Chapter 49
Monks' figure soon disappeared, and in the dense forest, the white reindeer appeared again in the distance, guiding them in the direction.
But the reindeer's shadow only appeared for a moment and then disappeared again.
However, the four people realized that they no longer needed the reindeer to guide them.
Deep in the dense forest, a gathering place of the Tree God Tribe surrounded by a huge wooden fence is now in sight.
The pointed-roof wooden houses are scattered inside the fence, like the homes of elves in fairy tales.
That is a huluozi, built with birch bark, animal skin and wood, the most classic ethnic building of the Tree God Tribe.
The four people, wearing Zheng Qiuji's indecent look, carefully sneaked into the gathering place of the Tree God Tribe.
"Sister Am!"
As soon as she entered the gathering place, little Una seemed to have seen something and rushed towards a location in the snow with difficulty.
Several high school students hurriedly caught up, only to discover that behind a pile of firewood at the back, there was a little girl who was only a few years older than little Una, and looked to be just over ten years old. She was trying her best to shrink herself behind the pile of firewood, and her whole body was trembling.
Zheng Qiuji quickly withdrew the words "Do not look at what is not appropriate" so that Xiao Una and her companions could appear in front of the girl in time so as not to scare her again.
"Oona-chan!"
The girl called Amu hugged little Una who ran over to her in surprise and looked like she was about to cry.
"I thought, I thought you were..."
Her voice trembled, as if she was frightened.
She tried her best and dealt with those lunatics carefully before she finally escaped from the doomsday-like scene. She hid in the firewood pile behind the shed and stayed in the snow for several hours.
Little Una's father, the previous chief of the tribe, was the girl's benefactor, so she frantically searched for little Una's whereabouts, risking being discovered by outsiders, but in the end found nothing.
Originally, we thought that the missing little Una must have been captured by those lunatics to carry out their crazy plan to blaspheme the tree god. Unexpectedly... Little Una actually escaped and brought four boys who also had the aura of a messenger of God.
"Thank you, thank you very much, Messenger of Alinbai Nacha (Messenger of the Mountains)..."
The girl was shaking with fear, but even though she didn't have the strange abilities of the messengers, she could feel that the four boys in front of her had no ill intentions at all.
Eyes that have not been illuminated by the fire, such as the outsider who calls himself the middleman and their companions, are like corners in the forest where the sun does not reach.
But these young men were different, they just stood there, their expressions of concern and pity did not lie.
"You're welcome, you're welcome... This is what our CPAs are supposed to do... Yeah."
Gu Qingming was frightened by the girl's sudden thanks, and hurriedly and awkwardly said that this was what they should do.
"By the way...what does Alin Bainacha mean?"
Luo Dong looked at Gu Qingming's panic and felt that time flies so fast that it turned a community warrior into a socially anxious person. He turned to look at Chu Zhongyuan, the only person who might understand a little bit of the language of the Tree God Tribe, and asked his questions.
"Hmm... maybe a messenger from the mountain or something like that?"
Chu Zhongyuan touched his nose. Judging from the vague memories of childhood, combined with the knowledge of folklore and mystery in CPA, the messenger of the mountain generally refers to the messenger between humans and gods, who has the special ability to pray to the gods, helping the tree god tribe to eliminate disasters and diseases, and eliminate evil spirits. It is a name for people with special abilities in ancient tribal clans.
Am felt the same aura from them as from the Grand Priest, so he mistakenly thought that they were the same as the Grand Priest, the messengers of God.
No matter how amazing her abilities were, little Una, who had been trying to suppress her fear all along the way, was only a child of five or six years old. Now that she finally met someone she knew, she threw herself into Am's arms without saying a word.
Zheng Qiuji looked around and added "Do not look at what is inappropriate, do not listen to what is inappropriate", which enveloped everyone.
"Am, after you calm down, can I ask you what happened here?"
Chu Zhongyuan noticed something strange about the gathering place as soon as he was outside. It was as quiet as the village at the foot of the mountain. All the lights were turned off and there was no sign of any night watchmen.
Gu Qingming carefully released a wind snake, which circled in the gathering place and quickly came back.
There was no life in it, just like the village at the foot of the mountain, silent as a dead place.
There was no one else in this gathering place except them.
"Huh... I'll try my best to tell you exactly what happened."
Am took a deep breath. She had heard about CPA from the Priest Grandpa. It was an organization in the East C that specialized in dealing with problems caused by people who possessed the same special powers as the Priest Grandpa. She knew that their purpose was to fight against those crazy outsiders.
Am had met the CPA specialist who had come to the designated location before. Although the old man was nearly seventy years old, his eyes were pure and bright, and he had a kindness as clear and bright as the morning dew in spring.
Little Una was not there at that time. Perhaps because he saw her sitting alone behind the shed, staring at the firewood in a daze, the old man deliberately pinched out the cigarette in his hand, put it in his pipe, coughed twice, and handed her a beautifully bound geography book.
"Little girl, you should be old enough to study. Look, this book is much better than those firewoods."
Am looked at those exquisite pictures that could only be seen in the bookstore in town. She held her breath and even forgot to say thank you.
From then on, the old man often brought her various books when he went up the mountain.
Eminem, who has lived in the mountains for a long time, gradually realized that perhaps the world is not just about forests and mountains, but also about the aurora, the starry sky, and the eternally warm islands.
It turns out that I live on such a shining planet.
Am thought.
It was from then on that she developed her interest and curiosity in "going to school".
She told the old man about her dream, but he just smiled and said nothing. The next day, he took her to meet the town's elementary school admissions teacher. From then on, she opened the door to a wider world.
Although she never saw the old man again after that, she was willing to believe because of him:
CPAs are trustworthy people.
