I Steal the Ancestors' Sacrifices to Nourish Myself-Chapter 28: Year of Great Plague, Nine Out of Ten Tribe Members Lost
The emergence of Flying Winged Plague Insects caused panic in the tribe.
Fortunately, during this time, the tribe had established an emergency response system.
Bonfires burned everywhere, with the Witch Medicine placed directly beside them.
Soon, smoke mixed with the scent of medicine rose rapidly.
The swarm of insects densely gathered in mid-air, forming a cluster that stretched four or five miles.
When they rushed toward the clan land, they smelled the strong scent of medicine and started to hover outside the clan.
Until the tribe increased the burning of Witch Medicine, the swarm turned and headed southwest.
Seeing this, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.
In the days that followed.
The frequency of the Flying Winged Plague Insects appearing surged, they could appear several times a day outside the tribe, in both large and small scales.
The women and children of the clan entered the steaming caves, and the construction of the city did not stop; instead, the progress accelerated.
Huo Chang personally led the team, hoping to quickly surround the Clan Division with walls to prevent Flying Winged Plague Insects from reappearing, followed by parasitic plague insects.
Shen Can also increased the amount of Witch Medicine being brewed, and during meals, instead of drinking meat soup, they drank medicine soup directly.
A bowl of medicinal soup and a bowl of meat.
...
Inside the Ancestral Temple.
Huo Xian distributed Witch Medicine, and a dozen young people from the tribe quickly left after receiving the medicine.
His face was full of worry, "A plague unseen in three hundred years, may our ancestors protect us through this disaster."
To prevent any outbreaks, the tribe’s bonfires no longer extinguish, releasing the scent of Witch Medicine to its fullest extent.
Shen Can quickly arrived from outside and saw Huo Xian standing in a daze at the entrance of the Ancestral Temple.
"Master, quickly return to the cave, the plague qi outside is strong."
Shen Can pulled Huo Xian into the Ancestral Temple.
Inside the cave, a fire pit was dug, with a hanging pot above it, and the medicinal soup bubbled with steam.
After drinking the medicinal soup, Shen Can headed toward the steaming caves.
Before entering the cave, he rinsed himself with medicinal soup.
The Great Wilderness Human Race had long noticed that even after the Plague Insects passed, without direct contact, one could still become infected, confirming the presence of ’plague’ in the region the insects passed.
In the mouths of Huo Xian and Huo Chang, it was called plague miasma, but Shen Can referred to it as plague qi.
He checked the tribe’s women and children, most of whom were in good condition, only a few weak children showed some lack of spirit.
In fact, it had already been proven that the tribe’s improved Witch Medicine was effective, whether against parasitic plague insects or Flying Winged Plague Insects, all detested the smell of burning Witch Medicine.
Without direct contact with plague insects, infection rates had been minimized.
Next, it was about ensuring the health of the tribe members.
When the plague completely dissipates, and the Blazing Flame Race’s strength remains, then would be the true time for development and growth.
...
Half a month later, under Huo Chang’s leadership, the tribe worked day and night, completing the tribal walls ahead of schedule.
The establishment of the new city was a big event, suitable to announce to the ancestors.
Also, a good celebration for the entire tribe, some roasted meat, dancing, wrestling at night, and such.
Unfortunately, the impending plague suppressed all this.
The entire Clan City had walls on east, west, and south sides, while the north used the Clan Mountain directly as a wall.
Clan Mountain was the largest among the surrounding mountains, stretching nearly four miles.
But not the entire mountain was turned into the northern wall, only the segment with caves was used, spanning a little over a mile east to west.
The southeastern and southwestern corners each occupied an independent small hill over fifty zhang high, developed into watchtowers.
The plan was to keep it as small as possible for better defense, given the tribe had few members.
Yet, due to construction methods and terrain reasons, the circumference of the city approached five miles.
On the walls, every thirty zhang had a fire pit, and every hundred zhang had a storage tower, stocked with beast oil, herbs, lumber, and other supplies.
By the fire pits, there were also large pots and storage tanks for water.
In case of plague insects, these were used for boiling medicinal soup.
Outside the city, the moat was dug and piled with grass and wood for ignition.
Tribe members also began making wooden spears, simple and quick to produce, and easier to throw than shooting arrows.
Once shaped, the spear tips were soaked in beast oil.
All preparations were to counter potential large-scale parasitic plague insect attacks.
As for ordinary plague insects and Flying Winged Plague Insects, dealing with them was much simpler.
...
Huo Chang’s eyes were bloodshot, as he ate a bowl of meat rice.
Shen Can was the same, his eyes filled with bloodshot threads.
Both their faces were full of fatigue, their disheveled appearance far from the image of the Ancestral Temple Keeper or Clan Leader.
The two squatted at the cave entrance, each ate three large bowls and gulped down a large bowl of medicinal soup.
"Ah... whew..."
Shen Can leaned against the rock wall, exhaling deeply.
"Hang in there, hang on and it will pass."
Like the flood disaster before, the plague came just as fiercely, with plague insects flying over the tribe daily.
Though no parasitic plague insects appeared, their daily flyovers demanded constant vigilance against any breaches by Flying Winged Plague Insects.
Huo Chang drained the last drop of soup from his bowl and said, "I’ll go meet up with Uncle Huo Shan and the others."
Shen Can listened and pulled out a few Witch Talismans, handing them to Huo Chang.
Huo Chang pocketed them and left.
From the onset of the plague, Uncle Huo Shan took charge of external investigations, while Huo Kui was responsible for transporting supplies.
