Chapter 910 - Rats Crossing the Street
Chapter 910: Rats Crossing the Street
“Run, Leaf, run!”
“Listen to your mother, Leaf. The mandrake has bloomed, and a glorious era is about to begin. It will be glorious for the Clan Master, but it will be the end of us, rat people. We are not qualified to seize any glory. The only thing we can do is to live on, even if we do so like real rats. We have to live on!”
“Leaf, my good brother, you are the smartest and most agile child in the village. You can climb the highest mandrake tree to pick its fruit when a storm is about to arrive. Then, like an actual leaf, you can ride the strong winds and jump to the ground unscathed. If any rat person can survive in the glorious era, it would be you. You must carry everyone’s hope and live on!”
“Leaf, look, the mandrake has bloomed. All the mandrake flowers in the entire valley have bloomed. They’re so fragrant and beautiful. I’ve never smelled such a wonderful smell before. I’ve never laid eyes on such a splendid scene. Leaf, why don’t you bring me to the highest point of a mandrake tree and we’ll go swimming in the sea of flowers?”
“Leaf… Leaf… Leaf…”
A voice called out.
In the young man’s mind that was almost frozen, blurry lights and shadows appeared.
First, it was his mother.
His mother was the best cook in the village. She baked mandrake bread, fried mandrake strips, stewed mandrake with minced meat soup, mixed mandrake with wild goat curd that had been fermented for several days… The dishes that his mother could cook with mandrake… could not even be finished after three days and three nights.
Leaf was the best at picking mandrake in the village. Every day, he could pick the freshest and sweetest fruits that grew on the highest point of the cliff.
His mother could turn these fruits into delicacies that even the old masters of the clan had never tasted. The aroma would spread throughout the entire small mountain village!
Then, it was his elder brother.
His brother was the strongest youth in the village.
His body was at least twice the size of an ordinary rat person. His bronze-colored skin seemed to be directly covered by a layer of metal absorbed from the roots of the mandrake. When he let out a hearty laugh, it was as if thunder was rumbling in his chest.
Once, when Leaf was picking the mandrake fruit on the cliff, he once met a group of clan elders who had climbed the mountain to search for totem beasts.
As a rat person, he did not dare to meet the masters. Instead, he curled up amidst the mandrake tree’s branches in fear.
However, he peeked through the gaps of the branches and felt that some of the majestic Blood Hoof clan elders were not as strong as his elder brother!
Finally, it was Anjia…
The most beautiful girl in the village.
No, the most beautiful of all the rat people.
No, perhaps the most beautiful of all the Turan people.
That day, Leaf and Anjia sat together on the highest mandrake in their “secret base.” They looked at the hundreds and thousands of mandrakes that were blooming at the same time. Like a colorful and splendid sea of flowers, they surged out of the cracks in the void and opened for the two of them.
The spores that burst out of the corolla were as beautiful as a dream.
Leaf remembered that both she and Anjia seemed to be drunk.
They were drunk in a fairy tale made of mandrake juice.
They did a lot of things that they did not dare to do when they were sober.
At that time, they were still too young.
They did not know what it meant when the mandrake bloomed.
They did not know the truth of the so-called “glorious era.”
Leaf greedily captured familiar sounds and beautiful images.
He wanted to sleep in his mother’s warm embrace for a little while longer, or he could sleep forever.
Unfortunately, piercing pain soon tore apart the sounds and images that lingered in his mind.
The sound of burning, shouting, screaming, wild laughter reached his ears, like an iron claw deeply embedded in his bones, pulling him back to the cruel reality.
Leaf felt like his head was about to split open.
He felt like someone had dug a hole in his forehead and set it on fire.
His entire skull swelled up, and his eyes were squeezed into two slits.
Hot and sticky things kept flowing out from the corners of his eyes, nostrils, ears, and throat. He could not and did not dare to tell if it was blood or something else.
“Leaf! Leaf! Leaf!”
It sounded as though someone was calling him.
It was not an illusion, but real. Anjia’s voice was particularly piercing!
Leaf widened his eyes in shock.
He straightened his back with great difficulty, disregarding the pain in his spine, which felt like it had been trampled by an iron hoof.
He shook his dizzy head hard and looked around through the blood stains on his face, searching for Anjia.
In this blood-soaked world, his familiar home had disappeared.
What replaced it was the scene of a fiery sea from hell.
Leaf saw every conical hut made of mandrake burning in the village.
Hundreds of black smoke columns soared into the sky and formed a huge cage like an iron fence, locking everyone inside.
His hut on the outskirts of the village was the first to be set ablaze by the invaders.
The beams and columns of the house had long since burned down.
Their mothers, who were best at making baked, fried, stewed and mixed mandrake…
All burned to black smoke and ash.
