Chapter 61 Gong Jie III

　　—Forgetting may be a medicine that cures “hatred.” Yet when the mist disperses and the day of truth is revealed, better to choose how to face it than to choose forgetting.

　　After the embassy party entered the grassland they first rested a while; only after both men and camelhorses had eaten and drunk their fill did they again set out upon the road.

　　Before long they entered a great grassland of dense growth. The western side of this grassland approached a great mountain; the green grass upon the grassland grew wildly. When the camelhorses stepped among the grass one could from time to time hear a cracking sound.

　　Gong Jie looked carefully; within the grass were one skeleton after another!

　　“Uncle Ji—what is this upon the ground? Why are skeletons everywhere?”

　　“Ah, Second Miss—this is precisely the heartbreaking place of our Gongyou Clan hunters: the battlefield of the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland of that year. Old Wu never took part in the RoeDeer battle, yet I personally experienced that tragic war.”

　　“What? Uncle Ji, you took part in the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland? I heard my father say that in that great battle seven or eight of every ten of our hunters died or were wounded.”

　　“Correct. Almost all the elite of our hunters were buried upon this heartbreaking grassland—including my two younger brothers.”

　　“What? Your two younger brothers also died here?”

　　Ji Mazi fell silent once more. Coming again to this heartbreaking place was like sprinkling salt upon a wound that was about to heal; the painful memories that had already been forgotten once more floated into his mind.

　　At that moment the embassy party halted.

　　Gong Jie heard the orderly’s voice: “The Great Chieftain orders all to dismount from their camelhorses, form ranks, and pay silent tribute to the Yellow Clan Celestial Gods and to the officers and men of our clan who fell in battle!”

　　The column formed two ranks; Gong Jie stood beside Ji Mazi, both at the rear of the column.

　　She saw that several dozen meters away the column of the FireWorship Clan was also standing in ranks paying silent tribute; her father Gongdian and Young Master Lian Shan of the FireWorship Clan stood solemnly at the very front of their respective columns.

　　At that moment, beneath a distant tree, soldiers were mixing mud; other soldiers were gathering stones from the surroundings. Before long a sacrificial earthen platform of yellow earth had been raised.

　　“I never expected this tree to have grown so large. I remember clearly—at that time it was still a small sapling; the blood of our clan’s celestial gods fell beneath this small tree.” Ji Mazi gazed at the distant tree.

　　Great Chieftain Gongdian placed the head of the strange bird that had attacked them the previous night squarely in the center of the sacrificial platform; then upon the left side of the platform he arranged long spears, long swords, quivers, great bows, shields and other weapons; upon the right side he placed wooden bowls filled with grain, wooden forks, and leather bags filled with wine.

　　Several Gongyou soldiers began to play musical instruments; the melody was so desolate and mournful.

　　When the music ended Gong Jie, standing at the rear of the column, intermittently heard her father’s, the Great Chieftain’s, sacrificial words:

　　…

　　In that dark place of the underworld,

　　the Yellow Clan Celestial Gods provide light for you.

　　If there were no Yellow Clan Celestial Gods,

　　before your souls there would be no light.

　　…

　　May your spirits in the underworld be joyful.

　　May your hearts forever be at peace.

　　A breeze arose; the green grass upon the grassland bent slightly, as though paying respect to the departed Yellow Clan Celestial Gods and the ancestors of the Gongyou Clan.

　　Among the hunters paying silent tribute some shed silent tears. Gong Jie turned her face and saw that Ji Mazi’s eyes also held tears.

　　In the neighboring column Young Master Lian Shan was also offering sacrifice to their departed Black Clan Celestial Gods and the Horse People of the FireWorship Clan.

　　After the sacrificial ceremony ended the two clans began to gather the remains upon the ground.

　　The RoeDeer battle of that year had been fought with extreme ferocity; both sides suffered seven or eight deaths or wounds out of every ten, so that at the end neither side had the strength to clear the battlefield.

