Chapter 37 Jiang Er I

　　—Childhood homesickness is the embrace of one’s mother.

　　Jiang Er was the youngest closeddoor disciple of Great Master Tianyouzi.

　　He had been born in the Wolf Tribe of the Gongyou Clan and was a posthumous child.

　　Before his birth his father Jiang Sheng, a general of the Wolf Tribe, had died heroically in a battle of the War of the Gods.

　　After his father’s death his mother Chen Qing had hidden among the common people, given birth to him, and raised him with difficulty. Chen Qing’s luck had also been particularly good; during the years when Jiang Er was between three and six the lots for human sacrifice had never fallen upon them, and Jiang Er safely passed those three years.

　　The Wolf Tribe lay in the southeastern part of the Nanyu Forest; its city was called WolfLair City.

　　WolfLair City bordered the territory of the Centaur tribes of the continent of Mu. Every season when the crops ripened, the savage Centaur tribes would often slip into the forest to raid the harvests.

　　In the autumn of the year Jiang Er was eight, his mother Chen Qing took him with the gathering party of their community to work upon the farm.

　　This gathering party consisted of more than a hundred gatherers protected by roughly a hundred guards from WolfLair City.

　　The farms of the middle and lower strata were situated at the southernmost edge of the forest—the most dangerous place—yet for the sake of survival people had no choice but to exercise the utmost caution and go to collect grain for the winter.

　　It was a farm planted with maize.

　　Besides gathering certain natural fruits, the Gongyou Clan also cultivated maize within the forest.

　　People burned a stretch of trees and turned the cleared ground into arable land for farming. Rainfall in the forest was abundant and irrigation unnecessary; consequently the crops grew rapidly.

　　The maize of the continent of Mu had been specially improved by the celestial gods; therefore the stalks were particularly tall, some reaching three meters in height. Such tall maize stalks standing in dense ranks upon the ground resembled a maize forest.

　　Not only were the individual plants large, the yield was also great; a single stalk bore dozens of ears, and the produce of one or two stalks could supply a family with grain for several days.

　　He remembered that the day that year was overcast; the air was so oppressive that one could scarcely breathe. Toward noon the gathering party and the guards reached the farm.

　　The adults used knives to fell entire stretches of maize stalks; Jiang Er and several other children helped the adults drag the stalks to the wagons, where the adults loaded them and bound them with rope.

　　The maize could serve as human food; the crushed stalks could serve as winter fodder for the camelhorses.

　　The guards kept watch on all sides.

　　This season was the Centaurs’ season for raiding the harvests; therefore the entire gathering party was filled with tension and unease. Everyone worked as quickly as possible so that the hardwon maize might reach the tribe safely as soon as possible.

　　Before long the wagons were loaded with maize stalks, each piled as high as a twostory building and bound tightly with rope. Drawn by two camelhorses each, the column set out to return to the Wolf Tribe.

　　The return road was a green track through the forest, wide enough and leading to WolfLair City.

　　The gatherers sat atop the more than a dozen wagons laden with maize stalks; on either side rode the guards upon camelhorses. The procession advanced in a great body along the return road.

　　Little Jiang Er, having helped with the harvest for most of the day, felt tired. He spread his limbs in a great cross, lay upon the high pile of maize stalks, rested his head in his mother’s arms, halfclosed his eyes, and gazed at the gray sky.

　　The wagon swayed like a cradle; before long his upper and lower eyelids were fighting and he grew drowsy, falling into dream.

　　He dreamed that under the afterglow of the sun he sat upon the high swing before the house; his mother was pushing him. The swing flew high and higher, swinging back and forth; the air was filled with the fragrance of crops and laughter rippled around…

　　Everything was so beautiful; regrettably beautiful things are always brief.

　　Suddenly two blasts of a horn reached his ears, followed by a scream. He turned and saw his mother fall to the ground, an arrow planted in her breast, blood spreading upon the earth.

　　He cried “Ah!” and woke with a start from the dream.

　　The sky was still the same sky; his mother’s embrace was still so warm; nothing had changed. It had been only a dream. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

　　Still nestled in his mother’s arms after the false alarm, he was just feeling relieved when two continuous, short blasts of a horn suddenly sounded in his ears. This time the horn was certainly no illusion, for the wagons themselves had abruptly halted.

　　His mother had once told him that two continuous short blasts of the horn signaled an alert, indicating the appearance of danger. He sat up at once; his mother was also looking about uneasily.

　　The warriors of the guard on both sides spurred their camelhorses and raced toward the front of the column.

　　Jiang Er stood upon the high pile of maize stalks and looked forward. He saw heads bobbing and dust rising; the clash of blades and the successive roars of anger continually reached him.

　　At that moment the flash of weapons flickered in the woods on both sides; suddenly several arrows whistled toward them. His mother hurriedly pressed Jiang Er down upon the pile of stalks.

　　A few screams were heard. Jiang Er quietly crawled to the front of the pile and looked down; he discovered that the driver of the wagon had already been struck by an arrow and fallen.

　　Then several “camelhorses” burst from the woods on both sides of the road. Someone nearby cried in alarm: “Oh Heaven—it is those savage, faithless creatures!”

　　Jiang Er looked carefully; they were indeed not camelhorses but strange beings whose upper halves were human and lower halves camelhorse. These strange beings carried a great banner painted with a pattern resembling a horse’s hoof.

　　Jiang Er’s mother Chen Qing also saw the creatures and clasped Jiang Er tightly in her arms.

　　Jiang Er’s head was pressed tightly against his mother’s breast; he could clearly feel her body trembling.

　　After a while the wagons turned and headed south.

