge first tore a rabbit leg and handed it to Lingyan, and then tore another and handed it to the brother on the other side. Qi Lingyan didn't speak, silently finished eating the roast rabbit leg in his hand, carefully licked the grease off his hands, then turned the fire twice, took out a cowhide kettle from his backpack, and walked to the body of the great shaman's mother-in-law leaning against the tree. Zigeqi ate his share of roast rabbit, and the spiritual smoke turned his back to himself and said to him: "The three-day suspension period under the sacred tree outside the city is over, and the second old lady will come to send the spirit at dawn tomorrow, in fact, we don't need to enter the city." After speaking, he paused: "Do you know why it is thirteen people?" Zigge shook his head. Lingyan smiled and said, "Because thirteen is the number beyond reincarnation." Zigge looked a little dumbfounded, even though the snoring of the twelve brothers sounded behind him, he only felt that it was very quiet in his ears.