　　The Great Chieftains of both the Gongyou and FireWorship Clans had died in that battle; the remaining humans fled in panic back to their respective cities, like wounded beasts hiding in dark corners, licking their bleeding wounds and eking out a miserable existence.

　　Only many years later did the two great human clans slowly recover their vital energy.

　　This place had become a heartbreaking ground for both clans. So many years after the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland no human had ever returned to the battlefield of that year to clear the remains of their own kind.

　　Now the two great human clans, having recovered their vital energy, revisited the old place, returned once more to the battlefield where they had fought in blood, sorted the scattered bones upon the ground by category, and buried them underground.

　　Gong Jie discovered that apart from the skeletons of humans and of the horned BullHeads there were also scattered many skeletons of unknown living beings; some of the skeletons were so huge that they were fully two or three times the size of ordinary humans.

　　She thought to herself: “Could the bedtime stories my wetnurse told when I was small all be true? Does this world truly possess a Giant Clan?”

　　The moment she recalled those bedtime stories her scalp tingled. For in those stories the Giant Clan was always depicted as beasts who drank blood and ate raw human flesh.

　　After the sacrificial ceremony ended the embassy party turned eastward and advanced toward Junma City.

　　Gong Jie and Ji Mazi rode side by side.

　　When Gong Jie was small, before sleeping she always pestered her wetnurse to tell stories, and the stories the wetnurse told mostly concerned the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland.

　　In that campaign such terrifying tales as the EagleGod Clan’s scythescepters cutting off human heads as easily as chopping vegetables, or the Giant Clan’s huge clubs smashing humans into pulp and then eating them raw… often frightened the little girl into nightmares at night.

　　“The Giant Clan specializes in eating disobedient children. Little one, if you still do not go to sleep the Giant Clan will stretch its two great hands in through the window of the treehouse, seize you, and swallow you alive!” At the end of the story the wetnurse always used this sentence to frighten her.

　　Strangely, her father Gongdian had never told her the story of the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland. Few who returned alive from that great battle remained; Gong Jie had no way to inquire further. Therefore what she knew of the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland was limited only to the stories of her childhood.

　　When she heard Ji Mazi say he had taken part in the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland her interest was immediately aroused.

　　Gong Jie’s temperament was precisely like that—carefree and thoughtless. The events inside Fumu Forest had already been turned over; she had returned to her original carefree state.

　　Yet at that moment Ji Mazi’s state was precisely the opposite of Gong Jie’s. Ever since the sacrificial ceremony ended he had worn a gloomy face all along the road and spoken little.

　　Gong Jie inquired of Ji Mazi several times about the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland; Ji Mazi always ignored her.

　　In the end Gong Jie could bear it no longer and deliberately provoked him: “Uncle Ji, either you are boasting like Old Wu, or you did indeed take part in the RoeDeer battle—yet you must have wet yourself in fear upon the battlefield and fainted from fright, so that you no longer remember the events of that year.”

　　“Wet myself in fear? Fainted from fright? Every one of our hunters has experienced a hundred battles—how could we fear war?”

　　“Then tell me what exactly happened that year in the great decisive battle of the RoeDeer Grassland.”

　　“Second Miss, the scenes of the RoeDeer battle are something our clan’s hunters have heard from childhood from the adults. You are the daughter of the Great Chieftain; you must certainly have heard the detailed circumstances from the Great Chieftain. Do you still need to ask me?”

　　“That great battle seems a nightmare to my father; he has never spoken of the RoeDeer battle before me. I have only heard a few bedtime stories from my wetnurse.”

　　“Then what do you wish to know?”

　　“Just now I carefully observed the place where the RoeDeer battle occurred. Apart from the SnowWolf Mountains on the left the field of vision is excellent and the terrain open. Why was this place chosen for the final decisive battle?”

　　“Moreover I have heard that our strength was originally inferior to that of the Green Clan—why did we not choose advantageous terrain for the decisive battle?”

　　“Second Miss, though you are not large, your eye has unique insight. This is also a question I have not been able to understand for so many years.” Seeing that he truly could not refuse Gong Jie, Ji Mazi decided to tell her some of the past events of that year.