　　From within his mother’s embrace Jiang Er turned his head and saw a great host of these halfhuman, halfhorse creatures beside the wagons, long spears in hand, charging toward the rear of the column.

　　From the rear came the continuous whistling of arrows and the clash of weapons; the neighing of camelhorses, the battlecries of soldiers, and screams rose one after another until the sounds gradually faded into the distance and were no longer heard.

　　The wagons laden with maize stalks traveled steadily southward. The guards protecting them were no longer the human guards but those halfhuman, halfhorse creatures.

　　Only afterward did Jiang Er learn that these strange beings were another race of the continent of Mu—the Centaur Clan.

　　The gatherers were essentially women. The savagery and cruelty of the Centaurs were well known; in order not to suffer humiliation while still alive, women continually cut their own throats with knives atop the wagons; others stood upon the piles of maize stalks and threw themselves headfirst onto the rocks by the roadside, their brains dashed out and scattered upon the ground.

　　The bestial Centaur warriors by the roadside, seeing such scenes, regarded them as ordinary.

　　The human women upon the piles of maize stalks who dared not take their own lives wept without restraint; the sound of sobbing rose and fell, a scene of utter tragedy.

　　Upon the wagon where Jiang Er rode a young woman attempted to kill herself with a knife and was stopped by Chen Qing.

　　The woman cried: “Let me go—better to die early than live and be dishonored.”

　　Chen Qing grasped her hand and fixed her eyes upon her: “Please trust me—perhaps we still have a chance of rescue.”

　　Strangely, Chen Qing’s eyes were so clear and bright that they seemed to possess a magic of their own, giving confidence and strength; the woman’s agitation subsided considerably.

　　At that moment a bird circled in the sky. Chen Qing gazed at it for a long while; before long the bird flew southward.

　　The camelhorse column continued for a time and then suddenly halted.

　　Centaur soldiers climbed the piles of maize stalks from all sides, seized the humans and threw them to the ground, where other Centaur soldiers caught them and bound them.

　　It turned out that General Hali, who commanded this Centaur force, seeing the humans continually committing suicide, was rather annoyed. To prevent further deaths he ordered the Centaur soldiers to climb the piles and seize the people.

　　To digress: the southernmost part of the continent of Mu belonged to the Centaur tribes; the celestial gods they worshipped were the Gray Clan celestial gods.

　　During the War of the Gods the Gray Clan celestial gods of the south had allied with the Yellow and Black Clan celestial gods to resist the Green Clan together.

　　Yet when the decisive moment arrived the Gray Clan celestial gods and the Centaur Clan broke faith; the allied armies of the Yellow and Black Clan celestial gods and the humans waited in vain for the support of the Gray Clan gods and the Centaurs.

　　After the Yellow and Black Clan celestial gods fell, the Green Clan celestial gods did not spare the Gray Clan. In the end the Gray Clan gods were defeated and could only lead a remnant of Centaur forces, boarding Vimana and fleeing to Ice Star.

　　After the departure of the Gray Clan gods the Centaur tribes remaining upon Mu Star split. First the great general Gisbo overthrew the rule of the former Khan Soron and established himself as Khan.

　　Thereafter Left General Shisen led his own subordinates in revolt against the tribe ruled by Khan Gisbo and established the Shisen Tribe in the southeastern part of the ClovenHoof Plateau. Hali was one of Shisen’s subordinates.

　　The territory of the Shisen Tribe was small and could not achieve selfsufficiency in grain; therefore when the harvest season arrived they could only go north into the Nanyu Forest to raid the crops.

　　This time Hali, acting upon Shisen’s orders, had led more than three hundred elite troops into the forest to plunder the gathering party of the Wolf Tribe.

　　Only after being thrown to the ground did Jiang Er clearly see the appearance of the Centaurs. This was the first time he had seen members of the Centaur Clan, and it left him with a lifelong memory of pain.

　　The stature of the Centaurs far exceeded that of humans; they generally stood about 2.3 meters tall. Their upper bodies were human in form, with pointed ears and disheveled hair; from the waist downward they resembled camelhorses.

　　They wore clothing on the upper body but nothing on the lower; their lecherous eyes fixed upon the human women, many of whom turned their faces away.

　　Humans called the Centaurs evil, lustful beasts and faithless creatures.

　　The Centaur Clan was an extremely cruel and savage race. The only difference from wild beasts was that beasts cannot speak, whereas the Centaurs, like humans, were created by the celestial gods and spoke the same language.

　　The motto of the Centaur Clan was “the strong are honored; the weak are food.” They called humans “twolegged sheep” and, in times of scarcity, even ate human flesh.

　　After the humans had been thrown to the ground, General Hali, holding a wolftooth club, made the bound humans pass before him one by one.

　　Whenever he saw an elderly human woman or a male human whose height exceeded the height of a wagon wheel he immediately ordered his subordinates to drag the person forward.

　　Hali grinned as he looked at these terrified “twolegged sheep,” raised the wolftooth club, and smashed it down upon their skulls, dashing out their brains so that the corpses toppled to the ground. The bodies were thrown upon the piles of stalks to be eaten later.

　　A bloody, terrifying atmosphere enveloped the scene; many human women fainted on the spot, and those who wet themselves in terror were everywhere.

　　Hali and his subordinates, watching this group of terrified humans, laughed uproariously.

　　Jiang Er and his mother followed in the line of humans and slowly passed before Hali. Jiang Er trembled with fear and dared not raise his head; his height did not exceed the wagon wheel, and Hali waved him through.

　　His mother, behind Jiang Er, kept her head lowered and was about to pass silently before Hali’s eyes.

　　“Halt!” Hali shouted.