The dancers in gorgeous costumes gradually surrounded them and were about to reach them.

Tan Muxing noticed the male dancer approaching. He looked at Chu Qianli hesitantly and said, "Then what about us..."

Before Tan Muxing could finish his words, he found Chu Qianli busy eating, and he couldn't help but feel suspicious.

The next second, the male dancer enthusiastically took Tan Muxing's arm, wanting to invite him to stand up and dance, ignoring Chu Qianli standing beside him.

Tan Muxing noticed that Chu Qianli, who was having her meal, was left behind. He suddenly realized what had happened and turned to look at her in disbelief. She was eating while stretching out her hand, waving to him privately.

Tan Muxing: “?” You’re selling it now?

Tan Muxing was dragged into the venue helplessly. His face turned red in public. He could only follow the male dancer stiffly and awkwardly, and slowly performed a set of white bear gymnastics, showing his endless helplessness in his heart.

Chu Qianli pretended to be intoxicated with the meal in order to avoid the group dance.

Unexpectedly, after the male dancer left, another female dancer stayed nearby. She stared at Chu Qianli with a smile, and it seemed that she wanted to stay there until the meal was over and was unwilling to leave for a while.

Chu Qianli worked hard and the female dancers stared at her intently.

Chu Qianli continued to eat and the female dancer continued to stare at her.

If the enemy doesn't move, I won't move either. Things have come to a standstill and have become like supervising a meal.

"Burp." Chu Qianli was the first to admit defeat. She put down the spoon and said in despair, "Go ahead and jump. The child can't eat anymore..."

The two female dancers smiled and pulled Chu Qianli in. They didn't force her to dance right away, but danced around her. They laughed and chatted around Chu Qianli, and handed her a drum to beat the rhythm, guiding her to sing and dance together.

Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing met again on the field. They hid secretly in the back, trying to slack off during the group dance.

Chu Qianli held the drum bell, shaking it mechanically, and said in a stiff voice: "The sister over here is too enthusiastic."

"Fortunately, no one knows us." Tan Muxing lowered his head.

The next second, flash lights started flashing nearby, and the staff member in charge of taking photos reminded them, "Be happy! We may need the photos for our article later!"

Chu Qianli, Tan Muxing: "..."

The grand group dance finally ended, and Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing fled back to their seats to enjoy the following singing and dancing session.

The singer on the stage wore a robe with mysterious totems, and he sang an incomprehensible ballad. His voice was simple, mellow, and passionate, singing about the rush of nature and life. Even if one did not understand the lyrics, one would still be deeply moved.

Sometimes the singing sounds like the wind, sometimes like the singing of birds, letting the sounds of all things linger in the ears.

Tan Muxing thought: "That part just now sounded like a wolf howling."

"Is this throat singing?" Pan Yicheng touched his chin, pondering the singer's technique.

Chu Qianli was silent for a moment when Pan Yicheng suddenly appeared. Then she asked, "Professor, where did you go just now?"

Pan Yicheng smiled and said, "Ah, I went out to answer a phone call. It's really noisy in here."

Seeing that he was flawless, Chu Qianli thought that he was cunning.

The song and dance performance was coming to an end. The dancers threw colorful beautiful rope knots to the guests, including some small handicrafts woven with colorful ropes. They threw them like flowers scattered by fairies, and then left the stage one after another from both sides.

Tan Muxing picked up a rope knot and studied it carefully, admiring the local rope-weaving skills.

Chu Qianli suddenly caught a glimpse of the colorful rope knots scattered on the ground. They were randomly tangled together, forming a twisted and strange pattern, which instantly attracted her attention.

After a moment, Chu Qianli looked around and asked, "Who threw the knot to us just now?"

"It looks like a female dancer." Tan Muxing pointed to the side and replied, "She went down from there."

Chu Qianli picked up the knot of rope on the ground. She exchanged a few words with Tan Muxing, and together they headed in the direction where the dancers were leaving.

Pan Yicheng noticed that they were getting up and moving around, and mistakenly thought that the children could not sit still, so he warned them, "Don't run out of the tent. I think it's almost over, so I'll be back soon."

The two of them answered honestly and ran to the exit. Behind the scenes, the dancers had not left yet, they were packing up, the scene was chaotic and noisy, with mixed incomprehensible languages.

Tan Muxing was stunned when he saw this and said helplessly, "I can't find it."

The dancers' costumes are similar, and it's impossible to tell who they are, which makes people dizzy and confused.