With thoughts of taking advantage of the parasitic plague insects’ rampage, trailing behind to reap some benefits.
But this degree of the plague is not something that human willpower can fathom.
Huo Chang then ordered the two of them to return to the clan as soon as possible, and for now, not to concern themselves with the outside, but to return and close off the clan for self-preservation.
However, Huo Shan had explored many tribes outside and gathered a group of survivors.
After receiving the order to return to the clan and meeting up with Huo Kui, the two of them hid the supplies on-site, but the survivors they gathered could not just be abandoned.
These women were the long-awaited hope of the clan’s old bachelors and an opportunity to strengthen the tribe.
The difficult return of Huo Shan and his people was essentially due to the clan’s judgment issues regarding the plague, as the plague situation, like stormy weather, changes unexpectedly.
They originally thought the plague had weakened and they could take advantage.
But once they headed out to take advantage, they found that the plague was like ocean waves; one wave appeared to have weakened, and the water surface seemed calm enough to fish.
Unexpectedly, larger waves followed behind.
It was as if the god of disaster was repeatedly toying with them.
After Huo Chang left, Shen Can also became busy.
Unlike when the two hundred people from the Yanshan Division were incorporated under joint control of the tribe, these newcomers could not be integrated into the clan division under any circumstances, and he had to make arrangements ahead of time.
A few days later, they saw the survivors from various tribes that Huo Shan brought back.
Martial Artists covered entirely in outfits from the clan took over the arrangement of the survivors.
The scattered remnants, resembling refugees, stretched a good mile-long line, thin as sticks, their eyes devoid of luster.
As they arrived, some people directly collapsed onto the ground, and then were dragged away by the clansmen to be burned.
"Everyone strip clean and enter the medicine pool for a bath, and throw all clothes into the fire pile to burn."
There were two caves in front of the line, with large medicine pools dug inside. Survivors were separated by gender to enter the cave’s medicine pools for a soak.
Originally, Shen Can wanted to dig the medicine pool outside, as one was enough, but considering people eventually had to be integrated into the tribe, he needed to preserve some dignity.
"When I first led them out, there were quite a lot, nearly two thousand."
Huo Shan came out of the medicine pool, still unable to cover the peculiar smell on his body.
He expended a lot of effort to guide these people.
First, settling them in one place, then going to the next place to seek others.
He wasn’t exactly sure how many tribal survivors he gathered, but there were seven or eight tribes.
"Whenever they encountered plague insects, the young and strong went out to distract them, and people died along the way. I don’t know if the remaining few children can be saved."
Shen Can watched as the last person entered the cave and mentally counted the remaining people, totaling seven hundred and twelve.
Among them, there were only forty-seven young strong Martial Artists, four children, and the rest were young women.
Seven or eight tribes should have had two or three thousand people, but only a few hundred were left.
He wasn’t confident in guaranteeing how many could ultimately survive.
Huo Shan didn’t have the capacity to explore what further tribes were like.
But the reach of the plague insects wasn’t limited to the distance of seven or eight tribes, five hundred li, a thousand li... who knows.
However, this scene can be described easily, written in just a few words, a great epidemic...
At this point, the cave started dragging out more corpses, tossing more than a dozen into the bonfire.
Seeing this, Shen Can spoke, "Uncle Huo Shan, you can’t return to the clan division for now; you need to stay outside for a while."
"Acan, we’ll follow whatever you say. Not going back is fine; I was thinking about going to retrieve the resources we gathered. Without the burden of the survivors, moving things will be quick."
As he spoke, Huo Shan pointed to the stacked dozens of large bags in the distance.
"Acan, I know you cherish the collections of various tribes."
"We hid the other things on site, but we brought back the collections for you, those bags over there contain them."
...
Half a month later.
Nighttime.
Ancestral Temple.
"Acan, there are a total of thirty-five isolated clansmen today."
The oil lamp flickered, and Shen Can sat behind the stone table, noting numbers on the spread-out beast hide scroll.
Thirty-five today, thirty-nine yesterday.
The number of clan members showing symptoms continued to decline for two days straight.
The plague struck fiercely, and nearly eight hundred clan members showed symptoms, including over a dozen Martial Artists.
This group of eight hundred included part of the women brought in from the Yanshan Division.
As for the survivors brought back later, they weren’t part of the statistics.
Another ten days later, no more clan members showed symptoms for two consecutive days.
Over the next month, the clan members gradually recovered.
The lingering fear of attack by possesing plague insects never occurred.
This greatly relieved the clansmen.
Huo Chang, who stayed at the highest point of the clan observing day after day, finally let his bloodshot eyes close as he snored loudly, sprawled right where he was, without anyone waking him.
...
In the Ancestral Temple, Shen Can took out a beast hide scroll, with large bold characters at the top: "The Origin and End of the Plague."
This scroll already contained a lot of written content, and he continued writing behind it.
"Surviving from the seven hundred twelve tribal survivors: three hundred fifty-seven."
"Surviving from the clan division’s two thousand two hundred thirty-three: two thousand one hundred seventy-five."
"In an area of three to five hundred li beyond the tribe, the divisions like Fushan, Yan Mountain, Jishi, Jiang Sha... have gone silent, and it’s unknown about more distant areas."
After finishing, he rolled up the beast hide scroll and put it away.
Suddenly, Shen Can felt a bit like Huo Xian, wanting to document everything as a reference for the clan.
Noises came from outside the cave.
"Ayu, what’s the matter?"
Huo Yuu enthusiastically rushed into the cave, "Brother Can, Uncle Huo Shan and the others have returned, bringing back so many things, let’s go have a look."