　　“What do you mean?”

　　“The War of the Gods was after all a battle among the celestial gods; we, the children of the celestial gods, were only supporting roles. That year the celestial gods had a tacit understanding never to interfere in the battles among us children—a conventional rule of mutual nonassistance called the Law of NonInterference.”

　　“The situation at that time was extremely chaotic. In the sky the celestial gods fought among themselves; upon the ground we fought among ourselves. The opponents of the two sides were different and the battlefields interlocked like dog’s teeth.” Ji Mazi’s thoughts returned once more to the bloody and stormy battlefield of that year.

　　“Before the RoeDeer battle we rarely fought the Green Clan together with our clan’s celestial gods upon the same ground. Our Great Chieftain—that is, your grandfather Gong Chang—led us hunters and always avoided frontal decisive battles with the Wild Bull People, instead employing flexible tactics such as surprise attacks, and almost won every war.”

　　“Uncle Ji, from childhood I heard that Grandfather was skilled in warfare and was called the God of War. Then why in the end did the celestial gods gather us humans upon the RoeDeer Grassland and fight a decisive battle of greatly unequal strength against the Green Clan, causing my grandfather to die upon the field?”

　　“Second Miss, listen to me slowly. Before the RoeDeer battle the Great Chieftain told us that the Yellow Clan Celestial Gods, unable to bear the suffering of the living beings of the world, together with the Black Clan Celestial Gods, accepted the invitation of the Green Clan Celestial Gods and decided to lead us to the RoeDeer Grassland to negotiate with the Green Clan in order to end the war.”

　　“At that time we were especially happy upon hearing this, thinking the war was about to end and we could return alive to the clan. At that time everyone went in high spirits with the feeling that the war was ending—yet little did we expect that what awaited us was a uniquely tragic decisive battle.”

　　“You mean this was a conspiracy.”

　　“Correct—this was absolutely a conspiracy. From here one more day’s journey forward one can reach the Mouth of the Three Realms. The Mouth of the Three Realms is the place where the territories of the Green Clan, the Dwarf Clan and the human race meet, lying to the west of the Nine Peaks Mountains; it is an important passage connecting north and south.”

　　“Just as Second Miss said, from the Mouth of the Three Realms to this place is an open plain. Our strength was originally inferior to that of the Wild Bull People and the BirdHeaded People; if we were to choose a decisive battle we would never choose such a place.”

　　“We went with the wish for peace. After arriving, for reasons unknown, the two sides suddenly turned hostile and began the decisive battle; we hunters were not even psychologically prepared. Thinking back now, at that time we had entered a trap long prepared by the Green Clan.”

　　“Uncle Ji, from childhood I heard that our clan’s celestial gods possess the ability to understand everything and foresee the future. If this was a trap of the Green Clan, how could our clan’s celestial gods fail to see it?”

　　Ji Mazi frowned tightly: “This too is something I have pondered a hundred times without understanding. What exactly happened in the midst of it? After so many years of bitter thought I still cannot find the answer.”

　　“At that time what were you and your two younger brothers doing in the army?”

　　“At that time we were also in the cooks’ squad. The battle broke out very suddenly; we three brothers at that time had no weapons in our hands and could only pick up weapons from the ground and fight the Green Clan’s claws that came killing toward us.”

　　When he reached this point Ji Mazi’s face suddenly became ferocious and terrifying: “Unfortunately my two pitiful younger brothers had already followed the celestial gods to the underworld, yet I still live…”

　　Then he suddenly stopped and once more fell silent; he was no longer willing to recall the painful experiences of that year.

　　That had been a rare great decisive battle in the history of the continent of Mu; the ferocity of the war made the survivors unwilling to speak of it even many years later.

　　Seeing Ji Mazi’s expression Gong Jie knew he was unwilling to continue and therefore ceased the topic.

　　Gong Jie belonged to the generation born after the RoeDeer battle; the sufferings of war experienced by Ji Mazi’s generation were things she had never personally felt. She also could not feel what changes the Gongyou Clan had undergone before and after the RoeDeer battle.