Leaf saw that the masters of the Blood Hoof clan—the Turan, the mammoth, the boar, the centaur—were all dressed in armor and holding their weapons in an open fire. It looked as if they were entering an uninhabited land, burning, looting, and slaughtering in the village.
At such a close distance, Leaf could even smell the unique aura of the Turan warriors. It was so strong that he felt like vomiting.
Only then did he realize…
The old men in the clan were so huge that their muscles were so exaggerated, and their killing intent was incredibly strong. It was completely different from what he had seen from afar in the mountains.
To the weak rat people, these old men in the clan, who were born with a glorious bloodlines were akin to gods and demons descending on the mortal world. They were unstoppable.
Looking at their ease and leisurely walk, it was as if this was not a real massacre at all. It was just a boring game.
Meanwhile, all the rat people in the village were not a match for the game.
They were just props in the game.
Leaf saw countless “props” lying on the ground in a disorderly fashion.
They fell into a pool of their own blood, and some people died with their eyes wide open.
In their eyes that were gradually dimming, there was still a strong sense of confusion. They did not understand what they had done wrong until they died.
They had not always been well-behaved, but they paid full mandrake tax to the Blood Hoof Clan every year. Even if it was because they were collecting holy fruit of the highest grade, countless people would fall to their deaths on the cliffs every year. Numerous people would also be devoured by the forest and totem beasts. Even so, faced with the tax that increased every year, did they ever complain and did they not do their best to complete it?
Why did the Blood Hoof Clan want to exterminate this harmless and obedient little village for no reason?
“Because the ‘glorious era’ has arrived.”
When the mandrake flower bloomed, the old man in the village once said worriedly, “But this ‘era of prosperity’ has lasted too long.”
According to Leaf’s mother, this era of prosperity had lasted ten palm prints, which was a whole fifty years!
The last era of glory had already been fifty years ago.
The rat people had always lived a precarious life. Very few people could survive thirty to forty years of heavy and dangerous work.
Even the oldest man in the village had no impression of the last glorious era.
He was too old, so old that all his teeth had fallen out. He could only use a stone roller to grind mandrake fruit into mud and lick it.
A few years ago, he had been stung by poisonous bees and had become a crazy old fool.
“The glorious era is here!
“The glorious era is here!
“The elders of the clan will step on the rat people’s bones and fight for supreme glory for the sacred ancestral spirit!”
After the mandrake tree bloomed, the old fool danced around the village entrance all day long. He laughed and danced, singing songs that no one could understand or was willing to understand.
Leaf saw the old fool among the pile of corpses.
On his face that had been split in two, there was still a silly smile of someone destined to be doomed.
There was also Tutu, his best friend.
He was also his strongest opponent.
Whether it was going down the river to catch barracudas or climbing up the tallest mandrake tree during a storm to see who would be able to pick the largest mandrake fruit…
Tutu was only a little short of Leaf every time.
“I’m too weak right now. I can only eat three mandrake fruits in one go.
“Even so, just wait and see. Next year, I’ll definitely be able to eat five mandrake fruits in one go.
“When the time comes, I’ll definitely become stronger than you!”
Tutu had once said this to Leaf.
Now, however, his chest was deeply sunken, as if it had become the biggest, deepest, and darkest cave in the “secret base” that they had built together.
Tutu could no longer eat the mandrake fruit.
In the end, Leaf saw Anjia.
A Turan warrior who was so huge that he could not even fit into his armor was carrying her on the shoulder. He simply took off his upper body, revealing lumps of muscles and hideous tattoos.
The Turan warrior swaggered toward the raging flames. He had already been knocked unconscious and tied up earlier, and he walked toward the group of prisoners who were mainly made up of young and strong rats.
Compared with the Turan from the Blood Hoof Clan, Anjia, who was a rat person, was really similar to a little mouse.
The Turan stretched out two fingers and pinched her lightly. Her face turned pale, and she almost suffocated, unable to struggle.
Despite that, she gathered her last bit of strength and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Run! Leaf! Run!”
“Run! Leaf! Run!”
Anjia’s shout made Leaf’s brain buzz and let out a roar.
It was as if he had been stung by ten thousand poisonous bees. His brain was burning and he could not think at all.
Ever since the mandrake flower bloomed, countless people had told him to run.
“Run, Leaf, run!” his mother said.
“Run, Leaf, run!” his brother said.
“Run, Leaf, run!” the crazy old ,an said.
Even Anjia just said so.
Yet, where could he run to?
He looked around. There was a sea of fire and pools of blood everywhere. There were rat corpses and laughing bloody hoofs everywhere.
The glorious era had arrived.
He was like a rat crossing the street, with nowhere to run.
He did not want to run anymore!