"When in doubt, use quantum mechanics." Chu Qianli made a divination on the spot and pointed out the direction of the person she was looking for. "It seems to be over there."

Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing walked around the crowd at the door and saw three or four female dancers in the corner. They were packing up their props quickly and were obviously startled when they saw the two dancers without dance costumes.

Chu Qianli was worried at first that he wouldn't be able to communicate with them, mainly because the backstage dancers spoke in a difficult local accent. Fortunately, they basically all understood Chinese.

Chu Qianli looked at one of them, gestured at her left arm, and said, "Your left arm seems to be injured."

"How do you know? It hurts a little lately." The female dancer was stunned when she heard that. She subconsciously touched the joint of her left arm, "But sometimes it doesn't hurt..."

The other dancers looked at Chu Qianli, then at the female dancer, and asked curiously, "Do you know each other?"

The female dancer shook her head hastily: "I don't know him."

"Where does it hurt? Did you have difficulty sleeping?" The others gently pressed the female dancer's joints. At first, nothing happened, but when they pressed one spot, the other person screamed.

The female dancer's face turned pale, and sweat broke out on her forehead: "No, it doesn't hurt that much normally, but you pressed it really hard just now!"

"But I didn't use any force? When did you get hurt?"

"I don't know. I felt it a little bit these past two days, but it didn't hurt when I moved around, so I didn't pay much attention to it. But the way you pressed on me was not good..."

It is normal for dancers to bump into things from time to time, and they don't take minor injuries or pains too seriously. However, if they are in so much pain that their faces turn pale, that is clearly not right.

Not long after, a medical staff member rushed over after hearing the news. She examined the female dancer and suggested that she go back with her for a detailed check-up. It seemed that the problem was not simple and it was not a simple collision.

Chu Qianli didn't know anything about medicine, so when she saw that someone was here to take care of the matter, she said hello to the female dancers and took Tan Muxing back to her seat.

Tan Muxing: "Did you discover her injury because you saw the knotted rope?"

Chu Qianli nodded: "This is just like tossing coins or fortune telling with bones, the essence remains the same. However, professional tools are more direct in interpretation, while this depends on the feeling, which is not always possible."

Everything can be included in the hexagram, but the divination practitioners are accustomed to using a complete hexagram-drawing system, mainly because they have accumulated more data and cases, and the accuracy will be higher. The predecessors planted the trees and the descendants will enjoy the shade. The more complete the system of divination is, the more it can attract more students.

When the two of them returned along the same route, they saw Pan Yicheng and Zhou Qu talking from a distance. They looked serious and seemed to be talking about serious matters.

When Zhou Qu saw Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing, he hesitated for a moment and said, "Don't follow them. It will be troublesome to go to the village when the time comes."

"I'll tell the religious association that the people they brought here should take a rest tomorrow."

Pan Yicheng didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "You just came here and made me a commander without any troops?"

"I don't know you guys, they are just making up the numbers, in the end it all depends on you." Zhou Qu frowned and said, "Old Pan, don't play the pig to eat the tiger again. You dither and don't go up yourself, and wait until others can't do it, then you find a chance to come up, and you're wasting my time!"

Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing listened in and understood the whole story. They would visit the villages along the railway with the guide tomorrow. Zhou Qu didn't want to bring too many people, so he asked Pan Yicheng to go with him and forbade him to slack off.

It seemed that Pan Yicheng often pretended to be weak and acted badly in the past, saying that he was not good enough and was very bad, but then he showed his skills at the critical moment, playing the feeling of reversal.

Zhou Qu was most annoyed by his flashy moves in the early stages, so this time he asked the other party to work hard from the beginning and not to bother with unnecessary things all the time.

Chu Qianli approached Tan Muxing and whispered, "It seems that Professor Pan often slips away while dancing. Even his colleagues are worried about him."

Tan Muxing: "...Is this the wisdom of adults?"

When Pan Yicheng was questioned by Zhou Qu, he cried out that he was wronged and said, "Old Zhou, please don't accuse others. I selected the people carefully. At least let me take them with me. The people in our team are not just there to make up the numbers!"

Zhou Qu looked at the two high school students with a suspicious look on his face, and asked bluntly: "What's the point of them going there?"

Pan Yicheng spoke for the two and said hurriedly: "Don't underestimate the young students..."

Chu Qianli still remembered Professor Pan selling out his teammates. She nodded obediently and said crisply, "It's useless. We are just making up the numbers. Just bring Professor Pan with you."

