劍問蒼天 - 第120章 七里峒 - 清風書屋

At a glance, the Miao houses were mostly built of timber, their style utterly unlike that of the Central Plains: square and four-cornered, plain and unadorned, and upon the corners of the roofs, the front doors, and the edges of the walls hung the bones of fierce beasts—the more savage the animal the more commonly they were seen. This, he supposed, must be Miao custom, a way of displaying the courage of the household.

Along both sides of the road the Miao had set out stalls, though what they sold was mostly the pelts and raw flesh of wild beasts; only after walking a few more steps would one see, here and there, a stall or two dealing in trinkets—small jewels and jade.

Xiaobai smiled. "The furs here are all first-rate goods, and the prices are very cheap besides. If you want any, buying a few pieces here would be a great bargain."

The corner of Ming Li's mouth twitched, but he said not a word and walked straight on. Gradually he came to the riverbank and looked down: the water was limpid beyond compare, and standing on the bank one could see the stones beneath the surface, and the great fish and small darting and sporting in the stream beyond all counting.

Some way off, it seemed waterfowl swept past, flapping their wings down onto the water's face, lifting their heads to look about a time or two, then folding their wings contentedly and gliding gently over the surface.

All things under heaven and earth, in this place, were wondrously in harmony.

Xiaobai came slowly over. Little Gray, who had at some point found its way back onto her shoulder, poked its head out curiously and peered down at the stream.

"What now?" Ming Li said mildly.

Xiaobai thought for a moment. "Three hundred years have passed, after all. If that person from back then had no cultivation like ours, he is most likely long dead. We should first look for the place where that man once lived."

Ming Li nodded silently. "Where is he?"

Xiaobai smiled faintly and pointed ahead. "There."

Ming Li raised his head to look, and suddenly started. Where Xiaobai's finger pointed lay deep within the Miao settlement: a stone platform built halfway up the mountainside, standing far above the ordinary Miao dwellings.

Ming Li frowned and said in a low voice, "An altar."

Xiaobai smiled. "Just so."

Ming Li fell silent, though a faint anxiety stirred in his heart—not for any other reason than that an altar held a special meaning in these southern borderlands.

He had come to the southern frontier many times in years past. Preoccupied as he was, bent wholly on finding the mysterious Black Sorcerer Tribe, he had never paid serious heed to the customs of the south, yet certain basic things he knew.

In the far southern marches, the five tribes of Zhuang, Miao, Tu, Li, and Gaoshan each held their own territory; and being of different clans, they worshipped different gods and faiths. But among every one of the tribes there were places set aside for the sacrifice of gods and ancestors—altars.

Among the tribes of the southern frontier, the altar in truth held a position of the highest honor. In the eyes of most of the tribal peoples, most of the time, what the sorcerer at the altar said and what the great and mysterious gods said were in fact no different. In the old days, when the strife among the Five Tribes was at its fiercest, every war still had to be first submitted to the sorcerer at the altar, the circumstances explained to the gods, and the gods' permission—that is, the great sorcerer's own spoken consent—obtained, before a clan chief could launch a new war.

From this one may see what standing the altar and its sorcerer held here in the southern borderlands!

And these sorcerers, so far as he knew, had always seldom received outsiders.

Ming Li was silent a moment, then turned to Xiaobai. "That is the Miao altar. The man you spoke of—can he be..."