Chapter 27.3 - Celebration

When Hua Yi saw this, he somehow suddenly laughed too. He raised the back of his hand and patted Chang An gently on the face, saying, “You should laugh more like this. Having a serious face all the time makes you look like a little old man. Come, I’ll take you out the play. Let the god sticks jump to their gods on their own.”

He dragged Chang An into the noisy crowd, where a group of young people were playing “Tiao Chai [1].” Four people were holding onto the ends of bamboo poles, and the dancers in the middle would have to follow the rhythm so that their feet won’t get caught [2]. Chang An had seen this when he was a child, and there was a vague impression. But who knew that he hadn’t had time to get a closer look when Hua Yi pushed him from behind and immediately into the middle of the bamboo poles.

When the girl holding the bamboo poles saw such a pretty and delicate-looking young man suddenly jumping in, she giddily eyed her companion and they deliberately sped up the opening and closing of the poles to clamp Chang An.

Chang An was like a large jumping sheep with no grace at all. He hopped around between the flashing bamboo poles, looking as if he were against some great enemy and under his feet was a fire pan.

Then, he lightly hopped onto the bamboo pole, held by the girl, landing on the tip of his toes. Before she could even sense him weighing down on the pole, he had quickly jumped out of the Tiao Chai formation.

The girl stood up and shouted: “Aiya, he ran away!”

“Catch him!”

Hua Yi laughed. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll get him back for you.”

Chang An was like a loach drilling through the crowd. Hua Yi rolled up his sleeves and, together with several other young men, charged in [3] to grab him. Chang An stepped on the fence of a stone house, then immediately jumped over the head of a young man. With both hands, he grabbed onto a stretched out branch, then climbed on top of it like a monkey. But someone in the distance, who knew who it was, was so bold and cunning. They lashed out a long chain and wound it around Chang An’s foot.

Chang An had to let go and fall to the ground. Before he could get on his feet, Hua Yi suddenly emerged from behind the big tree. He picked Chang An up from the ground with one hand, clutching him by the waist. He raised him up and made a gesture to throw him to the group of girls. “Catch him ah. I’ll throw him to you.”

The girls giggled, not at all afraid of Chang An flying in mid-air. Several people huddled together, looking ready to catch him. Hua Yi smiled and put Chang An on the ground, escorting him over–Such a big young man, how could the girls catch him flying? Hua Yi didn’t want to drop him.

And so Chang An fell into the hands of the group of women in this way. The customs of the Jushan tribe were audacious, and this was shown in how every young woman was very shameless. Suddenly seeing such a strange and attractive young man that wasn’t fierce-looking like Ka Zuo, they all swarmed around him. They absolutely had to tease him. Some were even bold enough to rub the exposed parts of their body against Chang An.

The young man looked down [4], pitifully shrinking himself into a ball amidst the group of women, looking like a little lamb surrounded by wolves.

But there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t hit a woman. He could only be devastated, looking like he was hovering between life and death. Every now and then, a floral-scented hand would reach out to pinch his face and rub his hair. Being pinched on the face, he was unable to speak. He could only shake his head when asked a question.

Hua Yi stood far away, yet his eyes subconsciously fell on him. Seeing Chang An’s rarely ruddy face being pinched to redness, as the instigator, Hua Yi was somewhat gloating. And looking at Chang An’s hard-pressed appearance, he felt kinda sorry for him.

When Suo Laimu came over, he found that Hua Yi’s eyes had been lingering on the girls in the tribe. He had a knowing smile on and said, “What, want to pick the chief’s furen [5]?”

This sentence was only a joke and nothing more, but Hua Yi suddenly realized that he’d been looking at someone and he felt guilty for some reason. He was stunned for a while, blood rushing to his face, and whispered to Suo Laimu: “Go worship your Latrine Pit God. What nonsense are you talking about?”

Suo Laimu nodded, yet shamelessly followed him from behind. “We’ve settled down at last. Like the seed of a velvet flower finally finding a place to take root in, you thinking of such things is perfectly logical and reasonable.”

Hua Yi: “Scram!”

Suo Laimu didn’t back off. “When a man lives to this age and has no one in his tent, it is truly outrageous. Marriage is a big event in one’s life; it is a course of nature. There’s nothing to be shy about. Come, let me tell you about it…”

Hua Yi turned around and stared at Suo Laimu fiercely.

Suo Laimu shrunk his neck, put his hand over his mouth, and looked at him in a lowly way.

Hua Yi rolled his eyes. When he was just about to say something, at that moment, there was a commotion in the crowd. He raised his head and looked into the distance, only to see a group of shabbily-dressed people being sent away under escort.

There were men, women, young and old, some looked stupefied, some full of resentment.

Suo Laimu stopped smiling and whispered: “They’re the family of the armed rebels, as well as their former subordinates.”

Hua Yi en-ed [6], then asked: “According to the rules, they’ll be turned into slaves?”

Some people spat at them, and some insensible children learned from the adults and threw stuff at them. On the other hand, the more than twenty warriors of the Black Eagle tribe, who were crowded around A’Ye on the other side, seemed calm. They just looked at them coldly.

Suo Laimu lowered his voice and said, “I think you should first give the people of the Black Eagle tribe the right to choose. Those people are still holding their grudges.”

When Hua Yi could no longer see them, he turned around. He walked onto the stage set up for the celebration, intending to announce the fate of those people. However, at this time, a young man who looked like a beastman imperial bodyguard suddenly ran away from the escorted group. With a roar, he transformed into a half-beast as he fled, exposing his terrible claws and teeth, and rushed towards the frolicking girls.