The baby's cries echoed through the sky.
The women who had been standing still hurriedly ran back and forth.
Several women knelt calmly before the altar, praying for their sisters and companions.
An elderly woman, adorned with numerous animal furs and teeth, emerged from the birthing room. She smiled and opened the door, letting the fresh sunlight and breeze stream into the inner room.
She said, "Everyone is safe."
The woman kneeling before the altar stood up joyfully. She called out, "Sister—," but was pulled back by the woman who had been praying with her. She smiled shyly, sat back down before the altar, and earnestly thanked her deity.
All my gratitude was poured out onto this stone and the myriad deities in the sky.
The woman then opened her eyes, took her companion's hand, and together they ran to the birthing room.
Their eldest sister was breastfeeding the tiny baby.
The women sat happily by their elder sister's bedside. They asked her many questions about pregnancy and childbirth, but before they could get an answer, the clan chief—the older woman—who had just entered, shooed them aside.
The clan chief brought over a large bowl of steaming hot milk soup.
The chieftain handed the bowl of hot milk soup to the eldest sister. The eldest sister, who had just given birth, gratefully accepted the soup and slowly drank it. Beside her, the chieftain took the baby crying from hunger into his arms and gently rocked and soothed it.
She had already soothed many babies in the tribe, and this child slowly fell asleep in her strong arms.
Sleepiness, before hunger could get in, put the child to sleep for a while.
The chieftain said, "It's a boy."
The eldest sister nodded: "What a pity, I thought it would be a girl."
The clan chief sighed. She said, "You already have two boys in your generation—do you want to keep them, or get rid of them according to tradition?"
The eldest sister hesitated for a moment.
She reached out and gently touched the child she had just been separated from. Although young, his features already showed signs of his father's.
She quickly withdrew her hand: "Please have the clan leader deal with it."
The eldest sister spoke calmly, as if the child had nothing to do with her: "If it's a girl, she can continue the bloodline of the clan... but boys are useless. They can't even hunt, and living is just a waste of food."
The clan chief nodded. She gently patted her eldest sister's head and whispered, "May the Mother Goddess bless you."
The eldest sister whispered, "May Mother Goddess bless you."
The clan chief then took the child and went outside.
The women who had been waiting at the foot of the bed squeezed back to their eldest sister's side after the clan leader left.
The lively one asked, "Why doesn't elder sister keep this child? It's just one more mouth to feed; you can raise him like a kitten or puppy."
The eldest sister smiled gently. She hugged her younger sisters affectionately and said, "But boys are ultimately useless."
Mentioning the boy, she spat again, laughing and cursing, "His father is useless too, he can't even father a daughter. Luckily, I saw how girly he was and even dated him for a while."
Her sisters were laughing with her.
The chieftain, carrying the child out of the house, nodded slightly to the women she met along the way. Holding the child, who was completely unaware of his future, she walked to the stone and reverently placed him on the altar.
The clan chief said, "May the Mother Goddess bless us, so that the next child will not be a boy."
She calmly lifted the sleeping child. He only opened his eyes to see the world for a few minutes, took a sip of milk, and was then lifted high in his sleep.
The chieftain threw him to his death on that rock.
The child's blood splattered onto the patterns on the bottom of the stone.
The chieftain calmly picked up his limp corpse. He was no longer a child who needed careful protection, but merely a blurry mass of flesh and blood covered by a layer of skin.
She buried the mass of flesh under a rock, alongside his other brothers whom he had never met.
Standing to the side, Ai Cao finally saw clearly what was carved in the blood-blurred area under the stone.
—Engraved with the words "seeking a daughter".
They want girls.
And this stone, which they considered a deity, was given to their girl as they wished.
After autumn, the eldest daughter's lively younger sister also found a lover. Her lover was a fair-skinned young man who only knew how to do needlework.
In their tribes and those around them, ownership of men belonged to the women.
She liked this man, so she went to ask the woman who had him.
Hearing that this man had impregnated many women with daughters, she discussed it with his former lover and traded a rabbit skin for him.
The young man then moved into her room.
After autumn, her belly grew as big as an inflated balloon.
Her sisters saw this and were delighted. Led by the clan chief, they took the strong women of the clan out hunting several times, bringing back large and small game to feed the women.
The woman's belly was so big that it was affecting her ability to walk.
But the clan chief insisted that she walk around every day and not stay in bed all the time. Even when she was lying down, she should turn over frequently to avoid getting sick from being too hot.
The woman would walk around the clan house every day. If she was feeling better, she would sit in front of the stone for a while, touching it and talking to it.
As spring drew to a close, the day she was about to give birth arrived.
She stood in the birthing room of the clan for half a day and gave birth to a bright-eyed baby girl.
The clan chief patted the baby girl's back, dislodging the water from her mouth; the baby girl then let out a loud cry.
The clan chief, now older than the previous year, smiled and placed the baby girl back in the woman's arms, then went out to fetch a bowl of hot milk soup. The woman, exhausted, looked at the tiny baby girl, and still unsure, pulled back the cloth covering her body to confirm her gender.
The woman finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She took the hot milk soup offered by the clan chief and slowly drank it all. Her sisters crowded together at the doorway, curiously watching the newborn, soft and cuddly little baby.
The chieftain stood up and said, "Thank you, Mother Goddess, this is a healthy baby girl."
The women crowding at the door cheered enthusiastically. They rushed into the house and surrounded the woman who had just given birth.
Ai Cao looked at her mother and her young self.
She was born into this small matriarchal clan and grew up here.
She became mugwort here.
Artemisia sighed slowly and said, "I remember this scene."
The ball of light bounced up and down excitedly in front of her: "Of course you'll remember this scene."
She remembered the peace and beauty before all of this happened, and the days when her mother, sisters, and chieftain were still alive.
The ball of light laughed loudly and said, "If you were given another chance, what would the world be like?"
Artemisia blinked.
The next instant, the scenery before her eyes became a blur of light and shadow.
The baby girl lying next to her mother let out an even louder cry.
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