Eminem told the story slowly, without any hesitation, about everything that had happened before.
The Tree God Tribe is a living relic of an ancient civilization that has been engaged in nomadic hunting deep in the woods. Under the leadership of the Tree God Priest, the entire tribe lives an isolated life. Only during a fixed time period each year will they exchange some supplies with the villages at the foot of the mountain to ensure the continuation of their lives.
Am usually lives at the foot of the mountain for his studies. He came up the mountain to visit little Una during the winter vacation to reminisce about the past, but he ran into an accident: not long ago, the tribal chief and his wife and Ungina's brother Ulig went deep into the forest to look for the lost white reindeer King Maru and disappeared. No matter how the priest grandfather talked to the tree god, he could not find their whereabouts.
The snow was so heavy. The chief and his wife and Ulig were just ordinary people who had not received God's blessing. The tribal members talked about it and thought that the two missing people might be in great danger. No one dared to tell the young Una the truth. They only told her that her father, mother and brother had gone to a very far place.
When the tribe was at a loss, a foreign guest wearing a white mask smiled and said that he had a solution.
The skeptical priest and the guest who claimed to be a middleman went deep into the jungle, but they actually brought back the pale-faced Ulig and King Maru. The former even obtained the power given by God in desperation.
The tribal members regarded the middleman as a benefactor, but they didn't know that this was the beginning of all the strange events.
The middleman is not a good person, his target is the tree god sleeping deep in the forest.
He controlled the priests through unknown means, and Ulig became his accomplice. The people in the village were devoured bit by bit without knowing it, until tonight, when they became puppets that had lost their self-awareness and were afraid of the light. Under his control, they walked towards the depths of the forest.
Am still remembers the horrific scene at the gathering place not long ago.
I was woken up by the strange sound of drums, which suddenly sounded like the low hum of a ghost in the dead of night.
The drum sounds surrounded the gathering place, but they came from far away and seemed hazy and ethereal.
Although Am felt strange, the wind and snow outside were too cold. She thought for a moment and finally chose to sit back on the bed, trying to avoid it all by passively sleeping.
Until... she, who had been unable to fall asleep, realized that the sound of drums was getting closer and closer, and finally stopped outside the tent.
The sound of footsteps on the snow came from outside the door, and the crackling sound of the thick snow being compressed continued in the gathering place, accompanied by the sound of drums.
Am, who was in extreme fear, turned off the lights and hid in the cupboard. She covered her mouth tightly and dared not make any sound.
Through the gap in the cupboard, she could vaguely see a pale-faced person walking stiffly into her house and looking around as if looking for her.
Weird, branch-like lines crawled up his body and onto his neck, like hideous scars, pulsating slightly at a certain frequency, becoming more and more three-dimensional, like branches that were about to break out of the skin of the body.
Am had seen that man before. He was a butcher from the village at the foot of the mountain. He loved children the most. Last time when Am came home from school, he gave her a whole bag of delicious candies and asked her to share them with other children in the school.
But now... the usual gentleness on that person's face was gone, only uncontrollable ferocity remained.
Am forced himself to calm down. After the other party left the tent after an unsuccessful patrol, he found the right moment to rush out, hid behind the snow in the dense forest surrounding the gathering place, and quietly observed the situation in the gathering place.
She saw many residents at the foot of the mountain with branches growing on them walking into each hut drowsily, and then, amid the strange drum sounds that came one after another, they brought out tribesmen who also had branches growing on them, with unfocused eyes and gray faces.
At an unknown time, the tribesmen who seemed normal in the evening suddenly turned into monsters.
Am covered her mouth, she suddenly thought of little Una who was still imprisoned in the yurt by her brother, waiting for those who grew branches to line up in a long line. After walking stiffly into the dense forest in the opposite direction, she hurriedly avoided other possible gazes and lurked beside little Una's yurt.
She had promised little Una that she would not abandon her alone. Even such a strange scene could not stop Am from looking for little Una.
Fortunately, little Una was not injured and nothing happened.
Am hugged the little girl in his arms, feeling extremely relieved.
It’s really great that Una, the daughter of her benefactor and the sister she grew up with, is safe and sound.
"Middleman...definitely a middleman..."
The twisted smile of the outsider appeared in Am's mind. She grabbed the corner of Gu Qingming's clothes and became excited after realizing the problem.
"Since he came here, everyone has started to behave very strangely, including the priest. He even stopped praying as usual..."
Am's voice trembled violently, her fingers clutched her hair, and she moaned like crying.
"I should have warned them earlier... When that bastard first arrived, he was carrying a strange drum..."
Her language seemed upside down and confused under extreme emotions.
"Don't say that."
Gu Qingming squatted down and patted Am's shoulder.
"The most hateful ones are those middlemen who disregard morality and the law. You are already great. Even in such a strange situation, you did not forget to save little Una..."
The young man showed a clean and beautiful smile, with a soft curve at the corner of his mouth. He was covered in the moonlight reflected by the snow, and his whole body was the perfect example of gentleness, like a passing spring breeze.
“That’s really brave.”
Am finally couldn't hold it back. This sentence was like a spell that turned on a switch. In an instant, all the fear, grievances, and resentment burst out at this moment. She hugged Xiao Una, clenched her teeth, restrained her sobs, and suppressed them again.
"Eat a piece of candy, and everything will be fine."
Gu Qingming handed her a piece of beautifully packaged milk candy that she carried with her to replenish her energy. Am took it and wiped away her tears.
"Thank you... Thank you so much..."
She looked up, and through her tearful eyes, she met the boy's clear, bright eyes like spring light.
In the eyes of the Tree God Tribe, spring is a medicine that can best heal wounds.
What the grandfather said was right. CPA is indeed full of generous and kind people like Lin Ling.
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