Pan Yicheng: “!!?” Shouldn’t you stand up and slap someone in the face when they look down on you? Why are you just lying down?

Chu Qianli is not stupid. She is not annoyed by being underestimated by Zhou Qu. Anyway, she will not go even if the other party says that the people the religious association is looking for will go. She thinks that tomorrow's work will not need so many people. It doesn't matter if she just slacks off for a day, which can reduce the possibility of being exploited in disguise.

Pan Yicheng didn't expect the two to be so patient and have no intention of proving themselves. He simply had no words to express his grievances.

Pan Yicheng looked at Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing, and he followed suit, arguing: "Don't play the pig to eat the tiger game with me. You dither and don't come up until others can't do it, and then you look for an opportunity to come up. You're wasting my time!"

Zhou Qu: “…”

Zhou Qu and Chu Qianli formed a united front, both thinking that it would be enough to just take Professor Pan with them, leaving Pan Yicheng trying to fight back, while Tan Muxing tried to persuade them to reconcile.

At this time, many indigenous people in ethnic costumes poured into the yurt. They had dark skin and bright clothes, and looked different from the dancers. They looked tentatively around among the people in the tent.

The local leader quickly stood up to greet them. He talked to them with a smile on his face, and soon found Zhou Qu and others.

Zhou Qu was just here to work on the project and was not part of the local team. He was confused after hearing what was said and asked, "What do you mean?"

"They heard that you had brought a shaman with you, so they wanted to come over to see him and say hello to him."

"What shaman?"

"This is a local culture, a bit like witch doctors. If you must translate it, shamans are similar to wise men in the tribe, and they are messengers between people and gods, and between people and heaven and earth." After listening to the aborigines' explanation, the man translated, "They have never seen a shaman before."

Zhou Qu looked surprised: "They haven't even seen it, but they said we brought it?"

The next moment, someone recognized Chu Qianli next to them, and they surrounded her with a shout, and began singing and dancing around her, catching everyone around them off guard!

Chu Qianli looked panicked. She tried desperately to shrink behind Tan Muxing and screamed, "Help! Stop dancing! Stop dancing! Are you going to pull me up again?"

Chu Qianli has a psychological shadow on group dancing. If she is invited to dance alone, she will probably run away.

Fortunately, the enthusiastic natives did not invite Chu Qianli to sing and dance again. They sang incomprehensible songs loudly, which attracted surprised looks from everyone in the tent. Finally, they presented her with a shaman mask with rough patterns and bright colors, decorated with beautiful colorful tassels.

Chu Qianli held the shamanic mask in her hands, at a loss, and allowed the natives to cover her with a complicated robe.

The people performed the ceremony with singing and dancing, and Zhou Qu also understood the situation.

The local leaders learned about it and said that Chu Qianli was able to point out the illness of others before they even touched them, which was exactly the same as the ability of shamans in previous records. Shamans mainly engage in exorcism, fortune-telling, rainmaking, and healing, and guide people in the tribe to engage in agricultural production. They are highly respected in the clan.

After hearing the explanation, Zhou Qu instantly understood what shamanism was. He looked at Pan Yicheng in disbelief and said righteously, "As an expert in the project, how can you take the lead in superstition!?"

Pan Yicheng was shocked: "What do you mean by leading the way in superstition? It's obvious that they started it first. We were sitting here quietly, and then these people rushed in!"

The expert advisory group behaved themselves and did not even leave the yurt, but were instantly surrounded by locals.

Zhou Qu pointed at the people singing and dancing and said loudly, "You said you are not superstitious, then what are you doing?"

What he didn't say was that it felt like he was performing a shaman act in public, which really didn't look right.

Pan Yicheng fell into deep thought and analyzed seriously: "This should be a traditional drama and dance art, where the aborigines express their welcome to the guests from afar..."

"They also said she was a shaman!" Zhou Qu felt perfunctory and retorted, "Even if it is a traditional dance, why do they only dance around her and ignore others?"

The gang also put a shamanic mask on her, which was really suspicious and obviously had other reasons.

Pan Yicheng looked calm and spoke calmly: "It is said that shamanic dance originated from the primitive matriarchal society. It is not unusual to choose the only little girl. What's so surprising about it? Old Zhou, you will understand if you read more books. It's really not a big deal."

Pan Yicheng was calm and composed. He spoke fluently about local customs and insisted that it was a welcome surprise prepared by the indigenous people.

Zhou Qu: “???” You’ve read sage books for so many years, only to talk nonsense at this moment?