Chapter 9

Roshan sighed slightly and explained patiently in a different way: "I also go out. What if something like this happens when I'm not around? Today, Buzhuang, Zhongzhuang, and the others did very well. If it weren't for that large bird being too powerful, we would have already taken it down with ordinary raptors."

Lüluo seemed to understand and nodded, saying: "Oh, yes, the clan members should all practice hunting." Then she clenched her small fist and said: "When I grow up, I will definitely be more capable than Buzhuang and Zhongzhuang, and I will also be able to take down that bad bird!"

Roshan nodded and smiled, saying: "Very good, you have ambition!"

Meanwhile, Hua Wa and Panhu were enjoying a feast in the small house next door. Although they heard Shanye and Lüluo talking, they paid no attention to Lüluo's grand words. After it got dark, the clan members all returned to their houses to sleep, but Hua Wa ran to Roshan's house for something and was surprised to find Shanye fiddling with something he had never seen before.

Shanye took out a pottery dish that was usually used for water, but it was filled with hempseed oil. He then immersed half of a grass stem in the oil and left the other half extending out of the dish. The internal fibers of this grass stem were very dense and soft, with excellent water absorption, allowing it to soak up the hempseed oil. Shanye then took a flint and used hemp threads to ignite the grass stem.

The grass stem did not burn quickly; a flame rose at the top, and the dim light faintly illuminated the entire stone house. Hua Wa was dumbfounded and asked in surprise: "Shanye, what is this?"

Shanye replied: "This is a lamp, a lamp lit with hempseed oil!"

This was the first time Hua Wa knew that there was such a thing as a lamp, and it was so amazing. Hua Wa knew what fire was; a fire could emit light and heat in the darkness, and people could gather around it to sing, dance, or keep warm. However, this was completely different from the feeling of a lamp, which was a point of light that broke through the darkness.

He sincerely praised: "Shanye, you are truly remarkable!"

Clan Leader Roshan smiled bitterly and said: "It's not that I am remarkable, but that I have seen lamps outside the mountains. The truly remarkable person is someone else, unfortunately, I don't know who it is."

Shanye's humility made Hua Wa feel that he was incredibly powerful and almost omniscient. Hua Wa looked at the magical lamp and said: "The dish, the grass stem, and the hempseed oil are all things I have seen in the village, but I never thought they could be turned into a lamp!"

Roshan nodded and seemed to be talking to himself: "There were no lamps in the world originally, until someone created them, and then there was a thing called a lamp. But whether people know what a lamp is or not, using a dish, a grass stem, and hempseed oil in this way will create a lamp, and you can give it a name, like 'lamp.'

In other words, before there were lamps in the world, lamps already existed, it just depends on whether people know about them and can discover and light them. From this, it seems that everything in the world has its own reason for existence before it appears, otherwise, it wouldn't appear. The subtleties of everything, whether we know them or not, and how much we know, are always there."

This was clearly too profound for Hua Wa. Today, his young heart had been greatly shaken; Shanye had immobilized the giant strange bird in the early morning, and now he had lit a lamp in the dark! In Hua Wa's eyes, Shanye was already like a deity.

Because of this, even though he didn't understand what Shanye was saying, he deeply imprinted every word Shanye said in his mind. This was not a child deliberately trying to remember something, but a natural and almost indelible impression, like the first time he saw the light from the lamp. Then Hua Wa asked a simple question: "Why are you lighting the lamp tonight?"

Shanye looked at the light thoughtfully and said: "Because I am thinking about how to understand the subtleties of everything and the things we don't know yet. This is like lighting a lamp in the darkness." As he said this, he seemed to come to his senses, realizing he was talking to a child like Hua Wa, and then he smiled: "It's already dark, what did you come to find me for?"

Hua Wa then remembered the real reason: "Panhu can't sleep, he keeps humming, maybe his wound is very painful. Do you have any way to make it less painful?" Normally, such matters should be handled by Aunt Water, but she was already resting, and Shanye was nearby and still active.

Roshan got up and took something from a pottery jar in the corner, handing it to Hua Wa: "Let Panhu eat this, and he will be able to sleep."

Hua Wa opened his small hands carefully to hold it and looked at it under the light, recognizing it as shelled hempseed kernels, which were already cooked. The clan members usually ate hempseeds directly, which were very fragrant, and only removed the shells when they needed to extract oil. Eating too much hempseed oil might cause dizziness, but the amount of hempseeds the clan members usually ate was not enough to cause dizziness.

Hua Wa asked curiously: "Shanye, can hempseeds be used to relieve pain besides extracting oil and lighting lamps?"

Shanye explained: "Eating a little of this is fine, but eating too much will make you dizzy. As for pain relief, it's because I have specially processed it, not just any hempseeds can be used this way." Seeing that Hua Wa was still holding the hempseed kernels, he asked: "Do you have anything else?"

Hua Wa didn't leave after getting the item, of course, he had more questions. He looked up with a face full of admiration and asked abruptly: "Why can that strange bird grab things from a distance, but the red-beaked falcon and the forest owl can't? Is it because the strange bird is particularly large?"

Roshan was taken aback and then answered: "Not really, it's because it has a very special ability."

Hua Wa: "Is it a different ability from the forest owl and the red-beaked falcon? Is this ability to grab things from a distance? Do all such strange birds have this ability?"

Roshan: "Not exactly, that bird is called a white-feathered gudiao, but not all white-feathered gudiao have this ability, it is very rare. Perhaps some forest owls or red-beaked falcons also have this ability, but it is equally very rare."

This was difficult to explain to Hua Wa, even to an adult. But Hua Wa nodded seriously and said: "Oh, I understand!"

Roshan asked in return: "What do you understand?"

Hua Wa: "I was also going to ask—why can you immobilize that strange bird, but others can't? It's because you have a special ability, and no one else in the village does! Is that right?"

Roshan was taken aback again and nodded: "Yes, that's right."

Hua Wa: "But how can one have such an ability? Do you have to be the clan leader to have it?"

Roshan quickly shook his head: "No! I learned and cultivated it first, and then became the clan leader."

Hua Wa: "Why can you learn such an ability, but others in the village can't? How can one learn it?"

Roshan thought for a moment before answering: "This is not an ability that people are born with, nor is it something everyone can learn. It requires talent and luck. It's like lighting a lamp, allowing you to see things in the darkness that others can't."

Hua Wa: "Oh, I understand, you have to know how to light a lamp to learn this ability."

Roshan, unable to help but laugh, said: "It's not that knowing how to light a lamp will teach you this ability, it's just a metaphor, do you understand? For example, when we say a stone looks like an egg, that's a metaphor, but the stone is not an egg. ... Forget it, you are still too young, you will understand when you grow up! Panhu is humming again, you should go back."

Clan Leader Shanye, who seemed to know everything in the eyes of the clan members, was almost overwhelmed by Hua Wa's continuous questions and quickly sent the child back. After Hua Wa left, Roshan sat quietly by the stone table, still looking at the lamp, and reached out to adjust the grass stem used as a wick.

A slender figure entered almost silently, it was Aunt Water. She sat opposite Roshan and asked softly: "Why did you light the lamp tonight?"

Roshan seemed to have known she would come and showed no surprise. His gaze moved from the lamp to her face, and he answered softly: "Because in the light, I can see your face clearly."

At this moment, Hua Wa had already fed Panhu the hempseed kernels, and Panhu stopped humming and soon fell into a drowsy sleep. Hua Wa thought about what Shanye had said earlier; he seemed to understand what a metaphor was, but other things seemed even more confusing. He didn't have much extra thought, just thinking, feeling even more dizzy than Panhu, and soon fell asleep.

Roshan and Ruoshui spoke in very low voices, and Hua Wa didn't hear them. He didn't know that Shanye had lit the lamp tonight to wait for Aunt Water. Ruoshui asked Shanye the same question as Hua Wa, but Shanye gave a completely different answer. If Hua Wa had heard it, he might have felt even more confused. Why would Shanye need to light a lamp to see Aunt Water's face, didn't he already know what she looked like? Why light a lamp at night and waste oil when it's so clear during the day? Such confusion, he might naturally understand when he grew up; but the answers to the questions Shanye had given him, in this wilderness, countless generations of clan members would never find out. Not understanding is fine, there are endless unknown subtleties in the world.

In the light, Roshan said again: "Hua Wa came earlier and asked many questions, the same ones I once thought about."

Ruoshui: "I heard him too, the child is still too young to understand."

Roshan, however, said: "Even if he were an adult, could we really explain it clearly? You and I were fortunate to enter the initial realm and received guidance from the mountain god, cultivating to this day, knowing what supernatural powers are and how to use them. But can we explain to the clan members—why they exist, and why we can cultivate them?

For many years, I haven't thought about these questions for a long time. But when I lit the lamp tonight, I thought again, the subtleties of the world have always existed, it just depends on whether people can discover them and how much they can discover. What we know is still too little!—When I asked the mountain god about this many years ago, the mountain god answered in the same way."

As he spoke, he turned his head to look outside the house, the night in the wilderness was boundless, and the light he lit could only faintly illuminate the things inside the stone house.